ideas for survival
on
LWN in Trouble
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I have worked for a couple of firms restructuring - and they are always difficult. I will list a couple of suggestions regarding restructuring and then some general strategy notes.
Restructuring
1. Do it as fast as you can.
If you need to reduce your overhead by $10,333 a month, which may not be easy but sure beats the alternative (chapter 11). The longer you wait, the more drastic the cuts will have to be. If you wait too long, cuts alone may not be enough to save the site.
Layoffs can do serious, long-term damage to a company's culture, but sometimes they're necessary. First think about freezing salaries, eliminating perks, postponing company parties, and so on. And if it turns out you can't save jobs without laying some people off, don't allow the process to drag on. Make all the necessary cuts at the same time, and then let the remaining employees know their jobs are secure. You will destroy morale--and lose good people--if everybody is wondering who will be the next to go.
2. Marketing is hit first in a recession
In a recession companies cut back on advertising first. In an effort to conserve cash, they cut back in the one area they should be expanding -- namely, sales and marketing. So get ready for the long haul.
3. Check your cash flow.
You need to look at your cash flow over the next 90-180 days and determine how much you need to survive.
Options....
Here are some personal suggestions that may or may-not work.
1) Put a donate button on the website. Suggest a small fee - say $5.00. Make it secure and give the users the option of saving the credit card numbers so they can re-donate frequently and easily.
Small amounts are easier for users to swallow than $100 subscription fees.
2) Focus on your core competencies.
Main page - Core
Security - non-core
Kernel - core
Distributions - core (maybe)
On the Desktop - non-core
Development - core
Commerce - non-core
Linux in the news non-core
Announcements core - ( I would call it events calendar and market it as such)
Linux History - non-core
Letters - core (inexpensive)
My feeling is that the real strength of the site is in reinterpreting the different mailing lists(kernel etc). - Not in re-posting press releases like linuxtoday.
Target technical information for programmers. Programmers have money and create trends - and thus get attention from advertisers.
3) Require registration so that you can prove the quality of your readers to the advertisers. Then market yourselves to those who want to get developers attention such as IBM, Microsoft, Borland and Sun.
4) Get a mailing list going with the info. - more fodder for marketers - "Push marketing"
5) Look at relicensing opportunities for sections of the website. For example license ibm developerworks the content of the kernel section. Don't sell the all your content though - get the users to visit your site for the full overview.
A bit big no? XFS patch is 300K or so from what I have read. Problem being that it makes the kernel almost too big to put on a floppy.
JFS and ReiserFS are much smaller. Don't know about EXT3.
Stuff I need from Linux (VM/Scheduling/IO)
on
Linux Kernel 2.4.10
·
· Score: 1
1) stable VM (which I guess is almost there...)
2) Better scheduling (for lots of processes)
look at the schedule patch from http://lse.sourceforge.net/scheduling/
or HPs nice patch
http://resourcemanagement.unixsolutions.hp.com/W aR M/prm_linux/index.html
3) bounce-buffer elimination for IO devices
For a lot of disk IO, you want to look at the progress of the bounce-buffer elimination for IO devices, like my Fibre Channel adapter.
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/axb oe/patches/
Haven't had too many problems with the EXT3 in RH 7.2...
rebooted - no fsck.... nice I want to try out XFS and JFS though...
Anthony
Re:Ok, user friendly with no installer?
on
KDE 2.2 Released
·
· Score: 1
Those who don't know how to use rpm maybe should wait until their favorite distro supports it and then buy a copy.
Personally I don't like the way Mozilla installs - rpm and apt-get were well thought out. Why reinvent the wheel?
Plus - tell me one user who don't know what distro they are using.. The spash screens of Redhat/Suse/Mandrake etc are very large and in your face...
Anthony
Notes did win Infoworld's top 10 most influential software products from the the 90's award.
The Idea of Notes was good.. but it should have been built on open standards. Not standards tacked on after the internet took off.
Why is computer programming any different than any other form of engineering? I believe mostly because Computer Scientists are far less diciplined that their engineering counterparts.
In terms of salary computer scientists make more than their Engineering counterparts - so tell me what is unfair. Can you drive software, can you live in it? Does it satisfy any of Maslows basic heirarchy of needs (besides communication). I don't think so.
My final problem with that article is that they claim that Primma Donnas don't share information. For me that doesn't sound like a Primma Donna - more like someone who is trying to rip off your company. The great programmers share information because they know they can't know everything. Sort of a University/OpenSource/Berkeley attitude.
I work with win2K at work but try my best to use Open Source tools whenever possible. I have found the better solution is to use vmware in windows and use all the good GPL software under Linux. Second I setup an older machine as a Redhat box as a server. (The vmware Linux uses DHCP
At home I simply use a dual boot machine for the odd game or application.
I think you will save a lot of time with this technique. Instead of hunting down older versions of applications - you can grab fairly up to date ones from your favorite distributions CD. (I use Redhat, Suse, and Debian).
I would add that keeping overhead low is key. Money spent on offices, nice chairs etc won't make you anymore money.
Second outsource the stuff you don't know. It is impossible to know it all. For example I outsource the firewall/VPN stuff as it can get quite complicated.
Sticking to Linux has a much better value add that selling commodity win2k servers (which killed DEC and may yet kill HP). Becoming experts in scalable Linux solutions is not a bad market. But one that has yet to mature.
Anthony
The http server in the kernel blows away IIS in benchmarks. What about a database embedded in the kernel? for a dedicated db server the size of the kernel wouldn't matter too much. Is this feasable?
My cubical resides next to a Microsoft consultant's. Everytime he sees one of my corporation's employees using a Microsoft product he says "Ya!". Like it is a win for him and M$.
For example he saw my coworking using IE - "ya!" he says. He sees another coworking using Microsoft MAP. "Ya!" he says, like he and Microsoft are winning an invisible game.
It is this aspect of Microsoft culture that I hate. Its like playing chess in highschool with someone who rubs it in after every move that he win. He cheats and then ridiculules you when he wins the game.
This permeates Microsoft culture and taints everything that they touch. They lie, they cheat, they bully and yes they win. It is not the technology that annoys me -which is mediocre, but good in terms of ease of use. It is Microsoft's competitive culture that has allowed it to become the neighbourhood bully.
I disagree - professionals are rarely passionate. Linux needs passion, forward thinking dreamers who develop killer apps!
Plus I think the big boys such as SGI, IBM, DELL, Compaq bring all the professionalist that you need....
I often explain the idea of open source to my friends through examples.
For the artistic:
Music scores are generally open - if Mozart had not written his down and shared
it we would not only not be able to listen to his works today, but other musicians
would have had more difficulty building on what he did.
For the more business minded:
Pharmaceutical companies publish their work, generally in the form of patents
- but other companies can build on those patents. With programming there is
no building. IBM cannot build and expand upon the works of M$ or they will be
sued.
Computer science is a relatively new science. As it progresses, each step in
progression takes more work. More work than any one company will be able to
handle. Operating Systems will become filled with verticle suppliers, much like
the auto industry. Ford is the final assembler, but they source engines from
Mitsubishi, bumpers from Magna etc... Linux will take off because of competition
within the Open Source movement. Multiple suppliers of Interfaces, multiple
suppliers of command lines and multiple final distributors. Open Source is what
will keep them tied together and will ensure that there is never a monopoly.
Provide tools to innovate and you will get innovation. Include a compiler with your operating system and a nice api and innovation will come.
Of the protocols that drive the internet - how many came from M$? SOAP doesn't drive the internet.
Microsoft is worried about countries that have Open Source initiatives - i.e. France, China and others. What those countries here is the sucking sound of monopolistic profits going to Redmond Washington.
I listened to an speach on technetcast. Apparently they had to rewrite the IDE interface to deal with IDE contention issues.
Does anyone know if they contributed that to the kernel? They mentioned they might.
Oracle oracle oracle - checkout what the really mission critical systems run and you will find most are db/2 on os/390 parallel syplex machines.
All the credit card companies use os/390 or as/400s where the rdms is integrated with the hardware and the os.
Slashdot Mirror
I have worked for a couple of firms restructuring - and they are always difficult. I will list a couple of suggestions regarding restructuring and then some general strategy notes.
Restructuring
1. Do it as fast as you can.
If you need to reduce your overhead by $10,333 a month, which may not be easy but sure beats the alternative (chapter 11). The longer you wait, the more drastic the cuts will have to be. If you wait too long, cuts alone may not be enough to save the site.
Layoffs can do serious, long-term damage to a company's culture, but sometimes they're necessary. First think about freezing salaries, eliminating perks, postponing company parties, and so on. And if it turns out you can't save jobs without laying some people off, don't allow the process to drag on. Make all the necessary cuts at the same time, and then let the remaining employees know their jobs are secure. You will destroy morale--and lose good people--if everybody is wondering who will be the next to go.
2. Marketing is hit first in a recession
In a recession companies cut back on advertising first. In an effort to conserve cash, they cut back in the one area they should be expanding -- namely, sales and marketing. So get ready for the long haul.
3. Check your cash flow.
You need to look at your cash flow over the next 90-180 days and determine how much you need to survive.
Options....
Here are some personal suggestions that may or may-not work.
1) Put a donate button on the website. Suggest a small fee - say $5.00. Make it secure and give the users the option of saving the credit card numbers so they can re-donate frequently and easily.
Small amounts are easier for users to swallow than $100 subscription fees.
2) Focus on your core competencies.
Main page - Core
Security - non-core
Kernel - core
Distributions - core (maybe)
On the Desktop - non-core
Development - core
Commerce - non-core
Linux in the news non-core
Announcements core - ( I would call it events calendar and market it as such)
Linux History - non-core
Letters - core (inexpensive)
My feeling is that the real strength of the site is in reinterpreting the different mailing lists(kernel etc). - Not in re-posting press releases like linuxtoday.
Target technical information for programmers. Programmers have money and create trends - and thus get attention from advertisers.
3) Require registration so that you can prove the quality of your readers to the advertisers. Then market yourselves to those who want to get developers attention such as IBM, Microsoft, Borland and Sun.
4) Get a mailing list going with the info. - more fodder for marketers - "Push marketing"
5) Look at relicensing opportunities for sections of the website. For example license ibm developerworks the content of the kernel section. Don't sell the all your content though - get the users to visit your site for the full overview.
check inc magazine for more: www.inc.com
Anthony Barker
Yes they are laying off.. Couple of perl programmers let go last week.
A bit big no? XFS patch is 300K or so from what I have read. Problem being that it makes the kernel almost too big to put on a floppy.
JFS and ReiserFS are much smaller. Don't know about EXT3.
1) stable VM (which I guess is almost there...)
W aR M/prm_linux/index.html
b oe /patches/
2) Better scheduling (for lots of processes)
look at the schedule patch from http://lse.sourceforge.net/scheduling/
or HPs nice patch
http://resourcemanagement.unixsolutions.hp.com/
3) bounce-buffer elimination for IO devices
For a lot of disk IO, you want to look at the progress of the bounce-buffer elimination for IO devices, like my Fibre Channel adapter.
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/ax
He live in Thailand remember - $1000 US per month you can live fine....
Anthony
you want commercial - there will be inotes support for domino shortly.
Tivoli supports Linux - and is better than SMS
ACLs with SAMBA look at XFS
setup sendmail, an imap daeemon, an Ldap server? Lotus Domino - out of the box
domain logins? Mandrake user manager makes it fairly easy. Or in a small office just copy the passwd, shadow and group files around
3) support - DELL/IBM/HP/RH would all be happy to take your money.
Haven't had too many problems with the EXT3 in RH 7.2...
rebooted - no fsck.... nice I want to try out XFS and JFS though...
Anthony
Those who don't know how to use rpm maybe should wait until their favorite distro supports it and then buy a copy. Personally I don't like the way Mozilla installs - rpm and apt-get were well thought out. Why reinvent the wheel? Plus - tell me one user who don't know what distro they are using.. The spash screens of Redhat/Suse/Mandrake etc are very large and in your face... Anthony
One big question in my mind.... Why send an ape? When not an autopilot computer? Just didn't make sense... Anthony
Notes did win Infoworld's top 10 most influential software products from the the 90's award.
The Idea of Notes was good.. but it should have been built on open standards. Not standards tacked on after the internet took off.
Why is computer programming any different than any other form of engineering? I believe mostly because Computer Scientists are far less diciplined that their engineering counterparts.
In terms of salary computer scientists make more than their Engineering counterparts - so tell me what is unfair. Can you drive software, can you live in it? Does it satisfy any of Maslows basic heirarchy of needs (besides communication). I don't think so.
My final problem with that article is that they claim that Primma Donnas don't share information. For me that doesn't sound like a Primma Donna - more like someone who is trying to rip off your company. The great programmers share information because they know they can't know everything. Sort of a University/OpenSource/Berkeley attitude.
Anthony Barker
I work with win2K at work but try my best to use Open Source tools whenever possible. I have found the better solution is to use vmware in windows and use all the good GPL software under Linux. Second I setup an older machine as a Redhat box as a server. (The vmware Linux uses DHCP
At home I simply use a dual boot machine for the odd game or application.
I think you will save a lot of time with this technique. Instead of hunting down older versions of applications - you can grab fairly up to date ones from your favorite distributions CD. (I use Redhat, Suse, and Debian).
I would add that keeping overhead low is key. Money spent on offices, nice chairs etc won't make you anymore money.
Second outsource the stuff you don't know. It is impossible to know it all. For example I outsource the firewall/VPN stuff as it can get quite complicated.
Sticking to Linux has a much better value add that selling commodity win2k servers (which killed DEC and may yet kill HP). Becoming experts in scalable Linux solutions is not a bad market. But one that has yet to mature. Anthony
How does the real time scheduler compaire with VTRR
VTRR
And does anyone know what the status is of the linux scheduler?
Anthony
The need to break everything into components - who expects to understand the whole thing?!
The http server in the kernel blows away IIS in benchmarks. What about a database embedded in the kernel? for a dedicated db server the size of the kernel wouldn't matter too much. Is this feasable?
My cubical resides next to a Microsoft consultant's. Everytime he sees one of my corporation's employees using a Microsoft product he says "Ya!". Like it is a win for him and M$.
For example he saw my coworking using IE - "ya!" he says. He sees another coworking using Microsoft MAP. "Ya!" he says, like he and Microsoft are winning an invisible game.
It is this aspect of Microsoft culture that I hate. Its like playing chess in highschool with someone who rubs it in after every move that he win. He cheats and then ridiculules you when he wins the game.
This permeates Microsoft culture and taints everything that they touch. They lie, they cheat, they bully and yes they win. It is not the technology that annoys me -which is mediocre, but good in terms of ease of use. It is Microsoft's competitive culture that has allowed it to become the neighbourhood bully.
I disagree - professionals are rarely passionate. Linux needs passion, forward thinking dreamers who develop killer apps!
Plus I think the big boys such as SGI, IBM, DELL, Compaq bring all the professionalist that you need....
For the artistic:
Music scores are generally open - if Mozart had not written his down and shared it we would not only not be able to listen to his works today, but other musicians would have had more difficulty building on what he did.
For the more business minded:
Pharmaceutical companies publish their work, generally in the form of patents - but other companies can build on those patents. With programming there is no building. IBM cannot build and expand upon the works of M$ or they will be sued.
Computer science is a relatively new science. As it progresses, each step in progression takes more work. More work than any one company will be able to handle. Operating Systems will become filled with verticle suppliers, much like the auto industry. Ford is the final assembler, but they source engines from Mitsubishi, bumpers from Magna etc... Linux will take off because of competition within the Open Source movement. Multiple suppliers of Interfaces, multiple suppliers of command lines and multiple final distributors. Open Source is what will keep them tied together and will ensure that there is never a monopoly.
Provide tools to innovate and you will get innovation. Include a compiler with your operating system and a nice api and innovation will come.
Of the protocols that drive the internet - how many came from M$? SOAP doesn't drive the internet.
Microsoft is worried about countries that have Open Source initiatives - i.e. France, China and others. What those countries here is the sucking sound of monopolistic profits going to Redmond Washington.
I listened to an speach on technetcast. Apparently they had to rewrite the IDE interface to deal with IDE contention issues.
Does anyone know if they contributed that to the kernel? They mentioned they might.
i use icewm, sawfish and gnome all at once... A very nice if somewhat heavy combo.
No one seems to be saying what the difference is with gnome 1.2... Any?
Anthony
Going through socks 5 proxy on the way out works fine for me. I use the freeware sockscap client from NEC.
Under linux the only option I have found (that is straight forward) is using the borderware client from NEC - you can use it to sockify your ssh2.
Anthony http://nexus.dacomtech.com/abarker.html
Oracle oracle oracle - checkout what the really mission critical systems run and you will find most are db/2 on os/390 parallel syplex machines. All the credit card companies use os/390 or as/400s where the rdms is integrated with the hardware and the os.