Re:So, you programmers ready to give up your jobs?
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McVoy Strikes Back
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· Score: 1
But do you really expect the developer of (say) an Oracle app with a web front end to have the expertise to fix a complicated issue with Apache? In theory your comment makes sense, in practise people don't necessarily have the time or expertise to do it. If one of my developers had an issue with a product they were working with I'd expect them to take it up with the vendor rather than spend a few days coming to grips with the source for the product, then attempting to fix it...
For a small set of cases your comment is quite valid though, I don't discount the value of being able to do that.
Re:So, you programmers ready to give up your jobs?
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McVoy Strikes Back
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· Score: 1
This point can't be emphasized enough. Most programmers do not make their living working at software companies. Instead, the bulk of software is written in-house, for applications specific to companies that make and sell other products
But you miss the important other half of this point - most programmers writing on software in house or wherever don't develop their web server from scratch, or their database server, or for that matter their development environment. They build on a platform supplied by one of their vendors - be it Open or Closed Source. So that small percentage of people who make their living writing software are actually essential for the other larger percentage.
Yeah, and the US was woefully unprepared for the "war" they're fighting now - what makes you think they'll have any better ideas for fighting future wars? Seems to me that the US military are still stuck in their cold war way of thinking, and still don't have any real ideas on how to effectively confront terrorism.
It was a laptop with a manufacturer install on Win2k, so we can presume drivers are not likely to be an issue
Actually, you can't even presume that. Some manufacturers are especially good at writing drivers that suck, so it's entirely possible that they could ship a laptop with dodgy drivers. The other problem is that a lot of the drivers they ship with aren't written by them - I'm working on an HP laptop with an HP build (stupid) that has Intel, Synaptics & Realtek drivers...
Wow, I guess Mr. Gates and company must be biting their nails. 2000 has that certification yet XP, the best product with "advanced security technologies" has nothing.
IIRC, EAL is based on a specific version of the operating system, running on specific hardware. It's relatively pointless (IMO) to certify a desktop operating system which can run on a myriad of hardware - or you would certify, but only on a very limited range of hardware. It probably means relatively little.
How are the specific bits of Windows more like a particular physical wheel and not like the idea of a wheel? It seems to me that they more closely resemble the idea than the actual wheel.
A wheel takes time and effort to produce - as does Windows. A physical wheel is a specific implementation of the idea of a wheel, just as Windows is a specific implementation of the "computer operating system with windows based GUI" idea. Like I've said in other posts, you're free to develop your own implementation of such a system, and allow it to be copied freely if you desire.
Besides, the debate includes patents, and patents do very specifically attempt to prevent you from copying the idea of a wheel.
And I've already agreed that patents on software by and large suck
How is the public interest served by the government creating a monopoly on the bits making up the implementation of Microsoft Windows? Why shouldn't it be able to be freely copied by anybody? Why is my natural freedom to make as many copies of Windows as I want worth trading away?
Well, I guess the answer lies in whether you see the corporate form having any worth. If you don't, then there probably isn't an answer that's going to satisfy you. If you do, the answer is the public interest is served by encouraging other corporate bodies to develop and bring to market products that people want/need. There's an expense involved in doing that, and if there isn't that encouragement then we're left with those who are willing to do it in their own time, or the incredibly wealthy.
You can talk as much as you like about incentive and things. But, IMHO, you must start with the basic idea that the natural state of things is for stuff to be freely copyable.
You're referring to the idea being freely copyable, not the implementation surely? For instance, copying a wheel - you end up with a new wheel, based on that whole "round with a hole" idea. Or perhaps a car - four wheels, steering wheel etc. Now you're also quite free to copy the ideas in Windows (software patents excluded - which I've already agreed that they suck), but the specific implementation of Windows belongs to Microsoft. I have no problem with that - they spent the money to develop it and I can't see a good reason why you should be able to freely copy it without their permisssion. I'm also quite happy with the ideas of licenses like the GPL that grants that right - it's the developers choice of which license they use. That's freedom.
You of course are comparing apples to oranges. If a company had to develop Linux or a BSD from scratch, it would cost a lot. I'm well aware that there are plenty of people who are willing to give their time & skills for free to develop products. However, the specific example that was given was regarding copying a Microsoft Windows CD and selling it for $1. Microsoft Windows has cost millions to develop, I don't see why Microsoft shouldn't be able to recover that cost of development.
We agree on things like the wheel etc being invented before there was protection. However, if a company is to develop a new software product that's going to cost them $50 million to develop, what's their motivation to create this product if you can then take it and sell it for $10 without having to recover any of the costs of development.?
Software is something quite different in that in it's pure form, it doesn't exist as anything largely tangible except a CD or disk. It still costs money to develop though - which needs to be recovered. If there's no chance of recovering that cost, what's the point? - for a company anyway - as you point out, motivation is a complex issue (although you fail to add - for an individual)
So to answer my question, in your ideal world, what would be the incentive for Microsoft to develop Windows? It just wouldn't happen.
Everything you've written there is all very interesting, but doesn't actually address the central question.
This is why the copyright system was invented - to ensure that inventors/creators had a limited time in which to profit from their invention before others could. It's a limitation of modern capitalism, and sure, it's been perverted way beyond what it should be. However, your alternative is far worse. It'd be nice in an ideal world, but we don't live in an ideal world.
Of course - Microsoft has a monopoly on the Windows operating system, but anyone is free to make a competing operating system. There is no free market in the Windows operating system, but there is a freeish market in computer operating systems. The market in computer operating systems isn't as free as it could be due to certain monopolistic practices, but it's not a complete monopoly.
Of course, that doesn't answer my question - what would be the incentive for Microsoft to create Windows if they couldn't recover the cost of creating it? Everyone here seems to assume the cost of creating Windows is the cost of copying a few CD's.
I think patenting software sucks, but I can't see how the alternative suggested is any better. In fact, it's much worse. Not that the suggestion that you should be able to copy and distribute someones work for nothing (without them choosing to allow you to do that) has anything to do with software patents...
If Microsoft sells Windows CDs for $100 and I can figure out how to copy my CD that I bought from them and sell copies for $1, nobody should interfere with me.
So in your ideal world here, what would be the incentive for Microsoft to create Windows in this case? Knowing that anyone could then take their product and sell it without having to recover the cost of developing the product would be rather a large disincentive don't you think? Why should you be able to sell the product that they have paid to develop? What's in it for them?
Here's the link for SP3. And here's the statement from that page: "Because SQL Server service packs are cumulative, SP3a includes all fixes from previously released Service Pack 1 (SP1), Service Pack 2 (SP2), and Service Pack 3 (SP3). SP3a can be applied to an original installation or to one where SP1, SP2, or SP3 was previously applied.". Just to alleviate your doubts.
As to package management, I'm sure they could make it easier (e.g. web links on the install screen, prerequsite checkers), but it's not actually that hard.
I'm still waiting on a company that offers software with staying power. We get a new version of Windows every year or two
Yet I still visit customers who are running Windows NT 4.0 - released in 1996. Nine years isn't too bad for staying power. Having said all that, the IT world is a rapidly changing world - hardware and software both have to keep up with new demands. It's still a relatively young industry so change is fast.
So why did you download SP2 if you were then going to install SP3? SP3 includes all the fixes in SP1 & SP2 - I can't think of a single instance when MS service packs weren't cumlulative.
And yeah, IIS doesn't come preinstalled on XP - it's part of that whole security thing.
Your biggest complaint seems to be a) you had to install some software, and b) you didn't read the readmes to find out the prerequisites for those bits of software.
Outlook on my machine is currently using 8.5MB of memory. Firefox on my machine - currently using 30MB. For something that does a lot more, Outlook is using a whole shitload less memory. I'm not sure where your bloat comment comes from to be honest. It's got a relatively large disk footprint, but that's about it.
What other metric do we have? Your claim that Firefox has been more stable than IE for 5 releases is pretty subjective. I find them both equally stable, although Firefox has been consistently more secure. However, if the Firefox authors don't deem their product worthy of a 1.0 release, then we must assume that their product isn't ready yet, hence hasn't been improving orders of magnitude faster than a closed source app.
I wasn't actually arguing in terms of version numbers, just in terms of production (final releases, not previews) releases...
But the development time is by orders of magnitude faster than that of closed source development.
Remind me again how long it took for Firefox to release 1.0? Or how long it took for Netscape 6 to be released? And then tell me how open source development is orders of magnitude faster than closed source...
Re:I do not pay much attention to Joel Spolsky
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Joel On Software
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· Score: 1
You're quite obviously a troll, but I would say that idiot would be a label quite easily applied to someone who is asking questions about Linux/Apache when they're looking for a Windows developer...
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But do you really expect the developer of (say) an Oracle app with a web front end to have the expertise to fix a complicated issue with Apache? In theory your comment makes sense, in practise people don't necessarily have the time or expertise to do it. If one of my developers had an issue with a product they were working with I'd expect them to take it up with the vendor rather than spend a few days coming to grips with the source for the product, then attempting to fix it...
For a small set of cases your comment is quite valid though, I don't discount the value of being able to do that.
But you miss the important other half of this point - most programmers writing on software in house or wherever don't develop their web server from scratch, or their database server, or for that matter their development environment. They build on a platform supplied by one of their vendors - be it Open or Closed Source. So that small percentage of people who make their living writing software are actually essential for the other larger percentage.
It's already in beta - it's not vaporware...
Yeah, and the US was woefully unprepared for the "war" they're fighting now - what makes you think they'll have any better ideas for fighting future wars? Seems to me that the US military are still stuck in their cold war way of thinking, and still don't have any real ideas on how to effectively confront terrorism.
Actually, you can't even presume that. Some manufacturers are especially good at writing drivers that suck, so it's entirely possible that they could ship a laptop with dodgy drivers. The other problem is that a lot of the drivers they ship with aren't written by them - I'm working on an HP laptop with an HP build (stupid) that has Intel, Synaptics & Realtek drivers...
That's like saying "Saddam Hussein tortured people but we haven't tortured as many as him"...
IIRC, EAL is based on a specific version of the operating system, running on specific hardware. It's relatively pointless (IMO) to certify a desktop operating system which can run on a myriad of hardware - or you would certify, but only on a very limited range of hardware. It probably means relatively little.
A wheel takes time and effort to produce - as does Windows. A physical wheel is a specific implementation of the idea of a wheel, just as Windows is a specific implementation of the "computer operating system with windows based GUI" idea. Like I've said in other posts, you're free to develop your own implementation of such a system, and allow it to be copied freely if you desire.
Besides, the debate includes patents, and patents do very specifically attempt to prevent you from copying the idea of a wheel.
And I've already agreed that patents on software by and large suck
How is the public interest served by the government creating a monopoly on the bits making up the implementation of Microsoft Windows? Why shouldn't it be able to be freely copied by anybody? Why is my natural freedom to make as many copies of Windows as I want worth trading away?
Well, I guess the answer lies in whether you see the corporate form having any worth. If you don't, then there probably isn't an answer that's going to satisfy you. If you do, the answer is the public interest is served by encouraging other corporate bodies to develop and bring to market products that people want/need. There's an expense involved in doing that, and if there isn't that encouragement then we're left with those who are willing to do it in their own time, or the incredibly wealthy.
You're referring to the idea being freely copyable, not the implementation surely? For instance, copying a wheel - you end up with a new wheel, based on that whole "round with a hole" idea. Or perhaps a car - four wheels, steering wheel etc. Now you're also quite free to copy the ideas in Windows (software patents excluded - which I've already agreed that they suck), but the specific implementation of Windows belongs to Microsoft. I have no problem with that - they spent the money to develop it and I can't see a good reason why you should be able to freely copy it without their permisssion. I'm also quite happy with the ideas of licenses like the GPL that grants that right - it's the developers choice of which license they use. That's freedom.
You of course are comparing apples to oranges. If a company had to develop Linux or a BSD from scratch, it would cost a lot. I'm well aware that there are plenty of people who are willing to give their time & skills for free to develop products. However, the specific example that was given was regarding copying a Microsoft Windows CD and selling it for $1. Microsoft Windows has cost millions to develop, I don't see why Microsoft shouldn't be able to recover that cost of development.
We agree on things like the wheel etc being invented before there was protection. However, if a company is to develop a new software product that's going to cost them $50 million to develop, what's their motivation to create this product if you can then take it and sell it for $10 without having to recover any of the costs of development.?
Software is something quite different in that in it's pure form, it doesn't exist as anything largely tangible except a CD or disk. It still costs money to develop though - which needs to be recovered. If there's no chance of recovering that cost, what's the point? - for a company anyway - as you point out, motivation is a complex issue (although you fail to add - for an individual)
So to answer my question, in your ideal world, what would be the incentive for Microsoft to develop Windows? It just wouldn't happen.
Everything you've written there is all very interesting, but doesn't actually address the central question.
This is why the copyright system was invented - to ensure that inventors/creators had a limited time in which to profit from their invention before others could. It's a limitation of modern capitalism, and sure, it's been perverted way beyond what it should be. However, your alternative is far worse. It'd be nice in an ideal world, but we don't live in an ideal world.
When your license permits anyone who purchases it to redistribute the software, free as in speech pretty quickly approaches free as in beer.
Of course - Microsoft has a monopoly on the Windows operating system, but anyone is free to make a competing operating system. There is no free market in the Windows operating system, but there is a freeish market in computer operating systems. The market in computer operating systems isn't as free as it could be due to certain monopolistic practices, but it's not a complete monopoly.
Of course, that doesn't answer my question - what would be the incentive for Microsoft to create Windows if they couldn't recover the cost of creating it? Everyone here seems to assume the cost of creating Windows is the cost of copying a few CD's.
I think patenting software sucks, but I can't see how the alternative suggested is any better. In fact, it's much worse. Not that the suggestion that you should be able to copy and distribute someones work for nothing (without them choosing to allow you to do that) has anything to do with software patents...
So in your ideal world here, what would be the incentive for Microsoft to create Windows in this case? Knowing that anyone could then take their product and sell it without having to recover the cost of developing the product would be rather a large disincentive don't you think? Why should you be able to sell the product that they have paid to develop? What's in it for them?
Here's the link for SP3. And here's the statement from that page: "Because SQL Server service packs are cumulative, SP3a includes all fixes from previously released Service Pack 1 (SP1), Service Pack 2 (SP2), and Service Pack 3 (SP3). SP3a can be applied to an original installation or to one where SP1, SP2, or SP3 was previously applied.". Just to alleviate your doubts.
As to package management, I'm sure they could make it easier (e.g. web links on the install screen, prerequsite checkers), but it's not actually that hard.
Yet I still visit customers who are running Windows NT 4.0 - released in 1996. Nine years isn't too bad for staying power. Having said all that, the IT world is a rapidly changing world - hardware and software both have to keep up with new demands. It's still a relatively young industry so change is fast.
So why did you download SP2 if you were then going to install SP3? SP3 includes all the fixes in SP1 & SP2 - I can't think of a single instance when MS service packs weren't cumlulative.
And yeah, IIS doesn't come preinstalled on XP - it's part of that whole security thing.
Your biggest complaint seems to be
a) you had to install some software, and
b) you didn't read the readmes to find out the prerequisites for those bits of software.
I don't know, "kook aid" seemed strangely appropriate to me...
IRC is just multiplayer notepad...
Outlook on my machine is currently using 8.5MB of memory. Firefox on my machine - currently using 30MB. For something that does a lot more, Outlook is using a whole shitload less memory. I'm not sure where your bloat comment comes from to be honest. It's got a relatively large disk footprint, but that's about it.
Is it just me, or is the word "administering" being slowly replaced by "administrating"? Administrating seems to be the wrong tense to me.
What other metric do we have? Your claim that Firefox has been more stable than IE for 5 releases is pretty subjective. I find them both equally stable, although Firefox has been consistently more secure. However, if the Firefox authors don't deem their product worthy of a 1.0 release, then we must assume that their product isn't ready yet, hence hasn't been improving orders of magnitude faster than a closed source app.
I wasn't actually arguing in terms of version numbers, just in terms of production (final releases, not previews) releases...
Remind me again how long it took for Firefox to release 1.0? Or how long it took for Netscape 6 to be released? And then tell me how open source development is orders of magnitude faster than closed source...
You're quite obviously a troll, but I would say that idiot would be a label quite easily applied to someone who is asking questions about Linux/Apache when they're looking for a Windows developer...