This article and many others published recently seem to be of the opinion that it's hard to make money from open sourced software and therefore open source software is a failure.
Most of the people involved in open source software couldn't care less wehter some company is able to make money or not, that's not how sucess is rated.
There have been other articles detailing the problems that some linux companies are have making money and then drawing the conclusion that linux is failing because of that. Weird.
P.S. The article talks about "open APIs" like microsoft's.NET. I'd suggest that linux people here download the.net beta sdk and take a look at it, it's actually quite interesting. Even if you disapprove of a lot of microsoft stuff they do seem to have thrown away an awful lot of the old baggage their system had and replaced it with new stuff that actually looks very well designed in a lot of places. It's been marketed as some kind of web based application thing, but it seems to be much more than that, the interesting parts are the common run time library, the platform independent.exe files and perhaps the c# language. All of which would be good things for linux as much as windows.
So we have a server for our cvs repository and few web pages. It's vital the server is there on demand, but it's never in use overnight, and in any given hour it's probably in use for about 30 seconds total, but it's not like we have a choice. There isn't any other server we can put this stuff on.
EverQuest is the most addictive game ever. I've lost count of the total number of days I've spent playing this in the last year. Don't need to say any more, any other players will know what I mean already.
I'm already much more likely to avoid sites that I know have large amounts of annoying advertising on them. This isn't a deliberate decision, just that those sites are not worth the effort. It will just make the sites less likely to be visited by the people they want to advertise to.
The consequences of a mistake may well be higher in these occupations but not the level of accuracy required.
This wasn't a whine, I appreciate that other careers are as hard, or harder than software development, I wouldn't want to be a surgeon for example where the consequences of a mistake could mean someones life. My point (possibly badly made) was that in software development there is no error so small that it's not noticed, you either get code *right or wrong*. Even a surgeon has some slight leeway in where to cut.
Anyway, the point is not to whine, it's to say that I don't think software does suck, I think that the error rate is actually remarkable low considering the difficulty in avoiding errors.
We do a damn good job of software development considering how difficult it is. In any other field of work, some mistakes can be tolerated. If a doctor gives a patient 1 percent too much drug, nobody will ever notice most of the time. If a civil engineer builds a bridge 1 percent too weak, the chances are huge that it will stand up anyway. If a salesman hits 99% of their sales target it will seem pretty good. If a builder builds a wall a few millimeters too short they can always fill it a bit extra. If a car engine designer aims to build a 100hp engine and it turns out to be 101 then so what?
But if a programmer gets a single line out of millions wrong it can prevent the whole program for working. There may be thousands of faults in big software systems, but they are by far the most complex things we build, and have by far the least tolerence for mistakes of any field of human activity I can think of.
I think that considering how difficult a task it is we do damn well and should feel proud that we do. Of course none of this means that we shouldn't do everything in our power to make software even more reliable and free of mistakes. Software is tens or hundreds of times as complex as it was ten years ago. Modern techniques and the right disciplin help, but I don't believe that software development in general has a bad record at all.
If anyone can think of another field where a mistake of a single mistake in hundreds or thousands of hours work is considered a bad record, I'd be suprised.
You can't necessarily get free support but you can hire any competent software developer or company and they can fix it because they have the source and some level of support from the internet.
If you buy something from a closed source vendor and they decide it's not in their interest to sort out your problem, you have no alternative ay any price.
I agree with some of the things that author said about java, but for some applications I can see few alternatives.
The project I'm working on used to have a windows user interface (client) connecting over a network to a server providing the data for it.
For a new generation of product we want to use a "thin" browser based interface. We can generate most of the pages on the server using html and php to generate reports and static graphics but we are going to need some live data from the server presented as changing statistics and graphs with a little interactivity. The data comes from a network connection to the server.
While share many doubts about java, particularly that because we want people to be able to connect to the server from any machine with a reasonably modern browser installed we are going to have to limit ourself to the subset of java that works on most browsers. I really don't see any other solution to this other than proving java applets embedded in a web page to link to our server and draw the graphics.
What other technologies could I use?
Did anyone else think he was a bit confused saying that because embedded devices must run unchanged for years, java is unsuitable because it changes all the time. It doesn't cause your software to change unless you go and change it
But it won't happen and it doesn't matter
on
Linux to Fragment?
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· Score: 1
Two scenarios:-
Someone adds something worthwhile to linux - the other distributions will simply incorporate it as allowed by the GPL.
Someone adds something which nobody uses. Yes linux has forked but who cares if nobody uses it.
The GPL ensures that while forks are allowed, and perhaps even encouraged that the best of all forks becomes common to all of them fairly quickly.
I was more concerned by his comments on java. Saying that java would become open source but that nobody would be allowed to make any changes to it that sun didn't like. That's hardly open.
I have a UK tivo and it's excellent.
The 30 skip feature would be nice but after a couple of weeks my reactions have been trained enough that I can hit fast forward three times, wait the right number of seconds and hit play again to within a second or two of the start of the next program without even thinking about it.
My PC didn't come with basic or any other programming language (or in fact an operating system) and yet I doubt anyone would confuse it with a games console.
There is something very odd about this whole thing.
I have to agree with the earlier comments about smile.co.uk.
When I first joined there were a couple of minor problems with their applet but they seem to have sorted them out quickly and without any fuss.
I'd certainly recommend them to anyone in the UK, their java applet works exactly the same on windows and linux.
I also an using the freeserve unlimited time offer for 10 pounds per month.
Although it disconnects you every two hours and it's sometimes a little difficult to get a connection during peak evening hours, it works well once you get a connection and like other people have said it works well with linux.
Agreed. Advertising on web sites I find fairly annoying, but I have the choice of going to the web site or not, and after all, it is the owner of the web sites choice about advertising and my choice as to whether the annoyance of the advertising outweighs the benefit of the web site.
Any form of advertising sent to me removes that element of choice and is a real intrusion of my time. When I get unsolicited advertising through the post, or email or similar I make a mental note of the company involved and never buy anything off them again. Why would I buy stuff from a company that assumes that my time is less important than them trying to sell me whatever usless product they make.
To use the example here, if I got an advert on my mobile phone for macdonalds while walking into burger king, that would just ensure that I never went to macdonalds again.
It's not just the 1% of people who can change software that matter. Many companies would readily pay someone for a week or two to change some software to better meet their needs. Because in the past it's has not been possible at all to modify software companies don't think to do this even with free software. But they can, and will. It's not just the 1% of people who are able to modify software themselves that should value free software but the much larger number of people willing to pay someone to do so.
The question I've not seen anyone ask is how do they know how many people have traded their music? Just advertising that you have a file is not evidence. Unless they are somehow reading our IP packets, how can they have any evidence at all that this is being done, and who is doing it?
I saw this at the IMAX in London a couple of weeks ago. It's not normally the kind of thing I'd enjoy at all, but it really was very good and I'd recommend it to anyone. The combination of music and visuals is outstanding and congratulations to all involved.
It's not a problem it's a good thing. If this version fails to take off then it will just die without affecting the base version of linux. If it does well it will no doubt be incorporated into the standard kernel anyway. It's not clear if this version contains special drivers or is most the standard kernel preconfigured for the hardware.
Even before I read this article I was thinking of finding out under what terms radio broadcasters are licensed for the use of RDS in the UK and who I could complain to.
Traffic news is good but there is an increasing amount of advertising and promotion of their other shows creaping into the traffic announcements and I would hope their licenses prohibit this.
Slashdot Mirror
Most of the people involved in open source software couldn't care less wehter some company is able to make money or not, that's not how sucess is rated.
There have been other articles detailing the problems that some linux companies are have making money and then drawing the conclusion that linux is failing because of that. Weird.
P.S. The article talks about "open APIs" like microsoft's
So we have a server for our cvs repository and few web pages. It's vital the server is there on demand, but it's never in use overnight, and in any given hour it's probably in use for about 30 seconds total, but it's not like we have a choice. There isn't any other server we can put this stuff on.
... and the everquest servers are down for a patch, why else do you think I'm here instead of there?
EverQuest is the most addictive game ever. I've lost count of the total number of days I've spent playing this in the last year.
Don't need to say any more, any other players will know what I mean already.
Just don't use those sites.
I'm already much more likely to avoid sites that I know have large amounts of annoying advertising on them. This isn't a deliberate decision, just that those sites are not worth the effort.
It will just make the sites less likely to be visited by the people they want to advertise to.
>Armed Forces
The consequences of a mistake may well be higher in these occupations but not the level of accuracy required.
This wasn't a whine, I appreciate that other careers are as hard, or harder than software development, I wouldn't want to be a surgeon for example where the consequences of a mistake could mean someones life. My point (possibly badly made) was that in software development there is no error so small that it's not noticed, you either get code *right or wrong*. Even a surgeon has some slight leeway in where to cut.
Anyway, the point is not to whine, it's to say that I don't think software does suck, I think that the error rate is actually remarkable low considering the difficulty in avoiding errors.
But if a programmer gets a single line out of millions wrong it can prevent the whole program for working. There may be thousands of faults in big software systems, but they are by far the most complex things we build, and have by far the least tolerence for mistakes of any field of human activity I can think of.
I think that considering how difficult a task it is we do damn well and should feel proud that we do.
Of course none of this means that we shouldn't do everything in our power to make software even more reliable and free of mistakes. Software is tens or hundreds of times as complex as it was ten years ago. Modern techniques and the right disciplin help, but I don't believe that software development in general has a bad record at all.
If anyone can think of another field where a mistake of a single mistake in hundreds or thousands of hours work is considered a bad record, I'd be suprised.
</rant>
If you buy something from a closed source vendor and they decide it's not in their interest to sort out your problem, you have no alternative ay any price.
Yeah, we have an XML based API which is uses by php to build the pages, and by the applets on the pages to get their data.
We could just as well implement in c++ using the same API.
I don't think java will be the problem in the way you describe, we will have a few simple applets rather than doing anything complex.
The project I'm working on used to have a windows user interface (client) connecting over a network to a server providing the data for it.
For a new generation of product we want to use a "thin" browser based interface. We can generate most of the pages on the server using html and php to generate reports and static graphics but we are going to need some live data from the server presented as changing statistics and graphs with a little interactivity. The data comes from a network connection to the server.
While share many doubts about java, particularly that because we want people to be able to connect to the server from any machine with a reasonably modern browser installed we are going to have to limit ourself to the subset of java that works on most browsers. I really don't see any other solution to this other than proving java applets embedded in a web page to link to our server and draw the graphics.
What other technologies could I use?
Did anyone else think he was a bit confused saying that because embedded devices must run unchanged for years, java is unsuitable because it changes all the time. It doesn't cause your software to change unless you go and change it
Someone adds something worthwhile to linux - the other distributions will simply incorporate it as allowed by the GPL.
Someone adds something which nobody uses. Yes linux has forked but who cares if nobody uses it.
The GPL ensures that while forks are allowed, and perhaps even encouraged that the best of all forks becomes common to all of them fairly quickly.
I was more concerned by his comments on java. Saying that java would become open source but that nobody would be allowed to make any changes to it that sun didn't like. That's hardly open.
Not on my PC.
In fact I think this only works on old actual IBM PCs.
I have a UK tivo and it's excellent.
The 30 skip feature would be nice but after a couple of weeks my reactions have been trained enough that I can hit fast forward three times, wait the right number of seconds and hit play again to within a second or two of the start of the next program without even thinking about it.
My PC didn't come with basic or any other programming language (or in fact an operating system) and yet I doubt anyone would confuse it with a games console.
There is something very odd about this whole thing.
The spec looks kind of interesting but I can't see anything you couldn't do with a PC.
On the other hand, it nice to see somebody trying to do something slightly diferent.
I have to agree with the earlier comments about smile.co.uk. When I first joined there were a couple of minor problems with their applet but they seem to have sorted them out quickly and without any fuss. I'd certainly recommend them to anyone in the UK, their java applet works exactly the same on windows and linux.
I also an using the freeserve unlimited time offer for 10 pounds per month. Although it disconnects you every two hours and it's sometimes a little difficult to get a connection during peak evening hours, it works well once you get a connection and like other people have said it works well with linux.
Agreed. Advertising on web sites I find fairly annoying, but I have the choice of going to the web site or not, and after all, it is the owner of the web sites choice about advertising and my choice as to whether the annoyance of the advertising outweighs the benefit of the web site.
Any form of advertising sent to me removes that element of choice and is a real intrusion of my time. When I get unsolicited advertising through the post, or email or similar I make a mental note of the company involved and never buy anything off them again. Why would I buy stuff from a company that assumes that my time is less important than them trying to sell me whatever usless product they make.
To use the example here, if I got an advert on my mobile phone for macdonalds while walking into burger king, that would just ensure that I never went to macdonalds again.
It's not just the 1% of people who can change software that matter. Many companies would readily pay someone for a week or two to change some software to better meet their needs. Because in the past it's has not been possible at all to modify software companies don't think to do this even with free software. But they can, and will. It's not just the 1% of people who are able to modify software themselves that should value free software but the much larger number of people willing to pay someone to do so.
The question I've not seen anyone ask is how do they know how many people have traded their music? Just advertising that you have a file is not evidence. Unless they are somehow reading our IP packets, how can they have any evidence at all that this is being done, and who is doing it?
I saw this at the IMAX in London a couple of weeks ago. It's not normally the kind of thing I'd enjoy at all, but it really was very good and I'd recommend it to anyone. The combination of music and visuals is outstanding and congratulations to all involved.
It's not a problem it's a good thing. If this version fails to take off then it will just die without affecting the base version of linux. If it does well it will no doubt be incorporated into the standard kernel anyway. It's not clear if this version contains special drivers or is most the standard kernel preconfigured for the hardware.
If you have an ethernet card that has a unique "thumbprint" and if you have an IDE disk then that likely has a unique serial number as well.
Traffic news is good but there is an increasing amount of advertising and promotion of their other shows creaping into the traffic announcements and I would hope their licenses prohibit this.