"I'm mostly white, working class, an adult, and do not *force* my choice down anyones throats but will happily speak when asked."
But yet you happily support laws which force your choice down others throats.
Fucking hypocrite.
"Now, time for you to take your pills and watch some TV, you're a little excited today."
I am always angered when I see people working to kill mankind's future.
Job and wealth creation is FUNDAMENTAL to the well being of mankind. Destroying this because you think it's evil to own property is a crime against humanity.
"People don't like other people sitting up in ivory towers and telling them what to do."
Which is why I hate your ideology so much.
Consumers should have the right to choose and purchase any product that they want. The fact that you consider companies producing products has no relevancy on their choice. If you don't like the products THEN DON'T BUY THEM!
"Which is the only reason I'm allowing myself to be trolled by responding:P "
Huh? Following up to every one of my posts is stalking. You weren't trolled, you followed me here.
"Linux is growing in importance in the mindset of business and government."
You don't seriously believe this, do you? Linux popularity is on a tremendous decline. The hype is gone, the bill has come due and Linux has failed to deliver.
"So, do you actually have a reason for why government should financially support private interests over public ones? "
Because private interests create jobs.
Private interests build wealth.
"Here's something to chew on: government spending LESS MONEY is about as far from communism as you can get."
We're not talking about government spending LESS MONEY... We're talking about nationalizing the creation of software. Or haven't you read the GNU Manifesto?
"As an aside, how many developers who use/release open source have even read the GNU Manifesto? "
Perhaps they should before blindly following his religion?
" Not very many (especially no one I know, myself included). "
Well I've long been of the opinion that those who are angered by my statements are ignorant. The fact that you are proud of your ignorance does in no way invalidate my points.
"I guess the rest of the world is just incompetent, and switched all at once, eh?"
Perhaps, perhaps not. It is not my job to decide that.
I only question your assertion that the US is incompetent by pointing out that we really have no problem working with two methods of measurement. Maybe that makes us smarter, I don't know.
"It's not a big deal because you are the only one left, and you only have to worry about converting to one other system."
Interesting. When I was driving in Scotland I could have sworn the car read mph and the distances were listed as miles on the road signs.
"It isn't a communist dream of wealth redistribution, it's a recognition that software and data have very little economic value by themselves, that once software is written, it becomes an infinite resource that everyone can share."
Obviously you haven't been paying attention to Richard Stallman and the other Software Communists.
"As a Libertarian and a supporter of free software, I see no fundamental conflict between OSS and property rights, any more than I see a fundamental conflict between grocery stores and charity food banks."
Except that charity food banks aren't going around claiming farmers should give away all their food for free.
Libertarians don't believe in government mandates.
"Making this mandatory, in my opinion, goes against everything that open source stands for - choice."
News Flash!
Open Source stopped standing for choice years ago, back when Richard Stallman wrote the GNU Manifesto and declared the need to outlaw paid programming positions. Open Source is now part of the anti-globalism, anti-capitalism movement which means a bunch of elitist middle class white kids forcing their "choice" down your throat.
"So either a few billion people have to switch to teh US system, or the US has to switch to metric."
The world should switch to the same currency.
The world should switch to the same language.
The world should switch to the same religion.
The world should switch to the same government.
You can make the same case pro or con for any one of those statements.
In the US we use both systems of measurement, we pick and choose where it makes sense. Slowly more and more things are moving to metric. But working with both units of measurement really hasn't been that big of a deal as the metric mandating proponents claimed.
"We're talking about websites that can be moved from a windows i386 server to a unix mainframe without a glitch."
We recently acquired a company that had a web site built on the Weblogic J2EE platform, running on an HPUX machine. For whatever reason, we didn't acquire the whole company so we lost the licensing for Weblogic in the deal. Rather than pay BEA, we tried to move the site over to Oracle's app server which we already have paid for.
It most certainly did not work without a glitch. Apparently Weblogic(like most J2EE platforms) has all kinds of proprietary methods in there to differentiate themselves from the competition.
We reevaluated the project and decided it was cheaper to buy a license for Weblogic than to rework the site to work with Oracle.
I'm curious why no J2EE vendor, or even JBoss hasn't rewritten the Petstore functionality in an intelligent manner to make for a better comparison?
I know Oracle tried to do something like this, but they seriously screwed up. I read the Veritest examination of that test, and I'm very familiar with using Loadrunner and can see that they purposefully set options to skew results in their favor. The only thing Microsoft seems to be guilty of is trusting Sun to provide a good app.
Just seems like your complaints would have more credibility if you backed them up with actions.
I was a bit surprised several months back. We needed a new Oracle server for development purposes, and so I asked for a quote from our DBAs.
So I'm looking down this quote and I see... 'Redhat Advanced Server $500'. I'm thinking WTF? I can buy Windows 2000 server for $500, why am I paying for Linux? I thought our DBAs claimed it was going to be cheaper if we went with Linux. (Well it is cheaper than going with an HPUX box, but...)
So I dug into it, and basically found the same thing you did. If you want to use Redhat Server you've got to pay for it.
So with Redhat I get the software for free and pay for service. With Microsoft I pay for the software and get the service for free. Six of one, half dozen of another... I see no difference.
Dumping doesn't have anything to do with specific persons or specific reasons. What they appear to be doing is offering Tiger the same volume pricing that they would offer someone like Dell.
BTW, we have no confirmation on this other than Robertson's claim who isn't the most honest of individuals.
But if you want to get really confused, prove that Linux is not being dumped on the market considering you can get it for free, which is obviously below what it cost to produce.
One might even argue that Lindows whole business model is based on product dumping.
I've been using the built-in XP support, and frankly see no more reason to have WinZip.
I guess I'd have to know what the new features are. File size isn't that important to me, it already does long file names and directory structure. What more do I need?
Ok, I don't know which cracker jack box you got your econ degree from but...
Dumping has at least two definitions.
In the context of one country dumping goods on another, it refers to selling it for less than the normal (fair) value within the home country.
In the context of one competitor outdoing another, it refers to selling the product for believe the marginal cost of production.
I don't know where you got your US$299 figure for WinXP. XP Home sells for around $100 through OEM, and I wouldn't be surprised if Dell doesn't get it for $50 a copy in large volumes. Hell Wal-Mart will sell it to Lindows buyers for $119.98.
And before you ask, I got my econ degree out of a box of Cheerios which is far more reputable than cracker jacks.
You're looking at this from a standpoint of employment insurance, which is reasonable since that is how government employees are rewarded. So buying stuff is a big pain in the butt, but hiring staff to build it yourself is easier to justify. It's convoluted.
But if you were working for a company the question would be "which costs less", supporting the solution yourself over the next 5-10 years... or buying support from a company.
Also factor into this, "What do I want to be doing in 5 years." If your answer is "continuing to support this cobbled together Linux solution" then being a Government employee is the right career for you. But if you want to be doing something different, you might want to think about what would be the easiest exit strategy for your job there, i.e. turning over your work to someone else.
Sorry for the disdain, but I used to be a government employee and I saw the way things worked.
ESR and his ilk are anti-establishment. As Linux takes off and becomes more popular, they will quickly find something else to champion and start yelling about Linux being a sell-out.
Essentially the basis of the ideology is anti-establishment radical, and it should not come as any surprise to people that today's neo-conservatives are yesterdays hippie-liberals.
If you look at many of the leading neo-conservative media pundits, you'll see this trend. This isn't an original observation, it was something I gleaned from David Brock's "Blinded by the Right" autobiography where he details the transformation within himself.
But anyway, ESR is a lunatic and is not part of my hacker community.
"When I first got into computers around 94-95ish, it seemed like once a week a new technology or use for current technology was being created..."
Is this perception or reality?
I've been in the industry for over 20 years. Whenever I've noticed the market is moving very slowly, I've found it's because I'm following the wrong part of the market.
I would say the same is true today. The DMCA most certainly doesn't have any impact on the generation of new technologies, as it is focused solely on protecting existing tech. If all you see is the DMCA, you are looking in the wrong location.
"The free software world may not be perfect but it doesn't suffer from that particular disadvantage."
What I find most impressive about your ignorant rant, is you go off claiming the Microsoft world suffers from numerous contradictory issues. That's great, that's what opinions are for.
You then make the assertion that free software does not suffer from these issues, but you formulate no argument to support why.
It appears as though you want to believe something, and you're just randomly throwing out ideas you think might support this belief.
Slashdot Mirror
"I'm mostly white, working class, an adult, and do not *force* my choice down anyones throats but will happily speak when asked."
But yet you happily support laws which force your choice down others throats.
Fucking hypocrite.
"Now, time for you to take your pills and watch some TV, you're a little excited today."
I am always angered when I see people working to kill mankind's future.
Job and wealth creation is FUNDAMENTAL to the well being of mankind. Destroying this because you think it's evil to own property is a crime against humanity.
Stop stalking me you fucking pervert.
:P "
"People don't like other people sitting up in ivory towers and telling them what to do."
Which is why I hate your ideology so much.
Consumers should have the right to choose and purchase any product that they want. The fact that you consider companies producing products has no relevancy on their choice. If you don't like the products THEN DON'T BUY THEM!
"Which is the only reason I'm allowing myself to be trolled by responding
Huh? Following up to every one of my posts is stalking. You weren't trolled, you followed me here.
"Linux is growing in importance in the mindset of business and government."
You don't seriously believe this, do you? Linux popularity is on a tremendous decline. The hype is gone, the bill has come due and Linux has failed to deliver.
The desperation of the zealots is shown by their change of direction. i.e. the move to mandate it through government legislation.
"It seems nearly every week I read of another increase in mindshare and the FUD from the naysayers is not going to make it go away. "
Of course, because you only read news sources which conform to your point of view.
"Desktop acceptance may be on the horizon still, but it is only a question of time, since Linux is powering along in the server market."
Of course the only way to achieve this is to outlaw other alternatives because you find it impossible to compete.
"So, do you actually have a reason for why government should financially support private interests over public ones? "
Because private interests create jobs.
Private interests build wealth.
"Here's something to chew on: government spending LESS MONEY is about as far from communism as you can get."
We're not talking about government spending LESS MONEY... We're talking about nationalizing the creation of software. Or haven't you read the GNU Manifesto?
Nationalization of industry is Communism.
And quit stalking me your fricking pervert.
"The government shouldn't be subsidizing some _private_ interest if there is a public alternative."
There's a name for this ideology. Hmm, what was it again?
Oh yeah... Communism.
"As an aside, how many developers who use/release open source have even read the GNU Manifesto? "
Perhaps they should before blindly following his religion?
" Not very many (especially no one I know, myself included). "
Well I've long been of the opinion that those who are angered by my statements are ignorant. The fact that you are proud of your ignorance does in no way invalidate my points.
"Perhaps you would care to explain your objections beyond false analogies and flamebait. "
What's false?
Linux has failed in the marketplace and now it's proponents have moved to relying on forced government mandates.
If you can't deal with that simple fact, then maybe you need to reevaluate your position.
"I guess the rest of the world is just incompetent, and switched all at once, eh?"
Perhaps, perhaps not. It is not my job to decide that.
I only question your assertion that the US is incompetent by pointing out that we really have no problem working with two methods of measurement. Maybe that makes us smarter, I don't know.
"It's not a big deal because you are the only one left, and you only have to worry about converting to one other system."
Interesting. When I was driving in Scotland I could have sworn the car read mph and the distances were listed as miles on the road signs.
Must have just been an illusion I guess.
"It isn't a communist dream of wealth redistribution, it's a recognition that software and data have very little economic value by themselves, that once software is written, it becomes an infinite resource that everyone can share."
Obviously you haven't been paying attention to Richard Stallman and the other Software Communists.
"As a Libertarian and a supporter of free software, I see no fundamental conflict between OSS and property rights, any more than I see a fundamental conflict between grocery stores and charity food banks."
Except that charity food banks aren't going around claiming farmers should give away all their food for free.
Libertarians don't believe in government mandates.
"Making this mandatory, in my opinion, goes against everything that open source stands for - choice."
News Flash!
Open Source stopped standing for choice years ago, back when Richard Stallman wrote the GNU Manifesto and declared the need to outlaw paid programming positions. Open Source is now part of the anti-globalism, anti-capitalism movement which means a bunch of elitist middle class white kids forcing their "choice" down your throat.
"So either a few billion people have to switch to teh US system, or the US has to switch to metric."
The world should switch to the same currency.
The world should switch to the same language.
The world should switch to the same religion.
The world should switch to the same government.
You can make the same case pro or con for any one of those statements.
In the US we use both systems of measurement, we pick and choose where it makes sense. Slowly more and more things are moving to metric. But working with both units of measurement really hasn't been that big of a deal as the metric mandating proponents claimed.
"We're talking about websites that can be moved from a windows i386 server to a unix mainframe without a glitch."
We recently acquired a company that had a web site built on the Weblogic J2EE platform, running on an HPUX machine. For whatever reason, we didn't acquire the whole company so we lost the licensing for Weblogic in the deal. Rather than pay BEA, we tried to move the site over to Oracle's app server which we already have paid for.
It most certainly did not work without a glitch. Apparently Weblogic(like most J2EE platforms) has all kinds of proprietary methods in there to differentiate themselves from the competition.
We reevaluated the project and decided it was cheaper to buy a license for Weblogic than to rework the site to work with Oracle.
So much for portability.
I'm curious why no J2EE vendor, or even JBoss hasn't rewritten the Petstore functionality in an intelligent manner to make for a better comparison?
I know Oracle tried to do something like this, but they seriously screwed up. I read the Veritest examination of that test, and I'm very familiar with using Loadrunner and can see that they purposefully set options to skew results in their favor. The only thing Microsoft seems to be guilty of is trusting Sun to provide a good app.
Just seems like your complaints would have more credibility if you backed them up with actions.
I was a bit surprised several months back. We needed a new Oracle server for development purposes, and so I asked for a quote from our DBAs.
So I'm looking down this quote and I see... 'Redhat Advanced Server $500'. I'm thinking WTF? I can buy Windows 2000 server for $500, why am I paying for Linux? I thought our DBAs claimed it was going to be cheaper if we went with Linux. (Well it is cheaper than going with an HPUX box, but...)
So I dug into it, and basically found the same thing you did. If you want to use Redhat Server you've got to pay for it.
So with Redhat I get the software for free and pay for service. With Microsoft I pay for the software and get the service for free. Six of one, half dozen of another... I see no difference.
Dumping doesn't have anything to do with specific persons or specific reasons. What they appear to be doing is offering Tiger the same volume pricing that they would offer someone like Dell.
BTW, we have no confirmation on this other than Robertson's claim who isn't the most honest of individuals.
But if you want to get really confused, prove that Linux is not being dumped on the market considering you can get it for free, which is obviously below what it cost to produce.
One might even argue that Lindows whole business model is based on product dumping.
I've been using the built-in XP support, and frankly see no more reason to have WinZip.
I guess I'd have to know what the new features are. File size isn't that important to me, it already does long file names and directory structure. What more do I need?
Ok, I don't know which cracker jack box you got your econ degree from but...
Dumping has at least two definitions.
In the context of one country dumping goods on another, it refers to selling it for less than the normal (fair) value within the home country.
In the context of one competitor outdoing another, it refers to selling the product for believe the marginal cost of production.
I don't know where you got your US$299 figure for WinXP. XP Home sells for around $100 through OEM, and I wouldn't be surprised if Dell doesn't get it for $50 a copy in large volumes. Hell Wal-Mart will sell it to Lindows buyers for $119.98.
And before you ask, I got my econ degree out of a box of Cheerios which is far more reputable than cracker jacks.
You're looking at this from a standpoint of employment insurance, which is reasonable since that is how government employees are rewarded. So buying stuff is a big pain in the butt, but hiring staff to build it yourself is easier to justify. It's convoluted.
But if you were working for a company the question would be "which costs less", supporting the solution yourself over the next 5-10 years... or buying support from a company.
Also factor into this, "What do I want to be doing in 5 years." If your answer is "continuing to support this cobbled together Linux solution" then being a Government employee is the right career for you. But if you want to be doing something different, you might want to think about what would be the easiest exit strategy for your job there, i.e. turning over your work to someone else.
Sorry for the disdain, but I used to be a government employee and I saw the way things worked.
Don't worry.
ESR and his ilk are anti-establishment. As Linux takes off and becomes more popular, they will quickly find something else to champion and start yelling about Linux being a sell-out.
The neo-conservative term is kind of weird.
Essentially the basis of the ideology is anti-establishment radical, and it should not come as any surprise to people that today's neo-conservatives are yesterdays hippie-liberals.
If you look at many of the leading neo-conservative media pundits, you'll see this trend. This isn't an original observation, it was something I gleaned from David Brock's "Blinded by the Right" autobiography where he details the transformation within himself.
But anyway, ESR is a lunatic and is not part of my hacker community.
"When I first got into computers around 94-95ish, it seemed like once a week a new technology or use for current technology was being created..."
Is this perception or reality?
I've been in the industry for over 20 years. Whenever I've noticed the market is moving very slowly, I've found it's because I'm following the wrong part of the market.
I would say the same is true today. The DMCA most certainly doesn't have any impact on the generation of new technologies, as it is focused solely on protecting existing tech. If all you see is the DMCA, you are looking in the wrong location.
Could you please list all 1050 patches for Windows as well as the 350 for Redhat?
I'd like to verify your claims.
"The free software world may not be perfect but it doesn't suffer from that particular disadvantage."
What I find most impressive about your ignorant rant, is you go off claiming the Microsoft world suffers from numerous contradictory issues. That's great, that's what opinions are for.
You then make the assertion that free software does not suffer from these issues, but you formulate no argument to support why.
It appears as though you want to believe something, and you're just randomly throwing out ideas you think might support this belief.
"No, not a shared printer... one that sits on the network with maybe a little interface box and that's it."
Well the Jetdirect card has an IP address you configure. This is detailed in the manual that comes with the card.
Then you go to your Win2k server and setup a new port... then assign drivers. This is also detailed in the manual that comes with the card.
"And adding print support in Windows isn't as simple as saying print(mystuff); -- proper printing support is quite a bit more complex."
How would you know? Your knowledge of Windows is still stuck in the Win98 era. THAT WAS FIVE YEARS AGO!?
"To be quite honest, I dont care at all if .net is better than Java. The point is that .net is controlled by Microsoft,"
I prefer making decisions based on technical advantage, not religious fanatacism.