First of all, I am not picking on the Germans. They can set up their unemployment benefits however they want. Apart from the former East German parts of the country their economy seems to be chugging along quite well, and so they can (as you pointed out) afford some largesse.
I also don't have a problem with extended maternity leaves. My wife left the work force permanently when our first child was born, which ought to give you an idea how long my wife and I believe it takes to rear a child. All things considered I think that it is probably in society's best interest to have mothers stay home raise their children, even if that means supporting mothers with tax money. Fortunately, I make enough to support our family on my single income. It has required some sacrifices on our part, but it has definitely been worth it.
The rest of the examples given were ridiculous. It's especially ridiculous when you have people considering switching their U.S. citizenship with a German citizenship just so they can give up working. Personally, I think that it is in society's best interest to encourage people to work, and those kind of unemployment benefits have the opposite effect.
Actually, I personally am glad that the government is staying away from telling Microsoft what they can and can not include in Windows. After all, I wouldn't want them to tell RedHat what they could and couldn't bundle with their distribution.
The market is taking care of Microsoft all by itself, the growing popularity of Free Software is proof positive of that. If the government got involved it would only screw things up.
I agree that you have the right to drive an SUV, but I would recommend not shooting people who want to deny you that right. America is a free country, but not that free:). There are lots of "freedoms" that society has told us that we can't exercise, and shooting people that disagree with us is one of them.
You might believe that you have the right to drive an SUV, but the Mormons thought the same thing about polygamy. In the end, they were wrong.
I think that the jury is still out on whether Licensing 6.0 and Product Activation are going to be good for Microsoft in the long run, and I think that it is pretty clear that the sort of illegal tactics used by Enron and Worldcom were bad for these companies' business.
In short, I think that you are the one "missing something." Show me an economic system that has worked better than capitalism backed by the rule of law.
First of all, the United States has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world. Yes, we are losing manufacturing jobs, but that doesn't that jobs aren't available. Heck, part of the reason that we are losing manufacturing jobs is that, by and large, most Americans won't take a manufacturing job.
I work at a manufacturer, and one of our biggest problems is finding employees who are willing to work for us. We gladly pay more than you would make being a cashier, bank teller, or a secretary. We have excellent benefits (in fact our factory workers have better benefits than management), and there are plenty of opportunities for advancement. The downsides: the work is mind numbing and you will probably start up on an off shift.
Of approximately 300 employees at this plant we typically require between 5 and 10 new employees per month, and some positions that require more extensive training are almost impossible to keep staffed across all four shifts. That's a lot of turnover. Over the course of a year we replace nearly half of our workers. What is more interesting, however, is the type of person that stays with us for the long haul. A large percentage of the people that are willing to work for us are either legal aliens or recently naturalized citizens. About a quarter of them don't even speak English (and only about 25% speak English as their first language). If we couldn't hire foreigners we would have to close our doors. Even in the United States manufacturing is largely dependent on foreign workers.
America is losing manufacturing jobs, at least in part, because Americans don't want to work in manufacturing. As someone who put themselves through college working in the food processing business, who can blame them? Manufacturing jobs suck. That's problematic to the folks running the Teamster's Union, but it's hardly cause for alarm for the rest of us.
Yes, and which companies are generally more profitable? The American ones. Perhaps it is because they have better management, or perhaps it is because they have cheaper labor costs. Either way, the cost of the CEO's salary is hardly a factor when you consider how much influence a CEO can have on the bottom line profitability of a company. CEOs in the States quickly find themselves looking for work if they can't justify their salary.
The point is that no one has yet found a better way to set prices (including CEO salaries) than the free market.
Hmm... My apologies. I hadn't read the complaint for some time.
However, if SCO had some sort of recourse due to the contract they signed with IBM over project Monterey why even mention their UNIX license? The reason, once again, is simple. IBM isn't in breach of their Project Monterey contract.
In short, I have no problems with SCO pushing IBM over breach of their Project Monterey contract. If IBM broke their contract then they will get what they deserve. However, it is clear from the SCO filing that the Project Monterey stuff is just a sideline. The real claims come from their ownership of the now incredibly crusty System V source code.
The argument is especially specious because in 4 b) it talks about IBM:
inducing, encouraging, and enabling others to misuse and misappropriate SCO's proprietary software
What SCO is forgetting to mention is that they are one of the "others" that that misused and misappropriated this software. You can download the Linux kernel source from SCO, to this day that includes the technology that IBM supposedly helped steal.
Re:This is all about PROJECT MONTEREY!!!
on
Analysis of SCO vs. IBM
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Yes Monterey was a real life project, but that's completely irrelevant. Why is that the case? It's quite simple, if SCO had some sort of contractual obligation from Monterey that they could hold over IBM then they almost certainly would have mentioned it in their court filing.
Read SCO's original filing and you will find absolutely no reference to Monterey and any contracts involving Monterey. SCO's filing is quite explicit in its mention that their claim comes from the fact that they own the original System V UNIX source code (which IBM licenses and includes in AIX).
I would agree with you if SCO had even mentioned their recent work with IBM, but they didn't (probably because the IBM lawyers wrote a contract that is unassailable). The entire case stems around the original UNIX source code that SCO acquired from Novell. As such it is a ridiculously specious case. Don't believe me, go read SCO's filing.
The problem with this theory is that PC games seriously undercut XBox profits. After all, if you buy an XBox game Microsoft automatically gets a percentage. If you buy the same game for the PC then Microsoft gets nothing. Make no mistake, when Microsoft came out with the XBox their goal was the complete and utter distruction of PC gaming. The fact that they are now changing their tune indicates a sea change an One Microsoft Way.
The reason that Microsoft is changing their mind is two fold. First of all, Microsoft is facing the first real competition for the desktop in ages. Both Apple and the Linux community are fielding credible alternatives, and games are one of the advantages of owning a Windows PC. Secondly, the accountants at Microsoft are smart enough to know that their current XBox strategy simply isn't feasible. By the time that Microsoft is likely to stop losing money on XBox and XBox live sales they are very likely to face new competition from Sony and Nintendo's new consoles, triggering a new XBox console and a whole new round of bloodshed. The idea of putting high-end PC chips in a console was a novel concept, but giving these boxes away (ie. selling them at a price that is competitive to the PS2) has proved extraordinarily expensive. A shift back to PC gaming would put the onus of paying for the hardware back on the gamer's shoulders. Hardware, as Microsoft is realizing, is the sort of game where it is easy to lose your shirt.
Which is why the article focused on the services that Microsoft is going to provide PC gamers. That's how Microsoft is planning on making their dinero. Think of it as XBox Live without Microsoft having to pay an $150 subsidy for the hardware. Instead of losing money on the XBox and then trying to make it back in services, Microsoft will let Dell, HP, Gateway and the rest of the hardware OEMs sort out the manufacturing and sales of hardware, and Microsoft will simply skim money off the top hooking gamers up with online games and software patches.
In short, enjoy your XBoxes while you can, Microsoft is getting out of the console business.
Re:Separating Content from Presentation a Good Thi
on
Office 2003 and XML
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· Score: 1
<p>Take a look at the Docbook spec for a good example of how something like this works. Basically it has a whole pile of tags that allow you to mark up your text semantically with tags like <computeroutput> or <programlisting>. There are also tags like <emphasis> that would probably give you bold text in the printed output.
First of all, if you are talking about desktop PCs Dell trumps Apple in price every day of the week, and you can get all of the extended support that you might possibly need from Dell to keep your computers running until you are ready to turn them over. So don't give me any crap about Apple hardware, it's more expensive than the x86 alternatives, case closed.
However, only an idiot would fill a brand new Linux-based computer lab with PCs when they could fill it with X-terminals instead. Now, instead of 50 PCs that you have to babysit you have one Linux server (or two because you'd want a failover machine) and a room full of thin clients. Forget about imaging hard drives, installing software, counting licenses, and securing individual PCs. All of a sudden all you have to do is administer one box, and contrary to what your believe UNIX administrators generally handle more machines per admin than any other type of admin. We don't walk around either, we simply learn to script.
And don't talk to me about software availability either. Linux has more than enough software to match up against the public computer labs at the schools I have been at. In fact, in the CS departments of the schools I have been associated with Linux was precisely what they were using. The business types will do fine with OpenOffice, assuming, of course, that their professors are using OpenOffice as well. OpenOffice has some small issues opening and saving Microsoft Office files, but that disadvantage disappears when everyone is using OpenOffice. Cad packages are available, mathematics packages are available, nearly everything is available.
That leaves the art folks, who will almost certainly hold their noses up at having to use the tools available for Linux (despite the fact that if they go into film they almost certainly will sit at a Linux desktop). They can purchase of few Mac OS X boxes if they like.
Yeah, appeasement really worked for the French in WWII.
The fact of the matter is that if you live in a successful country people outside the country are going to hate you. Heck, when I lived in Peru the government sponsored all sorts of anti-US propaganda that was completely untrue. That sort of thing is easy to do, and it draws attention away from the actions of the local politicians. In other words it is simply too easy for political leaders to blame every thing on "those @#$!! Yankees." No matter what the US does we aren't going to be able to counteract that sort of propaganda, and it is extremely widespread.
I certainly agree that rogue states aren't the only problem, but pretending that we can simply "be nice" and have all our foreign policy problems go away is ridiculously naive.
Think about it for a minute, why would Saudi Arabian terrorists hate the United States? Is it because we support Israel, or is it because we are an easy target for their rhetoric? After all, there are racists all over the world that hate the Jews and Israel, should we start taking their advice in foreign policy matters because we are afraid of what they might do to us? Perhaps while we are at it we should do something about the African Americans that live right here in our own country?
As someone who has purchased one of these WalMart Linux PCs I couldn't agree more. The WalMart PC was nothing more than a quick an inexpensive way to guarantee that I purchased a computer that was compatible with Linux. I didn't want to use their Linux image.
On the other hand, I was fairly impressed with Lindows. If they wouldn't have automatically logged the thing in as root I might not have reimaged the thing.
A buddy of mine also purchased one, but he put Windows on it. Either way it plays Hell with Microsoft's business model. If people start comparing prices of machines with Windows and machines without then Microsoft is likely to lose some of their paying customers.
The rest of us just muddle through using the 35% or so of the language that gets 95% of our work done.
That worked fine for me until I needed to alter one of the packages from CPAN. The package in question (name withheld to protect the innocent) did 90% of what I needed, and it was extremely well written and well commented, but it just so happened that the 35% of Perl that it used to get the job done did not overlap hardly at all with the 35% that I was used to using. That is where I fell in love with the Camel book, as I kept banging my head against Perlisms that were just plain weird.
In the end, I solved the problem, but I was so sick of Perl that I gave Python a whirl. I rewrote the program in Python in a few days (the tricky bits had already been solved writing it in Perl), and I have never looked back. It is much easier to read someone else's Python than someone else's Perl. Another huge advantage for me (as an Emacs user) is that Python's documentation is available as info files. That's quite a bit nicer (IMHO) than just man files. Of course, the fact that the Python documentation is so good is a bit of a bummer for the folks writing Python books.
Uh, I think you mean "Mormons," although technically the name of the church is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Either way, congratulations on your excellent summary of the article. The idea that "peer pressure" can be a positive force is precisely what this article was about. Very clever.
There is no question that X terminals and a Linux server are less expensive than Windows fat clients. Not only do you get rid of the software licenses, but you also get rid of your need to support end user PCs (which is the real win). The reason that most organizations have informal computer experts is that they have put full-fledged PCs on everyone's desktop and then expect the employee to be an amateur systems administrator.
The sticking point with Linux is software, not the availability of systems administrators. If the software you need is available for Linux, then you are a fool if you are not at least taking a look at a migration.
Speaking of Joel Rosenberg, he has also apparently been picked up by Baen. I just ordered "The Guardians of the Flame" as part of the February Baen ebook package, and am enjoying re-reading it.
If you own a PDA and haven't tried reading an ebook I would highly recommend Baen's website. It has a whole pile of good Science Fiction and Fantasy available in unencrypted formats available both for sale and "for free."
Are you kidding? The last thing that any red-blooded Idahoan wants to do is protect Oregon's wildlife. We pray every night that the entire state of Oregon drops into the sea so that we can use our valuable river water in the way God intended, watering our fields.
Heck, most Oregonians are barely a step above your average Californian, and your average Californian is actually two or three steps below Satan himself. Not that the folks from Washington are much better.
You are right about what the GPL requires you to do. Boeing is going to be required to make the source code for any changes to the Linux kernel available to the DOD, but they don't have to make these changes available to the rest of us. They are also perfectly free to create proprietary software that runs on top of Linux.
My guess, however, is that most of the changes to the Linux kernel itself will make its way back to Linus and friends, and the reason for this is simple. Maintaining your own fork of the Linux kernel is hard, and such a beast would have very few benefits. After all, one of the reasons that these folks chose Linux in the first place is that it would allow them to offload some of their work on the rest of the Linux kernel developers. If secrecy were the primary goal they would simply write their own OS from scratch. What's the point of using Linux if you are going to distance yourself from all of the neat stuff being done by the rest of the kernel developers?
Part of the reasont that Microsoft caved is that Taiwan has been making overtures to a switch to Linux. Microsoft knows that if the government switches to Linux they will also switch to some other office suite. If the Taiwanese government switches to a new office suite, then everyone that does business with the Taiwanese government will also have to switch.
The government probably doesn't want to switch, but they have to at least appear as if they are stomping out piracy or they get in trouble with the WTO. So Microsoft is lowering the price of MS Office in Taiwan so that they don't lose you folks as customers.
The article in question had squat to do with Samba. He was suggesting replacing PCs with X terminals. If the software available on Linux is "good enough" for your purposes then there is no cheaper way to provide functional desktops than X terminals and a fat Linux box. Not only do you completely remove client-side hardware support from the equation, but you drastically reduce client-side software issues as well. Not to mention the fact that software rollouts become a piece of cake, and hardware upgrades consist of upgrading a handful of servers instead of hundreds of client PCs. Even ignoring the fact that most software (and most software upgrades) are free such a setup has huge advantages for both the short and long term.
Basically Linux and X terminals is a winning combination, provided, of course, that your needs fit within the basic needs provided by the current crop of Linux software. That's a pretty hefty "if" for most folks. I know that I certainly wouldn't want to be the guy in charge of telling the professors that they were going to give up their Windows boxes and Macintoshes and that they were going to be replaced with an X terminals.
Webhosting for static pages (on Linux) can be had for as little as $3.75 a month. Heck, your ISP would likely host your pages for free. The price of maintaining your own Win2K server, on the other hand, is pretty high. At least if you plan to keep up with the updates and such. In fact, I would propose that setting up a basic secure website is actually easier to do on a Linux box (even if you are a complete newbie).
Your best bet is to take the money that you would have spent on licensing and hardware and pay someone who knows what they are doing to host your site. Chances are good your site will end up hosted on a Linux box.
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First of all, I am not picking on the Germans. They can set up their unemployment benefits however they want. Apart from the former East German parts of the country their economy seems to be chugging along quite well, and so they can (as you pointed out) afford some largesse.
I also don't have a problem with extended maternity leaves. My wife left the work force permanently when our first child was born, which ought to give you an idea how long my wife and I believe it takes to rear a child. All things considered I think that it is probably in society's best interest to have mothers stay home raise their children, even if that means supporting mothers with tax money. Fortunately, I make enough to support our family on my single income. It has required some sacrifices on our part, but it has definitely been worth it.
The rest of the examples given were ridiculous. It's especially ridiculous when you have people considering switching their U.S. citizenship with a German citizenship just so they can give up working. Personally, I think that it is in society's best interest to encourage people to work, and those kind of unemployment benefits have the opposite effect.
Actually, I personally am glad that the government is staying away from telling Microsoft what they can and can not include in Windows. After all, I wouldn't want them to tell RedHat what they could and couldn't bundle with their distribution.
The market is taking care of Microsoft all by itself, the growing popularity of Free Software is proof positive of that. If the government got involved it would only screw things up.
So in essence you would like to move to Germany because they are willing to pay you without you having to actually work. That's brilliant.
I personally am glad that the U.S. unemployment policies encourage people to actually work. In my opinion that's a good thing.
I agree that you have the right to drive an SUV, but I would recommend not shooting people who want to deny you that right. America is a free country, but not that free :). There are lots of "freedoms" that society has told us that we can't exercise, and shooting people that disagree with us is one of them.
You might believe that you have the right to drive an SUV, but the Mormons thought the same thing about polygamy. In the end, they were wrong.
I think that the jury is still out on whether Licensing 6.0 and Product Activation are going to be good for Microsoft in the long run, and I think that it is pretty clear that the sort of illegal tactics used by Enron and Worldcom were bad for these companies' business.
In short, I think that you are the one "missing something." Show me an economic system that has worked better than capitalism backed by the rule of law.
First of all, the United States has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world. Yes, we are losing manufacturing jobs, but that doesn't that jobs aren't available. Heck, part of the reason that we are losing manufacturing jobs is that, by and large, most Americans won't take a manufacturing job.
I work at a manufacturer, and one of our biggest problems is finding employees who are willing to work for us. We gladly pay more than you would make being a cashier, bank teller, or a secretary. We have excellent benefits (in fact our factory workers have better benefits than management), and there are plenty of opportunities for advancement. The downsides: the work is mind numbing and you will probably start up on an off shift.
Of approximately 300 employees at this plant we typically require between 5 and 10 new employees per month, and some positions that require more extensive training are almost impossible to keep staffed across all four shifts. That's a lot of turnover. Over the course of a year we replace nearly half of our workers. What is more interesting, however, is the type of person that stays with us for the long haul. A large percentage of the people that are willing to work for us are either legal aliens or recently naturalized citizens. About a quarter of them don't even speak English (and only about 25% speak English as their first language). If we couldn't hire foreigners we would have to close our doors. Even in the United States manufacturing is largely dependent on foreign workers.
America is losing manufacturing jobs, at least in part, because Americans don't want to work in manufacturing. As someone who put themselves through college working in the food processing business, who can blame them? Manufacturing jobs suck. That's problematic to the folks running the Teamster's Union, but it's hardly cause for alarm for the rest of us.
Yes, and which companies are generally more profitable? The American ones. Perhaps it is because they have better management, or perhaps it is because they have cheaper labor costs. Either way, the cost of the CEO's salary is hardly a factor when you consider how much influence a CEO can have on the bottom line profitability of a company. CEOs in the States quickly find themselves looking for work if they can't justify their salary.
The point is that no one has yet found a better way to set prices (including CEO salaries) than the free market.
Hmm... My apologies. I hadn't read the complaint for some time.
However, if SCO had some sort of recourse due to the contract they signed with IBM over project Monterey why even mention their UNIX license? The reason, once again, is simple. IBM isn't in breach of their Project Monterey contract.
In short, I have no problems with SCO pushing IBM over breach of their Project Monterey contract. If IBM broke their contract then they will get what they deserve. However, it is clear from the SCO filing that the Project Monterey stuff is just a sideline. The real claims come from their ownership of the now incredibly crusty System V source code.
The argument is especially specious because in 4 b) it talks about IBM:
What SCO is forgetting to mention is that they are one of the "others" that that misused and misappropriated this software. You can download the Linux kernel source from SCO, to this day that includes the technology that IBM supposedly helped steal.
Yes Monterey was a real life project, but that's completely irrelevant. Why is that the case? It's quite simple, if SCO had some sort of contractual obligation from Monterey that they could hold over IBM then they almost certainly would have mentioned it in their court filing.
Read SCO's original filing and you will find absolutely no reference to Monterey and any contracts involving Monterey. SCO's filing is quite explicit in its mention that their claim comes from the fact that they own the original System V UNIX source code (which IBM licenses and includes in AIX).
I would agree with you if SCO had even mentioned their recent work with IBM, but they didn't (probably because the IBM lawyers wrote a contract that is unassailable). The entire case stems around the original UNIX source code that SCO acquired from Novell. As such it is a ridiculously specious case. Don't believe me, go read SCO's filing.
The problem with this theory is that PC games seriously undercut XBox profits. After all, if you buy an XBox game Microsoft automatically gets a percentage. If you buy the same game for the PC then Microsoft gets nothing. Make no mistake, when Microsoft came out with the XBox their goal was the complete and utter distruction of PC gaming. The fact that they are now changing their tune indicates a sea change an One Microsoft Way.
The reason that Microsoft is changing their mind is two fold. First of all, Microsoft is facing the first real competition for the desktop in ages. Both Apple and the Linux community are fielding credible alternatives, and games are one of the advantages of owning a Windows PC. Secondly, the accountants at Microsoft are smart enough to know that their current XBox strategy simply isn't feasible. By the time that Microsoft is likely to stop losing money on XBox and XBox live sales they are very likely to face new competition from Sony and Nintendo's new consoles, triggering a new XBox console and a whole new round of bloodshed. The idea of putting high-end PC chips in a console was a novel concept, but giving these boxes away (ie. selling them at a price that is competitive to the PS2) has proved extraordinarily expensive. A shift back to PC gaming would put the onus of paying for the hardware back on the gamer's shoulders. Hardware, as Microsoft is realizing, is the sort of game where it is easy to lose your shirt.
Which is why the article focused on the services that Microsoft is going to provide PC gamers. That's how Microsoft is planning on making their dinero. Think of it as XBox Live without Microsoft having to pay an $150 subsidy for the hardware. Instead of losing money on the XBox and then trying to make it back in services, Microsoft will let Dell, HP, Gateway and the rest of the hardware OEMs sort out the manufacturing and sales of hardware, and Microsoft will simply skim money off the top hooking gamers up with online games and software patches.
In short, enjoy your XBoxes while you can, Microsoft is getting out of the console business.
<p>Take a look at the Docbook spec for a good example of how something like this works. Basically it has a whole pile of tags that allow you to mark up your text semantically with tags like <computeroutput> or <programlisting>. There are also tags like <emphasis> that would probably give you bold text in the printed output.
First of all, if you are talking about desktop PCs Dell trumps Apple in price every day of the week, and you can get all of the extended support that you might possibly need from Dell to keep your computers running until you are ready to turn them over. So don't give me any crap about Apple hardware, it's more expensive than the x86 alternatives, case closed.
However, only an idiot would fill a brand new Linux-based computer lab with PCs when they could fill it with X-terminals instead. Now, instead of 50 PCs that you have to babysit you have one Linux server (or two because you'd want a failover machine) and a room full of thin clients. Forget about imaging hard drives, installing software, counting licenses, and securing individual PCs. All of a sudden all you have to do is administer one box, and contrary to what your believe UNIX administrators generally handle more machines per admin than any other type of admin. We don't walk around either, we simply learn to script.
And don't talk to me about software availability either. Linux has more than enough software to match up against the public computer labs at the schools I have been at. In fact, in the CS departments of the schools I have been associated with Linux was precisely what they were using. The business types will do fine with OpenOffice, assuming, of course, that their professors are using OpenOffice as well. OpenOffice has some small issues opening and saving Microsoft Office files, but that disadvantage disappears when everyone is using OpenOffice. Cad packages are available, mathematics packages are available, nearly everything is available.
That leaves the art folks, who will almost certainly hold their noses up at having to use the tools available for Linux (despite the fact that if they go into film they almost certainly will sit at a Linux desktop). They can purchase of few Mac OS X boxes if they like.
Yeah, appeasement really worked for the French in WWII.
The fact of the matter is that if you live in a successful country people outside the country are going to hate you. Heck, when I lived in Peru the government sponsored all sorts of anti-US propaganda that was completely untrue. That sort of thing is easy to do, and it draws attention away from the actions of the local politicians. In other words it is simply too easy for political leaders to blame every thing on "those @#$!! Yankees." No matter what the US does we aren't going to be able to counteract that sort of propaganda, and it is extremely widespread.
I certainly agree that rogue states aren't the only problem, but pretending that we can simply "be nice" and have all our foreign policy problems go away is ridiculously naive.
Think about it for a minute, why would Saudi Arabian terrorists hate the United States? Is it because we support Israel, or is it because we are an easy target for their rhetoric? After all, there are racists all over the world that hate the Jews and Israel, should we start taking their advice in foreign policy matters because we are afraid of what they might do to us? Perhaps while we are at it we should do something about the African Americans that live right here in our own country?
Better yet, just mock up an inventory of her closet. That way you get to buy books even if she doesn't have fourteen of whatever.
As someone who has purchased one of these WalMart Linux PCs I couldn't agree more. The WalMart PC was nothing more than a quick an inexpensive way to guarantee that I purchased a computer that was compatible with Linux. I didn't want to use their Linux image.
On the other hand, I was fairly impressed with Lindows. If they wouldn't have automatically logged the thing in as root I might not have reimaged the thing.
A buddy of mine also purchased one, but he put Windows on it. Either way it plays Hell with Microsoft's business model. If people start comparing prices of machines with Windows and machines without then Microsoft is likely to lose some of their paying customers.
That worked fine for me until I needed to alter one of the packages from CPAN. The package in question (name withheld to protect the innocent) did 90% of what I needed, and it was extremely well written and well commented, but it just so happened that the 35% of Perl that it used to get the job done did not overlap hardly at all with the 35% that I was used to using. That is where I fell in love with the Camel book, as I kept banging my head against Perlisms that were just plain weird.
In the end, I solved the problem, but I was so sick of Perl that I gave Python a whirl. I rewrote the program in Python in a few days (the tricky bits had already been solved writing it in Perl), and I have never looked back. It is much easier to read someone else's Python than someone else's Perl. Another huge advantage for me (as an Emacs user) is that Python's documentation is available as info files. That's quite a bit nicer (IMHO) than just man files. Of course, the fact that the Python documentation is so good is a bit of a bummer for the folks writing Python books.
Uh, I think you mean "Mormons," although technically the name of the church is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Either way, congratulations on your excellent summary of the article. The idea that "peer pressure" can be a positive force is precisely what this article was about. Very clever.
There is no question that X terminals and a Linux server are less expensive than Windows fat clients. Not only do you get rid of the software licenses, but you also get rid of your need to support end user PCs (which is the real win). The reason that most organizations have informal computer experts is that they have put full-fledged PCs on everyone's desktop and then expect the employee to be an amateur systems administrator.
The sticking point with Linux is software, not the availability of systems administrators. If the software you need is available for Linux, then you are a fool if you are not at least taking a look at a migration.
Speaking of Joel Rosenberg, he has also apparently been picked up by Baen. I just ordered "The Guardians of the Flame" as part of the February Baen ebook package, and am enjoying re-reading it.
If you own a PDA and haven't tried reading an ebook I would highly recommend Baen's website. It has a whole pile of good Science Fiction and Fantasy available in unencrypted formats available both for sale and "for free."
Are you kidding? The last thing that any red-blooded Idahoan wants to do is protect Oregon's wildlife. We pray every night that the entire state of Oregon drops into the sea so that we can use our valuable river water in the way God intended, watering our fields.
Heck, most Oregonians are barely a step above your average Californian, and your average Californian is actually two or three steps below Satan himself. Not that the folks from Washington are much better.
That's funny I could have sworn that the DOD had already released some Linux kernel mods when they wrote SELinux.
Besides, the DOD won't be doing the actual work, Boeing will.
You are right about what the GPL requires you to do. Boeing is going to be required to make the source code for any changes to the Linux kernel available to the DOD, but they don't have to make these changes available to the rest of us. They are also perfectly free to create proprietary software that runs on top of Linux.
My guess, however, is that most of the changes to the Linux kernel itself will make its way back to Linus and friends, and the reason for this is simple. Maintaining your own fork of the Linux kernel is hard, and such a beast would have very few benefits. After all, one of the reasons that these folks chose Linux in the first place is that it would allow them to offload some of their work on the rest of the Linux kernel developers. If secrecy were the primary goal they would simply write their own OS from scratch. What's the point of using Linux if you are going to distance yourself from all of the neat stuff being done by the rest of the kernel developers?
Part of the reasont that Microsoft caved is that Taiwan has been making overtures to a switch to Linux. Microsoft knows that if the government switches to Linux they will also switch to some other office suite. If the Taiwanese government switches to a new office suite, then everyone that does business with the Taiwanese government will also have to switch.
The government probably doesn't want to switch, but they have to at least appear as if they are stomping out piracy or they get in trouble with the WTO. So Microsoft is lowering the price of MS Office in Taiwan so that they don't lose you folks as customers.
The article in question had squat to do with Samba. He was suggesting replacing PCs with X terminals. If the software available on Linux is "good enough" for your purposes then there is no cheaper way to provide functional desktops than X terminals and a fat Linux box. Not only do you completely remove client-side hardware support from the equation, but you drastically reduce client-side software issues as well. Not to mention the fact that software rollouts become a piece of cake, and hardware upgrades consist of upgrading a handful of servers instead of hundreds of client PCs. Even ignoring the fact that most software (and most software upgrades) are free such a setup has huge advantages for both the short and long term.
Basically Linux and X terminals is a winning combination, provided, of course, that your needs fit within the basic needs provided by the current crop of Linux software. That's a pretty hefty "if" for most folks. I know that I certainly wouldn't want to be the guy in charge of telling the professors that they were going to give up their Windows boxes and Macintoshes and that they were going to be replaced with an X terminals.
Webhosting for static pages (on Linux) can be had for as little as $3.75 a month. Heck, your ISP would likely host your pages for free. The price of maintaining your own Win2K server, on the other hand, is pretty high. At least if you plan to keep up with the updates and such. In fact, I would propose that setting up a basic secure website is actually easier to do on a Linux box (even if you are a complete newbie).
Your best bet is to take the money that you would have spent on licensing and hardware and pay someone who knows what they are doing to host your site. Chances are good your site will end up hosted on a Linux box.