Actually, it means if you live in NY you would pay the tax and if you didn't you wouldn't.
This is how online stores already operate, and is why if you live in the same state as the retailer has its physical presence, you have to pay the state taxes.
Other states, such as Virginia for instance, require you to pay state sales tax on any Internet purchase you made that you didn't pay *any* sales tax on -- i.e., if you bought from amazon you have to report it and pay Virginia state sales tax on it.
Why this new NY law is controversial is because Amazon has no physical presence in NY, and NY is targeting a successful company to reap more revenue for its failed social programs.
This my friends is why I'm libertarian, keep the government away from successful business. If I were Amazon I'd say sorry, I'm no longer selling to NY customers (see how fast that law gets repealed). But that would be a bad decision, paying lawyers to get this ridiculous law overturned is much more cost effective than not selling to the state of NY.
I love government and politics. Always in the best interests of everyone.
All the concerns mentioned so far about licensing point to why using OSS at work it's such a good idea. It's freedom b/c users can grab the software they need, and it's free and licensed appropriately for to do commercial work with. It's the reason learning the GIMP is nice, b/c for that occasional image modification/creation that has to be done, no procurement / approval process needs to be gone through (the actual cost of the software normally comes out in the wash, it's all the time/hassle of multiple people that costs the money). Of course this relies on users having admin access, but also points to why I'd love to see Windows ZIPs just containing the binaries necessary to run w/o an install published. Totally worth it.
I use linode for my VPS hosting. Though I only use it for blog/family photos, I love how easy it was to set everything up. Linode only lets you run linux though, but offers a choice of distribution. I use their CentOS 5 build. It comes with persistent storage, and a nice little web console to manage. It's great to play around with, as their cheapest option is $20 a month (I bought when it was at a special and only $10 a month for the lowest option).
Highly recommend it, the guy who runs it is very responsive in the forums, though I have never had a problem (don't think my site gets much traffic though;-)).
Only thing that would potentially prevent me from using VPS for a business though is company-sensitive data. Do you guys who have used VPS for company servers do anything to protect your data? That's the one advantage of having your own hardware that I don't know if any VPS really matches. Who knows, maybe having your own box in someone else's rack gives you the same issue anyways. I think I'm probably just too paranoid:-).
I enjoyed your post quite a bit. However I am confused by a few of your points and I am curious as your thoughts on some points in my original post that you did not address.
What do you think of open sourcing the drivers as it relates to NVIDIA losing intellectual property to it's competitors? One of my long standing gripes with the linux community (I am really trying very hard to understand linux and its community (I've downloaded, installed, and played with numerous distributions)) is that I don't understand why everything must be open source. The concept of information hiding comes to mind... Driver developement is very tedious and painful, it would take someone many long hours to fully understand NVIDIA's code. Is it even worth it to them? It would make more practical sense to go out and buy another card that supports what you want rather than spending numerous hours editing the driver source when you could be making money.
I think I either didn't clarify my point well or you misunderstood what I meant with disciplined software engineering. What frustrates me personally, while looking at all the software being developed under the GPL or open source in general is the amount of code duplication being produced. You want a mail client? Try 50 unfinished products. How about a spell check library...well you have a few unfinished products to choose from. A web browser?? Netscape decided to rewrite it from scratch. Intelligence at work I tell you. Why? Why can't there be one or two really good mail clients for linux instead of 50 unfinished ones? If the movement had more organization, then possibly this would not be occurring. The whole dispute over GTK+ and Qt didn't make much sense...
That is what I meant to say when I referred to Xtreme Programming. Linux developers seem to enjoy re-inventing the wheel, I'm just trying to understand why. After using numerous distributions, it seems to me the main element the linux GUI is lacking is polish. All the other technical elements are there. Polish is not. I have tried to set up a usable workstation enviroment, but I have yet to be more efficient in Linux than I am in Windows. Anyways I am tired and very much rambling by now, so I will get off of my web forum soapbox and return to the rational world. Goodnight:-)
But what community would NVIDIA be receiving "goodwill" from? Only the most extreme GNU 'not free as in beer' evangelists would appreciate NVIDIA open sourcing their drivers. I believe most linux users that own NVIDIA are *more* than satisfied, being that they can run 3d applications, and even Quake 3, and comparable speeds to Windows boxes.
There is a *huge* technological edge to NVIDIA's implementation of OpenlGL for its hardware...just look at the image quality and framerates. NVIDIA implements an *entire* ICD. 3dfx never really was able to do that. ATI has yet to release a decent OpenGL driver. So it would definitely not be in NVIDIA's best interest to release their drivers. Why would you want them anyway? Would you go through them bug hunting? I could care less about my drivers as long as they work well...that's why I buy NVIDIA cards, proven drivers and top of the line hardware.
As far as software engineering not being an engineering discipline, it most definitely is. I am currently learning the trade as an undergrad... However, since argueing with you appears to be as fruitful as attempting to talk to my dog:-), go visit http://www.extremeprogramming.org/ Good stuff about software engineering and building software in general. The linux dev community could really use some material of this nature...it's a shame so many talented programmers don't discipline their work...so much more could be done...
There is not a single good reason from a software engineering point of view for NVIDIA to open source their drivers. Not one. Software engineering is not a religion, it is an engineering discipline. General users of an operating system should not need to have the source code for their drivers. NVIDIA is more than capable of producing very good drivers and distributing the source code would only give its competition valuable information and algorithms. When you have such a high technological edge with drivers (just look how bad ATIs are), why give it away? Why give millions of dollars of research away to competition for free? Why should I, as ATI, even *bother* with driver research and development if NVIDIA, the current market leader, *gives* it away? I mean really, think a little bit...get off the pathetic and completely useless tangent of NVIDIA or other big software companies releasing their software under open source. NVIDIA is supporting linux, and quite well it seems from Tom's Hardware benchmarks, they are quite close to windows framerates with the only reason that's holding them back being XFree86. The GNU movement is all about re-inventing the wheel.
You said you fear for the 3d revolution because of NVIDIA's closed source drivers under linux. That is so blatantly narrow view. You do not take *any* factors into account. NVIDIA has continually broken 3d barriers with their hardware, they have continually produced excellent products with exceptional drivers. It appears you comments were not based on anything rational...
WSP has a very serious flaw in their logic. If Netscape pulled their 4.x browser off the market, web developers would write to one browser and one browser only...what does that mean?, it means that developers would use all of Microsoft's proprietary tags/technologies and become ingrained in them. Then there would be no hope of web standards. NN4 forces developers to write to the lowest common denominator, keeping standards hopes alive, even though it may drive developers nuts (personal experience confirms this:-0). IE5 may be a better browser, but once Mozilla comes out, developers can distribute it as a platform and target anyone. (Mozilla will never overtake IE in marketshare, it will be utilized primarily in developing true cross-platform solutions since it runs on many different platforms). Notice how web standards affect none of this.
WSP has a very serious flaw in their logic. If Netscape pulled their 4.x browser off the market, web developers would write to one browser and one browser only...what does that mean?, it means that developers would use all of Microsoft's proprietary tags/technologies and become ingrained in them. Then there would be no hope of web standards. NN4 forces developers to write to the lowest common denominator, keeping standards hopes alive, even though it may drive developers nuts (personal experience confirms this:-0). IE5 may be a better browser, but once Mozilla comes out, developers can distribute it as a platform and target anyone. (Mozilla will never overtake IE in marketshare, it will be utilized primarily in developing true cross-platform solutions since it runs on many different platforms). Notice how web standards affect none of this.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it means if you live in NY you would pay the tax and if you didn't you wouldn't.
This is how online stores already operate, and is why if you live in the same state as the retailer has its physical presence, you have to pay the state taxes.
Other states, such as Virginia for instance, require you to pay state sales tax on any Internet purchase you made that you didn't pay *any* sales tax on -- i.e., if you bought from amazon you have to report it and pay Virginia state sales tax on it.
Why this new NY law is controversial is because Amazon has no physical presence in NY, and NY is targeting a successful company to reap more revenue for its failed social programs.
This my friends is why I'm libertarian, keep the government away from successful business. If I were Amazon I'd say sorry, I'm no longer selling to NY customers (see how fast that law gets repealed). But that would be a bad decision, paying lawyers to get this ridiculous law overturned is much more cost effective than not selling to the state of NY.
I love government and politics. Always in the best interests of everyone.
All the concerns mentioned so far about licensing point to why using OSS at work it's such a good idea. It's freedom b/c users can grab the software they need, and it's free and licensed appropriately for to do commercial work with. It's the reason learning the GIMP is nice, b/c for that occasional image modification/creation that has to be done, no procurement / approval process needs to be gone through (the actual cost of the software normally comes out in the wash, it's all the time/hassle of multiple people that costs the money). Of course this relies on users having admin access, but also points to why I'd love to see Windows ZIPs just containing the binaries necessary to run w/o an install published. Totally worth it.
I use linode for my VPS hosting. Though I only use it for blog/family photos, I love how easy it was to set everything up. Linode only lets you run linux though, but offers a choice of distribution. I use their CentOS 5 build. It comes with persistent storage, and a nice little web console to manage. It's great to play around with, as their cheapest option is $20 a month (I bought when it was at a special and only $10 a month for the lowest option).
;-)).
:-).
Highly recommend it, the guy who runs it is very responsive in the forums, though I have never had a problem (don't think my site gets much traffic though
Only thing that would potentially prevent me from using VPS for a business though is company-sensitive data. Do you guys who have used VPS for company servers do anything to protect your data? That's the one advantage of having your own hardware that I don't know if any VPS really matches. Who knows, maybe having your own box in someone else's rack gives you the same issue anyways. I think I'm probably just too paranoid
What do you think of open sourcing the drivers as it relates to NVIDIA losing intellectual property to it's competitors? One of my long standing gripes with the linux community (I am really trying very hard to understand linux and its community (I've downloaded, installed, and played with numerous distributions)) is that I don't understand why everything must be open source. The concept of information hiding comes to mind... Driver developement is very tedious and painful, it would take someone many long hours to fully understand NVIDIA's code. Is it even worth it to them? It would make more practical sense to go out and buy another card that supports what you want rather than spending numerous hours editing the driver source when you could be making money.
I think I either didn't clarify my point well or you misunderstood what I meant with disciplined software engineering. What frustrates me personally, while looking at all the software being developed under the GPL or open source in general is the amount of code duplication being produced. You want a mail client? Try 50 unfinished products. How about a spell check library...well you have a few unfinished products to choose from. A web browser?? Netscape decided to rewrite it from scratch. Intelligence at work I tell you. Why? Why can't there be one or two really good mail clients for linux instead of 50 unfinished ones? If the movement had more organization, then possibly this would not be occurring. The whole dispute over GTK+ and Qt didn't make much sense... :-)
That is what I meant to say when I referred to Xtreme Programming. Linux developers seem to enjoy re-inventing the wheel, I'm just trying to understand why. After using numerous distributions, it seems to me the main element the linux GUI is lacking is polish. All the other technical elements are there. Polish is not. I have tried to set up a usable workstation enviroment, but I have yet to be more efficient in Linux than I am in Windows. Anyways I am tired and very much rambling by now, so I will get off of my web forum soapbox and return to the rational world. Goodnight
But what community would NVIDIA be receiving "goodwill" from? Only the most extreme GNU 'not free as in beer' evangelists would appreciate NVIDIA open sourcing their drivers. I believe most linux users that own NVIDIA are *more* than satisfied, being that they can run 3d applications, and even Quake 3, and comparable speeds to Windows boxes. There is a *huge* technological edge to NVIDIA's implementation of OpenlGL for its hardware...just look at the image quality and framerates. NVIDIA implements an *entire* ICD. 3dfx never really was able to do that. ATI has yet to release a decent OpenGL driver. So it would definitely not be in NVIDIA's best interest to release their drivers. Why would you want them anyway? Would you go through them bug hunting? I could care less about my drivers as long as they work well...that's why I buy NVIDIA cards, proven drivers and top of the line hardware. As far as software engineering not being an engineering discipline, it most definitely is. I am currently learning the trade as an undergrad... However, since argueing with you appears to be as fruitful as attempting to talk to my dog :-), go visit http://www.extremeprogramming.org/ Good stuff about software engineering and building software in general. The linux dev community could really use some material of this nature...it's a shame so many talented programmers don't discipline their work...so much more could be done...
There is not a single good reason from a software engineering point of view for NVIDIA to open source their drivers. Not one. Software engineering is not a religion, it is an engineering discipline. General users of an operating system should not need to have the source code for their drivers. NVIDIA is more than capable of producing very good drivers and distributing the source code would only give its competition valuable information and algorithms. When you have such a high technological edge with drivers (just look how bad ATIs are), why give it away? Why give millions of dollars of research away to competition for free? Why should I, as ATI, even *bother* with driver research and development if NVIDIA, the current market leader, *gives* it away? I mean really, think a little bit...get off the pathetic and completely useless tangent of NVIDIA or other big software companies releasing their software under open source. NVIDIA is supporting linux, and quite well it seems from Tom's Hardware benchmarks, they are quite close to windows framerates with the only reason that's holding them back being XFree86. The GNU movement is all about re-inventing the wheel. You said you fear for the 3d revolution because of NVIDIA's closed source drivers under linux. That is so blatantly narrow view. You do not take *any* factors into account. NVIDIA has continually broken 3d barriers with their hardware, they have continually produced excellent products with exceptional drivers. It appears you comments were not based on anything rational...
WSP has a very serious flaw in their logic. If Netscape pulled their 4.x browser off the market, web developers would write to one browser and one browser only...what does that mean?, it means that developers would use all of Microsoft's proprietary tags/technologies and become ingrained in them. Then there would be no hope of web standards. NN4 forces developers to write to the lowest common denominator, keeping standards hopes alive, even though it may drive developers nuts (personal experience confirms this :-0). IE5 may be a better browser, but once Mozilla comes out, developers can distribute it as a platform and target anyone. (Mozilla will never overtake IE in marketshare, it will be utilized primarily in developing true cross-platform solutions since it runs on many different platforms). Notice how web standards affect none of this.
WSP has a very serious flaw in their logic. If Netscape pulled their 4.x browser off the market, web developers would write to one browser and one browser only...what does that mean?, it means that developers would use all of Microsoft's proprietary tags/technologies and become ingrained in them. Then there would be no hope of web standards. NN4 forces developers to write to the lowest common denominator, keeping standards hopes alive, even though it may drive developers nuts (personal experience confirms this :-0). IE5 may be a better browser, but once Mozilla comes out, developers can distribute it as a platform and target anyone. (Mozilla will never overtake IE in marketshare, it will be utilized primarily in developing true cross-platform solutions since it runs on many different platforms). Notice how web standards affect none of this.