I see this a lot talking to clients - they're convinced they can treat information processing just like they treat other commodity services/items (photocopiers, etc). When talking to clients, many of them have a 'DIY' approach to save money - outside consultants or expensive employees are often viewed as unncessary. Perhaps one day they will be, but for now, it's a requirement to have someone who knows what they're doing operate these things (in this case, databases). Probably half the time I know people are thinking we're trying to pull one over on them, thinking they don't need someone who knows what they're doing ("Hey, my cousin's business set up a webserver in 10 minutes and they don't even use computers! It can't be that hard!") Sometimes they're right, but at this stage of development, it's still a gamble they *shouldn't* take.
One of the nice things I've noticed about MySQL (having used MSSQL as well) is that I can have MySQL prevent people from connecting based on IP addresses, even if they have the proper username/password credentials. I could never find a way to do this in MSSQL - is there a way of doing this? Yes, it's not perfect, but it's definitely a nice extra that MySQL offers which I've not seen in MSSQL. Again, if it can be done, someone let me know.
Also, why does the SQL Server run at all without a password? IIRC in the latest versions the installation prompts you for an 'sa' password to set, but earlier ones didn't do that. Why not just disable the program - when running it having a popup say 'hey - I won't run unless you set a password!' and be done with these types of 'holes' (yes, it's really just lazy admins, but the computer should be doing more thinking for me at this level - perhaps Clippit could bounce up and demand a password be set?)
How can using linux halve the cost of a computer lab when the cost of operating system software is typically $100 per machine or less and the cost of hardware is typically $800 or more?
The 'retail' cost of Windows XP is $299 ( no upgrade, just raw price ). There is a volume licensing program but this doesn't give prices out.
'Retail' for Office XP for Students/Teachers is $149.
Assume they give a 60+% discount on XP, the total for both is $249. Hardware is cheap - WalMart is selling naked PCs for $399. The price of the 'standard' MS software which people expect is more than 50% of the cost of new hardware.
"Fork" always seemed to me to have the idea that someone took code and changed it to make it do something different. In this case, they're taking the openoffice.org codebase and adding extra pieces before they package/ship it.
Taking a project and adding extra graphics, templates and a manual doesn't feel like a 'fork' to me. From what I understand, as code changes in the openoffice.org project, that'll make it's way into future star offices too. 'Fork' would imply that they would only be doing their own development on that entire codebase from now on, and I don't think that's the case.
When is the last time you've heard people say "oh you can lose a few million this year, just be nice to everyone"
Explain how *NOT* swapping the Organization header would lose them money? They are changing something that they didn't do previously - at best, they may speculatively make a bit more money. It certainly cost them something to do this (maybe only $50 to have someone change something on their NNTP software, and maybe another $100,000 in executive salaries to have meetings about it) but it's at best an unknown amount of money they may generate because of this.
I'd have thought it would have made more sense to add an extra X-header, or tack on RoadRunner at the end of the existing X-header info.
X-Organization: Joe's Place (via RoadRunner)
or something similar. To just replace it full stop is strange, to say the least.
My theory is they are doing this because of the way search engines archive news postings has a ranking on what posts contains links to what URLs and names, this will make RoadRunner appear much more 'popular' in services like google and teoma. However, this will also have a detrimental search engine effect on the very customers RR is supposedly serving, and should cause them to leave (at least a few who realize what's going on). Again, if this is the case, is it worth losing a few customers to potentially gain more (short v long term)? Probably.
I just checked out neighborspace.com (the 'ghosttown' mentioned). It looks like it's just a big clunky bulletin board system, nothing else. It's webX, I think, which wasn't cheap when I looked at it years ago (probably when neighborspace.com started).
Did they expect massive success by taking a bulletin board and putting (arguably) ugly graphics on it? It seems to only be catering to a small geopgraphic area, but the domain name seems to indicate it would be for a wider audience.
Would you want to live in a society where everything was run on only those databases? What are the key differences between the RH offering and postgres itself (besides the $2k price tag)?
Sorry, as much as I encourage the use of free software, if those were the only options, and there was no room for an Oracle or DB2 or SQL2000, regardless of technical merit, I wouldn't live there.
Thank you - that makes a lot of sense. It's good to see some rationality there. There simply aren't *free* alternatives to every proprietary system out there, but mandating that people at least *consider* free alternatives first when they do exist is, imo, generally a good thing.
Because I asked what they will use, not what they are aware of. I'm aware of many technologies that I don't use. Yes, they may fit my ideology, but they don't meet my technical requirements. As much as people want to believe in the power of MySQL and Postgres, it will be foolish to think you can run an entire government on those two database technologies alone. Yes, with enough investment of resources over time they may fit the bill, but they won't cut the mustard for every single application a government needs to run at this point in time.
All I saw mysql mentioned in reference to was an example of a product that has multiple licensing models, not something that they plan on using specifically.
Someone who still has a 386 with Win 3.1, for example, could browse with IE3 or so - not perfect, but then again, neither is browsing with lynx or konqueror either (konq ESP on a 386).
This isn't meant as a troll - but if, as I gather, a requirement for using software in the Peruvian government be that the sourcecode is publicly available, what databases will fulfill their needs? For that matter, air traffic control systems and military systems? Or do certain elements of the government get an exemption if they can show no 'free' software exists to fulfill a specific need?
I saw Granada was attached to ITV there somehow - I'm not sure of the relationship there. Will we still get Coronation Street? Will it be interrupted?:(
If they paid decent, and let people DO more than just 'read from the script', end users would get better support and people may find the position a bit more fulfilling. Maybe not MUCH more fulfilling, but we won't know as long as people are only allowed to read from scripts, will we?
People won't use Linux unless they hear about it being used successfully elsewhere, and that other folks are happy with it. To get that sort of word out, you have to trumpet the successes. This alerts your competitors, and they try to undercut you.
But it wasn't being used successfully elsewhere (Mexico, in this case). It was potentially going to be used. They weren't using Linux for everything - they were talking about it. And people made a huge stink about them talking about it. *IF* this played a part in 'alerting' MS to the Mexico situation, it's a shame.
However, MS is not stupid, and I'm sure they have their finger on the pulse of various markets and know when best to go in for deals which maximize the benefit to them (while maximizing the loss to competing technologies).
That's actually what I have, except I paid over $200 at the time I got it. I actually saw it for $108 at circuit city, with a $100 rebate (total = $8 !!!).
It's still intended as a phone with PDA stuff in it, and the zaurus is a PDA, with potentially a phone add-on (not sure, but I know it doesn't come with one).
The new zaurus keyboard on their latest is, imo, much more useful. I realize this is a 'phone' with PDA capabilities second, but it seems that these things are converging more quickly and if someone would keep all capabilities equal (PDA v phone v whatever else) the ultimate handheld device would be the outcome.
Funny enough, a new slackware box last summer did exactly that when I tried to perl mCPAN stuff. Something wasn't where it thought, so it downloaded and installed the entire perl 5.6 stuff, which is not what I had on there initially and not what I wanted. It ended up overwriting some of the other perl stuff, so now I simply don't use any perl on that box. Quite a shame.:(
If you build a system *and* contractually agree that they own it, then yes. If I build something, then simply license it to a government agency that agrees to license it per my terms, they do not own it.
The government doesn't own SQL Server, DB2, Oracle or other databases. They aren't written specifically for the government, granted, but something my company writes may be written in such a way as to keep the base system ours and/or open, and the customizations specific to the agency would become their property.
We ended up NOT responding to an RFP recently precisely because it was too expensive to do so. Part of our response would have been the inclusion and customization of GPL and other open source software, but the RFP seemed to discourage that.
It also seemed to discourage critical reading.
Here's a sample of some questions which needed addressing (keep in mind that the RFP was really designed to get services out of people, because regardless of what anyone was saying, *everything* needed to be customized):
Question #4 What OS does your product run on?
Question #15 What operating systems do you support?
Question #23 We require products to run on NT and/or AIX.
The last question there wasn't even a *QUESTION* - it was a statement. This was a rather large organization, and to not even be able to write a coherent document spoke volumes about the potential crap we'd have had to dealt with. I felt like replying that yes, our product runs on NT (3.51) just to get a reaction, but I doubt it would have been received well.:)
Don't let some projects get in for free and require others to charge. You're letting politics get into a process which should be inherently apolitical. Good UI design isn't dependant on the license of code. If something is dual-licensed, would it get half off?
Furthermore, as we've seen discussed, good UI can take a lot of development, intellectual, graphic, and otherwise. A company that has paid for that shouldn't be penalized further by having to pay *more* than a competing project which can further copy the ideas and interface of the first project after the first has been 'certified'.
Keep a fee structure in place which is small, but will help cover the costs of the certification process. The certification process should be independant of politics as much as possible.
If you want more help on developing this idea, please contact me at michael@tapinternet.com or 734-480-9961.
Of all things, why this here? If my company wrote something that would be sold to a government agency (say, our lovely Michigan) the *last* thing I'd want to do is GPL it, because there's another potential 49 states that could use the same software. If it's GPL'd, there'd be nothing to stop Michigan from reselling it to the other 49 states, cutting us out.
Does everyone's brain turn off the moment the letters GPL are typed together?
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I see this a lot talking to clients - they're convinced they can treat information processing just like they treat other commodity services/items (photocopiers, etc). When talking to clients, many of them have a 'DIY' approach to save money - outside consultants or expensive employees are often viewed as unncessary. Perhaps one day they will be, but for now, it's a requirement to have someone who knows what they're doing operate these things (in this case, databases). Probably half the time I know people are thinking we're trying to pull one over on them, thinking they don't need someone who knows what they're doing ("Hey, my cousin's business set up a webserver in 10 minutes and they don't even use computers! It can't be that hard!") Sometimes they're right, but at this stage of development, it's still a gamble they *shouldn't* take.
One of the nice things I've noticed about MySQL (having used MSSQL as well) is that I can have MySQL prevent people from connecting based on IP addresses, even if they have the proper username/password credentials. I could never find a way to do this in MSSQL - is there a way of doing this? Yes, it's not perfect, but it's definitely a nice extra that MySQL offers which I've not seen in MSSQL. Again, if it can be done, someone let me know.
Also, why does the SQL Server run at all without a password? IIRC in the latest versions the installation prompts you for an 'sa' password to set, but earlier ones didn't do that. Why not just disable the program - when running it having a popup say 'hey - I won't run unless you set a password!' and be done with these types of 'holes' (yes, it's really just lazy admins, but the computer should be doing more thinking for me at this level - perhaps Clippit could bounce up and demand a password be set?)
How can using linux halve the cost of a computer lab when the cost of operating system software is typically $100 per machine or less and the cost of hardware is typically $800 or more?
The 'retail' cost of Windows XP is $299 ( no upgrade, just raw price ). There is a volume licensing program but this doesn't give prices out.
'Retail' for Office XP for Students/Teachers is $149.
Assume they give a 60+% discount on XP, the total for both is $249. Hardware is cheap - WalMart is selling naked PCs for $399. The price of the 'standard' MS software which people expect is more than 50% of the cost of new hardware.
"Fork" always seemed to me to have the idea that someone took code and changed it to make it do something different. In this case, they're taking the openoffice.org codebase and adding extra pieces before they package/ship it.
Taking a project and adding extra graphics, templates and a manual doesn't feel like a 'fork' to me. From what I understand, as code changes in the openoffice.org project, that'll make it's way into future star offices too. 'Fork' would imply that they would only be doing their own development on that entire codebase from now on, and I don't think that's the case.
When is the last time you've heard people say "oh you can lose a few million this year, just be nice to everyone"
Explain how *NOT* swapping the Organization header would lose them money? They are changing something that they didn't do previously - at best, they may speculatively make a bit more money. It certainly cost them something to do this (maybe only $50 to have someone change something on their NNTP software, and maybe another $100,000 in executive salaries to have meetings about it) but it's at best an unknown amount of money they may generate because of this.
I'd have thought it would have made more sense to add an extra X-header, or tack on RoadRunner at the end of the existing X-header info.
X-Organization: Joe's Place (via RoadRunner)
or something similar. To just replace it full stop is strange, to say the least.
My theory is they are doing this because of the way search engines archive news postings has a ranking on what posts contains links to what URLs and names, this will make RoadRunner appear much more 'popular' in services like google and teoma. However, this will also have a detrimental search engine effect on the very customers RR is supposedly serving, and should cause them to leave (at least a few who realize what's going on). Again, if this is the case, is it worth losing a few customers to potentially gain more (short v long term)? Probably.
My understanding was that it was a spec, not software itself. Am I wrong? Or was this Sun's implementation (software) of the J2EE spec?
I just checked out neighborspace.com (the 'ghosttown' mentioned). It looks like it's just a big clunky bulletin board system, nothing else. It's webX, I think, which wasn't cheap when I looked at it years ago (probably when neighborspace.com started).
Did they expect massive success by taking a bulletin board and putting (arguably) ugly graphics on it? It seems to only be catering to a small geopgraphic area, but the domain name seems to indicate it would be for a wider audience.
Would you want to live in a society where everything was run on only those databases? What are the key differences between the RH offering and postgres itself (besides the $2k price tag)?
Sorry, as much as I encourage the use of free software, if those were the only options, and there was no room for an Oracle or DB2 or SQL2000, regardless of technical merit, I wouldn't live there.
Thank you - that makes a lot of sense. It's good to see some rationality there. There simply aren't *free* alternatives to every proprietary system out there, but mandating that people at least *consider* free alternatives first when they do exist is, imo, generally a good thing.
Because I asked what they will use, not what they are aware of. I'm aware of many technologies that I don't use. Yes, they may fit my ideology, but they don't meet my technical requirements. As much as people want to believe in the power of MySQL and Postgres, it will be foolish to think you can run an entire government on those two database technologies alone. Yes, with enough investment of resources over time they may fit the bill, but they won't cut the mustard for every single application a government needs to run at this point in time.
All I saw mysql mentioned in reference to was an example of a product that has multiple licensing models, not something that they plan on using specifically.
Someone who still has a 386 with Win 3.1, for example, could browse with IE3 or so - not perfect, but then again, neither is browsing with lynx or konqueror either (konq ESP on a 386).
This isn't meant as a troll - but if, as I gather, a requirement for using software in the Peruvian government be that the sourcecode is publicly available, what databases will fulfill their needs? For that matter, air traffic control systems and military systems? Or do certain elements of the government get an exemption if they can show no 'free' software exists to fulfill a specific need?
WHEW! Thanks for the clarification!
I saw Granada was attached to ITV there somehow - I'm not sure of the relationship there. Will we still get Coronation Street? Will it be interrupted? :(
If they paid decent, and let people DO more than just 'read from the script', end users would get better support and people may find the position a bit more fulfilling. Maybe not MUCH more fulfilling, but we won't know as long as people are only allowed to read from scripts, will we?
People won't use Linux unless they hear about it being used successfully elsewhere, and that other folks are happy with it. To get that sort of word out, you have to trumpet the successes. This alerts your competitors, and they try to undercut you.
But it wasn't being used successfully elsewhere (Mexico, in this case). It was potentially going to be used. They weren't using Linux for everything - they were talking about it. And people made a huge stink about them talking about it. *IF* this played a part in 'alerting' MS to the Mexico situation, it's a shame.
However, MS is not stupid, and I'm sure they have their finger on the pulse of various markets and know when best to go in for deals which maximize the benefit to them (while maximizing the loss to competing technologies).
That's actually what I have, except I paid over $200 at the time I got it. I actually saw it for $108 at circuit city, with a $100 rebate (total = $8 !!!).
It's still intended as a phone with PDA stuff in it, and the zaurus is a PDA, with potentially a phone add-on (not sure, but I know it doesn't come with one).
The new zaurus keyboard on their latest is, imo, much more useful. I realize this is a 'phone' with PDA capabilities second, but it seems that these things are converging more quickly and if someone would keep all capabilities equal (PDA v phone v whatever else) the ultimate handheld device would be the outcome.
Funny enough, a new slackware box last summer did exactly that when I tried to perl mCPAN stuff. Something wasn't where it thought, so it downloaded and installed the entire perl 5.6 stuff, which is not what I had on there initially and not what I wanted. It ended up overwriting some of the other perl stuff, so now I simply don't use any perl on that box. Quite a shame. :(
If you build a system *and* contractually agree that they own it, then yes. If I build something, then simply license it to a government agency that agrees to license it per my terms, they do not own it.
The government doesn't own SQL Server, DB2, Oracle or other databases. They aren't written specifically for the government, granted, but something my company writes may be written in such a way as to keep the base system ours and/or open, and the customizations specific to the agency would become their property.
We ended up NOT responding to an RFP recently precisely because it was too expensive to do so. Part of our response would have been the inclusion and customization of GPL and other open source software, but the RFP seemed to discourage that.
:)
It also seemed to discourage critical reading.
Here's a sample of some questions which needed addressing (keep in mind that the RFP was really designed to get services out of people, because regardless of what anyone was saying, *everything* needed to be customized):
Question #4
What OS does your product run on?
Question #15
What operating systems do you support?
Question #23
We require products to run on NT and/or AIX.
The last question there wasn't even a *QUESTION* - it was a statement. This was a rather large organization, and to not even be able to write a coherent document spoke volumes about the potential crap we'd have had to dealt with. I felt like replying that yes, our product runs on NT (3.51) just to get a reaction, but I doubt it would have been received well.
Don't let some projects get in for free and require others to charge. You're letting politics get into a process which should be inherently apolitical. Good UI design isn't dependant on the license of code. If something is dual-licensed, would it get half off?
Furthermore, as we've seen discussed, good UI can take a lot of development, intellectual, graphic, and otherwise. A company that has paid for that shouldn't be penalized further by having to pay *more* than a competing project which can further copy the ideas and interface of the first project after the first has been 'certified'.
Keep a fee structure in place which is small, but will help cover the costs of the certification process. The certification process should be independant of politics as much as possible.
If you want more help on developing this idea, please contact me at michael@tapinternet.com or 734-480-9961.
Of all things, why this here? If my company wrote something that would be sold to a government agency (say, our lovely Michigan) the *last* thing I'd want to do is GPL it, because there's another potential 49 states that could use the same software. If it's GPL'd, there'd be nothing to stop Michigan from reselling it to the other 49 states, cutting us out.
Does everyone's brain turn off the moment the letters GPL are typed together?
Doesn't sound like a very good management system which hires 15 people to do the work of 3.