I looked, but unfortunately, since Mandrakesoft isn't a US company, they don't seem to have any SEC filings, so I'm not sure where to find their financials. Still, there's a reason that businesses and people are generally cut off from getting any kind of credit for years after going through bankruptcy. It ain't a good thing.
All "coming out of bankruptcy" means is that they've contacted their creditors and agreed on payment terms. That in no way, shape, or form means that they're profitable. All it means is that they've bought some more time.
It's not a myth. There's not a single, financially solid OSS company.
Sun can embrace Linux, since they make more money selling support and they include Solaris "free" with their systems anyway. The money's in support.
Sorry man, but *nobody* has made money in Linux support. I can't think of a single company that has made $$ in Linux support. There's not a single Linux company on a solid financial footing. Sun makes it's money from selling complete HW/SW/support packages, not support alone.
I disagree. Sun's speciality has always been giant boxes/OS packages to handle things like multiple terabyte, specificially Oracle databases. True, hardware is cheaper, but data needs continue to grow. There will always be a high end market. VISA will never run it's transaction network on Wal-Mart boxes, and Sun is going to throw away this entire market in an attempt to dive into something that they have no experience with. Sun needs to quit wasting resources on these stupid $300 computers, and concentrate on what they're good at: making excellent mission critical systems and offering the almost instant service required to support them.
First off, neither Lindows nor Linux has proven that there's any money whatsoever in "selling" Linux. None. Neither one has made a dime from it, contrary to what non-business people think that Redhat did with their accounting games.
Secondly, shifting a company from super high end to low end, has not, to my knowledge, ever worked. You might as well throw away the company and start over, since there is very little value transferrable between these two types of company. Name? Nobody who's not in IT has ever heard of Sun. Marketing? They have no idea how to market to consumers. Manufacturing? They don't know how to make cheap, shitty products. This guy's throwing away what's called their company's "core competencies", looking for a quick buck. It will be a monumental failure. That's been foreshadowed with each of Sun's forays into the consumer market, and any other business that has tried to make a shift this dramatic. Just because they're both computer companies doesn't mean shit. You simply can't decide that your company is going to make a 180 degree change in services, products, marketing, etc. and expect it to survive, unless you have enough cash to, once again, create an entirely new company.
But the great (for me) thing with OSS is that there is no requirement to contribute. And I don't have the time or the money (which is why college students typcially do it... they have lots of time and money, relative to people working to put food onthe table). There's -zero- incentive for me to contribute anything whatsoever, and tons of incentive for me to use the stuff, assuming it's useful. I'm perfectly content taking other people's work and using it, feeling no guilt whatsoever, over some silly sense of "community" because the fact is that I have bills to pay, and if somebody's willing to give it to me for free with me not having to contribute, you can be damn sure that I will. It's kind of like the Hare Krishna flower thing. They want to give me a flower? Sure, I'll take it. Why should I give them money? Guilt? Ha!
I don't think he's talking about concent albums, necessarily... just artists with real talent (not corporate manufactured "talent") that put out whole CD's of good stuff. I'm a Pearl Jam fan. I like the general sound, the style, the lyrics. Sure, I may flip on the radio and hear a few songs, but that doesn't mean that the rest of the songs aren't good, too! Hell, they're not even bound together, but either you like a band, or you don't. I mean, I'm not a fan, but I can enjoy just about every song they've put out in one way or another (except for Spin the Black Circle).
Hell, I discover new music by maybe hearing one song on my Net radio (I love Launch), then I find the rest of the album, and I'm usually pleasantly surprised. Real musicians have some kind of continuity.
I don't understand this "one good track" thing. Are people talking about this fakey pop shit with one song that has a catchy tune? Like Shitney Spears and all that rap stuff?
Meanwhile, I'm sure the artists who rented the studio and spent a month recording the music don't find the joke so funny. If Slashdot was made up of musicians instead of programmers, the opinion of this whole website would be completely different.
No they wouldn't./. has all kinds of OSS people that work for free. I'm thrilled to use their software for free, and nobody seems to care. Why, I have no fucking clue. Programmers are writing code so I can make more money in my business, and asking for nothing in return. That's pretty stupid if you ask me, but I'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.
You get the code from a trusted source and compile the source yourself?
There's that word again... trust. You have to trust the source. Call me nuts, but Cisco is pretty damn trustworthy. Compiling yourself won't get you anywhere except knowing that that chunk of code you downloaded is what you're running. But then, you don't know what you're running unless you read and understand each and every line of code.
The problem is, those things don't work. I didn't pay around $10 for a movie ticket to listen to some idiot's cellphone ringing, much less them picking up to tell the person they're in a movie and can't talk now, etc.
Then don't go to the movies. I don't go to the movies because people insist on bringing kids to them. I hate kids. Do I have a right to shoot kids so I can hear my $10 movie? I wish I did.
Even that isn't failsafe. The party reps could split up votes for write-ins, in elections where there are just two, big party candidates, they could easily collude in some way (or be paid off). My point is that unless you physically count every single ballot yourself, there's *always* some level of trust present. There's no way to make any system 100%. But at some point, you have to say, "OK, this is as good as it's gonna get within reason." There are better and worse methods (I honestly don't know if "e-voting" is any better or not), but there's *always* going to be a margin of error, and the paranoid will always have a gripe. There's no way around it. My point is that the parent went as far to say that he can't be sure that the code is running on the machines. That's right. He can't. But you also can't be sure that the traffic lights in opposing directions are red when yours is green, unless you stop your car, get out, and look. But I think that most people would agree that people who do that are patenetly insane.
1. Tough shit. You get to see the source don't you? Just put on your tinfoil hat and download it. It's a hell of a lot better than no source.
2. Strong encryption. duh.
3. Who cares how it's compiled? Open source is open source? You personal choice of compilers is irrelevant.
Everything else: Look buddy, unless you're going to physically check every voting machine in the country, you are gonna have to trust somebody. Even with paper ballots, the only way that someone as paranoid as yourself is going to be sure if to personally count every ballot yourself. That's the ONLY way to be sure, which is a physical impossibility. What you're bitching about it unrealstic, and utterly paranoid. Again, put on your tinfoil hat and vote.
That has already happened. Most large porn companies simply do not accept credit cards from 3rd world countries at all now. If somebody from a 3rd world country wants to buy porn, they have to do it via their phone bill. I believe it was VISA that cracked down severly over a year ago, and pretty much, in you're in Vietnam or any former Soviet country, you're not gonna be able to buy porn with credit cards, and even in 1st world countries, there's quite a lot of new security in place.
Linux install.. do an emerge, apt-get, swaret, etc, sit back and wait.
emerge what? where do I type this? I just type "emerge" and my program on my CD installs? What tells me how to do this? I put the CD in, then I type emerge, or do I type emerge then put the CD in?
. Linux way.. search on linuxquestions.org or your distro's forums.
How do I find linuxquestions if I can't connect to the Internet? What's a distro? What's a forum? Where do I find distro forums?
. Recompiling a kernel? It's really not that hard. There are a ton of walkthroughs on the internet.
A kernel of corn? I thought we were talking about computers? What's "recompiling"? Why do I have to do this? Where do I find instructions? How often do I do this?
You are 100% out of touch. Leave your parents' basement and talk to a real person. They'll have no clue what you're talking about.
In Windows, it is not. There's no way to know within the borders of the "packaging system" if MFC42xy.DLL is installed, what version is, and if it is needed, there is no way to automatically install the newest version from some repository.
That's patenetly wrong and has been for about 10 years. The Windows Registry keeps track of what.dll's are installed, how many programs are using them, what version is installed, etc. If you've every made an Installshield package, you'd know that. You probably think that this isn't the case because you've had problems in the past. Those problems are a result of applications' install packages not being written correctly, not Windows missing a way to track.dll's.
Re:Beware Emissions Inspection
on
Hack Your Ride
·
· Score: 1
I don't have a VW, nor would I base a comment like that on anecdotal evidence. The electrical problems come from multiple Consumer Reports reports on VW's. It's why my ex-wife decided not to buy one several years ago. (Also, as far as anecdotal evidence goes... everybody I know with a VW has had serious electrical problems)
... of course it's in my PS2. Works GREAT! Of cuorse, I have to hold down a button on the controller to get a DVD to boot, but hey, it runs my games... uh... faster?
Re:Beware Emissions Inspection
on
Hack Your Ride
·
· Score: 1
It's funny you say this, because VW int he past few years has become notorious for terrible electrical problems. A VW is the LAST kind of car that I'd ever consider puttnig a chip in A. Because there's no telling how the electrical system is going to react and B. Most people who buy new VW's these days have to bring them in for warranty work at least once.
Rumor has it [cough] that PS2 mod chips work very, very well. And from what I've heard [ahem], you can get a good chip + installation + shipping for about $100. Of course, this is just heresay...
Slashdot Mirror
...that talks on a regular basis to an invisible man who lives in the sky called "Jesus".
Happy Jesus Killing Day!
Is this really OT?...
I looked, but unfortunately, since Mandrakesoft isn't a US company, they don't seem to have any SEC filings, so I'm not sure where to find their financials. Still, there's a reason that businesses and people are generally cut off from getting any kind of credit for years after going through bankruptcy. It ain't a good thing.
All "coming out of bankruptcy" means is that they've contacted their creditors and agreed on payment terms. That in no way, shape, or form means that they're profitable. All it means is that they've bought some more time.
It's not a myth. There's not a single, financially solid OSS company.
Well, it's just an opinion column but still.... Damn. I'm out of IT for 2 years, and look what happens. I'm shocked quite honestly.
Sun can embrace Linux, since they make more money selling support and they include Solaris "free" with their systems anyway. The money's in support.
Sorry man, but *nobody* has made money in Linux support. I can't think of a single company that has made $$ in Linux support. There's not a single Linux company on a solid financial footing. Sun makes it's money from selling complete HW/SW/support packages, not support alone.
I'm a fan, but I'm not a *nut* about it. I only have copies of about 30-40 live shows I've scraped off the Net. Oh wait.
I dunno. Never liked Spin the Black Circle. I like everything else, though. Even "Soon Forget"!
I disagree. Sun's speciality has always been giant boxes/OS packages to handle things like multiple terabyte, specificially Oracle databases. True, hardware is cheaper, but data needs continue to grow. There will always be a high end market. VISA will never run it's transaction network on Wal-Mart boxes, and Sun is going to throw away this entire market in an attempt to dive into something that they have no experience with. Sun needs to quit wasting resources on these stupid $300 computers, and concentrate on what they're good at: making excellent mission critical systems and offering the almost instant service required to support them.
First off, neither Lindows nor Linux has proven that there's any money whatsoever in "selling" Linux. None. Neither one has made a dime from it, contrary to what non-business people think that Redhat did with their accounting games.
Secondly, shifting a company from super high end to low end, has not, to my knowledge, ever worked. You might as well throw away the company and start over, since there is very little value transferrable between these two types of company. Name? Nobody who's not in IT has ever heard of Sun. Marketing? They have no idea how to market to consumers. Manufacturing? They don't know how to make cheap, shitty products. This guy's throwing away what's called their company's "core competencies", looking for a quick buck. It will be a monumental failure. That's been foreshadowed with each of Sun's forays into the consumer market, and any other business that has tried to make a shift this dramatic. Just because they're both computer companies doesn't mean shit. You simply can't decide that your company is going to make a 180 degree change in services, products, marketing, etc. and expect it to survive, unless you have enough cash to, once again, create an entirely new company.
But the great (for me) thing with OSS is that there is no requirement to contribute. And I don't have the time or the money (which is why college students typcially do it... they have lots of time and money, relative to people working to put food onthe table). There's -zero- incentive for me to contribute anything whatsoever, and tons of incentive for me to use the stuff, assuming it's useful. I'm perfectly content taking other people's work and using it, feeling no guilt whatsoever, over some silly sense of "community" because the fact is that I have bills to pay, and if somebody's willing to give it to me for free with me not having to contribute, you can be damn sure that I will. It's kind of like the Hare Krishna flower thing. They want to give me a flower? Sure, I'll take it. Why should I give them money? Guilt? Ha!
I don't think he's talking about concent albums, necessarily... just artists with real talent (not corporate manufactured "talent") that put out whole CD's of good stuff. I'm a Pearl Jam fan. I like the general sound, the style, the lyrics. Sure, I may flip on the radio and hear a few songs, but that doesn't mean that the rest of the songs aren't good, too! Hell, they're not even bound together, but either you like a band, or you don't. I mean, I'm not a fan, but I can enjoy just about every song they've put out in one way or another (except for Spin the Black Circle).
Hell, I discover new music by maybe hearing one song on my Net radio (I love Launch), then I find the rest of the album, and I'm usually pleasantly surprised. Real musicians have some kind of continuity.
I don't understand this "one good track" thing. Are people talking about this fakey pop shit with one song that has a catchy tune? Like Shitney Spears and all that rap stuff?
Meanwhile, I'm sure the artists who rented the studio and spent a month recording the music don't find the joke so funny. If Slashdot was made up of musicians instead of programmers, the opinion of this whole website would be completely different.
/. has all kinds of OSS people that work for free. I'm thrilled to use their software for free, and nobody seems to care. Why, I have no fucking clue. Programmers are writing code so I can make more money in my business, and asking for nothing in return. That's pretty stupid if you ask me, but I'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.
No they wouldn't.
You get the code from a trusted source and compile the source yourself?
There's that word again... trust. You have to trust the source. Call me nuts, but Cisco is pretty damn trustworthy. Compiling yourself won't get you anywhere except knowing that that chunk of code you downloaded is what you're running. But then, you don't know what you're running unless you read and understand each and every line of code.
The problem is, those things don't work. I didn't pay around $10 for a movie ticket to listen to some idiot's cellphone ringing, much less them picking up to tell the person they're in a movie and can't talk now, etc.
Then don't go to the movies. I don't go to the movies because people insist on bringing kids to them. I hate kids. Do I have a right to shoot kids so I can hear my $10 movie? I wish I did.
Even that isn't failsafe. The party reps could split up votes for write-ins, in elections where there are just two, big party candidates, they could easily collude in some way (or be paid off). My point is that unless you physically count every single ballot yourself, there's *always* some level of trust present. There's no way to make any system 100%. But at some point, you have to say, "OK, this is as good as it's gonna get within reason." There are better and worse methods (I honestly don't know if "e-voting" is any better or not), but there's *always* going to be a margin of error, and the paranoid will always have a gripe. There's no way around it. My point is that the parent went as far to say that he can't be sure that the code is running on the machines. That's right. He can't. But you also can't be sure that the traffic lights in opposing directions are red when yours is green, unless you stop your car, get out, and look. But I think that most people would agree that people who do that are patenetly insane.
1. Tough shit. You get to see the source don't you? Just put on your tinfoil hat and download it. It's a hell of a lot better than no source.
2. Strong encryption. duh.
3. Who cares how it's compiled? Open source is open source? You personal choice of compilers is irrelevant.
Everything else: Look buddy, unless you're going to physically check every voting machine in the country, you are gonna have to trust somebody. Even with paper ballots, the only way that someone as paranoid as yourself is going to be sure if to personally count every ballot yourself. That's the ONLY way to be sure, which is a physical impossibility. What you're bitching about it unrealstic, and utterly paranoid. Again, put on your tinfoil hat and vote.
That has already happened. Most large porn companies simply do not accept credit cards from 3rd world countries at all now. If somebody from a 3rd world country wants to buy porn, they have to do it via their phone bill. I believe it was VISA that cracked down severly over a year ago, and pretty much, in you're in Vietnam or any former Soviet country, you're not gonna be able to buy porn with credit cards, and even in 1st world countries, there's quite a lot of new security in place.
Wow. I think that I'm actually looking forward to my next trip to the dentist more than this movie. Actually, I'm waiting for a sequel to "Ishtar".
Linux install.. do an emerge, apt-get, swaret, etc, sit back and wait.
emerge what? where do I type this? I just type "emerge" and my program on my CD installs? What tells me how to do this? I put the CD in, then I type emerge, or do I type emerge then put the CD in?
. Linux way.. search on linuxquestions.org or your distro's forums.
How do I find linuxquestions if I can't connect to the Internet? What's a distro? What's a forum? Where do I find distro forums?
. Recompiling a kernel? It's really not that hard. There are a ton of walkthroughs on the internet.
A kernel of corn? I thought we were talking about computers? What's "recompiling"? Why do I have to do this? Where do I find instructions? How often do I do this?
You are 100% out of touch. Leave your parents' basement and talk to a real person. They'll have no clue what you're talking about.
In Windows, it is not. There's no way to know within the borders of the "packaging system" if MFC42xy.DLL is installed, what version is, and if it is needed, there is no way to automatically install the newest version from some repository.
.dll's are installed, how many programs are using them, what version is installed, etc. If you've every made an Installshield package, you'd know that. You probably think that this isn't the case because you've had problems in the past. Those problems are a result of applications' install packages not being written correctly, not Windows missing a way to track .dll's.
That's patenetly wrong and has been for about 10 years. The Windows Registry keeps track of what
How does this translate for consumers?
[Karma burn]
What consumers?
I don't have a VW, nor would I base a comment like that on anecdotal evidence. The electrical problems come from multiple Consumer Reports reports on VW's. It's why my ex-wife decided not to buy one several years ago. (Also, as far as anecdotal evidence goes... everybody I know with a VW has had serious electrical problems)
... of course it's in my PS2. Works GREAT! Of cuorse, I have to hold down a button on the controller to get a DVD to boot, but hey, it runs my games... uh... faster?
It's funny you say this, because VW int he past few years has become notorious for terrible electrical problems. A VW is the LAST kind of car that I'd ever consider puttnig a chip in A. Because there's no telling how the electrical system is going to react and B. Most people who buy new VW's these days have to bring them in for warranty work at least once.
But if I could make a backup copy...
Rumor has it [cough] that PS2 mod chips work very, very well. And from what I've heard [ahem], you can get a good chip + installation + shipping for about $100. Of course, this is just heresay...