It's interesting that Q3A is missing from the list, since Linux Journal readers voted it number 1 by a massive margin. I'd probably replace Heavy Gear II in the list. Your Opinion may differ. Soldier of Fortune is on the list though, and for the online gaming, it does seem to be better than Q3A, despite the older ( read Quake 2 ) technology.
A number of people have commented that Linux could be an excellent online gaming machine. I have to disagree, and say that it already is. I've run a number of First Person Shoot-Em-Ups recently on my machine ( Deus Ex / UT / Half Life under Win98, SoF / Heavy Gear II / Quake3 under Linux ), and I'm convinced that the Linux games are smoother than their windows equivalents, and faster online.
On top of that, an event like new email arriving in pine doesn't seem to have the same effect on my Frame rate as a new Outlook mail.
I hope that more companies will start to migrate their games over, especially now that many are based on the same engine ( the Quake, Quake2, Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 engines are already ported) and can't be to difficult to move over
They key to the breakup is that the big shareholders must choose one of the Baby-softs to own.
You then have two ( or three ) separate companies. The Microsoft Group does not exist! Each must act in it's own interest. It's not in the best interest of TMG, or in the interests of OS-soft, but App-soft has the decision, not OS-soft. The App business has no reason to prop up the OS business
Okay, really we'd like the "All the OS products must be open sourced plan", but I don't think that either the DOJ, or M$ are going to like that. And if the DOJ aren't up for it, then it won't happen.
Still, this isn't bad. Let's assume that the DOJ are not so dumb, that they allow BillG, Paul Allen or anyone else to hold any power in more than one of the new companies, then we are laughing.
The key is this: There is no way M$, in its current setup, will port MS-Office to Linux. It would MS's stamp of approval on Linux, and be the beginning of the end for Windows. It might sell more Office units, but it would more than offset this in lost Windows sales.
A separate MS-Apps division wouldn't care so much about the fate of Windows. Port to Linux, sell more copies, hedge bets in the OS wars, and who cares what happens to Windows sales -- it's not their bottom line!
Result, Linux loses the "..but it doesn't run Office argument", and can compete with Windows on a level playing field. On merit. Can you smell victory there? It will take a few years, but it can be done.
Once again LWN comes up with another well thought out editorial.. Keep it up guys!
Anyways, my feeling is that Debian, and GNU, want to promote free software. Free software is good -- it allows you to change software so that it can fit your needs. It stops the constant reinvention of the wheel. You can combine freely available parts to something greater than their sum.
Now, if you produce some software that is "free" according to the definition, but it can't be used with other free software to produce greater things, what use is it? It has missed the point. The Free Software definition is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The software is not really free, although it conforms to the defintion, because we can't do what we want with it.
Maybe the definition should be changed then. Add another clause indicating that the license must be compatible with the main Free licenses ( GPL, Artistic, BSD ). This will increase our freedom, although it is an extra rule!
Better yet, life would be wonderful if people could use the small set of well known licenses ( GPL, BSD - without advertising, and Artistic ) instead of trying to invent their own. But LWN have already said that.
Sun want more developers using the community source license.
Remember, there has always been something of a traditition of sharing code and enhancements in the UNIX community -- even before GNU and Linux.
One of the reasons that Linux took off was that it ran on the cheap PC hardware ( read 386 ), similar which many people had around at home. Unix needed something a little more at the time.
Sun want to get into that home hobby market where Linux started ( and still remains to a reasonable extent ) and to do that, they need to have boxes in bedrooms.
And they'd better be cheap enough to afford.
I've found their hardware to be very reliable, and I would quite happily run Linux on it, though I'm sure they would like the home hobby people to be writing for Solaris on it.
I suspect that there will be problems though. High quality hardware costs more than lower quality stuff. Given the choice between a very reliable $2000 Ultra, or a $600 PC, to run linux, in your bedroom, for hacking on, what do you choose. One is 99% reliable hardware, the other 99.9%. Is that little bit worth paying $1400 for?
Sun could reduce the spec more, and maybe reduce the price, but can they afford to lose the reputation for hardware reliablilty that they have to do this? Even if the E4000s remain rock solid?
They are also hampered more by the SCSL, which has gotten panned as a not quite open source license -- a "You get the source, but we get anything you code" type of thing. Changing the SCSL to make it conform to the Open Source definition, so that the community will like it may well be a bigger step that they need to make.
They damage may already be done here though? Has anyone been developing for Darwin?
The overall tone of the article seems to be very much that "Geeks no good at business", since we are ignoring the success of MacMillan at shifting boxes.
The distribution is a boxed up copy of Mandrake. Why would we take a lot of interest in it on Slashdot. There are other books with a Redhat CD in the back, and the focus here has been on Redhat/Mandrake, rather than MacMillan/SAMS/QUE. This is a geek site, not a marketing one.
Still, putting Linux on computers is a Good Thing, and the fact that MacMillan do it rather than Redhat is of no issue to me.
The fact that MacM don't contribute back to the community is not so true. Mandrake is available free! so they are contributing to open source by paying Mandrake. And the Mandrake guys then fund other open source developers. As I remember, Mandrake are funding some KDE/Kernel development.
I'm not too sure that Redhat are concerned about the difference in sales either. MacM probably aren't shifting many support contracts.
I met a lot of good coders, some of them were contract, and some of them were permanent.
You can find either. The decision of what to go for depends on what your plans for the future are. It may be that you want have a lot of developers for one project. You hire staff, then they will complete the project, and you now have a lot of unused developers. Now you either have to find another project for them, or fire them. Firing them is bad karma, if they are permanent. If they are contract, then the contract ends and they walk away. Everyone knew that was the deal at the start and they are happy.
Moving staff to another project is harder, especially if you are a small firm. Big firms (IBM, AA etc ) can always find somewhere else. The smaller firms may have a problem.
Work out which is right for you.
Remember that contractors are human too. If you treat them like peons, then they will act like that, and you won't get the best out of them. Its very common to have contractors who turn up on their first day, to be given the old 386, the dodgy 14 inch screen, and the keyboard missing the space bar. The permanent staff have PIIIs, 21 inchs screens, and get to go to the project meetings.
Once there, they wonder why the contractor that they treat like a second class citizen doesn't give a shit.
Treat them right, and they will work as well as permanent staff for you. And be loyal.
Okay, I'm working in London. But agents here work much the same way. Here's a few tips for working with them:
Accept that they know nothing about computers. They know how much geeks earn. If they knew computers, would they be agents?
Try to get recommendations from people about the best ones to use. There is a massive difference between the best and the worst.
The agency wants you to get the job. Then they get the commission. A good agent won't submit you for something that you don't know, since it damages their relationship with the client though.
In my opinion, you have more to fear from HR. They have a profile of the "best" induvidual to hire -- Good school, great academic results, top university, year off spent delivering medicenes to remote hill tribes, outgoing -- which is often not suited to the job that's on offer.
Haha, I work for Morgan Guarantee, in Europe - I am elite, apparently.
Anyways, looking at all of this. Firstly, why so little code produced?
I've just had a look at the amount of code I have written in the last three months. About 2200 lines of SQL, 2800 of Perl and 400 ish of C. That makes me pretty productive right? Errm, no.
When I was coding on university projects, I could code about 200 lines per day. If I code at home now I can so 400+. Thats 400 lines of code complete, debugged and ready to go. So how come the low output rate ( even though I can code faster now )
Two words : Mission critical. We write code that deals with MGT money, and lots of it. If your code is wrong, it costs. If money goes to the wrong place, you lose it -- or it costs money to retrive it. So it must be right. And people are not just going to take your word for it. You must prove it.
That adds extra testing time onto any program that you write. There is much more liason with people than you have at home. At home you discuss things with yourself, not with someone on the end of a phone. Think loopback compared to ppp. You can't just su root and install it. You must ask someone else, get signoff from end users, technology heads etc. Why ? Because its mission critical.
Add in the time spend answering user queries, and the time spent testing vendor code -- yup, thats tested completely too ( remember Mission critical ) and there goes the rest of the time.
Do Europeans use more packages ?
The comment about using packages is rather more high level in Europe than code generators. There is a much higher tendency here ( especially in Germany ) to buy in off the shelf third party packages, and adapting them, than writing in house custom applications. Its a good way to work. As my SC2 lecturer said : "Don't spend any time writing code that somebody has already written". On the floor where I work, its all code bought in from outside with minor adaptations in house. Interestingly, this should mean more time testing, and less time coding ( so should reduce the average EU programmers output rather than increase it )
On the "Who is more productive question"
At the risk of being flamed into oblivion, I would also say that there is a feeling amonst the people that I work with that American programmers are less productive than European ones. Indian programmers have a reputation for being fast, but not very imaginative. That's a view from the trenches and is not based on any numerical measure. Just the opinions of maybe a dozen programmers using a dozen different systems over here.
Incidentally, MGT have just announced their new global development center in Glasgow ( Scotland ) -- and that's not a trade secret by the way. This was where they felt they could get the most bang per buck. Ie. Most productivity at lowest cost, and they looked all over the world.
The standard disclaimer applies. These are my views, and in no way represent the views of MGT. I have not been authorised to speak in this debate by MGT.
If the Author in the WSJ really means logging in the/var/adm... sense, then he is wrong. It is more likely that he's talking about process checkpointing and other features that can be found on some systems ( Tandems being at the top of the list )
This means that the core image of a process is kept on disk, so if the processor fails, then it migrates to another one and carries on. This is cool stuff. We have had processors melt down on Tandem's and they *still* keep going. You shut it down sometime later, and replace the board. Meantime, your mission critical system just takes a (np-1)/np performance hit.
The top end Sun machines have this sort of capability now ( I think ), but I'm not sure the Linux SMP can do these kind of wonders yet. That's not to say that it can't, just that it doesn't. And until it does, its unlikely that people will be betting their ATM networks on Linux. They'll be sticking with their Sun's, Tru64s and Tandems.
Not that WindowsNT is much of a competitor in this market anyway.
I would, of course, be happy to work on this if someone is willing to donate a 6+ processor E4500 to play with:)
Slashdot Mirror
A number of people have commented that Linux could be an excellent online gaming machine. I have to disagree, and say that it already is. I've run a number of First Person Shoot-Em-Ups recently on my machine ( Deus Ex / UT / Half Life under Win98, SoF / Heavy Gear II / Quake3 under Linux ), and I'm convinced that the Linux games are smoother than their windows equivalents, and faster online.
On top of that, an event like new email arriving in pine doesn't seem to have the same effect on my Frame rate as a new Outlook mail.
I hope that more companies will start to migrate their games over, especially now that many are based on the same engine ( the Quake, Quake2, Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 engines are already ported) and can't be to difficult to move over
They key to the breakup is that the big shareholders must choose one of the Baby-softs to own.
You then have two ( or three ) separate companies. The Microsoft Group does not exist! Each must act in it's own interest. It's not in the best interest of TMG, or in the interests of OS-soft, but App-soft has the decision, not OS-soft. The App business has no reason to prop up the OS business
Still, this isn't bad. Let's assume that the DOJ are not so dumb, that they allow BillG, Paul Allen or anyone else to hold any power in more than one of the new companies, then we are laughing.
The key is this: There is no way M$, in its current setup, will port MS-Office to Linux. It would MS's stamp of approval on Linux, and be the beginning of the end for Windows. It might sell more Office units, but it would more than offset this in lost Windows sales.
A separate MS-Apps division wouldn't care so much about the fate of Windows. Port to Linux, sell more copies, hedge bets in the OS wars, and who cares what happens to Windows sales -- it's not their bottom line!
Result, Linux loses the "..but it doesn't run Office argument", and can compete with Windows on a level playing field. On merit. Can you smell victory there? It will take a few years, but it can be done.
Anyways, my feeling is that Debian, and GNU, want to promote free software. Free software is good -- it allows you to change software so that it can fit your needs. It stops the constant reinvention of the wheel. You can combine freely available parts to something greater than their sum.
Now, if you produce some software that is "free" according to the definition, but it can't be used with other free software to produce greater things, what use is it? It has missed the point. The Free Software definition is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The software is not really free, although it conforms to the defintion, because we can't do what we want with it.
Maybe the definition should be changed then. Add another clause indicating that the license must be compatible with the main Free licenses ( GPL, Artistic, BSD ). This will increase our freedom, although it is an extra rule!
Better yet, life would be wonderful if people could use the small set of well known licenses ( GPL, BSD - without advertising, and Artistic ) instead of trying to invent their own. But LWN have already said that.
Remember, there has always been something of a traditition of sharing code and enhancements in the UNIX community -- even before GNU and Linux.
One of the reasons that Linux took off was that it ran on the cheap PC hardware ( read 386 ), similar which many people had around at home. Unix needed something a little more at the time.
Sun want to get into that home hobby market where Linux started ( and still remains to a reasonable extent ) and to do that, they need to have boxes in bedrooms.
And they'd better be cheap enough to afford.
I've found their hardware to be very reliable, and I would quite happily run Linux on it, though I'm sure they would like the home hobby people to be writing for Solaris on it.
I suspect that there will be problems though. High quality hardware costs more than lower quality stuff. Given the choice between a very reliable $2000 Ultra, or a $600 PC, to run linux, in your bedroom, for hacking on, what do you choose. One is 99% reliable hardware, the other 99.9%. Is that little bit worth paying $1400 for?
Sun could reduce the spec more, and maybe reduce the price, but can they afford to lose the reputation for hardware reliablilty that they have to do this? Even if the E4000s remain rock solid?
They are also hampered more by the SCSL, which has gotten panned as a not quite open source license -- a "You get the source, but we get anything you code" type of thing. Changing the SCSL to make it conform to the Open Source definition, so that the community will like it may well be a bigger step that they need to make.
They damage may already be done here though? Has anyone been developing for Darwin?
The distribution is a boxed up copy of Mandrake. Why would we take a lot of interest in it on Slashdot. There are other books with a Redhat CD in the back, and the focus here has been on Redhat/Mandrake, rather than MacMillan/SAMS/QUE. This is a geek site, not a marketing one.
Still, putting Linux on computers is a Good Thing, and the fact that MacMillan do it rather than Redhat is of no issue to me.
The fact that MacM don't contribute back to the community is not so true. Mandrake is available free! so they are contributing to open source by paying Mandrake. And the Mandrake guys then fund other open source developers. As I remember, Mandrake are funding some KDE/Kernel development.
I'm not too sure that Redhat are concerned about the difference in sales either. MacM probably aren't shifting many support contracts.
You can find either. The decision of what to go for depends on what your plans for the future are. It may be that you want have a lot of developers for one project. You hire staff, then they will complete the project, and you now have a lot of unused developers. Now you either have to find another project for them, or fire them. Firing them is bad karma, if they are permanent. If they are contract, then the contract ends and they walk away. Everyone knew that was the deal at the start and they are happy.
Moving staff to another project is harder, especially if you are a small firm. Big firms (IBM, AA etc ) can always find somewhere else. The smaller firms may have a problem.
Work out which is right for you.
Remember that contractors are human too. If you treat them like peons, then they will act like that, and you won't get the best out of them. Its very common to have contractors who turn up on their first day, to be given the old 386, the dodgy 14 inch screen, and the keyboard missing the space bar. The permanent staff have PIIIs, 21 inchs screens, and get to go to the project meetings.
Once there, they wonder why the contractor that they treat like a second class citizen doesn't give a shit.
Treat them right, and they will work as well as permanent staff for you. And be loyal.
- Accept that they know nothing about computers. They know how much geeks earn. If they knew computers, would they be agents?
- Try to get recommendations from people about the best ones to use. There is a massive difference between the best and the worst.
- The agency wants you to get the job. Then they get the commission. A good agent won't submit you for something that you don't know, since it damages their relationship with the client though.
In my opinion, you have more to fear from HR. They have a profile of the "best" induvidual to hire -- Good school, great academic results, top university, year off spent delivering medicenes to remote hill tribes, outgoing -- which is often not suited to the job that's on offer.Anyways, looking at all of this. Firstly, why so little code produced?
I've just had a look at the amount of code I have written in the last three months. About 2200 lines of SQL, 2800 of Perl and 400 ish of C. That makes me pretty productive right? Errm, no.
When I was coding on university projects, I could code about 200 lines per day. If I code at home now I can so 400+. Thats 400 lines of code complete, debugged and ready to go. So how come the low output rate ( even though I can code faster now )
Two words : Mission critical. We write code that deals with MGT money, and lots of it. If your code is wrong, it costs. If money goes to the wrong place, you lose it -- or it costs money to retrive it. So it must be right. And people are not just going to take your word for it. You must prove it.
That adds extra testing time onto any program that you write. There is much more liason with people than you have at home. At home you discuss things with yourself, not with someone on the end of a phone. Think loopback compared to ppp. You can't just su root and install it. You must ask someone else, get signoff from end users, technology heads etc. Why ? Because its mission critical.
Add in the time spend answering user queries, and the time spent testing vendor code -- yup, thats tested completely too ( remember Mission critical ) and there goes the rest of the time.
Do Europeans use more packages ?
The comment about using packages is rather more high level in Europe than code generators. There is a much higher tendency here ( especially in Germany ) to buy in off the shelf third party packages, and adapting them, than writing in house custom applications. Its a good way to work. As my SC2 lecturer said : "Don't spend any time writing code that somebody has already written". On the floor where I work, its all code bought in from outside with minor adaptations in house. Interestingly, this should mean more time testing, and less time coding ( so should reduce the average EU programmers output rather than increase it )
On the "Who is more productive question"
At the risk of being flamed into oblivion, I would also say that there is a feeling amonst the people that I work with that American programmers are less productive than European ones. Indian programmers have a reputation for being fast, but not very imaginative. That's a view from the trenches and is not based on any numerical measure. Just the opinions of maybe a dozen programmers using a dozen different systems over here.
Incidentally, MGT have just announced their new global development center in Glasgow ( Scotland ) -- and that's not a trade secret by the way. This was where they felt they could get the most bang per buck. Ie. Most productivity at lowest cost, and they looked all over the world.
The standard disclaimer applies. These are my views, and in no way represent the views of MGT. I have not been authorised to speak in this debate by MGT.
This means that the core image of a process is kept on disk, so if the processor fails, then it migrates to another one and carries on. This is cool stuff. We have had processors melt down on Tandem's and they *still* keep going. You shut it down sometime later, and replace the board. Meantime, your mission critical system just takes a (np-1)/np performance hit.
The top end Sun machines have this sort of capability now ( I think ), but I'm not sure the Linux SMP can do these kind of wonders yet.
That's not to say that it can't, just that it doesn't. And until it does, its unlikely that people will be betting their ATM networks on Linux. They'll be sticking with their Sun's, Tru64s and Tandems.
Not that WindowsNT is much of a competitor in this market anyway.
I would, of course, be happy to work on this if someone is willing to donate a 6+ processor E4500 to play with