Then again I also liked the Lynch version back in '84. Of course the Lynch movie only made sense if you read the book first and was a collossal failure as a result.
Most movies have differences from the books, and one must accept that. I felt this mini-series is doing a good job telling the story that is Dune, whereas Lynch tried to relay all the information of the book onto the screen.
What I mean by that. In the book you hear the unsaid thoughts of the various characters, and lynch tried to portray those. As an example, when Profession Kynes observes Paul whering a stillsuit in the Lynch movie, as in the book he observes "He shall know your ways as if born to them."
That interpretation wasn't evident in the mini-series version of the book. Which is actually better in some ways, at least as far as making a movie is concerned. The Lynch movie confused a lot of the audience with these inner voice comments.
So far I prefer the costumes and casting of the mini-series. It's not nearly as comical as the original film, especially the Baron and Emperor.
Anyway, I enjoyed it and look forward to the remainder of the story to unfold.
And don't forget that in some parts of the country we go down to the stop light and turn right, and in others we go to the stop and go light and turn right.:)
Bubblers and stop and go lights is a Wisconsin thing.
That's just the opposite of my experience. Sixth Sense kept me at the edge of my seat, whereas Unbreakable was like "*yawn* that's what I figured".
I think the problem was that the director was trying to duplicate the success of his first movie with basically the same style, and it didn't work.
The story unfortunately felt very forced, there were scenes which didn't really belong there even though they did have cool imagery and the characters were not developed well.
What expensive and buggy add-on software do you have to buy to remotely admin a Win2k installation?
The GUI administration tools provided with both NT and Win2k will work on remote instances of servers, desktops, etc.
Most of the administration objects provided for use by Windows Scripting Host will operate remotely as well.
In the situations where you may need to work directly on the machine, Win2k provides a telnet server and with the extensive administrative capabilities provide by WSH it is quite easy to administer a server remotely.
I suppose if the network is down, then you'd have trouble. In those cases there are add-on solutions such as the Compaq Remote Insight board.
I've already read the Kirch article and found it to be poorly argued, as well as out of date and factually incorrect. His most glaring problem is a continuous attempt to try to prove Linux is great by using examples of say Solaris or HPUX.
I think you miss the point. To a large number of the users Microsoft Office was the best solution. As some comments from the original article indicated, the endusers almost overwhelmingly rejected the WordPerfect suite forced upon them.
The solution that they devised resulted in costing twice as much because they required each department to effectively buy two different office suites... One imposed by IT, the other that they actually wanted.
That's not cost effective.
There are definately some things users want that are harmful to the company, and it is possible to explain and document that. Obviously unfirewalled Internet access would be bad, and there are technical reasons for that.
But in this case there was no technical basis for the WordPerfect choice, it was only financial, and as it turns out the financial decision was totally ill thought out as the final cost was much much more.
Ok. Here's a solution. Institute a policy. Install Microsoft Windows or any Microsoft software, and you're fired.
So then the users don't purchase their computer systems through corporate IT, but instead go to Best Buy to buy their computers.
I've been there, I've done that... Corporate IT can not win battles by ignoring the needs and desires of the end users. At my current company we have a whole division which refuses to use IT resources and instead has their own server admins, desktop guys, etc. All because they think it's ridiculously constrictive to abide by the guidelines our IT staff has put in place.
Now the one difference is if the endusers go off and buy their own services and refuse to rely on the corporate IT, they are at least lawfully abiding by licenses and such.
The danger is, this dramatically decreases the power of the IT department and the entity as a whole loses the benefits of scale. i.e. the ability to purchase bulk licensing contracts, etc.
A suggestion that this city move to Linux with StarOffice is most certainly not the answer and shows a tremendous lack of understanding of the problem they had.
From the original story, the issue was that while the city IT shop had decided to choose Wordperfect Suite as their standard office productivity tool, that wasn't what their users wanted.
Rather than slog their way through using Wordperfect, the users instead just went ahead and installed Microsoft Office without permission.
So now they find themselves in a position where there is rampant piracy all because the IT staff did not listen to it's users when making a software buying decision.
And you think Linux/StarOffice is the answer? All that would result in is the users bringing Win95 CD's from home to get their computers to a point where they found them useful again.
IT has to talk to it's users, they have to listen to their users, they have to provide solutions taht the users want!
Under IIS 5.0 web sites can run under seperate processes, and those processes are monitored. If they do not appear to be running correctly they are killed and started afresh.
The Apache strategy is to have a child process only handle so many requests and then kill itself to free up memory leaks, etc.
I don't really see the big deal. The strategy is not particularly innovative or new, it's been done for years. Many people implement systems which check whether a process is working and restart it in the event of failure.
I think the idea that Microsoft used GPL code to implement this idea is laughable at best.
Actually there are a lot of companies which prefer this type of contract. It's nothing new to software... McAfee virus scan has been doing this for quite some time, as well as most of the Mainframe/Unix software houses for the past 20-30 years or so if not longer.
A number of companies I've had dealings with in recent years have gone to leasing of equipment rather than purchasing it. While there is some increase in overhead in maintaining inventory lists, it decreases the overhead in accounting.
Leasing costs can be written off immediately as a business expense, whereas capital costs have to be depreciated over a period of time(I think it's 3 years on computers?).
I don't know how tax writeoffs work with software, but I assume similar rules might apply.
Another thing to factor in is that this would be a guaranteed yearly charge, versus a variable charge every couple of years. Again accountants find it easier to budget around yearly charges.
This is also why Microsoft prefers this model, as it would provide a steady revenue stream for them. Which means that Wall Street will like the plan as well.
It's all going to depend on the price points. Most companies upgrade their office suites about once every 3 years. If the yearly lease cost is 1/3rd or less of the full purchase price, it may very well make sense. If it's only 1/2, there will be some questioning. If it's higher than 1/2, I don't think many people will accept it.
Another benefit to IT managers is that a yearly maintenance cost on software insures you get the latest version upgrades without having to debate it much. Meaning for example, our $300k/year maintenance contract to Oracle gives us access to the latest Oracle 9i. To the IT manager, that means not having to fight a budget battle any time there is a problem that needs to be addressed by a software upgrade.
I can't see very many small companies going this route, but to larger corporations there are many compelling reasons why they will be receptive to software leasing.
Virgin was trying to give away similar computers for free, and then fund the monthly internet charges through advertising.
Netpliance was selling the initial hardware for a modest fee, and then charging the typical $20-25/month internet access fees.
Completely different business plans, which have no bearing on one another.
I believe the initial comment in this thread has merit, and the Linux activists did aid in damaging the companies profitability. I don't think you should be proud of financially harming a company that did you no harm.
Umm... I guess I'm getting somewhat tired of people commenting on.Net without really taking a critical look at it.
A core basis for it's existence is Cross-Platform support. Microsoft understands that companies do have multiple systems in their environments which need to work together.
Unlike Sun, Microsoft is not suggesting that you should write all your software using Java. Instead they are saying... write your software with whatever language you want and then using.Net they can communicate together.
Microsoft's goal is to have services which run on Win2k servers talking to services running on Mainframes or Unix servers.
This happens today, but you need to devise some custom solution to make them talk with each other. Microsoft is simply providing a generic framework for you, so you can focus instead on the solution details.
First, Universities and a number of other government entities are being asked to become self-sufficient. Basically if they provide a service which is of use, then perhaps they can recoup much of their costs through service fees, licensing, whatever.
Personally as a tax payer I think it makes sense. It lowers my taxes and/or it provides an opportunity to delve into things that the money might not have otherwise been available for. (Assuming the U has $1mil, versus $1mil + $500k from fees)
There is a disagreement with this from an academic standpoint in that it does tend to push research towards directions which are marketable to commercial entities. Although the Universities still review research to decide if it is ethical, or a direction that should be gone. As one example, when I worked at the University I recall our Agronomy dept board rejecting a proposal from a seed company to research genetically altered corn which was resistant to certain herbicides. They went outside and did it anyway, and now have felt the wrath of the EU:)
Another issue... If you reject the notion that Universities should charge for their research, etc. because they are tax payer funded entities and thus their work belongs to the public.
If you take this stance, then really the only legitimate license is... no license, i.e. Public Domain.
The work belongs to the public, which means the public can do with it whatever they want.
By talking about the GPL you are taking a middle ground, saying that the public doesn't own the work, but the University also shouldn't be trying to recoup tax dollars by charging fees.
Slashdot Mirror
The pronunciation differences were the results of British interpretation.
I don't understand why people would be so bugged by that, as there is no right answer.
Do the people of Dune speak the Queen's English or Webster's English?
Does it even matter?
I do agree, the quality of writing did go down hill as the books progressed.
The first book was clearly the best.
Then again I also liked the Lynch version back in '84. Of course the Lynch movie only made sense if you read the book first and was a collossal failure as a result.
Most movies have differences from the books, and one must accept that. I felt this mini-series is doing a good job telling the story that is Dune, whereas Lynch tried to relay all the information of the book onto the screen.
What I mean by that. In the book you hear the unsaid thoughts of the various characters, and lynch tried to portray those. As an example, when Profession Kynes observes Paul whering a stillsuit in the Lynch movie, as in the book he observes "He shall know your ways as if born to them."
That interpretation wasn't evident in the mini-series version of the book. Which is actually better in some ways, at least as far as making a movie is concerned. The Lynch movie confused a lot of the audience with these inner voice comments.
So far I prefer the costumes and casting of the mini-series. It's not nearly as comical as the original film, especially the Baron and Emperor.
Anyway, I enjoyed it and look forward to the remainder of the story to unfold.
Hmm. Well the action in the Sixth Sense was pretty slow, but there were quite a number of twists and turns that shocked me.
Sixth Sense was not the same movie the second time watching it as the first.
No, I think the problem was the movie was boring.
I went into the movie not really expecting anything, the previews had not really talked about what the movie would be.
Like I said, the storyline itself was very intriguing I just think the implementation didn't come off well.
True... true...
:)
And don't forget that in some parts of the country we go down to the stop light and turn right, and in others we go to the stop and go light and turn right.
Bubblers and stop and go lights is a Wisconsin thing.
That's just the opposite of my experience. Sixth Sense kept me at the edge of my seat, whereas Unbreakable was like "*yawn* that's what I figured".
I think the problem was that the director was trying to duplicate the success of his first movie with basically the same style, and it didn't work.
The story unfortunately felt very forced, there were scenes which didn't really belong there even though they did have cool imagery and the characters were not developed well.
But which version of english?
:)
Do we stand in lines or queues?
Do we go on holiday or on a vacation?
We we watch or mind our step?
While on vacation in London, the first day I was standing in line to buy a underground pass and some lady walked up and asked "Are you in the queue?"
She had to repeat it four times before I understood what she was talking about.
Of course my immediate reaction was to wonder if the queue was FIFO or LIFO.
What expensive and buggy add-on software do you have to buy to remotely admin a Win2k installation?
The GUI administration tools provided with both NT and Win2k will work on remote instances of servers, desktops, etc.
Most of the administration objects provided for use by Windows Scripting Host will operate remotely as well.
In the situations where you may need to work directly on the machine, Win2k provides a telnet server and with the extensive administrative capabilities provide by WSH it is quite easy to administer a server remotely.
I suppose if the network is down, then you'd have trouble. In those cases there are add-on solutions such as the Compaq Remote Insight board.
I've already read the Kirch article and found it to be poorly argued, as well as out of date and factually incorrect. His most glaring problem is a continuous attempt to try to prove Linux is great by using examples of say Solaris or HPUX.
I think you miss the point. To a large number of the users Microsoft Office was the best solution. As some comments from the original article indicated, the endusers almost overwhelmingly rejected the WordPerfect suite forced upon them.
The solution that they devised resulted in costing twice as much because they required each department to effectively buy two different office suites... One imposed by IT, the other that they actually wanted.
That's not cost effective.
There are definately some things users want that are harmful to the company, and it is possible to explain and document that. Obviously unfirewalled Internet access would be bad, and there are technical reasons for that.
But in this case there was no technical basis for the WordPerfect choice, it was only financial, and as it turns out the financial decision was totally ill thought out as the final cost was much much more.
So then the users don't purchase their computer systems through corporate IT, but instead go to Best Buy to buy their computers.
I've been there, I've done that... Corporate IT can not win battles by ignoring the needs and desires of the end users. At my current company we have a whole division which refuses to use IT resources and instead has their own server admins, desktop guys, etc. All because they think it's ridiculously constrictive to abide by the guidelines our IT staff has put in place.
Now the one difference is if the endusers go off and buy their own services and refuse to rely on the corporate IT, they are at least lawfully abiding by licenses and such.
The danger is, this dramatically decreases the power of the IT department and the entity as a whole loses the benefits of scale. i.e. the ability to purchase bulk licensing contracts, etc.
A suggestion that this city move to Linux with StarOffice is most certainly not the answer and shows a tremendous lack of understanding of the problem they had.
From the original story, the issue was that while the city IT shop had decided to choose Wordperfect Suite as their standard office productivity tool, that wasn't what their users wanted.
Rather than slog their way through using Wordperfect, the users instead just went ahead and installed Microsoft Office without permission.
So now they find themselves in a position where there is rampant piracy all because the IT staff did not listen to it's users when making a software buying decision.
And you think Linux/StarOffice is the answer? All that would result in is the users bringing Win95 CD's from home to get their computers to a point where they found them useful again.
IT has to talk to it's users, they have to listen to their users, they have to provide solutions taht the users want!
Odd... I was agreeing with the poster, and disagreeing with the Petreley article.
You should probably stop getting wedgies before coming to work in the morning.
Is there something wrong with being able to buy food for your children?
Under IIS 5.0 web sites can run under seperate processes, and those processes are monitored. If they do not appear to be running correctly they are killed and started afresh.
The Apache strategy is to have a child process only handle so many requests and then kill itself to free up memory leaks, etc.
I don't really see the big deal. The strategy is not particularly innovative or new, it's been done for years. Many people implement systems which check whether a process is working and restart it in the event of failure.
I think the idea that Microsoft used GPL code to implement this idea is laughable at best.
Could you define the word 'complaint' for me?
;)
Thank you.
Haven't you heard? EULA and copyrights are evil.
I just found it incredibly funny that someone would complain, especially a slashdot editor, about violating the terms of service on Napster.
Haven't you heard? Napster can't control what their users do.
You have to remember, this is the 21st century we are talking about. We have the technology to make your life not so nightmarish.
I suspect that the license would be managed by a network server. Install the key once, and it gets propagated out to all your installs.
I used to use Arc/Info back many years ago on Unix workstations and they used a licensing product called flexlm which managed this.
It was only a pain when the network went down and I couldn't reach the license manager server.
Actually there are a lot of companies which prefer this type of contract. It's nothing new to software... McAfee virus scan has been doing this for quite some time, as well as most of the Mainframe/Unix software houses for the past 20-30 years or so if not longer.
A number of companies I've had dealings with in recent years have gone to leasing of equipment rather than purchasing it. While there is some increase in overhead in maintaining inventory lists, it decreases the overhead in accounting.
Leasing costs can be written off immediately as a business expense, whereas capital costs have to be depreciated over a period of time(I think it's 3 years on computers?).
I don't know how tax writeoffs work with software, but I assume similar rules might apply.
Another thing to factor in is that this would be a guaranteed yearly charge, versus a variable charge every couple of years. Again accountants find it easier to budget around yearly charges.
This is also why Microsoft prefers this model, as it would provide a steady revenue stream for them. Which means that Wall Street will like the plan as well.
It's all going to depend on the price points. Most companies upgrade their office suites about once every 3 years. If the yearly lease cost is 1/3rd or less of the full purchase price, it may very well make sense. If it's only 1/2, there will be some questioning. If it's higher than 1/2, I don't think many people will accept it.
Another benefit to IT managers is that a yearly maintenance cost on software insures you get the latest version upgrades without having to debate it much. Meaning for example, our $300k/year maintenance contract to Oracle gives us access to the latest Oracle 9i. To the IT manager, that means not having to fight a budget battle any time there is a problem that needs to be addressed by a software upgrade.
I can't see very many small companies going this route, but to larger corporations there are many compelling reasons why they will be receptive to software leasing.
Wow! Amazing...
We have the exact same thing here.
Oh yeah, it's called the quarterly mail cleanup, where the admins delete any message older than 3 months.
The iOpener business plan was no more fundamentally flawed than that of the Playstation.
:(
What others will learn from it is not to trust the Linux hacker community.
Virgin was trying to give away similar computers for free, and then fund the monthly internet charges through advertising.
Netpliance was selling the initial hardware for a modest fee, and then charging the typical $20-25/month internet access fees.
Completely different business plans, which have no bearing on one another.
I believe the initial comment in this thread has merit, and the Linux activists did aid in damaging the companies profitability. I don't think you should be proud of financially harming a company that did you no harm.
In your last paragraph, if you exchange Sun with Microsoft the paragraph still holds true.
This debate really isn't so cut and dried.
Umm... I guess I'm getting somewhat tired of people commenting on .Net without really taking a critical look at it.
.Net they can communicate together.
A core basis for it's existence is Cross-Platform support. Microsoft understands that companies do have multiple systems in their environments which need to work together.
Unlike Sun, Microsoft is not suggesting that you should write all your software using Java. Instead they are saying... write your software with whatever language you want and then using
Microsoft's goal is to have services which run on Win2k servers talking to services running on Mainframes or Unix servers.
This happens today, but you need to devise some custom solution to make them talk with each other. Microsoft is simply providing a generic framework for you, so you can focus instead on the solution details.
First, Universities and a number of other government entities are being asked to become self-sufficient. Basically if they provide a service which is of use, then perhaps they can recoup much of their costs through service fees, licensing, whatever.
:)
Personally as a tax payer I think it makes sense. It lowers my taxes and/or it provides an opportunity to delve into things that the money might not have otherwise been available for. (Assuming the U has $1mil, versus $1mil + $500k from fees)
There is a disagreement with this from an academic standpoint in that it does tend to push research towards directions which are marketable to commercial entities. Although the Universities still review research to decide if it is ethical, or a direction that should be gone. As one example, when I worked at the University I recall our Agronomy dept board rejecting a proposal from a seed company to research genetically altered corn which was resistant to certain herbicides. They went outside and did it anyway, and now have felt the wrath of the EU
Another issue... If you reject the notion that Universities should charge for their research, etc. because they are tax payer funded entities and thus their work belongs to the public.
If you take this stance, then really the only legitimate license is... no license, i.e. Public Domain.
The work belongs to the public, which means the public can do with it whatever they want.
By talking about the GPL you are taking a middle ground, saying that the public doesn't own the work, but the University also shouldn't be trying to recoup tax dollars by charging fees.