Having worked with.NET a bit over the past year, and having had experience doing C++ and VB over the past 6 years or so...
The main advantage of.NET is to Windows developers as it gives them the flexibility and functionality of C++ with the ease of rapid development of VB. It's all about efficiency.
Efficiency of development is the primary goal, anything else that.NET gives Microsoft is nothing but gravy on top of that. Such as ease of moving from 32-bit to 64-bit Intel platform.
Not to a very large extent, and even in the first article he takes the position that endusers are an inconvenience.
I'm sorry, but the article is just incredibly biased and doesn't take a real critical look at the solution implemented.
Re:Used Equipment + OSS = Cost Savings
on
Largo Loving Linux
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· Score: 3, Interesting
The Risk aspect I discussed was not whether or not it would work, but whether or not you could properly budget for the solution.
Your cobbled together solution doesn't have a fixed cost associated with it, it will cost a different amount weekly depending on what it is you buy. Also as you introduce new cobbled together equipment to the environment, you've increased your support costs as you now have to manage multiple configurations.
It introduces some new variables which would have to be studied. I guess the point is, from an IT manager perspective life is a lot simpler if you can choose a solution and stick with it for at least a year. The cost Risk is also a little easier to handle when buying new equipment as you are fairly assured the prices will go down, not up. Better to come in under budget than over.
I've worked both in private industry and in government, and this cobbled together inelegant solution would probably fly in the government. But with the exception of a few small companies I've dealt with, few in private industry would accept this as a solution.
Again, it reminds me of the recent article discussing the cobbled together PVR. These were solutions that looked like good ideas when I was new to the industry 15 years ago, but over the years I've learned from experience that they aren't such great ideas.
Re:Most important quote...
on
Largo Loving Linux
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Also going back through the article it appears like Roblimo didn't take the time to interview endusers or city managers. Are they happy with the service provided?
As far as services, again Roblimo doesn't go into much detail, but towards the end of the article he hints at it with this statement:
"He is upset with other local governments that use Visual Basic or ActiveX to make Intranet and Internet applications with which Largo people must interact"
The key to a good IT solution is that you are meeting the needs of the endusers. Roblimo doesn't address that, but then that's because he is a Linux zealot who are of the old-school belief that life would be easier without endusers.
Re:Used Equipment + OSS = Cost Savings
on
Largo Loving Linux
·
· Score: 2
Ok, but now your strategy has become, "Use architecture A until hardware supply dries up on ebay... then reevaluate it and begin using a new architecture."
If I was an IT manager I would not at all be comfortable with that solution as it has a tremendous risk as it prevents you from creating a budget even over the short term.
"Its good to finally see a TCO that is about as unbiased as you can get."
Umm, it was written by Roblimo which means it's about as biased as you can get.
"Having said that, the 1.3% vs. 3% IT budget cost reduction is not all because of linux."
I also have the impression from the article that they are providing less services than some other cities. Perhaps the story should be titled "How to spend less money if you're willing to rely on fewer services."
Roblimo doesn't go into much detail on this, which is unfortunate but would be important to a city manager making a buying decision.
Re:Used Equipment + OSS = Cost Savings
on
Largo Loving Linux
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The problem is, your solution does not scale.
If every municipality in the US is out on ebay looking for NCD thin clients... Suddenly the price of NCD thin clients is no longer $5 each... it's $500/each. Or the equipment is simply not available.
That's supported by my responses to your ridiculous assertions.
"Are you considering a company's own employees as a "third party"? If not, then you completely missed the point. If so, well, I fail to see the utility of that view. "
No, you brought up the example of using OSS software developed by others and then customized. I pointed out that's being done today with third party companies, furthermore it's rare to need to modify any general purpose software such as what OSS creates.
"Yeah. Tell that to IBM. Or to Sun (who has adopted GNOME as their standard desktop). Or to Apple. Or to any number of smaller companies like Sleepycat and Trolltech. "
These are what you term successes? IBM is in the hardware and services business. Apple is a hardware company. Sun has become a complete failure in competition against OSS. Where are Sleepycat and Trolltech balance sheets? Neither are publically traded unlike VA Linux and Redhat which are both bleeding red.
Where's your comparable Symantec, Microsoft, Adobe, Compuware? Anything?
"Bwahahahaa!! Thanks for the belly laugh! You've got that completely backwards. It's the likes of Microsoft, with Palladium and their support for the CBDTPA who are trying to legislate Free software out of existence. "
Ok, now you are clearly a troll. You can't even evaluate the present state of the tech market correctly, how could you possibly try to forecast the future?
"Yeah, Stallman has some ideas that are silly, unrealistic and socialist (continue on down the manifesto and read about the Software Tax). No one gets everything right. What's your point? "
This thread is about Stallman, is it not?
Why do people hold him in great esteem if he's clearly a lunatic and not working for your best interests?
"BSD-style licenses are often a little easier to work with, but it's no accident that software with BSD-style licenses tends, in many cases, to have a less robust community supporting it. "
Yeah, Apache has been a complete utter failure.
You're obviously mistaken, the best examples of OSS software in widespread use have been under the BSD licenses.
"Frankly, I think you make the same mistake that Stallman does: you think software must all be developed one way. Free software, BSD-ish licenses, shared source licenses and closed source all have their place (restrictuve EULAs, however, should be shunned). Competition among business models and licenses is good."
There's a difference between competition and coercion.
Microsoft promotes competition.
FSF promotes coercion and tells you it is competition. They're very communistic in their aims and tactics.
You do realize what you said makes absolutely no sense whatsoever?
In both cases you still have to convince someone what you created is worth paying for. The only difference is whether that payment is from one rich benefactor(of which their are few), or from many people of all income levels(of which there are many).
Basically you are saying you prefer a model where only the elite rich have access to literature and music.
The French Revolution was fought against people like you.
"The vast majority of software is not developed on a speculative basis (build it and hope they buy it), most of it is built on contract or in house, and the only risk involved is to the buyer, because the guys writing the software are on hourly wages or salaries. "
Huh? You ask me to widen my horizons, and yet you clearly don't grasp the concepts.
Whether or not software is built on contract or in house, there is still cost involved. That cost is still speculative in nature. The only difference is how that return on investment is calculated. One way is unit sales, the other way is increased business opportunities.
"In this view, rather than buying a $10 million package, a company spends a few hundred thousand enhancing an existing package to make it better suit their needs."
This is called buying off-the-shelf software. It may not literally be off a shelf, but it was developed by a third party. You pay them to customize and deliver it to you. The extent of the customization determines the cost. OSS doesn't make much of any difference to this model because it is rare to find OSS software in the specific niches companies would need. Most OSS software addresses general purpose needs, or needs specific to admins and developers because of the lack of motivation to go beyond those needs.
"I'm a programmer, and I get paid (very well, actually) to write software, yet I'm not in the least bit afraid of OSS."
I'm not the least bit afraid of OSS. I am, however, afraid of the FSF and their attempts to lobby governments into nationalizing software development.
"As long as people want software, people will get paid to write it, manage it, distribute it, fix it, improve it, etc. "
The difference is whether you work in a Bill Gates world where you receive a goodly salary and stock options, or you live in Richard Stallmans world where you receive $40k a year and 3.1% federal worker cost of living increases.
"Free software isn't socialism, it's just a different business model."
After all, that has been RMS's goal all along... "What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned. "
- Richard Stallman in the GNU Manifesto
In the future I think it would be wise for you to stop confusing FSF with OSS. The two are not the same, and if you need clarification on that you need only ask Stallman.
"Software has no marginal cost, and therefore has a very small cost overall (1 person uses a program, which took 100 hours at $20 an hour to produce, cost of the program is $2,000. If 1,000,000 people use it, cost is still $2,000)"
Except most software takes thousands of hours to produce at far more than $20/hour. Try tens of thousands of hours at $80-100/hour. So your typical software product is in the millions of $ to produce.
A very small marginal cost does not equate to a very small cost overall. Producing software is not like creating widgets, you don't calculate cost based on marginal cost, but rather on recovery cost. Software is a high risk activity, for every product with an 85% profit margin you have more products with a 85% loss margin.
This is because after you've spent $10mil and you sold your first copy for $40, you are still running at a loss. Your hope is to sell 250,000 copies to break even on the initial development, but the reality is you have to sell more than that in order to cover cost of marketing, distribution and support and so forth. That's not guaranteed by any means, so you had better be creating something people want and are willing to pay for.
In RMS's world, the first copy should sell for $10 million, everybody else get's it for free. This works well if it's the Government creating the software, and it also solves the whole problem of having to please consumers in a market. This is why FSF proponents are typically found proposing ways to get the Government to fund all software development.
Oh dear. Such a wasted education. But I suppose your BS allowed you to drink regularly... ahh youth is wasted on the youth.
Go back to 1789... The Declaration of the Rights of Man freed the presses, but in so doing they eliminated any copy protections that had been previous granted. Keep in mind that their intention was to remove the monopoly that had been previously granted to a select few by the aristocracy, and it was a noble cause. But by 1793 it had become a crisis and as such the National Assembly passed a law which would resemble what we now regard as modern copyright.
You wish to eliminate copyright.
The point is, that's been tried before, and it was an abominable failure. What's sad is that the French did it accidentally, as a byproduct of a more noble cause. You wish to do it purposefully and with malice.
Do you think it shows extreme intelligence to point out the obvious?
Depends on what your server is doing, doesn't it?
on
Win2k Cheaper than Linux
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Generally these comparisons of number of admins for one type of server based on the OS are nonsensical. The real comparison needs to be focus on what function the server is performing.
Database servers require far less daily change control than File/Print servers. Even less when you consider it's the DBA doing changes, not the server admin.
What if you have one NT admin for every 40 NT servers, but only have one Unix admin for every 4 Unix servers? Isn't that a nonsensical comparison, when the NT boxes are 1U Compaq rack-mounts, but the Unix boxes are HP Superdomes?
And besides, when people talk about administrative functions they are thinking enterprise level. Not your dorm room.
"My browser (Mozilla) stores my passwords. Don't see why I need a network-based service, controlled by someone else, subject to snooping, stealing, or worse, when the browser on a PC I control will do the trick."
So basically you've written your passwords down underneath your keyboard, and think you are secure because nobody is going to look there.
Slashdot Mirror
We're discussing ASP.NET, not ASP. Totally different, it would be like comparing Perl CGI scripts to JSP.
.NET SDK from Microsoft is free, that includes compilers and everything. Microsoft has an ASP.NET development environment called Web Matrix that's free. They have an Open source web server you can use that's free, and so on and so forth.
/. you probably aren't knowledgeable to call anything else crap.
As for most of your other complaints, they all involve cost. So here we have this Mono implementation. On top of that the
"Please someone tell me what's the big deal of all this crap?"
If all you know about is Linux news you saw on
Having worked with .NET a bit over the past year, and having had experience doing C++ and VB over the past 6 years or so...
.NET is to Windows developers as it gives them the flexibility and functionality of C++ with the ease of rapid development of VB. It's all about efficiency.
.NET gives Microsoft is nothing but gravy on top of that. Such as ease of moving from 32-bit to 64-bit Intel platform.
The main advantage of
Efficiency of development is the primary goal, anything else that
Not to a very large extent, and even in the first article he takes the position that endusers are an inconvenience.
I'm sorry, but the article is just incredibly biased and doesn't take a real critical look at the solution implemented.
The Risk aspect I discussed was not whether or not it would work, but whether or not you could properly budget for the solution.
Your cobbled together solution doesn't have a fixed cost associated with it, it will cost a different amount weekly depending on what it is you buy. Also as you introduce new cobbled together equipment to the environment, you've increased your support costs as you now have to manage multiple configurations.
It introduces some new variables which would have to be studied. I guess the point is, from an IT manager perspective life is a lot simpler if you can choose a solution and stick with it for at least a year. The cost Risk is also a little easier to handle when buying new equipment as you are fairly assured the prices will go down, not up. Better to come in under budget than over.
I've worked both in private industry and in government, and this cobbled together inelegant solution would probably fly in the government. But with the exception of a few small companies I've dealt with, few in private industry would accept this as a solution.
Again, it reminds me of the recent article discussing the cobbled together PVR. These were solutions that looked like good ideas when I was new to the industry 15 years ago, but over the years I've learned from experience that they aren't such great ideas.
Also going back through the article it appears like Roblimo didn't take the time to interview endusers or city managers. Are they happy with the service provided?
As far as services, again Roblimo doesn't go into much detail, but towards the end of the article he hints at it with this statement:
"He is upset with other local governments that use Visual Basic or ActiveX to make Intranet and Internet applications with which Largo people must interact"
The key to a good IT solution is that you are meeting the needs of the endusers. Roblimo doesn't address that, but then that's because he is a Linux zealot who are of the old-school belief that life would be easier without endusers.
Ok, but now your strategy has become, "Use architecture A until hardware supply dries up on ebay... then reevaluate it and begin using a new architecture."
If I was an IT manager I would not at all be comfortable with that solution as it has a tremendous risk as it prevents you from creating a budget even over the short term.
"Its good to finally see a TCO that is about as unbiased as you can get."
Umm, it was written by Roblimo which means it's about as biased as you can get.
"Having said that, the 1.3% vs. 3% IT budget cost reduction is not all because of linux."
I also have the impression from the article that they are providing less services than some other cities. Perhaps the story should be titled "How to spend less money if you're willing to rely on fewer services."
Roblimo doesn't go into much detail on this, which is unfortunate but would be important to a city manager making a buying decision.
The problem is, your solution does not scale.
If every municipality in the US is out on ebay looking for NCD thin clients... Suddenly the price of NCD thin clients is no longer $5 each... it's $500/each. Or the equipment is simply not available.
Ohwell, good luck.
"Nice assertion. Care to support it? "
That's supported by my responses to your ridiculous assertions.
"Are you considering a company's own employees as a "third party"? If not, then you completely missed the point. If so, well, I fail to see the utility of that view. "
No, you brought up the example of using OSS software developed by others and then customized. I pointed out that's being done today with third party companies, furthermore it's rare to need to modify any general purpose software such as what OSS creates.
"Yeah. Tell that to IBM. Or to Sun (who has adopted GNOME as their standard desktop). Or to Apple. Or to any number of smaller companies like Sleepycat and Trolltech. "
These are what you term successes? IBM is in the hardware and services business. Apple is a hardware company. Sun has become a complete failure in competition against OSS. Where are Sleepycat and Trolltech balance sheets? Neither are publically traded unlike VA Linux and Redhat which are both bleeding red.
Where's your comparable Symantec, Microsoft, Adobe, Compuware? Anything?
"Bwahahahaa!! Thanks for the belly laugh! You've got that completely backwards. It's the likes of Microsoft, with Palladium and their support for the CBDTPA who are trying to legislate Free software out of existence. "
Ok, now you are clearly a troll. You can't even evaluate the present state of the tech market correctly, how could you possibly try to forecast the future?
"Yeah, Stallman has some ideas that are silly, unrealistic and socialist (continue on down the manifesto and read about the Software Tax). No one gets everything right. What's your point? "
This thread is about Stallman, is it not?
Why do people hold him in great esteem if he's clearly a lunatic and not working for your best interests?
"BSD-style licenses are often a little easier to work with, but it's no accident that software with BSD-style licenses tends, in many cases, to have a less robust community supporting it. "
Yeah, Apache has been a complete utter failure.
You're obviously mistaken, the best examples of OSS software in widespread use have been under the BSD licenses.
"Frankly, I think you make the same mistake that Stallman does: you think software must all be developed one way. Free software, BSD-ish licenses, shared source licenses and closed source all have their place (restrictuve EULAs, however, should be shunned). Competition among business models and licenses is good."
There's a difference between competition and coercion.
Microsoft promotes competition.
FSF promotes coercion and tells you it is competition. They're very communistic in their aims and tactics.
That's the point.
You do realize what you said makes absolutely no sense whatsoever?
In both cases you still have to convince someone what you created is worth paying for. The only difference is whether that payment is from one rich benefactor(of which their are few), or from many people of all income levels(of which there are many).
Basically you are saying you prefer a model where only the elite rich have access to literature and music.
The French Revolution was fought against people like you.
"The vast majority of software is not developed on a speculative basis (build it and hope they buy it), most of it is built on contract or in house, and the only risk involved is to the buyer, because the guys writing the software are on hourly wages or salaries. "
Huh? You ask me to widen my horizons, and yet you clearly don't grasp the concepts.
Whether or not software is built on contract or in house, there is still cost involved. That cost is still speculative in nature. The only difference is how that return on investment is calculated. One way is unit sales, the other way is increased business opportunities.
"In this view, rather than buying a $10 million package, a company spends a few hundred thousand enhancing an existing package to make it better suit their needs."
This is called buying off-the-shelf software. It may not literally be off a shelf, but it was developed by a third party. You pay them to customize and deliver it to you. The extent of the customization determines the cost. OSS doesn't make much of any difference to this model because it is rare to find OSS software in the specific niches companies would need. Most OSS software addresses general purpose needs, or needs specific to admins and developers because of the lack of motivation to go beyond those needs.
"I'm a programmer, and I get paid (very well, actually) to write software, yet I'm not in the least bit afraid of OSS."
I'm not the least bit afraid of OSS. I am, however, afraid of the FSF and their attempts to lobby governments into nationalizing software development.
"As long as people want software, people will get paid to write it, manage it, distribute it, fix it, improve it, etc. "
The difference is whether you work in a Bill Gates world where you receive a goodly salary and stock options, or you live in Richard Stallmans world where you receive $40k a year and 3.1% federal worker cost of living increases.
"Free software isn't socialism, it's just a different business model."
A business model which has thus far failed, resulting in it's proponents working harder and harder to lobby government agencies to outlaw commercial software and nationalize software development.
After all, that has been RMS's goal all along...
"What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned. "
- Richard Stallman in the GNU Manifesto
In the future I think it would be wise for you to stop confusing FSF with OSS. The two are not the same, and if you need clarification on that you need only ask Stallman.
"Software has no marginal cost, and therefore has a very small cost overall (1 person uses a program, which took 100 hours at $20 an hour to produce, cost of the program is $2,000. If 1,000,000 people use it, cost is still $2,000)"
Except most software takes thousands of hours to produce at far more than $20/hour. Try tens of thousands of hours at $80-100/hour. So your typical software product is in the millions of $ to produce.
A very small marginal cost does not equate to a very small cost overall. Producing software is not like creating widgets, you don't calculate cost based on marginal cost, but rather on recovery cost. Software is a high risk activity, for every product with an 85% profit margin you have more products with a 85% loss margin.
This is because after you've spent $10mil and you sold your first copy for $40, you are still running at a loss. Your hope is to sell 250,000 copies to break even on the initial development, but the reality is you have to sell more than that in order to cover cost of marketing, distribution and support and so forth. That's not guaranteed by any means, so you had better be creating something people want and are willing to pay for.
In RMS's world, the first copy should sell for $10 million, everybody else get's it for free. This works well if it's the Government creating the software, and it also solves the whole problem of having to please consumers in a market. This is why FSF proponents are typically found proposing ways to get the Government to fund all software development.
It is socialism at it's finest.
To find this load of kludged together hardware and software on a website with the designation... "Linux Professional Solutions"
*chuckle*
"IIRC, there are lots and lots of books, and music, that are far older than copyright laws."
But nothing compared to the lots and lots of books created after the existence of copyright laws.
Oh dear. Such a wasted education. But I suppose your BS allowed you to drink regularly... ahh youth is wasted on the youth.
Go back to 1789... The Declaration of the Rights of Man freed the presses, but in so doing they eliminated any copy protections that had been previous granted. Keep in mind that their intention was to remove the monopoly that had been previously granted to a select few by the aristocracy, and it was a noble cause. But by 1793 it had become a crisis and as such the National Assembly passed a law which would resemble what we now regard as modern copyright.
You wish to eliminate copyright.
The point is, that's been tried before, and it was an abominable failure. What's sad is that the French did it accidentally, as a byproduct of a more noble cause. You wish to do it purposefully and with malice.
Sigh...
Yup, and the French already proved that your ideas don't work when they eliminated Copyright after the revolution.
I would appreciate an intelligent discussion on intellectual property rights, not an uneducated one such as yours.
Why do you feel the need to be impressed?
The fact is there are websites using Passport.
"You might need to do daily admin on a Windows print server, clearing out bad jobs and such, but a cron takes care of this on Linux."
No, you need to do daily admin on a print server because people are constantly moving, adding and eliminating printers in the environment.
Same with file services. New shares need to be created, permissions need to be updated, groups need to be maintained.
"Do a little educational reading:"
It baffles me when people who have obviously never been server admins think they are in a position to tell me how to run my servers.
Do you think it shows extreme intelligence to point out the obvious?
Generally these comparisons of number of admins for one type of server based on the OS are nonsensical. The real comparison needs to be focus on what function the server is performing.
Database servers require far less daily change control than File/Print servers. Even less when you consider it's the DBA doing changes, not the server admin.
What if you have one NT admin for every 40 NT servers, but only have one Unix admin for every 4 Unix servers? Isn't that a nonsensical comparison, when the NT boxes are 1U Compaq rack-mounts, but the Unix boxes are HP Superdomes?
And besides, when people talk about administrative functions they are thinking enterprise level. Not your dorm room.
Wow!
To think IBM And CyberSource who both have vested interests in Linux think it's cheaper.
Next GM will be telling us their cars are more reliable than Ford.
It should also be noted that the studies showing Linux is cheaper were paid by people who have a vested interest in making Linux look good.
"My browser (Mozilla) stores my passwords. Don't see why I need a network-based service, controlled by someone else, subject to snooping, stealing, or worse, when the browser on a PC I control will do the trick."
So basically you've written your passwords down underneath your keyboard, and think you are secure because nobody is going to look there.
Wow, you are so right. Nobody uses passport.
"It was sealed under a sealed glass "
Talk about redundant redundancy. Bleah.