Maybe it is just be, but I never seen a single effort to migrate to FOSS, based only on cost cuts, that succeeded.
From my experience (and yes, it will reduce costs), if you don't have any other reason for it, you won't have enough force to breach the number of barriers on the way of such migration.
Unfortunately, "fixed mindset" is something very difficult to counter. And, like it or not, Microsoft is very good on the mindset terrain. People will complain, make a mess, and create overall havoc, up to a point where however is making the migration will just decide it is really not worth it.
I have witnessed very successful moves toward FOSS in the past. The catch is that in all of them, there were other reasons (major or minor) for the move. Sometimes, even things like "openness" is enough to offset the scales and allow the move to be successful.
Make it massively unprofitable and sooner or later the shareholders of the RIAA companies will demand an end to this little adventure.
See, you are very wrong there.
Lets try the "whats more likely" approach and see what happens, shall we ?
Ok, what is more likely ?
1) RIAA will just give up chasing people around or 2) RIAA will lobby in congress and supreme court and have some new law/precedent stopping people from doing this kind of stunt ?
Not sure about you, but for me, #2 seems MUCH more likely.
Oh my, that XFiles episode was a pain. But the real thing missing on Crusade was not better writing. The writing was comparable to many other series that lasted a long time. Crusade was to be a B5 spinoff, so the target audience should be B5 fans. But it lacked the main point that made B5 so unique: politics. That is why most B5 fans didn't enjoy it.
Excalibur was good, but I didn't much care for The Legend of the Rangers movie and probably wouldn't have watched the series.
Oh my, could they make The Legend of the Rangers suck any more ? I too enjoyed Excalibur, and was said when it ended. The only thing I missed on it was more politics, which was the hallmark of B5. A few episodes telling what was happening on earth would have did the show a lot of good (and maybe saved it).
Some Americans care about Open Source because they're anti-corporation
You know, this simple phrase made you lost all credibility. There are some very big South American corporations, like Vale do Rio Doce, Odebrech, Petrobas, just to name 3, and only from Brasil.
Sorry, but I have to ask. If you failed so badly doing your research for something as simple as this, how can we credit anything you say on a much more complex topic, like free software ?
This was tried already in a few states here in Brazil, and failed badly. What we ended up what a bunch of kids that could never get into college, or even get some decent technical education. That is a VERY bad idea.
Here is some data for Brazil: US$ 250,00 = R$ 550,00 (aprox)
That, obviously, would not be the price for the local marking. Considering taxes and everything (transport etc), that would easilly double the price. Lets be nice, tho, and consider it would run for US$ 400,00 (R$ 880,00) since the government would drop the taxes a bit (yeah, right).
These days, you can find a basic computer (Celeron, 256MB, monitor, CD writer, 15" monitor etc) for about R$ 850,00. R$ 900,00 with Windows. A bit more if you want to pay in 15x or 20x. You can even get those for R$ 85,00/month (aprox US$ 38,00).
Many precincts are too small for generators to be practical, and UPS units also have a failure rate. What if, even though it was tested the week before, the generator fails on the day of the election? There is also the cost associated. Who is gonna pay for it all.
Wouldn't that be like... fighting for the democracy ? Sorry, I'm not an american, but I though you people didn't mind spending money while fighting for democracy. But maybe I misunderstood, and all that money is for fighting for something else.
Let me make it REAL clear -- it is statistically IMPOSSIBLE to have a 100% accurate vote, 100% of the time.
If that were true (and I don't agree with you), it should also be impossible to have a less than 100% accuracy, 100% of the time, which is pretty much what we have seen. It should be (statistically speaking) 100% accurate in MOST places.
Yes, I agree that is a really small sample, so the 3% mentioned is not really accurate. Still, considering the many cases where the difference between 2 candidates was less than 1%, you really should not be so forgiving.
No. Maybe because english is not my primary language, english was not a requirement for the job and I never said their "english skills" were lacking.
Maybe you can even imagine some companies in, oh I don't know, other countries maybe, where english is not a job requirement ? Then again, maybe that is just something outside your experience.
Anyway, I have been looking for hire a junior IT worked lately. What I've found: - People applying to jobs not fitting their profiles: programmers applying for networking, networking applying for management etc - People with language skills that would me a 4yo laugh - People who can barely talk, let alone have any communication skills - People who doesn't even know elementary math
and, on top of that, asking for salaries at least 30% about market average. And since it was a junior position, I'm not even talking about their technical skills.
The greater problem is that people get out of college, having learned nothing more than the what was in their classes (if that much), and then start shooting for any job opening available, using for reference the salary their friend, with 5-10 years on the market receive.
There are probably way less than 1 million sites that have content worth checking out. The rest is just Goobage.
You are way too generous. Even tho you are technically correct (heck, 1 is "less than 1 million"), that would be 1% of the total number of sites. My bet is way below that, more like 0.2%.
Now, if you mean that 1% of the total content is worth checking out, you might be closer to the mark. As usual, the 10-90 rule probably applies here to, with 10% of the websites containing 90% of the total content. If we consider that half of the sites that are worth visiting (my 0.2% estimative) are on that 10%, you have only on that part 0.9% of the internet content, with the other half on the 90% (of sites) accounting for exactly 0.1% of the internet content.
Adding those figures, you go back that 0.2% of the internet sites, which are worth checking out, contain 1% of the internet content.
This is really old strategy. One very valid marketing strategy states that you company should have 3 products: 1 product to announce 1 product to sell 1 product to make money
And they give some examples. Like McDonald's. Announce the BigMac, sell fries, and make money by selling soda (which is in fact their product with the highest profit margin).
That is pretty much what google is doing. They announce these "new products", sell "seaching", and make money with advertising.
Add Neverwinter Nights to that list. That is why Bioware/Atari was able to release it for Linux and Mac. Not comes Obsidian and changes everything to DirectX. I'll have to buy a new computer before I can even try NWN2.
Loved the "tab remember" feature where you can close the browser and it will remember all the pages you had open in the previous session.
This was a standard feature on Galeon 1 (gtk web browser). I currently have it on Firefox 1.x with the Session Saver extension, which works pretty well (even tho Session support is still not was good as we used to have on Galeon 1).
Actually, I think Microsoft is scared of everyone.
Considering Microsoft's history, I'm really not surprised. They have manipulated the market, strongarmed many companies out of business, not to mention the (alleged?) stolen products and ideas (we all heard about it, and no one really knows the real truth, I suppose). Not they are the only company that did (and do) that.
Also, lets remind that Microsoft is a default target for everyone. They have their fingers on so many pies that it is hard to find a single software company that is not competing with them in some way.
So yes, of course they are scared of everyone. I would too, in their shoes. When you get as big as Microsoft, as fast as they did it, you are bound to make enemies everywhere along the way.
I started playing online poker about 1 month ago, and was really impressed about the number of women there (not girls, tho:)). About 40% women at least.
Pfft. I can answer this for you, based on my enterpreneurship experience (worked with 30+ startups).
The answer is: as soon as you reach "break even" and have had at least 60% of your investment returned, provided a few other criterias are met. Before that, you risk loosing control (and thus your competitive edge). After that, you risk getting put out of the game by other players that have more money than you do.
Don't kid yourself with ideas of the "bright great future". All other (relevant) things being the same, the player with more money will ALWAYS win.
About those other few criterias, I would suggest not doing that before 6 months (in most cases 1 year is better). All other criterias are pretty standard, and without then, you will not be able to get an investor.
Of course this is a rule of thumb, but it will hold true for 99% of the tech companies.
Slashdot Mirror
Can't it ?
Considering your Everquest example, I would say that at least 90% of them will run under Cedega.
Maybe it is just be, but I never seen a single effort to migrate to FOSS, based only on cost cuts, that succeeded.
From my experience (and yes, it will reduce costs), if you don't have any other reason for it, you won't have enough force to breach the number of barriers on the way of such migration.
Unfortunately, "fixed mindset" is something very difficult to counter. And, like it or not, Microsoft is very good on the mindset terrain. People will complain, make a mess, and create overall havoc, up to a point where however is making the migration will just decide it is really not worth it.
I have witnessed very successful moves toward FOSS in the past. The catch is that in all of them, there were other reasons (major or minor) for the move. Sometimes, even things like "openness" is enough to offset the scales and allow the move to be successful.
See, you are very wrong there.
Lets try the "whats more likely" approach and see what happens, shall we ?
Ok, what is more likely ?
1) RIAA will just give up chasing people around
or
2) RIAA will lobby in congress and supreme court and have some new law/precedent stopping people from doing this kind of stunt ?
Not sure about you, but for me, #2 seems MUCH more likely.
How much easier the lives of the manager would be if their techies actually understand the non-technical issues ?
I can't even begin to count the number of "technical perfect" projects that flunked, many times taking the company along.
Well, guess what ? We have techs and managers because both are needed for things to work.
Considering my first computer had 2K of RAM, I would consider 640K very nice.
And yes, it was based on Z80.
Oh my, that XFiles episode was a pain.
But the real thing missing on Crusade was not better writing. The writing was comparable to many other series that lasted a long time.
Crusade was to be a B5 spinoff, so the target audience should be B5 fans. But it lacked the main point that made B5 so unique: politics.
That is why most B5 fans didn't enjoy it.
Oh my, could they make The Legend of the Rangers suck any more ?
I too enjoyed Excalibur, and was said when it ended. The only thing I missed on it was more politics, which was the hallmark of B5. A few episodes telling what was happening on earth would have did the show a lot of good (and maybe saved it).
Oh, you are right, of course. Maybe he means his neighbor and his second cousin's friend.
That would be "some americans", I'm sure.
Somehow I read "South americans" instead of "Some americans".
But that makes for an easier point. I would not call IBM anti-corporation. Nor RedHat, Novell and even Sun.
Some Americans care about Open Source because they're anti-corporation
You know, this simple phrase made you lost all credibility. There are some very big South American corporations, like Vale do Rio Doce, Odebrech, Petrobas, just to name 3, and only from Brasil.
Sorry, but I have to ask. If you failed so badly doing your research for something as simple as this, how can we credit anything you say on a much more complex topic, like free software ?
This was tried already in a few states here in Brazil, and failed badly. What we ended up what a bunch of kids that could never get into college, or even get some decent technical education.
That is a VERY bad idea.
Here is some data for Brazil:
US$ 250,00 = R$ 550,00 (aprox)
That, obviously, would not be the price for the local marking. Considering taxes and everything (transport etc), that would easilly double the price. Lets be nice, tho, and consider it would run for US$ 400,00 (R$ 880,00) since the government would drop the taxes a bit (yeah, right).
These days, you can find a basic computer (Celeron, 256MB, monitor, CD writer, 15" monitor etc) for about R$ 850,00. R$ 900,00 with Windows. A bit more if you want to pay in 15x or 20x. You can even get those for R$ 85,00/month (aprox US$ 38,00).
So yeah, it is a good decision.
Many precincts are too small for generators to be practical, and UPS units also have a failure rate. What if, even though it was tested the week before, the generator fails on the day of the election? There is also the cost associated. Who is gonna pay for it all.
... fighting for the democracy ?
Wouldn't that be like
Sorry, I'm not an american, but I though you people didn't mind spending money while fighting for democracy. But maybe I misunderstood, and all that money is for fighting for something else.
Let me make it REAL clear -- it is statistically IMPOSSIBLE to have a 100% accurate vote, 100% of the time.
If that were true (and I don't agree with you), it should also be impossible to have a less than 100% accuracy, 100% of the time, which is pretty much what we have seen. It should be (statistically speaking) 100% accurate in MOST places.
Yes, I agree that is a really small sample, so the 3% mentioned is not really accurate. Still, considering the many cases where the difference between 2 candidates was less than 1%, you really should not be so forgiving.
No many countries now allow women to vote, some even let them drive cars as well
And don't even need a weapons permit to drive. Amazing.
No. Maybe because english is not my primary language, english was not a requirement for the job and I never said their "english skills" were lacking.
Maybe you can even imagine some companies in, oh I don't know, other countries maybe, where english is not a job requirement ? Then again, maybe that is just something outside your experience.
Looking for a job and not getting one, are you ?
Anyway, I have been looking for hire a junior IT worked lately. What I've found:
- People applying to jobs not fitting their profiles: programmers applying for networking, networking applying for management etc
- People with language skills that would me a 4yo laugh
- People who can barely talk, let alone have any communication skills
- People who doesn't even know elementary math
and, on top of that, asking for salaries at least 30% about market average. And since it was a junior position, I'm not even talking about their technical skills.
The greater problem is that people get out of college, having learned nothing more than the what was in their classes (if that much), and then start shooting for any job opening available, using for reference the salary their friend, with 5-10 years on the market receive.
Disgraceful.
You are way too generous. Even tho you are technically correct (heck, 1 is "less than 1 million"), that would be 1% of the total number of sites. My bet is way below that, more like
0.2%.
Now, if you mean that 1% of the total content is worth checking out, you might be closer to the mark. As usual, the 10-90 rule probably applies here to, with 10% of the websites containing 90% of the total content. If we consider that half of the sites that are worth visiting (my 0.2% estimative) are on that 10%, you have only on that part 0.9% of the internet content, with the other half on the 90% (of sites) accounting for exactly 0.1% of the internet content.
Adding those figures, you go back that 0.2% of the internet sites, which are worth checking out, contain 1% of the internet content.
Anyway, that is just my personal estimative.
This is really old strategy.
One very valid marketing strategy states that you company should have 3 products:
1 product to announce
1 product to sell
1 product to make money
And they give some examples. Like McDonald's. Announce the BigMac, sell fries, and make money by selling soda (which is in fact their product with the highest profit margin).
That is pretty much what google is doing. They announce these "new products", sell "seaching", and make money with advertising.
I really don't see what is new on this.
Add Neverwinter Nights to that list. That is why Bioware/Atari was able to release it for Linux and Mac.
Not comes Obsidian and changes everything to DirectX. I'll have to buy a new computer before I can even try NWN2.
This was a standard feature on Galeon 1 (gtk web browser). I currently have it on Firefox 1.x with the Session Saver extension, which works pretty well (even tho Session support is still not was good as we used to have on Galeon 1).
Considering Microsoft's history, I'm really not surprised. They have manipulated the market, strongarmed many companies out of business, not to mention the (alleged?) stolen products and ideas (we all heard about it, and no one really knows the real truth, I suppose). Not they are the only company that did (and do) that.
Also, lets remind that Microsoft is a default target for everyone. They have their fingers on so many pies that it is hard to find a single software company that is not competing with them in some way.
So yes, of course they are scared of everyone. I would too, in their shoes. When you get as big as Microsoft, as fast as they did it, you are bound to make enemies everywhere along the way.
I started playing online poker about 1 month ago, and was really impressed about the number of women there (not girls, tho :)). About 40% women at least.
They can afford their own girls :)
*ducks and hide*
Pfft. I can answer this for you, based on my enterpreneurship experience (worked with 30+ startups).
The answer is: as soon as you reach "break even" and have had at least 60% of your investment returned, provided a few other criterias are met. Before that, you risk loosing control (and thus your competitive edge). After that, you risk getting put out of the game by other players that have more money than you do.
Don't kid yourself with ideas of the "bright great future". All other (relevant) things being the same, the player with more money will ALWAYS win.
About those other few criterias, I would suggest not doing that before 6 months (in most cases 1 year is better). All other criterias are pretty standard, and without then, you will not be able to get an investor.
Of course this is a rule of thumb, but it will hold true for 99% of the tech companies.