You missed the really 'big merge' earlier. I've seen the 'further merging' for a number of kernel releases, but it looks like it's getting stepped up even more now.
I think there's a couple differences between this pattern of kernel releases and MS service packs.
These don't seem to break programs that previously worked - at least the ones I've used.
Second, no one requires or even 'urges' you to use the 'latest' Linux kernel. You will still get support from people for earlier versions. When a program misbehaves the default 'solution' won't be to go to the next kernel.
The same is less true of the MS approach. If you're not using *at least* SP4 on NT4, I think people'd roll their eyes at you and you'd get a round of suggestions to apply the latest SP. I've not seen the same in the Linux community. Yeah, recent kernels are cool, but unless there's a true NEED for your apps to have new kernel features, the attitude I see from many is 'if it's working, don't touch it'.
Holders of Internet mailboxes pay real costs --
money, time and other resources -- for each and
every e-mail message they receive. It is immoral not
only to force them to pay to receive unsolicited
messages, but also to insist that they either manually
filter or use special filtering software to avoid reading
e-mail they never consented to receive, either
implicitly or explicitly.
Is it immoral that telemarketers call me? It costs me time to answer the phone - but that's what caller ID is for. Is it immoral that people come knocking at my door for charity fundraising? Perhaps, but that's what a peephole is for.
Suddenly it's IMMORAL to send an email to someone who didn't 'request' it? And their response is to stop people from getting stuff that they DID request (URLs)? I don't get it.
Who elected these people to dictate the morality of the internet? I certainly don't subscribe to their version of morality, and the heavy-handed imposition of this worldview is unacceptable behaviour, imo.
I suggest more people start using IMAP servers and clients, and avoid downloading 500 pieces of junk - delete it right at the server.
What is meant by 'anonymous access'?
on
Congress@Work
·
· Score: 3
Per my reading of the text (not complete, but not finished yet either) the authors don't spell out what constitues 'anonymous' access. If I send you email from 72946@yahoo.com, that's a name, but seems pretty 'anonymous' to the receiver. Will schools have to block access to Yahoo! and other services?
"...require schools and libraries receiving universal service assistance to block access to Internet services that enable users to access the World Wide Web and transfer electronic mail in an anonymous manner. "
OK, wait...
"...is enforcing a policy regarding anonymous Internet connection that includes the operation of a technology protection measure with respect to any of its computers with Internet access that prevents use of such computers to access an online privacy service that enables a user
`(I) to send electronic mail anonymously; or
`(II) to access the World Wide Web anonymously;
What I'm seeing here is that they want schools to prevent students/users from accessing anonymizing services. Hardly the 'who is emailing our kids act'. This is far more 'don't let our kids even think of being able to anonymously do ANYTHING on our systems' act. Perhaps a valid piece of legislation, if you consider what liabilities schools may have for who's using their equipment. But PLEASE - let's get the motives right here - this isn't PROTECTING children at all - it's preventing them from anonymizing their actitivies.
When you're dealing with other businesses, and one of them sends you a file in Word97, and you're in Word95, you have to upgrade to (1) see the "extrat" formatting he has in there (by default often) and (2) make the changes you need to and send it back to him looking the same way, with your additions.
The average person you're doing business with ain't gonna put up with you hacking their presentation. And saying "Save in Word95 or RTF please" - doesn't work. Word throws errors up warning of formatting stuff that may be 'lost' if you save in an older format. Whether or not your document contains any of those enhancements is beside the point - it warns you, and that's enough to scare people off it.
Bottom line - you upgrade to keep up with the others you deal with who upgraded and don't like to be pushed out of their comfort zone.
i had to reread some of this cause I wasn't sure what you were saying the first time.
You're suggesting that focusing on providing hardware drivers for linux to support various retail industry-specifics hardware pieces is "off the mark"? You wrote "of the mark" but I figured you meant "off the mark". If so, please explain. Support for those devices which people already use (and are getting quite friendly yet sophisticated) is crucial, I think.
"It is hard to consider a 'closed' operating system such as the one M$ sells, with its fixed menu of supported devices and drivers, a viable alternative to an 'open' OS that allows retailers to exploit the latest in security and surveillance devices that are needed in an environment where the employees are out to 'steal you blind' if you do not have them."
I don't know why it's so hard to consider that MS stuff makes sense for people. An end retailer isn't concerned about open-v-closed. Actually, say 'closed source' and it sounds great - something the employees can't get in to, cause it's not 'open'. Large corporate retailers might be different, but the average mom and pop shop looking for a cash regsiter/inventory/accounting package - they won't concern themselves with 'open' or 'closed' so much as 'easy' and 'difficult'. If it's Windows, it will SEEM easier to set up. This won't change until there are a number of large scale POS systems with real-world examples of Linux being used in the POS arena. At that stage it's not Linux anymore, just a piece of software doing it's job. It it works, and is easy, they'll use it. If people rant on about open v closed instead of simply making a turnkey system that someone can plug in and run with, Linux will never make inroads into this or any other market in any siginifant way.
When the paper was PUBLISHED - Feb 15, 2001 - January 17, 2001 was pretty darn recent. Consider that it wasn't even written on the 15th, but in the weeks preceding that, it was even more fresh in peoples' minds.
The paper contains some valid points - and some points that are only partially valid.
Lack of drivers - this is and will continue to be a problem for Linux - and any non-Windows systems. They're specifically talking about the retail industry. Custom cash registers, scanners/bar code readers, etc. Until 'niche' device manufacturers release their hardware specs, the Linux camp will always be behind schedule. If reverse-engineering legislation was created to 'protect' device manufacturers, people might not even legally be allowed to write drivers for Linux, even if it would be a net increase in sales to the manufacturer.
Dev tools - this one is always coming along, I know, but there aren't many big name flashy dev tools for Linux. Yes, I know, they generally aren't needed, but this is a perception case which may never be won. Mid-level managers can at least *look* at MSVS, and get an idea of what's going on when they look over the shoulder of their developers. Looking at someone in vi just isn't as interesting. Again - this is perception we're talking about. Doesn't matter if I can do something in 5 minutes that takes an MSVS user 2 hours - perception will be that it's 'easier' to program for Windows, at least in most peoples' minds (generally the people who AREN'T doing the coding!)
Compatibility - I've lost track of how many cool looking apps I download from freshmeat or sourceforge that simply won't compile. I've had stock RH5.2, 6.1, Slackware, Suse, Mandrake and Caldera installs. They've ALL had problems running stuff. DEVELOPERS - either TEST your stuff on stock installs, or GIVE EXPLICIT instructions about how it was compiled. You will reduce frustration time (and possible tossing of Linux altogether) if people are at least clued in about if it's their fault or your code's fault if it doesn't compile/work right.
LESS SECURE - Windows itself may be secure, but a network app like IIS surely isn't that secure 'by default'. Installations in 1999 STILL being set to parse.IDC and.HTX files BY DEFAULT? I don't think so. For all the 'wizard' based approach of MS stuff, I'd have thought they'd have been able to give you a few installtion options besides 'typical' and 'custom'. Follow that up with the ".printer" ISAPI filter installed by default with IIS5/Win2K and the recent exploit. BY DEFAULT, a typical installation is not secure, imo. I've no doubt they CAN be secure - I've seen some, but it often takes extra hardware and learning time. READ- it's not 'free', and translates into a higher TCO than MS would have you believe. Possibly higher than Linux.:)
Increased development costs - red herring, imo. "Since there are not large numbers of developers familiar with Linux development already, you will have to spend some extra money getting them the training they need. "
I don't think there are too many companies yet clamoring to jump into linux based on management directives. Management may approve, but the push for Linux seems to come from the ground troops - developers. This may change over time, but right now, there won't be many developers choosing/asking/begging to work on a system they don't understand. Conclusion: any company embracing linux is most likely doing so at the behest of their developers, and as such, 'increased labor/training costs' is a non-issue. They're already (at least mostly) trained, either from other projects or self-taught.
BTW -
Was this a translated document? What the heck does "Microsoft is also driving better security with its customers than Linux is doing" mean?
I don't see what I do as so horribly wrong. I buy about three CDs per month, and I use about two BMG subscriptions per year, so I am legally purchasing between 30 and 50 CDs per year, which is a very significant portion of my income
It's my understanding that BMG and other record clubs don't pay the artists for those albums, but chalk them up as a marketing expense. I could be wrong, but I thought I remembered reading that. Doesn't really matter how many you buy - you're still taking stuff that isn't yours. My own use of Napster has been pretty limited to searching out bootlegs and live copies of stuff that I CAN'T buy, but even then, I'm pretty hypocritical.:)
And applications? Some applications can be priced at up to $600 for a single CD. As if someone of college age has $600 to spend on a CD. I suggest that some of these applications drop in price -- like down to $60. There we go!
As many other people pointed out, you get college discounts. One of the guys who used to work here had a son in college - he got MS Office for something like $50. The guy here was asking why we didn't use Office. I told him what it costs for me as a small business owner to go buy it retail. He said I should just go to the university and try to buy the $50 copy.
Further to the point, however, is that just because you can't afford it doesn't mean it should be cheaper. Do you have any idea how long it might have taken to develop that $600 package? It's not priced on a whim - generally there's some research or surveying of the marketplace to see what they can charge, but there's a cost of development that has to be recouped as well.
Some applications can be priced at up to $600 for a single CD.
DON'T USE THE SOFTWARE THEN. Is there some mandate in your life that you HAVE to use that package? Will your existance end if you don't? It's probably geared toward a business. When you start working for one, if they have a need to use that package, they will provide it for you.
For goodness' sake, there's too much good FREE stuff out there already - free in the legal sense - to whine about high-priced stuff. If you want the $600 package, get a job, save your money, and buy it.
Not everyone has the TIME to be 'patient' as you say. It's really as simple as that. End users shouldn't have to spend 30 minutes reading some half-assed 'man' page put together by someone a few years ago to figure out how to compile something. You probably wouldn't give those same people 'root' privileges on your box, so don't expect them to be able to compile and install crap on their own either.
Actually, we did in fact notify the competition there was a problem. We did not get a reply until we contacted the client directly notifying them that they should contact their vendor.
Yes we do know this - the NT/ASP issue was that there are some extremely well-known OLD (>1 year old) hacks known against this configuration, which require about 5 seconds of 'hacking' (if you can call it that).
The deeper story in this situation is that we weren't directly following up on a lost bid - we were following up on something else, stumbled on this security hole, and found that a lost bid was affected. So we weren't directly probing them right after the fact, it was somewhat incidental to some other stuff that we were doing.
The whole thing is a toss up, in the end. What works for some doesn't work for others. What types of projects are you working on? If it's all reusable code you develop internally, a staff competent in one platform is more important than the outside factors.
I've seen people develop rudimentary things quickly in both languages, and I've seen complex apps take a long time in both. I've not seen people develop something significantly FASTER in one language vs. the other. If something's going to take 4 days to do, after analysis of the problem, it'll probably take roughly 4 days in either language - there's testing, debugging, etc. no matter what choice you make.
Perl has the obvious advantage of portability. At the end of the day, that may end up being the most important should you need to migrate platforms for some reason.
Honestly, for all the back-patting Linux and OpenSource people do, they/we are still in a hard position with the 'average joe/jane' out there.
If you point out the flaws in MS stuff, you're 'biased'. The louder you shout, the more you turn people off. If you are calm, and simply point out the 'benefits' of open source, you end up sounding like an MS commercial.
"Improved uptime, better security, more stability, etc".
Sounds like those MS commercials where they show the machines in the server room silently chugging away.
IMO, the biggest benefit is actual real-world examples, but as you can't even publish benchmarks these days from the big boys, even that becomes hard to do in a large, public manner.
Showing that you can get the same, or better, performance from open source technologies as closed, WITH a better price tag (long term and short term) is probably the best way, but it's also a longer 'education' process to take people through.
It may not be distributed on as many systems currently, but that may change. Actually, most hosting companies I've dealt with use PHP as a CGI, not mod_php, so they must have the/usr/bin/php someplace, but they may not make it available to you that way (they probably don't give you shell access anyway).
If you're bouncing from system to system, yeah, Perl will probably be more of a constant right now. But my guess is that many admins that have PHP on their box would either have it as a CGI, or give you access to it anyway - it's actually easier to make PHP safe in a multiuser environment that way than mod_php, imo.
Actually, it's not terribly new, afaik. I was using it a couple years ago at least, so I know it's not 'new'. I'm not sure if it was available like that in PHP2, but from mid versions of 3 on I can attest that it's been like that.
R
PEAR is becoming a good alternative to DBI - not there yet, but...
What the hell is wrong with the PHP interpreter?
#!/usr/bin/perl is OK but
#!/usr/bin/php is 'hokey' ?
I don't have to redo my PHP modules in Perl to use them 'outside of the web' as you say. I simply include() them and use them. Doesn't seem a whole lot different from Perl, from where I'm sitting.
Show me please. I did see one reference to an article that had a VBScript example of this, but can't find it. Every other article I see shows how to do it with a third party componenet. Perhaps this is different in ASP3/W2k, but I've not heard definitively.
If your example is the VBScript code, two strikes against it. One, it's not terribly standard. I worked at a web integrator that was 95% MS and only two people there even KNEW about the VBScript method, and both wouldn't use it, not let us use it, because of stability and security questions (didn't have time to test and audit it, and if a component broke from someone else we could at least call them up and bitch about it).
The second strike is just that it leaves MS shops without 'support' (see above). I realize not all shops were/are like where I was, but the attitude seems prevalent enough from other MS people I've talked to ("come on, it's just a few bucks", etc.)
Re:This feature list makes me very happy...
on
Samba 2.2.0 Released
·
· Score: 2
Look also for freetds. The latest version is supposed to support SQL2k, and we hope to be testing it soon against that. It's worked fine for SQL7 for the past 6 months here, and the author has been very helpful when we've needed it.:)
I have had proposals approved with the condition that I use a stable, mature and commercially supported development environment. They want VB or ASP over PHP and perl.
Commercially supported, I can almost agree with. But "stable" and "mature"? Perl has YEARS on VBScript - probably VB itself for that matter, but I don't go back that far in VB or Perl history. PHP's earliest incarnation was out and running before MS even had a webserver, if memory serves me correctly.
Again, the commercially supported aspect almost makes sense. But if that's the main hold up, use IBM - they are getting behind open source projects, and no doubt offer support services. And I think IBM is a bit more 'stable' and 'mature' than MS.
Paperdisk.com was doing this a while ago, but instead of slashes they used standard squares. Neat idea all the same. Not sure of practical use for most places as a real backup system, and too cumbersome for transporting data, imo. But neat nonetheless. Perhaps people could use this stuff in stationary, and embed company/personal info in the letterhead, scannable by their customers and clients.
It's a troll, but there's probably sincerity behind it...
"We provide ISP services, using Microsoft products. As a result of this we recently got a multimillion dollar contract. "
If you believe this, you've got larger problems than MS or non-MS issues. You didn't get that project because you use MS product. You got it because someone was convinced you could solve their problems. That's it. They may feel comfortable that MS will solve their issues, and you're the ones to handle it, but the moment something comes up that your GUI can't handle, and you can't deliver the goods, there will be trouble.
You got a multimillion dollar contract, but you can't afford a fulltime unix guy. Not even a parttime unix guy? A parttime college unix hacker? They gotta be cheaper than a fulltime Windows admin/salesguy. Come on!
"knowing unix". I find this strange. The internet was built around common protocols, and primarily on unix-flavored systems. It's only been in the past few years that MS has gotten into the game. And you've publicly posted that you got a multimillion dollar contract (presumably involving ISP services) and you don't have anyone on staff who knows much about internet services beyond MS stuff? Again, you will have problems at some point - probably soon.
China's GDP is, I would think, far more a product of their oppressive government than anything to do with 'sharing'. The open source world has already proven that sharing things can lead to fantastic products (bind/sendmail/etc.). Without the rise of DNS services and email programs, often based on open source/sharing philosophies, the internet would not have taken off as much as it did - you owe your existence to open source software far more than MS - far more than you know it.
Who said no one makes money in open source? We deal primarily in open source software and are doing just fine thank you.
I'm not sure a few companies making 'pits of money' as you put it is terribly good for the country in the first place, and by limiting your view to 'the country' (presumably the US) you are exhibiting extreme narrow mindedness when it comes to the global view of things. Keep pushing your MS solutions - that's fine. What do you do when people CAN'T afford it? YOU can't compete - not when one (legal) license costs as much as a village earns in a week.
Over the last week there have been unsuccessful attempts made to hack into DoubleClick's servers. Those situations were immediately corrected," said Jules Polonetsky, Chief Privacy Officer, DoubleClick.
If the attempts were unsuccessful, what needed to be corrected. If my firewall is blocking ports, people will be unsuccessful at hitting my site, and nothing needs to be corrected. I don't get it.
Correct, the two aren't equivalent. But, that's from a 'programmer's' perspective. From an employer's perspective, ASP=VBScript. I got severely chastised at an employer once for doing a few ASP pages in JScript. The company standardized on VBScript, so just cause you could do it in JScript didn't matter. I may as well have written in in TCL, as far as the mgt was concerned, because no one else there knew JScript. I think the overwhelming majority of code examples and books you'll see covering "ASP" focus on VBScript, furthering the perception, which can become reality for many.
Slashdot Mirror
111.222.333.444.555.666 That would give, to my math, 256^6, or 281 trillion, IP addresses. 281,474,976,710,656 to be exact.
-pre1: - Alan Cox: big merge
You missed the really 'big merge' earlier. I've seen the 'further merging' for a number of kernel releases, but it looks like it's getting stepped up even more now.
I think there's a couple differences between this pattern of kernel releases and MS service packs.
These don't seem to break programs that previously worked - at least the ones I've used.
Second, no one requires or even 'urges' you to use the 'latest' Linux kernel. You will still get support from people for earlier versions. When a program misbehaves the default 'solution' won't be to go to the next kernel.
The same is less true of the MS approach. If you're not using *at least* SP4 on NT4, I think people'd roll their eyes at you and you'd get a round of suggestions to apply the latest SP. I've not seen the same in the Linux community. Yeah, recent kernels are cool, but unless there's a true NEED for your apps to have new kernel features, the attitude I see from many is 'if it's working, don't touch it'.
Holders of Internet mailboxes pay real costs -- money, time and other resources -- for each and every e-mail message they receive. It is immoral not only to force them to pay to receive unsolicited messages, but also to insist that they either manually filter or use special filtering software to avoid reading e-mail they never consented to receive, either implicitly or explicitly.
Is it immoral that telemarketers call me? It costs me time to answer the phone - but that's what caller ID is for. Is it immoral that people come knocking at my door for charity fundraising? Perhaps, but that's what a peephole is for.
Suddenly it's IMMORAL to send an email to someone who didn't 'request' it? And their response is to stop people from getting stuff that they DID request (URLs)? I don't get it.
Who elected these people to dictate the morality of the internet? I certainly don't subscribe to their version of morality, and the heavy-handed imposition of this worldview is unacceptable behaviour, imo.
I suggest more people start using IMAP servers and clients, and avoid downloading 500 pieces of junk - delete it right at the server.
Per my reading of the text (not complete, but not finished yet either) the authors don't spell out what constitues 'anonymous' access. If I send you email from 72946@yahoo.com, that's a name, but seems pretty 'anonymous' to the receiver. Will schools have to block access to Yahoo! and other services?
"...require schools and libraries receiving universal service assistance to block access to Internet services that enable users to access the World Wide Web and transfer electronic mail in an anonymous manner. "
OK, wait...
"...is enforcing a policy regarding anonymous Internet connection that includes the operation of a technology protection measure with respect to any of its computers with Internet access that prevents use of such computers to access an online privacy service that enables a user
`(I) to send electronic mail anonymously; or
`(II) to access the World Wide Web anonymously;
What I'm seeing here is that they want schools to prevent students/users from accessing anonymizing services. Hardly the 'who is emailing our kids act'. This is far more 'don't let our kids even think of being able to anonymously do ANYTHING on our systems' act. Perhaps a valid piece of legislation, if you consider what liabilities schools may have for who's using their equipment. But PLEASE - let's get the motives right here - this isn't PROTECTING children at all - it's preventing them from anonymizing their actitivies.
When you're dealing with other businesses, and one of them sends you a file in Word97, and you're in Word95, you have to upgrade to (1) see the "extrat" formatting he has in there (by default often) and (2) make the changes you need to and send it back to him looking the same way, with your additions. The average person you're doing business with ain't gonna put up with you hacking their presentation. And saying "Save in Word95 or RTF please" - doesn't work. Word throws errors up warning of formatting stuff that may be 'lost' if you save in an older format. Whether or not your document contains any of those enhancements is beside the point - it warns you, and that's enough to scare people off it. Bottom line - you upgrade to keep up with the others you deal with who upgraded and don't like to be pushed out of their comfort zone.
i had to reread some of this cause I wasn't sure what you were saying the first time.
You're suggesting that focusing on providing hardware drivers for linux to support various retail industry-specifics hardware pieces is "off the mark"? You wrote "of the mark" but I figured you meant "off the mark". If so, please explain. Support for those devices which people already use (and are getting quite friendly yet sophisticated) is crucial, I think.
"It is hard to consider a 'closed' operating system such as the one M$ sells, with its fixed menu of supported devices and drivers, a viable alternative to an 'open' OS that allows retailers to exploit the latest in security and surveillance devices that are needed in an environment where the employees are out to 'steal you blind' if you do not have them."
I don't know why it's so hard to consider that MS stuff makes sense for people. An end retailer isn't concerned about open-v-closed. Actually, say 'closed source' and it sounds great - something the employees can't get in to, cause it's not 'open'. Large corporate retailers might be different, but the average mom and pop shop looking for a cash regsiter/inventory/accounting package - they won't concern themselves with 'open' or 'closed' so much as 'easy' and 'difficult'. If it's Windows, it will SEEM easier to set up. This won't change until there are a number of large scale POS systems with real-world examples of Linux being used in the POS arena. At that stage it's not Linux anymore, just a piece of software doing it's job. It it works, and is easy, they'll use it. If people rant on about open v closed instead of simply making a turnkey system that someone can plug in and run with, Linux will never make inroads into this or any other market in any siginifant way.
When the paper was PUBLISHED - Feb 15, 2001 - January 17, 2001 was pretty darn recent. Consider that it wasn't even written on the 15th, but in the weeks preceding that, it was even more fresh in peoples' minds.
The paper contains some valid points - and some points that are only partially valid.
.IDC and .HTX files BY DEFAULT? I don't think so. For all the 'wizard' based approach of MS stuff, I'd have thought they'd have been able to give you a few installtion options besides 'typical' and 'custom'. Follow that up with the ".printer" ISAPI filter installed by default with IIS5/Win2K and the recent exploit. BY DEFAULT, a typical installation is not secure, imo. I've no doubt they CAN be secure - I've seen some, but it often takes extra hardware and learning time. READ- it's not 'free', and translates into a higher TCO than MS would have you believe. Possibly higher than Linux. :)
Lack of drivers - this is and will continue to be a problem for Linux - and any non-Windows systems. They're specifically talking about the retail industry. Custom cash registers, scanners/bar code readers, etc. Until 'niche' device manufacturers release their hardware specs, the Linux camp will always be behind schedule. If reverse-engineering legislation was created to 'protect' device manufacturers, people might not even legally be allowed to write drivers for Linux, even if it would be a net increase in sales to the manufacturer.
Dev tools - this one is always coming along, I know, but there aren't many big name flashy dev tools for Linux. Yes, I know, they generally aren't needed, but this is a perception case which may never be won. Mid-level managers can at least *look* at MSVS, and get an idea of what's going on when they look over the shoulder of their developers. Looking at someone in vi just isn't as interesting. Again - this is perception we're talking about. Doesn't matter if I can do something in 5 minutes that takes an MSVS user 2 hours - perception will be that it's 'easier' to program for Windows, at least in most peoples' minds (generally the people who AREN'T doing the coding!)
Compatibility - I've lost track of how many cool looking apps I download from freshmeat or sourceforge that simply won't compile. I've had stock RH5.2, 6.1, Slackware, Suse, Mandrake and Caldera installs. They've ALL had problems running stuff. DEVELOPERS - either TEST your stuff on stock installs, or GIVE EXPLICIT instructions about how it was compiled. You will reduce frustration time (and possible tossing of Linux altogether) if people are at least clued in about if it's their fault or your code's fault if it doesn't compile/work right.
LESS SECURE - Windows itself may be secure, but a network app like IIS surely isn't that secure 'by default'. Installations in 1999 STILL being set to parse
Increased development costs - red herring, imo. "Since there are not large numbers of developers familiar with Linux development already, you will have to spend some extra money getting them the training they need. "
I don't think there are too many companies yet clamoring to jump into linux based on management directives. Management may approve, but the push for Linux seems to come from the ground troops - developers. This may change over time, but right now, there won't be many developers choosing/asking/begging to work on a system they don't understand. Conclusion: any company embracing linux is most likely doing so at the behest of their developers, and as such, 'increased labor/training costs' is a non-issue. They're already (at least mostly) trained, either from other projects or self-taught.
BTW - Was this a translated document? What the heck does "Microsoft is also driving better security with its customers than Linux is doing" mean?
I don't see what I do as so horribly wrong. I buy about three CDs per month, and I use about two BMG subscriptions per year, so I am legally purchasing between 30 and 50 CDs per year, which is a very significant portion of my income
:)
It's my understanding that BMG and other record clubs don't pay the artists for those albums, but chalk them up as a marketing expense. I could be wrong, but I thought I remembered reading that. Doesn't really matter how many you buy - you're still taking stuff that isn't yours. My own use of Napster has been pretty limited to searching out bootlegs and live copies of stuff that I CAN'T buy, but even then, I'm pretty hypocritical.
And applications? Some applications can be priced at up to $600 for a single CD. As if someone of college age has $600 to spend on a CD. I suggest that some of these applications drop in price -- like down to $60. There we go!
As many other people pointed out, you get college discounts. One of the guys who used to work here had a son in college - he got MS Office for something like $50. The guy here was asking why we didn't use Office. I told him what it costs for me as a small business owner to go buy it retail. He said I should just go to the university and try to buy the $50 copy.
Further to the point, however, is that just because you can't afford it doesn't mean it should be cheaper. Do you have any idea how long it might have taken to develop that $600 package? It's not priced on a whim - generally there's some research or surveying of the marketplace to see what they can charge, but there's a cost of development that has to be recouped as well.
Some applications can be priced at up to $600 for a single CD.
DON'T USE THE SOFTWARE THEN. Is there some mandate in your life that you HAVE to use that package? Will your existance end if you don't? It's probably geared toward a business. When you start working for one, if they have a need to use that package, they will provide it for you.
For goodness' sake, there's too much good FREE stuff out there already - free in the legal sense - to whine about high-priced stuff. If you want the $600 package, get a job, save your money, and buy it.
Not everyone has the TIME to be 'patient' as you say. It's really as simple as that. End users shouldn't have to spend 30 minutes reading some half-assed 'man' page put together by someone a few years ago to figure out how to compile something. You probably wouldn't give those same people 'root' privileges on your box, so don't expect them to be able to compile and install crap on their own either.
Actually, we did in fact notify the competition there was a problem. We did not get a reply until we contacted the client directly notifying them that they should contact their vendor.
Yes we do know this - the NT/ASP issue was that there are some extremely well-known OLD (>1 year old) hacks known against this configuration, which require about 5 seconds of 'hacking' (if you can call it that). The deeper story in this situation is that we weren't directly following up on a lost bid - we were following up on something else, stumbled on this security hole, and found that a lost bid was affected. So we weren't directly probing them right after the fact, it was somewhat incidental to some other stuff that we were doing.
The whole thing is a toss up, in the end. What works for some doesn't work for others. What types of projects are you working on? If it's all reusable code you develop internally, a staff competent in one platform is more important than the outside factors.
I've seen people develop rudimentary things quickly in both languages, and I've seen complex apps take a long time in both. I've not seen people develop something significantly FASTER in one language vs. the other. If something's going to take 4 days to do, after analysis of the problem, it'll probably take roughly 4 days in either language - there's testing, debugging, etc. no matter what choice you make.
Perl has the obvious advantage of portability. At the end of the day, that may end up being the most important should you need to migrate platforms for some reason.
HTH
Honestly, for all the back-patting Linux and OpenSource people do, they/we are still in a hard position with the 'average joe/jane' out there.
If you point out the flaws in MS stuff, you're 'biased'. The louder you shout, the more you turn people off. If you are calm, and simply point out the 'benefits' of open source, you end up sounding like an MS commercial.
"Improved uptime, better security, more stability, etc".
Sounds like those MS commercials where they show the machines in the server room silently chugging away.
IMO, the biggest benefit is actual real-world examples, but as you can't even publish benchmarks these days from the big boys, even that becomes hard to do in a large, public manner.
Showing that you can get the same, or better, performance from open source technologies as closed, WITH a better price tag (long term and short term) is probably the best way, but it's also a longer 'education' process to take people through.
It may not be distributed on as many systems currently, but that may change. Actually, most hosting companies I've dealt with use PHP as a CGI, not mod_php, so they must have the /usr/bin/php someplace, but they may not make it available to you that way (they probably don't give you shell access anyway).
If you're bouncing from system to system, yeah, Perl will probably be more of a constant right now. But my guess is that many admins that have PHP on their box would either have it as a CGI, or give you access to it anyway - it's actually easier to make PHP safe in a multiuser environment that way than mod_php, imo.
Actually, it's not terribly new, afaik. I was using it a couple years ago at least, so I know it's not 'new'. I'm not sure if it was available like that in PHP2, but from mid versions of 3 on I can attest that it's been like that.
R
PEAR is becoming a good alternative to DBI - not there yet, but...
What the hell is wrong with the PHP interpreter?
#!/usr/bin/perl is OK but
#!/usr/bin/php is 'hokey' ? I don't have to redo my PHP modules in Perl to use them 'outside of the web' as you say. I simply include() them and use them. Doesn't seem a whole lot different from Perl, from where I'm sitting.
Show me please. I did see one reference to an article that had a VBScript example of this, but can't find it. Every other article I see shows how to do it with a third party componenet. Perhaps this is different in ASP3/W2k, but I've not heard definitively.
If your example is the VBScript code, two strikes against it. One, it's not terribly standard. I worked at a web integrator that was 95% MS and only two people there even KNEW about the VBScript method, and both wouldn't use it, not let us use it, because of stability and security questions (didn't have time to test and audit it, and if a component broke from someone else we could at least call them up and bitch about it). The second strike is just that it leaves MS shops without 'support' (see above). I realize not all shops were/are like where I was, but the attitude seems prevalent enough from other MS people I've talked to ("come on, it's just a few bucks", etc.)
Look also for freetds. The latest version is supposed to support SQL2k, and we hope to be testing it soon against that. It's worked fine for SQL7 for the past 6 months here, and the author has been very helpful when we've needed it. :)
I have had proposals approved with the condition that I use a stable, mature and commercially supported development environment. They want VB or ASP over PHP and perl.
Commercially supported, I can almost agree with. But "stable" and "mature"? Perl has YEARS on VBScript - probably VB itself for that matter, but I don't go back that far in VB or Perl history. PHP's earliest incarnation was out and running before MS even had a webserver, if memory serves me correctly.
Again, the commercially supported aspect almost makes sense. But if that's the main hold up, use IBM - they are getting behind open source projects, and no doubt offer support services. And I think IBM is a bit more 'stable' and 'mature' than MS.
Paperdisk.com was doing this a while ago, but instead of slashes they used standard squares. Neat idea all the same. Not sure of practical use for most places as a real backup system, and too cumbersome for transporting data, imo. But neat nonetheless. Perhaps people could use this stuff in stationary, and embed company/personal info in the letterhead, scannable by their customers and clients.
It's a troll, but there's probably sincerity behind it...
:)
"We provide ISP services, using Microsoft products. As a result of this we recently got a multimillion dollar contract. "
If you believe this, you've got larger problems than MS or non-MS issues. You didn't get that project because you use MS product. You got it because someone was convinced you could solve their problems. That's it. They may feel comfortable that MS will solve their issues, and you're the ones to handle it, but the moment something comes up that your GUI can't handle, and you can't deliver the goods, there will be trouble.
You got a multimillion dollar contract, but you can't afford a fulltime unix guy. Not even a parttime unix guy? A parttime college unix hacker? They gotta be cheaper than a fulltime Windows admin/salesguy. Come on!
"knowing unix". I find this strange. The internet was built around common protocols, and primarily on unix-flavored systems. It's only been in the past few years that MS has gotten into the game. And you've publicly posted that you got a multimillion dollar contract (presumably involving ISP services) and you don't have anyone on staff who knows much about internet services beyond MS stuff? Again, you will have problems at some point - probably soon.
China's GDP is, I would think, far more a product of their oppressive government than anything to do with 'sharing'. The open source world has already proven that sharing things can lead to fantastic products (bind/sendmail/etc.). Without the rise of DNS services and email programs, often based on open source/sharing philosophies, the internet would not have taken off as much as it did - you owe your existence to open source software far more than MS - far more than you know it.
Who said no one makes money in open source? We deal primarily in open source software and are doing just fine thank you.
I'm not sure a few companies making 'pits of money' as you put it is terribly good for the country in the first place, and by limiting your view to 'the country' (presumably the US) you are exhibiting extreme narrow mindedness when it comes to the global view of things. Keep pushing your MS solutions - that's fine. What do you do when people CAN'T afford it? YOU can't compete - not when one (legal) license costs as much as a village earns in a week.
ending rant...
I was actually thinking this was a real story until I read the line at perl.com about people deciding to use Ruby. I knew it was a hoax at that point.
Over the last week there have been unsuccessful attempts made to hack into DoubleClick's servers. Those situations were immediately corrected," said Jules Polonetsky, Chief Privacy Officer, DoubleClick.
If the attempts were unsuccessful, what needed to be corrected. If my firewall is blocking ports, people will be unsuccessful at hitting my site, and nothing needs to be corrected. I don't get it.
Correct, the two aren't equivalent. But, that's from a 'programmer's' perspective. From an employer's perspective, ASP=VBScript. I got severely chastised at an employer once for doing a few ASP pages in JScript. The company standardized on VBScript, so just cause you could do it in JScript didn't matter. I may as well have written in in TCL, as far as the mgt was concerned, because no one else there knew JScript. I think the overwhelming majority of code examples and books you'll see covering "ASP" focus on VBScript, furthering the perception, which can become reality for many.