Dude, good luck to you. I hope you can make a go of it with your new business, or at least find another decent job.
A word of advice, though: Don't focus on trivial things like who's in the White House now, or who will be next year, because in the long run, that has little bearing on your success or failure.
If you want to see how willing users are to financially support the OSS products they use, go to the main page of Sourceforge and look at the list of "Top Downloads". You'll notice that the 4th most downloaded program, Azureus - BitTorrent Client, has a little "$" icon next to it indicating that it's set up to accept Paypal donations. The list of all its donations, which can be viewed here, shows that on average they get maybe one donation a week, but two days ago they were downloaded over 22,000 times.
If you develop open source software with any expectations of making money from it, you're in for a big letdown.
While its nice that they always _mention_ there's a corporate slant in giving space to Sourceforge stories, it's still a bit disturbing that a whole community is serving the interests of the likes of VA - not to mention IBM, Novell, and whatever big company becomes Linux/GNU/Open Source vendors.
Dude, you have no frickin' clue how much VA Software, via Sourceforge, has done for the open source community. Even if they are making a profit through donations and banner adds--and I fervently hope they are, so they can stick around--the service they provide, for free, to open source projects is amazing.
<plug>BTW, check out my project on Sourceforge.</plug>
It may have been used in 3 billion devices like phones, CD players, etc. but how many of those devices are still in service? I've been through probably 6 cell phones over the last decade; all but one are in a landfill someplace.
Even factoring that in, however, it's probably true that there are more instances of some embedded OS in operation than any single desktop or server OS, but that's an apples-to-oranges comparasion, IMO.
The government will eventually step in, but it will be "too little, too late". The tech jobs will move out of the country, and companies will make a tidy profit off of the reduced manufacturing costs. However, the largest market in the world won't have the cash to pay for their product or service. Full-on capitalism would suggest the companies who do this will eventually die out or move to sell where the money is (most likely).
<Yawn.> They said the same thing about the steel and auto industries.
If there was a suitable "geek union", they'd be doing something about this. Much like the Harley-Davidson duties on Asian sportbikes; HD said they couldn't compete on the price-point, so the government raised the prices on the imports, while collecting on the gig (and hogs are around today to prove this strategy worked). So we should be fighting for similar tech-based solutions. Big business wants to sell that motherboard here? Pay da man, Uncle Sam, his due fees. You want to provide tech-support from India on that router? You've gotta use our land lines, and that ain't cheap (maybe by charging a "water-to-land" signal conversion fee).
So the $10/hr roofer and the $7/hr waitress pay higher prices on goods so non-competitive programmers can make $70K/yr for producing less than $70K worth of value. Enrich the few at the expense of the many. What a selfish, uncaring, greedy bastard.
First, send your resume out as far and wide as possible. Then, start showing up at work late once a week in a white shirt, suit trousers and wing tips, so it looks like you came from an early job interview. (Have the suit jacket hanging in the back seat of your car, with a tie strewn across the back seat for effect.) Have some friends call you at work through the switchboard four or five times a week, using business-like manners, and have them be evasive if the receptionist asks questions, so it leaves the impression you're being headhunted. Hopefully, people will take notice and start to suspect things.
Then discretely go to your boss, or whoever has the authority to make the decision, and tell them you want paid for the time you're going to put in, period. You'll never have greater leverage than you do right now, at the beginning of the project. Don't be greedy, just try to get paid straight time for the hours you'll be working. It might be worth it to you to settle for a little less. Assure them that no one else will know about the arrangement.
Tell them that if they don't accept, you'll start looking for another job, and from the number of headhunter calls you get a week, you don't think you'll have a problem finding one. Tell them you understand completely if they can't accomodate you, and you'll have no hard feelings. If get a song and dance about going the extra mile for the team, tell them you're willing to, but not six months of 80+ hour weeks without extra compensation. That's basically demanding that you do the work of two employees for the pay of one, all because of someone's poor management decisions.
Act as cool as possible, like you could care less what they decide. Will they fire you on the spot? Mabye, but not likely if you're a top developer with a proven track record. If they give in to your demands, at least you're getting paid for the death march you're about to embark upon. If they don't, your choices are clear. What I would do would be to put my job search into hyperdrive, and jump on the first opportunity to get out. (True to my word.) I might even take something crappy at a lower pay, just on principle.
Ah, ARJ, a very good, free utility as I recall. I think it may have been the first DOS-based archiver that could break an archive into multiple floppy-size files on your harddrive. (IIRC, PKZip had to write the files directly onto the floppy, which took a long time.) And LZH (LHarc was the name of the program) was open-source, probably before the term was coined. And the ARC folks were one of the early evil patentors of a compression algorithm, until the guy in the white hat, Phil Katz, rode into town, wrote pkzip, and wiped their program off the map.
Re:Eh...did I read the same article?
on
Is Linux Dead?
·
· Score: 1
Mod the parent up, this guy nailed it.
The article didn't at all say that "Linux has failed as an operating system." The overall impression I got was that it portrayed Linux more favorably than negatively.
This kind of publicity in the mainstream (i.e. non-IT-industry) press will ultimately help Linux more than it will hurt it.
All of the technical questions are pretty much moot if google has no long-term future. Are you guys profitable yet? If not, does it look like your current business model will lead you to profitability before the wolves find their way to your door?
"Freedom of contract" means that people may individually or collectively enter into whatever agreements they see fit, as long as force or fraud is not involved. If you want to be able to hold the maker of a software product liable for damages caused by bugs in the software, then find one who agrees up front to assume that liability. Of course, you'd probably end up paying $1000 for a simple word processing program.
OTOH, if you were willing to accept the risks inherent in using a particular product, you could get lots of software very cheaply or even free. (I believe the GPL explicitly states that the user assumes all risks associated with using a GPL'd product and holds the maker(s) harmless.)
The problem is, few people seem to support the principle of freedom of contract. For example, they want laws passed that hold employers liable for healthcare screwups that their insurers have paid for. GNazis like Richard Stallman want to forbid consenting adults from exchanging binary-only softare for money, under terms that would restrict the buyer's ability to redistribute that software. And now, there are some that want to make software producers always liable, regardless of what risks the user is willing to assume. And on and on.
"Just consider: the GNU Project starts developing an operating system, and years later Linus Torvalds adds one important piece."
In my Intro to Operating Systems class, I was told that the OS is the part of the system that interacts with and manages the hardware, basically abstracting it away for user applications. So aside from the kernel, that would also include things like a filesystem and numerous device drivers. How much of that stuff was written by the FSF, either before or after Linus got involved? I've always been under the impression, perhaps erroneously, that the GNU contributions were tools like gcc, bash, and clones of utilities like sed, awk, tex, etc. If that's the case, I think Stallman's reaching a great deal when he gives the impression that Linux is a product of the FSF to which Torvalds added only "one piece."
If, as you guys claim, you're all about freedom, you should fear and condemn a government that will attempt to force a software company to produce certain types of software or prevent them from producing other types, or dictate how products can be bundled together. Instead you're a bunch of freakin' cheerleaders for fascism.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude, good luck to you. I hope you can make a go of it with your new business, or at least find another decent job.
A word of advice, though: Don't focus on trivial things like who's in the White House now, or who will be next year, because in the long run, that has little bearing on your success or failure.
BTW, what kind of technical skills do you have?
Where are the mod points when you need'em?
If you develop open source software with any expectations of making money from it, you're in for a big letdown.
<plug>BTW, check out my project on Sourceforge.</plug>
It may have been used in 3 billion devices like phones, CD players, etc. but how many of those devices are still in service? I've been through probably 6 cell phones over the last decade; all but one are in a landfill someplace.
Even factoring that in, however, it's probably true that there are more instances of some embedded OS in operation than any single desktop or server OS, but that's an apples-to-oranges comparasion, IMO.
For not modding up this tired joke as "funny".
Right on brother... or sister, as the case may be.
<Yawn.> They said the same thing about the steel and auto industries.
So the $10/hr roofer and the $7/hr waitress pay higher prices on goods so non-competitive programmers can make $70K/yr for producing less than $70K worth of value. Enrich the few at the expense of the many. What a selfish, uncaring, greedy bastard.
A google search for
sco "ancient unix"
produces 339 hits, so there's probably a lot more out there.
First, send your resume out as far and wide as possible. Then, start showing up at work late once a week in a white shirt, suit trousers and wing tips, so it looks like you came from an early job interview. (Have the suit jacket hanging in the back seat of your car, with a tie strewn across the back seat for effect.) Have some friends call you at work through the switchboard four or five times a week, using business-like manners, and have them be evasive if the receptionist asks questions, so it leaves the impression you're being headhunted. Hopefully, people will take notice and start to suspect things.
Then discretely go to your boss, or whoever has the authority to make the decision, and tell them you want paid for the time you're going to put in, period. You'll never have greater leverage than you do right now, at the beginning of the project. Don't be greedy, just try to get paid straight time for the hours you'll be working. It might be worth it to you to settle for a little less. Assure them that no one else will know about the arrangement.
Tell them that if they don't accept, you'll start looking for another job, and from the number of headhunter calls you get a week, you don't think you'll have a problem finding one. Tell them you understand completely if they can't accomodate you, and you'll have no hard feelings. If get a song and dance about going the extra mile for the team, tell them you're willing to, but not six months of 80+ hour weeks without extra compensation. That's basically demanding that you do the work of two employees for the pay of one, all because of someone's poor management decisions.
Act as cool as possible, like you could care less what they decide. Will they fire you on the spot? Mabye, but not likely if you're a top developer with a proven track record. If they give in to your demands, at least you're getting paid for the death march you're about to embark upon. If they don't, your choices are clear. What I would do would be to put my job search into hyperdrive, and jump on the first opportunity to get out. (True to my word.) I might even take something crappy at a lower pay, just on principle.
Ah, ARJ, a very good, free utility as I recall. I think it may have been the first DOS-based archiver that could break an archive into multiple floppy-size files on your harddrive. (IIRC, PKZip had to write the files directly onto the floppy, which took a long time.) And LZH (LHarc was the name of the program) was open-source, probably before the term was coined. And the ARC folks were one of the early evil patentors of a compression algorithm, until the guy in the white hat, Phil Katz, rode into town, wrote pkzip, and wiped their program off the map.
Memories...
I wonder if that PDF was made with a legit copy of Acrobat.
The guy nailed it.
Mod the parent up, this guy nailed it.
The article didn't at all say that "Linux has failed as an operating system." The overall impression I got was that it portrayed Linux more favorably than negatively.
This kind of publicity in the mainstream (i.e. non-IT-industry) press will ultimately help Linux more than it will hurt it.
All of the technical questions are pretty much moot if google has no long-term future. Are you guys profitable yet? If not, does it look like your current business model will lead you to profitability before the wolves find their way to your door?
AC makes a good point.
"Freedom of contract" means that people may individually or collectively enter into whatever agreements they see fit, as long as force or fraud is not involved. If you want to be able to hold the maker of a software product liable for damages caused by bugs in the software, then find one who agrees up front to assume that liability. Of course, you'd probably end up paying $1000 for a simple word processing program.
OTOH, if you were willing to accept the risks inherent in using a particular product, you could get lots of software very cheaply or even free. (I believe the GPL explicitly states that the user assumes all risks associated with using a GPL'd product and holds the maker(s) harmless.)
The problem is, few people seem to support the principle of freedom of contract. For example, they want laws passed that hold employers liable for healthcare screwups that their insurers have paid for. GNazis like Richard Stallman want to forbid consenting adults from exchanging binary-only softare for money, under terms that would restrict the buyer's ability to redistribute that software. And now, there are some that want to make software producers always liable, regardless of what risks the user is willing to assume. And on and on.
"Just consider: the GNU Project starts developing an operating system, and years later Linus Torvalds adds one important piece."
In my Intro to Operating Systems class, I was told that the OS is the part of the system that interacts with and manages the hardware, basically abstracting it away for user applications. So aside from the kernel, that would also include things like a filesystem and numerous device drivers. How much of that stuff was written by the FSF, either before or after Linus got involved? I've always been under the impression, perhaps erroneously, that the GNU contributions were tools like gcc, bash, and clones of utilities like sed, awk, tex, etc. If that's the case, I think Stallman's reaching a great deal when he gives the impression that Linux is a product of the FSF to which Torvalds added only "one piece."
yah!
Get real.
If, as you guys claim, you're all about freedom, you should fear and condemn a government that will attempt to force a software company to produce certain types of software or prevent them from producing other types, or dictate how products can be bundled together. Instead you're a bunch of freakin' cheerleaders for fascism.
I guess anything that takes a shot at Microsoft is going to get modded up, regardless of how lame or stupid it is.