Well, we don't really have developers, and I realize the problem is a bigger deal when you do have developers. We have only one, and he's in my department, and he has administrative rights to his machine. So he can install whatever he wants, with the understanding that adhering to the law is part of his job. Pretty much it's all open-source stuff that he wants, so it's not such a big deal. We don't really make an effort to keep track of his software, since he can be responsible for it.
We have a written policy for getting additional software approved. In general when people make requests, it turns out to be for something they already have, and just didn't realize, since we image computers with all the useful utilities that are most commonly wanted. But the policy does spell out, with some but not a huge amount of detail, what kind of software might be approved, and it specifies that the licensing, installation, and media (if any) will all be managed by information systems if the software is approved. It doesn't come up all that often.
We use an in-house OpenACS app (PostgreSQL back-end) to keep track of the licensing and software inventory. It only works because I'm a stickler about making the computer support staff keep it up-to-date. But when they get used to it, they do see the benefits and self-start with it.
My point, which I admit was not well-emphasized, was really to say that I think keeping track of these things is worthwhile independent of anti-piracy measures. Probably a little OT, and I guess the first post came off a little self-congratulatory. Poor rhetorical strategy on my part.
While I agree that I would never want to waste any time on an audit by the BSA, there are ways to handle this more easily. Point by point to your 1-2-3:
1) I have inventory. Yes, it costs me money and time. But I know what software is on what computer. My users do not have access to install software on their work computers. As IT manager, I am fully responsible for the software installed on their machines. I do this not only to prevent piracy, but because it makes support tons easier. Any software that's on their computers is software that someone in my department can support. 2) I keep track of licensing. This is not so hard. It's annoying that some licenses come on paper, some come in email, or whatever. Most payware companies also keep track of licensing for you, now. But I keep track of licensing not because I'm afraid of being audited, but so that upgrades are easier and cheaper. 3) Again, users have no ability to install software outside what is provided. I believe, although I may be wrong, this would go a long way toward getting me an innocent-til-proven-guilty approach, if not from the BSA, but definitely if it went any further.
There's no question that the BSA's methods are unacceptable in any enlightened sense. But I do things for other reasons that would help in the case of an audit. It's a lot of work to keep track of this stuff, but it's easier than having to figure it out every time you want to license an upgrade. Or doing a survey to see who needs that upgrade and who already has it. And it's hard to keep users from getting installation rights, but it's better than having them break their own computers, or ask my staff questions about stuff we can't support.
Even if I used all freeware, I would still want to keep control of all this stuff.
Funny, the article was really about how PC games will always be there, even though consoles are growing faster.
I think there have been a few times in the past when consoles were growing faster than PC gaming. I don't know, but I think this thing goes in cycles. I know my friends bought up Atari 2600's faster than they bought the original PC's.
The main interesting point someone made in the article, a game devleoper, was that there will always be PC games, because there will always be PC's. Where at some point the specific console won't be there any more. So you know your PC game will have a ptentially long life.
The main contest is: consoles are maybe easier to develop for and optimize for, because you know what your customers have. OTOH, your customers already have a PC of some kind, but you don't know if they have a PS2, an XBOX, or any console.
Different things drive both markets and they will both be there. Developers will continue to develop games for whatever platform works best for them, and then if it's successful enough, port the game to the other platforms.
The programmer who works for me learned all his skills while working on a PhD Dissertation on Ovid, he's a classicist by training. During that time he was a programmer for a CD-rom based database of classical bibliography. He quit and got a job with me when he couldn't convince the stuffy directors of the database to go web.
He did look for a while for a job as a professor of classics where his technical skills would be valuable, and he couldn't really find one. Of course, it's hard enough to find any job as a professor of classics, and he wasn't willing to search over a wide geographical area.
In grad school in 1992 I wrote FORTRAN programs when I was trying to use fractal methods to describe landscape patterns and time-series data of sandy beach volume measurements. I hadn't ever used fortran since I learned it in undergrad, in maybe 86. But I started from other people's programs, and they were written in FORTRAN.
Nobody cares much about fractals in that field any more, as far as I know, but they're still using the programs in a "math for scientists" class, in the unit on time series. FORTRAN may be ugly to real hacker-types, but scientist-types, who generally don't put as much thought into the "what language should I really be using" question, still use it all the time.
As an IT manager now I wouldn't want any new programming done in FORTRAN (I manage a Museum, though, and most of our programming is OpenACS stuff anyway). But scientists pretty much work for themselves and make their own decisions. Given the entrenchment of FORTRAN and its ability to do calculations, scientists will be using it, and mostly it, for a long time to come.
So I think this comes down to a personal decision: I had an academic career as a scientist, and programmed in FORTRAN. Now, perl, php, python, tcl, java, VB weren't options then, but if I'd been in Grad school in the late 90's, and I'd known that I'd end up in IT instead (I did know that, actually)--then maybe I would have picked some other language to learn knowing that it would be better for my ultimate career. Even if it would be slow or difficult for calculations (it was only a master's). But if I was going to stay a scientist, then FORTRAN would have been fine as a choice.
The main thing, in a nutshell, is this gives ISP's a way to get to people's homes without the help of a cable provider or telco, necessarily. It threatens to hugely increase the competitive players in the home broadband market.
I agree with the people above who don't see neighborhoods banding together to be their own ISP. It's too much work.
Seems like a good time to mention this 'nomoreeula' script that's going around. I have not used it, nor do I expect it's legal, or that it works in most/all cases. But I like the idea, which is that in the middle of installation, it looks for the EULA and removes the text, while allowing you to click forward. So you can claim you never read it, even though you've installed the software. It's available a couple places, including
At some point somebody will have to figure out a new, revolutionary way to back up all that hard disk space. I doubt it will be next year.
I think it's funny that you can fill a whole room with your backup equipment (see http://www.adic.com/US/English/Products/Hardware/A IT/aml2/index.html for fun). As our computers get smaller, we can use the space for the massive backup systems we'll need.
I just moved from a 7-tape DLT library to an LTO solution, that can handle up to 6 drives and 72 tapes in a space about 6 times the size of the DLT library. The LTO tapes hold about 2.5 times as much, and are more digital, less analog, and I suppose there's room for another doubling of capacity in there. But it won't go twice as fast, and the other problem is it can take a day to back up a day's work... of course you can then buy disk-to-disk systems, etc.
The thing is, these are all gemotric advances and we're going to need something exponential soon.
I used to often tell people that that was the intended point of solitaire and minesweeper, to get people used to the mouse. I'm sure other people told me as much, and I took it on faith. Maybe that's an urban myth, or maybe that's what MS said was part of the point, while understanding the entertainment value. I don't know.
Nobody seems to be talking about the very specific markets out there, where access to your company's intranet services in unusual spots or from a variety of locations would be beneficial, but a laptop is too much (money, weight, complication) or too insecure or too difficult to support.
For example, I run the IT department at a museum, and we're pretty stumped when it comes to how to provide access to a variety of services in a variety of situations:
1) read access to the collections database in the storerooms, so art handlers can look up locations while they're in the vicinity of the object. A laptop costs more, does more (which is inappropriate in this situation), theoretically breaks down more (more moving parts, more software complication), and is more worthwhile to steal for more people.
2) public access to web-based information in the galleries or lobby areas. You know, exhibition related materials, maps, brochures, etc. For the most part this does not require advanced input by the visitor, so I don't care much about the lack of a keyboard, in most cases. Laptops fail for same reasons as above.
3) public access to web-connected "Art learning center" stations. Which are a lot like gallery and lobby stations, except they can browse arbitrary web content, not just what I provide, and need keyboards, absolutely.
4) front-desk check-in. Currently we use windows terminals accessing servers via citrix, which is fine, since we don't currently do numbers 1, 2, or 3. But I would like to have one solution for everything, you know. Probably never will, but I can imagine other people do this over the web and might like a little internet appliance thingy.
Is it interesting that only one out of four of these applications involve mobility? What I really need is just a web-browsing, wireless, cheap, storage-less, unalterable-by-the-user appliance. It needs to be mobile and lockable, so it can stay put or not, and it needs to either have a keyboard and mouse, or be touch-screen. If it looks good, great, because then maybe our exhibition designers will be happier about putting some in the galleries.
Obviously I'm a pretty small market, but there are other industries that have analogous uses. I have a feeling the issue is that mostly these services are not provided by web servers and accessed via web clients. That's changing, of course, but given that you can test out your new web accessible Oracle application with your PC, and you already have PC's, lots of people are not heading over to the thin clients yet (how long has this been going on?).
I think this, conceptually, is how I would do it, given the time and money. Given even more money, I would do two things differently.
First, and I know you considered this (and I like the reason you didn't do it), I would put the images right into the database. If only to prevent the possibility that the database would occasionally point to a file or location that was no longer there. Also, importantly, it would simplify security settings (you would only need database security, not additional, analagous file security).
Also, I don't like the idea of archiving to CD-rom, ever, if it can be avoided. The problem is the "anyone can look them up and get the images when needed" part. What about security? I.e., where do you store the CDs, and how does just anyone get there? Aren't they locked up? Aren't there some images that are available only to some people, not others? Also, what about forgetfulness? How do you get people to return the CD's when they're done? If you instead demand that people make copies without checking out the CDs, that's another kind of headache (you need to set up some facility to make that possible).
Have you dealt with these issues? I'd be curious to hear whether they've really come up much.
Thanks,
Matt Morgan
Slashdot Mirror
Well, we don't really have developers, and I realize the problem is a bigger deal when you do have developers. We have only one, and he's in my department, and he has administrative rights to his machine. So he can install whatever he wants, with the understanding that adhering to the law is part of his job. Pretty much it's all open-source stuff that he wants, so it's not such a big deal. We don't really make an effort to keep track of his software, since he can be responsible for it.
We have a written policy for getting additional software approved. In general when people make requests, it turns out to be for something they already have, and just didn't realize, since we image computers with all the useful utilities that are most commonly wanted. But the policy does spell out, with some but not a huge amount of detail, what kind of software might be approved, and it specifies that the licensing, installation, and media (if any) will all be managed by information systems if the software is approved. It doesn't come up all that often.
We use an in-house OpenACS app (PostgreSQL back-end) to keep track of the licensing and software inventory. It only works because I'm a stickler about making the computer support staff keep it up-to-date. But when they get used to it, they do see the benefits and self-start with it.
My point, which I admit was not well-emphasized, was really to say that I think keeping track of these things is worthwhile independent of anti-piracy measures. Probably a little OT, and I guess the first post came off a little self-congratulatory. Poor rhetorical strategy on my part.
While I agree that I would never want to waste any time on an audit by the BSA, there are ways to handle this more easily. Point by point to your 1-2-3:
1) I have inventory. Yes, it costs me money and time. But I know what software is on what computer. My users do not have access to install software on their work computers. As IT manager, I am fully responsible for the software installed on their machines. I do this not only to prevent piracy, but because it makes support tons easier. Any software that's on their computers is software that someone in my department can support.
2) I keep track of licensing. This is not so hard. It's annoying that some licenses come on paper, some come in email, or whatever. Most payware companies also keep track of licensing for you, now. But I keep track of licensing not because I'm afraid of being audited, but so that upgrades are easier and cheaper.
3) Again, users have no ability to install software outside what is provided. I believe, although I may be wrong, this would go a long way toward getting me an innocent-til-proven-guilty approach, if not from the BSA, but definitely if it went any further.
There's no question that the BSA's methods are unacceptable in any enlightened sense. But I do things for other reasons that would help in the case of an audit. It's a lot of work to keep track of this stuff, but it's easier than having to figure it out every time you want to license an upgrade. Or doing a survey to see who needs that upgrade and who already has it. And it's hard to keep users from getting installation rights, but it's better than having them break their own computers, or ask my staff questions about stuff we can't support.
Even if I used all freeware, I would still want to keep control of all this stuff.
Funny, the article was really about how PC games will always be there, even though consoles are growing faster.
I think there have been a few times in the past when consoles were growing faster than PC gaming. I don't know, but I think this thing goes in cycles. I know my friends bought up Atari 2600's faster than they bought the original PC's.
The main interesting point someone made in the article, a game devleoper, was that there will always be PC games, because there will always be PC's. Where at some point the specific console won't be there any more. So you know your PC game will have a ptentially long life.
The main contest is: consoles are maybe easier to develop for and optimize for, because you know what your customers have. OTOH, your customers already have a PC of some kind, but you don't know if they have a PS2, an XBOX, or any console.
Different things drive both markets and they will both be there. Developers will continue to develop games for whatever platform works best for them, and then if it's successful enough, port the game to the other platforms.
The programmer who works for me learned all his skills while working on a PhD Dissertation on Ovid, he's a classicist by training. During that time he was a programmer for a CD-rom based database of classical bibliography. He quit and got a job with me when he couldn't convince the stuffy directors of the database to go web.
He did look for a while for a job as a professor of classics where his technical skills would be valuable, and he couldn't really find one. Of course, it's hard enough to find any job as a professor of classics, and he wasn't willing to search over a wide geographical area.
In grad school in 1992 I wrote FORTRAN programs when I was trying to use fractal methods to describe landscape patterns and time-series data of sandy beach volume measurements. I hadn't ever used fortran since I learned it in undergrad, in maybe 86. But I started from other people's programs, and they were written in FORTRAN.
Nobody cares much about fractals in that field any more, as far as I know, but they're still using the programs in a "math for scientists" class, in the unit on time series. FORTRAN may be ugly to real hacker-types, but scientist-types, who generally don't put as much thought into the "what language should I really be using" question, still use it all the time.
As an IT manager now I wouldn't want any new programming done in FORTRAN (I manage a Museum, though, and most of our programming is OpenACS stuff anyway). But scientists pretty much work for themselves and make their own decisions. Given the entrenchment of FORTRAN and its ability to do calculations, scientists will be using it, and mostly it, for a long time to come.
So I think this comes down to a personal decision: I had an academic career as a scientist, and programmed in FORTRAN. Now, perl, php, python, tcl, java, VB weren't options then, but if I'd been in Grad school in the late 90's, and I'd known that I'd end up in IT instead (I did know that, actually)--then maybe I would have picked some other language to learn knowing that it would be better for my ultimate career. Even if it would be slow or difficult for calculations (it was only a master's). But if I was going to stay a scientist, then FORTRAN would have been fine as a choice.
The main thing, in a nutshell, is this gives ISP's a way to get to people's homes without the help of a cable provider or telco, necessarily. It threatens to hugely increase the competitive players in the home broadband market.
I agree with the people above who don't see neighborhoods banding together to be their own ISP. It's too much work.
Seems like a good time to mention this 'nomoreeula' script that's going around. I have not used it, nor do I expect it's legal, or that it works in most/all cases. But I like the idea, which is that in the middle of installation, it looks for the EULA and removes the text, while allowing you to click forward. So you can claim you never read it, even though you've installed the software. It's available a couple places, including
l
http://expert.cc.purdue.edu/~erlee/antieula.htm
I'd rather deal with one problem that's the same on every machine than all different problems on different machines, usually.
At some point somebody will have to figure out a new, revolutionary way to back up all that hard disk space. I doubt it will be next year.
A IT/aml2/index.html for fun). As our computers get smaller, we can use the space for the massive backup systems we'll need.
... of course you can then buy disk-to-disk systems, etc.
I think it's funny that you can fill a whole room with your backup equipment (see http://www.adic.com/US/English/Products/Hardware/
I just moved from a 7-tape DLT library to an LTO solution, that can handle up to 6 drives and 72 tapes in a space about 6 times the size of the DLT library. The LTO tapes hold about 2.5 times as much, and are more digital, less analog, and I suppose there's room for another doubling of capacity in there. But it won't go twice as fast, and the other problem is it can take a day to back up a day's work
The thing is, these are all gemotric advances and we're going to need something exponential soon.
I used to often tell people that that was the intended point of solitaire and minesweeper, to get people used to the mouse. I'm sure other people told me as much, and I took it on faith. Maybe that's an urban myth, or maybe that's what MS said was part of the point, while understanding the entertainment value. I don't know.
Nobody seems to be talking about the very specific markets out there, where access to your company's intranet services in unusual spots or from a variety of locations would be beneficial, but a laptop is too much (money, weight, complication) or too insecure or too difficult to support.
For example, I run the IT department at a museum, and we're pretty stumped when it comes to how to provide access to a variety of services in a variety of situations:
1) read access to the collections database in the storerooms, so art handlers can look up locations while they're in the vicinity of the object. A laptop costs more, does more (which is inappropriate in this situation), theoretically breaks down more (more moving parts, more software complication), and is more worthwhile to steal for more people.
2) public access to web-based information in the galleries or lobby areas. You know, exhibition related materials, maps, brochures, etc. For the most part this does not require advanced input by the visitor, so I don't care much about the lack of a keyboard, in most cases. Laptops fail for same reasons as above.
3) public access to web-connected "Art learning center" stations. Which are a lot like gallery and lobby stations, except they can browse arbitrary web content, not just what I provide, and need keyboards, absolutely.
4) front-desk check-in. Currently we use windows terminals accessing servers via citrix, which is fine, since we don't currently do numbers 1, 2, or 3. But I would like to have one solution for everything, you know. Probably never will, but I can imagine other people do this over the web and might like a little internet appliance thingy.
Is it interesting that only one out of four of these applications involve mobility? What I really need is just a web-browsing, wireless, cheap, storage-less, unalterable-by-the-user appliance. It needs to be mobile and lockable, so it can stay put or not, and it needs to either have a keyboard and mouse, or be touch-screen. If it looks good, great, because then maybe our exhibition designers will be happier about putting some in the galleries.
Obviously I'm a pretty small market, but there are other industries that have analogous uses. I have a feeling the issue is that mostly these services are not provided by web servers and accessed via web clients. That's changing, of course, but given that you can test out your new web accessible Oracle application with your PC, and you already have PC's, lots of people are not heading over to the thin clients yet (how long has this been going on?).
I think this, conceptually, is how I would do it, given the time and money. Given even more money, I would do two things differently. First, and I know you considered this (and I like the reason you didn't do it), I would put the images right into the database. If only to prevent the possibility that the database would occasionally point to a file or location that was no longer there. Also, importantly, it would simplify security settings (you would only need database security, not additional, analagous file security). Also, I don't like the idea of archiving to CD-rom, ever, if it can be avoided. The problem is the "anyone can look them up and get the images when needed" part. What about security? I.e., where do you store the CDs, and how does just anyone get there? Aren't they locked up? Aren't there some images that are available only to some people, not others? Also, what about forgetfulness? How do you get people to return the CD's when they're done? If you instead demand that people make copies without checking out the CDs, that's another kind of headache (you need to set up some facility to make that possible). Have you dealt with these issues? I'd be curious to hear whether they've really come up much. Thanks, Matt Morgan