In my company (big financial institution) we use alot of OSS: perl, apache, Linux and many utilities.
We have a team of people that check that the code is kosher (checking that no trojan is introduced, that it does not do stupid or inneficient things, etc). Those jobs would not exists if we were relying on COTS (ought to love acronyms).
And then we have all the programmers, developpers and SAs whose jobs require to know how to use these tools. More job creation.
So in my opinion, OSS moves jobs from the producer to the consumer, greatly benefitting the second one.
If pure software companies want to keep those jobs for themselves (thus remaining profitable) they will have to open their software and help their clients tailoring to their needs.
The days of software companies bossing their clients aound may be over if software users take the oppportunities that OSS provides.
I love the politics and ideas behind the free software movement, but can be arsed to put my deeds where my heart lays.I enjoy not having to think what I do, that is why MS thinks for me.
Linux is at a disavantage becuse people act like herds. Or lemmings.Choice is intimidating. Give me back my fetal position inducing, womb-like user interface.
Another issue is that I am messy with controling my software and have not hear about Knoppix.
I am a Windows pirate, I am not a programmer, the Linux community should devote themselves to make Linux as niche as possible so neither your mom or the Man use the software.
If you talk as an individual in a matter in which your employer may have a stake (think a financial analyst working for a bank) you better make sure your employer does not have a problem with what you are going to say, no matter how many disclaimers you put around your words.
The reason is very simple: a given company needs to keep a reputation, in the case of a security company they need to appear to be open and impartial when assesing different products. By having an employee that clearly has reached his own conclussions and made them public the employer is left in the difficult position to explain how they may be choosing MS stuff or recommending it given that one prominent employee has lambasted those products in a public forum.
Sorry, but I have no pity for this person in spite of broadly agreeing with his conclussions.
The same was argued about VCRs and as they say the rest is history.
Practically any technology can be used for illegal purposes. Cars, phones, TVs, computers, planes, medicine, bycicles, you name it.
Should we ban everything for that reason? Nope, obviously not, but for some nebulous logic there are people like you making this same point that has no logical base whatsoever.
Perhaps the solution to deal with monumental amounts of data is: 1.- Ignore most of it. 2.- Realize that you can buy most stuff in specialist shops or second hand.
The world is your library, the Internet is your index.
Without that they would have gained no access to the WTO.
China is commited (at least in paper) to protect copyrights in temrs internationally acceptable. Patents is another matter.
Of course once you joing the WTO the intelligent response is to use technology unecumbered by copyrights, that levels the playing field if you are starting at a clear disadvantage on the IT field.
... beacuse I, not been European, have not taken interest in contacting politicians (which I wish I could do, but as a foreigner I think it is not kosher to get involved in local issues).
Any way, phone calls to Brussels are cheap, Call the European Parliment and ask them for the name of the EMPs of your country, if possible with constituency names. Your local authority (council, village, whatever) must know this information as well.
MS has got no right to police my computer. If they want that right, though luck because I will not install any of their products for only that reason (which I have not done for 8 years).
The metric system was "adopted" by the UK in the XIX century as part of negotiations with the French to ensure the meridian 0 passed through Greenwich, not Paris.
The British actually enacted the agreement into law (people have been taken to court for that) but was not widely enforced until recently.
Reactive hysteria? Reactive hysteria? In which planet do you live pal, I wanna move there.
My company, with a hardworking force of well trained Windows administrators, has been brought to a standstill a couple of times this year thanks to the complexity of patching MS insecure software.
Windows may not be as insecure as most people say, but oh boy, the way to get to a configuration that is barely trustable is full of pain, wasted time and dissapointment.
Linux and open systems in the other hand are easy to defend and the patching process is more straightforward. This contributes loads to being able to maintain an OS secure.
If you would have bothered to read the full thread about the article claiming Linux is the most compromised OS you would have realized that the company issuing the warning has no good standing at all and thus its reports are not to be trusted.
And regarding anecdotal evidence: I have been working with Linux for 7 years now. Professionally. I have not been compromised once. Anecdotal evidence is all what I have, I am not a company doing market or security research, as are not most of the people posting here, but when there is so much anecdoal evidence in favor of one tool like Linux, due attention should be given to this.
-Panama is not part of the US. It was occupied territory stolen from Colombia by means of creating a puppet country (Panamanians friends: sorry, but you know it is true) to ensure control of ship routes.
-What does China have to do with this? Are you on crack?
Deregulation, US style (i.e. helping croonies and oozing over future campaign donations) does not work as your example shows, but do not blame capitalism for that.
In the UK electricity, phone, gas and other utilities were deregulated but in a way that promotes competition and prices have been falling in absolute (and thus real terms) for several years now. i.e your bill is getting smaller. Same for broadband (which comes as a consequence of Telcos deregulation).
When the UK tried the deregulation US style (make rich a few buddies without promoting competition) on the train system, all collapsed spectacularly bad and the goverment had to take control over the rail infrastructure.
Don't blame capitalism, it does work when you ensure the rules are clear and fai and legislate to promote competition.
Sun practically invented the client-server paradigm (or popularized it with Sun workstations), this was long before MS even put TCP/IP drivers in their OSes and when Apple was offering AppleTalk as their network solution.
... physical drive failures are handled graciously by ODS or Veritas Volume Manager (something similar, as easy to administer as in Solaris, is sorely missing in Linux).
Huge amounts of jobs are gone, they raised a bit the salaries. Result, they saved loads of money on IT spending, normally stacking unreasonable amounts of work in the "privileged" few left behind.
And here you are, thanking them for the privilege.
And the lay person should be aware about this ignorant techno blabbery imposed by ignorant nerds.
Sorry but not, the IT industry and the technical literatti got themselves in this mess and they should not get out of it without some degree of harm to their reputation as pompous assholes, that think the world should revolve about their technological niche of expertise.
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In my company (big financial institution) we use alot of OSS: perl, apache, Linux and many utilities.
We have a team of people that check that the code is kosher (checking that no trojan is introduced, that it does not do stupid or inneficient things, etc). Those jobs would not exists if we were relying on COTS (ought to love acronyms).
And then we have all the programmers, developpers and SAs whose jobs require to know how to use these tools. More job creation.
So in my opinion, OSS moves jobs from the producer to the consumer, greatly benefitting the second one.
If pure software companies want to keep those jobs for themselves (thus remaining profitable) they will have to open their software and help their clients tailoring to their needs.
The days of software companies bossing their clients aound may be over if software users take the oppportunities that OSS provides.
In the UK I have been doing this for more than 5 years.
I have not set foot in a bank in the UK since I arrived here.
... we may be using only propietary closed software by now, and enjoying it.
Stop that meme. RMS is the best face of the Free Software community because is a guy that can put opinions forward with strong supportive arguments.
I don't understand why are there so many people afraid or uncomfortable about strong emphasis in rational defense of one's convictions.
I don't run GNU/linux because I'm lazy.
I love the politics and ideas behind the free software movement, but can be arsed to put my deeds where my heart lays.I enjoy not having to think what I do, that is why MS thinks for me.
Linux is at a disavantage becuse people act like herds. Or lemmings.Choice is intimidating. Give me back my fetal position inducing, womb-like user interface.
Another issue is that I am messy with controling my software and have not hear about Knoppix.
I am a Windows pirate, I am not a programmer, the Linux community should devote themselves to make Linux as niche as possible so neither your mom or the Man use the software.
If you talk as an individual in a matter in which your employer may have a stake (think a financial analyst working for a bank) you better make sure your employer does not have a problem with what you are going to say, no matter how many disclaimers you put around your words.
The reason is very simple: a given company needs to keep a reputation, in the case of a security company they need to appear to be open and impartial when assesing different products. By having an employee that clearly has reached his own conclussions and made them public the employer is left in the difficult position to explain how they may be choosing MS stuff or recommending it given that one prominent employee has lambasted those products in a public forum.
Sorry, but I have no pity for this person in spite of broadly agreeing with his conclussions.
Where do you stop the slippery slope?
The same was argued about VCRs and as they say the rest is history.
Practically any technology can be used for illegal purposes. Cars, phones, TVs, computers, planes, medicine, bycicles, you name it.
Should we ban everything for that reason? Nope, obviously not, but for some nebulous logic there are people like you making this same point that has no logical base whatsoever.
"Study" that was shown to be full of it (shit I mean).
The company that sploutered that "study" was clearly shown to be not trustworthy.
Perhaps the solution to deal with monumental amounts of data is:
1.- Ignore most of it.
2.- Realize that you can buy most stuff in specialist shops or second hand.
The world is your library, the Internet is your index.
Honestly, try it. It took me 3 seconds to find meaningful results about something I have not heard anything before.
Most stuff some people intend to put in terabytes of HD will never be seen and nowadays you can find most stuff in a e-shop (or i-shop, he) somewhere.
Bullshit.
Without that they would have gained no access to the WTO.
China is commited (at least in paper) to protect copyrights in temrs internationally acceptable. Patents is another matter.
Of course once you joing the WTO the intelligent response is to use technology unecumbered by copyrights, that levels the playing field if you are starting at a clear disadvantage on the IT field.
... beacuse I, not been European, have not taken interest in contacting politicians (which I wish I could do, but as a foreigner I think it is not kosher to get involved in local issues).
Any way, phone calls to Brussels are cheap, Call the European Parliment and ask them for the name of the EMPs of your country, if possible with constituency names. Your local authority (council, village, whatever) must know this information as well.
Tomorrow you will have a visit of the companies that sold you your TV, fridge, sofa and bed.
They have the right tp check you bought legally all the stuff. Good luck findg proof of purchase of all of them.
MS has got no right to police my computer. If they want that right, though luck because I will not install any of their products for only that reason (which I have not done for 8 years).
The metric system was "adopted" by the UK in the XIX century as part of negotiations with the French to ensure the meridian 0 passed through Greenwich, not Paris.
The British actually enacted the agreement into law (people have been taken to court for that) but was not widely enforced until recently.
Reactive hysteria? Reactive hysteria? In which planet do you live pal, I wanna move there.
My company, with a hardworking force of well trained Windows administrators, has been brought to a standstill a couple of times this year thanks to the complexity of patching MS insecure software.
Windows may not be as insecure as most people say, but oh boy, the way to get to a configuration that is barely trustable is full of pain, wasted time and dissapointment.
Linux and open systems in the other hand are easy to defend and the patching process is more straightforward. This contributes loads to being able to maintain an OS secure.
If you would have bothered to read the full thread about the article claiming Linux is the most compromised OS you would have realized that the company issuing the warning has no good standing at all and thus its reports are not to be trusted.
And regarding anecdotal evidence: I have been working with Linux for 7 years now. Professionally. I have not been compromised once. Anecdotal evidence is all what I have, I am not a company doing market or security research, as are not most of the people posting here, but when there is so much anecdoal evidence in favor of one tool like Linux, due attention should be given to this.
No I am not upset.
What does this have to do with freedom, open source/documentations and honesty?
Let us know please, it is always interesting to visit the deluded world of a paranoid mind.
-Panama is not part of the US. It was occupied territory stolen from Colombia by means of creating a puppet country (Panamanians friends: sorry, but you know it is true) to ensure control of ship routes.
-What does China have to do with this? Are you on crack?
Deregulation, US style (i.e. helping croonies and oozing over future campaign donations) does not work as your example shows, but do not blame capitalism for that.
In the UK electricity, phone, gas and other utilities were deregulated but in a way that promotes competition and prices have been falling in absolute (and thus real terms) for several years now. i.e your bill is getting smaller. Same for broadband (which comes as a consequence of Telcos deregulation).
When the UK tried the deregulation US style (make rich a few buddies without promoting competition) on the train system, all collapsed spectacularly bad and the goverment had to take control over the rail infrastructure.
Don't blame capitalism, it does work when you ensure the rules are clear and fai and legislate to promote competition.
Sun practically invented the client-server paradigm (or popularized it with Sun workstations), this was long before MS even put TCP/IP drivers in their OSes and when Apple was offering AppleTalk as their network solution.
... physical drive failures are handled graciously by ODS or Veritas Volume Manager (something similar, as easy to administer as in Solaris, is sorely missing in Linux).
Huge amounts of jobs are gone, they raised a bit the salaries. Result, they saved loads of money on IT spending, normally stacking unreasonable amounts of work in the "privileged" few left behind.
And here you are, thanking them for the privilege.
Some people have vocation of masochists.
And the lay person should be aware about this ignorant techno blabbery imposed by ignorant nerds.
Sorry but not, the IT industry and the technical literatti got themselves in this mess and they should not get out of it without some degree of harm to their reputation as pompous assholes, that think the world should revolve about their technological niche of expertise.
HD designer A: ha! we have a disk with 1024 bytes! Why dont we use kilobyte to define this amount of data! I am 3l33t d00d!
HD designer B: er... do you realize that a kilo of anything is 1000? Are you insane?
HD designer A: dude, I can fucking change the SI units to whatever fuck I want. Thos bureaucrats should have some common sense.
Who needs to apply common sense???
They exist not to appease parents but to inform them. At least the responsible ones.
With so little time left after work, commuting, house chores, etc. it is a welcome aid to know which games definitively require parental guidance.