When I first installed Mandrake, I thought the automatic update was cool and awesome, but that lasted about a week. My two biggest complaints are (and this applies to RedHat since they now offer similar services):
-As other people mentioned, it is not just downloading a package and installing it, it is also about having high quality packages with high quality dependency checking. Mandrake/RedHat routinely do not have an rpm I want, and after only a short time of installing packages that I get on rpmfind, my dependencies are so screwed up I need to do a clean install (as in reformat my system partition) to get things working.
-You only have access to the updates on your current version. For example, if you have Mandrake 6.1 and Mandrake 6.2 comes out with a new version of emacs, then the automatic update tool doesn't pick it up. (This is what happened to me, and I haven't stuck with Mandrake long enough to see if it changed.)
The biggest problem with the rpm distros as opposed to Debian, is the update process is not a "smooth". With Debian, you can update periodically and end up with updating just one package to get the "official next version". I would LOVE to have that smoothness with RedHat or Mandrake, especially for the security fixes.
With the commercial distros, they want to get you to either buy the next version or subscribe. I have no problem with paying for a subscription that is reasonably priced for my work machine (where RedHat is the most useful distro), but their subscription service is outrageously priced for businesses who just want to click a button and download the latest packages. I like a lot of RedHat's plans and directions, but when I look at their quality and price, I don't think they really have it together.
>This leaves the government as the primary
funder of basic research, and this is notoriously
>inefficient (when was the last time you heard
of a government agency spending its money
>anywhere near as frugally as any corporation? Corps do have skills that the rest of us could
>stand to learn.)
I once believed this comment, and it is certainly the conventional wisdom, but don't believe it any longer. I did my Ph.D. at a large research university doing government-funded research and now work for a Fortune 500 company.
If you go to a scientific conference and ask a person with a laptop if (s)he paid for the laptop themselves or if the company/government grant paid for it, you invariably get that the corp guys were "given" their laptops where the govt guys bought it themselves. This is invariable due to the fact that when the scientists make the case of what they "need" to their respective funding agencies, it is easier for the corp scientists to make their case. Fundamentally, I think this is because a corporation only hires the amount of scientists they need, whereas with the flat or declining budgets in governmental science, there is actually more competition for resources. The government agencies usually prefer to underfund several groups rather than really fund one large group. This underfunding usually results in some amazing innovation in basic research.
Another reason university research is efficient is that for every dollar that goes to salaries, one dollar goes to benifits and bureaucracy. For (large) corporations, every dollar of salary translates into 2.5-3.5 dollars for benifits and bureacracy. Add in the fact that grad students and post docs are paid jack shit to begin with, and university research represents a real bargain. That is why many companies are looking to outsource their research to universities (althought I've seen projects killed because the university and company couldn't agree on how to split up the patents).
Where corporations are super-efficient is actually turning the product into something that you can make money on. The statement that "the best way to transfer technology is with a moving van" (usually meaning that the grad student graduates and moves to work for a company) is as true as ever. You can't beat personal contact, and having "basic research" scientists able to walk down the hall and talk to the engineers who actually try to figure out how to get the stuff to work is really the only way to go.
Actually natural gas power plants can easily hit 60% efficiencies as a result of turbine improvements in the late 80's and early 90's. This is what is killing the coal (~30% efficiencies) and nuclear (~40% efficiencies) power industries. They just can't compete in price nor in the fact that coal and nuclear both require fairly large ($500M - $1000M) capital costs to be built. Note that this is for America which has different resources, distribution requirements, and energy needs than Europe or Japan.
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-As other people mentioned, it is not just downloading a package and installing it, it is also about having high quality packages with high quality dependency checking. Mandrake/RedHat routinely do not have an rpm I want, and after only a short time of installing packages that I get on rpmfind, my dependencies are so screwed up I need to do a clean install (as in reformat my system partition) to get things working.
-You only have access to the updates on your current version. For example, if you have Mandrake 6.1 and Mandrake 6.2 comes out with a new version of emacs, then the automatic update tool doesn't pick it up. (This is what happened to me, and I haven't stuck with Mandrake long enough to see if it changed.)
The biggest problem with the rpm distros as opposed to Debian, is the update process is not a "smooth". With Debian, you can update periodically and end up with updating just one package to get the "official next version". I would LOVE to have that smoothness with RedHat or Mandrake, especially for the security fixes.
With the commercial distros, they want to get you to either buy the next version or subscribe. I have no problem with paying for a subscription that is reasonably priced for my work machine (where RedHat is the most useful distro), but their subscription service is outrageously priced for businesses who just want to click a button and download the latest packages. I like a lot of RedHat's plans and directions, but when I look at their quality and price, I don't think they really have it together.
>inefficient (when was the last time you heard of a government agency spending its money
>anywhere near as frugally as any corporation? Corps do have skills that the rest of us could
>stand to learn.)
I once believed this comment, and it is certainly the conventional wisdom, but don't believe it any longer. I did my Ph.D. at a large research university doing government-funded research and now work for a Fortune 500 company. If you go to a scientific conference and ask a person with a laptop if (s)he paid for the laptop themselves or if the company/government grant paid for it, you invariably get that the corp guys were "given" their laptops where the govt guys bought it themselves. This is invariable due to the fact that when the scientists make the case of what they "need" to their respective funding agencies, it is easier for the corp scientists to make their case. Fundamentally, I think this is because a corporation only hires the amount of scientists they need, whereas with the flat or declining budgets in governmental science, there is actually more competition for resources. The government agencies usually prefer to underfund several groups rather than really fund one large group. This underfunding usually results in some amazing innovation in basic research.
Another reason university research is efficient is that for every dollar that goes to salaries, one dollar goes to benifits and bureaucracy. For (large) corporations, every dollar of salary translates into 2.5-3.5 dollars for benifits and bureacracy. Add in the fact that grad students and post docs are paid jack shit to begin with, and university research represents a real bargain. That is why many companies are looking to outsource their research to universities (althought I've seen projects killed because the university and company couldn't agree on how to split up the patents).
Where corporations are super-efficient is actually turning the product into something that you can make money on. The statement that "the best way to transfer technology is with a moving van" (usually meaning that the grad student graduates and moves to work for a company) is as true as ever. You can't beat personal contact, and having "basic research" scientists able to walk down the hall and talk to the engineers who actually try to figure out how to get the stuff to work is really the only way to go.
Actually natural gas power plants can easily hit 60% efficiencies as a result of turbine improvements in the late 80's and early 90's. This is what is killing the coal (~30% efficiencies) and nuclear (~40% efficiencies) power industries. They just can't compete in price nor in the fact that coal and nuclear both require fairly large ($500M - $1000M) capital costs to be built. Note that this is for America which has different resources, distribution requirements, and energy needs than Europe or Japan.