No, it's not necessarily the OS's fault. But in these cases, the machines were running either Windows + SQL Server, which more stable, or Windows + IIS, which was never anything close to stable. No other software installed, no other services running.
"Despite the propaganda, Microsoft didn't win the PC wars by skullduggery or deceit. They won by targetting the "influential end user" (their words) and providing lots of information."
Yes, Microsoft did target the "influential end user". They also targeted their channels, i.e., illegal tying contracts with OEMs who had to pay for a copy of windows for every pc they shipped, whether or not it actually held windows, along with many other such tricks.
If it hadn't been for the illegal cheating, they would still be a big and powerful software company, but they wouldn't have the monopoly power they hold today.
I work as a consultant, and I've been in over 10 different NT/IIS shops over the past few years. I would say the average uptime I've seen for NT, in these real world shops, has been about a week.
At one shop, reboots were happening daily. At one shop, the servers were usually up for a month or sometimes even two. Two months is the longest I have personally ever seen an NT box stay up under load.
"At least with NT, there's an out -- they can call MS support and eventually get an answer. And MS is ALWAYS there. Your company doesn't have to rely on Timmy's little brother or "that guy from the computer store" to solve your linux problems when there's no one else around."
Hehe. Now *that* sounds like a fairy tale. I've been programming for Windows since version 1.0, and DOS before that. I've done the MS support thing. MS is not ALWAYS there. I don't ever call them anymore, because I never seem to talk to anyone who knows more about their software than I do.
And don't give me that bs about how your Linux support is all from Timmy's little brother. Usually you can get help from the actual *authors* of an application if there is a bug. If your problem is just learning how to use the system, you can find help on user mailing lists, where people are very friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable.
While many young and inexperienced people start up free software projects, those aren't the projects businesses rely on. Businesses rely on SAMBA, Apache, the Linux Kernel, sendmail, and other server applications which are developed by experienced, professional programmers.
And for a company like this example, with 7,000 employees, a support contract is available from Red Hat as well as many other firms.
Both the Gnome and KDE usability groups have been very active lately. Their desktops are getting closer and closer to the point where they really are ready for your mom to run.
Neither project seems to be lacking in programmers. Instead, they are advancing so fast that it is a big job just to stay on top of the improvements. Hell, the improvements in KDE from 2.1 to 2.2 were larger than those from Win95 to Win98 -- and the Windows update took 3 years while the KDE update took closer to 3 months, and was only a point release.
Now, given the incredible rate of improvement in the desktops, and the increasing efforts of the usability teams, tell me why having two of them makes it *less* likely Linux will find a place in the desktop market. It seems rather the other way around to me.
Er, read the article. The source is not just being open sourced, but GPLed. So it *is* becoming Free Software.
It doesn't have to be official GNU software to be Free; it only has to be under a Free license.
And don't think for a moment that this would have happened without both the GNU project and the Linux kernel -- dare I say GNU/Linux? The GNU utilities have gotten better than most of their proprietary equivalents, and Linux is quickly getting better than the proprietary Unices. That's why the vendors are slowly giving way to the unstoppable Linux. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
Drepper has also had several very contentious disagreements with Linus over kernel development decisions. In those cases, he made similarly vehement complaints about Linus being a control freak. Search the linux-kernel archives or Kernel Traffic to see for yourself.
Personally, I won't take Drepper's word for this. I suspect that there is both more and less to this story than Drepper is telling us.
Actually, there were and continue to be activists working in Russia. There are many Russians on our mailing lists. And there was a protest in Moscow along with the American cities.
There are no living humans that are "free" from parasites. Symbiotic relationships between parasite and host are extremely common, and we are no exception.
The only standard that decides whether the parasite's host is likely to prevail over a competitor without the parasite is whether the parasite is helpful or harmful. Does it help the organism survive and reproduce, or not?
And, the generally better medical care and generally better living conditions in the Western world is a very recent phenomena - only in the last millenium or two. That's only an instant in evolutionary time.
While the state of the art in withstanding an attack has advanced measurably with the new kernel (SYN cookies, etc.), the Ramen Worm and other recent security problems have shown pretty conclusively that it takes a long time for security patches and package updates to make it into production servers.
Red Hat hopes to make a splash through their automated update services, but so far they don't seem to be making much of a splash.
What is really amazing is that there aren't more DDoS attacks, considering the continued vulnerability.
Why is it that if my partner and I hold hands, we're "blatantly advertising", but if a heterosexual couple holds hands, you don't think twice?
Why is it that if my partner and I kiss goodbye in front of my office, we're "blatantly advertising", but nobody even notices a het couple doing the same?
Why is it that het couples can make out in bars and get only amused looks from the other patrons, but my partner and I would risk physical violence?
Maybe it's all a matter of perspective? Maybe you see the same action when performed by a het couple vs. a gay couple as somehow different? Isn't that homophobia, albeit a subtle and relatively mild form?
I suspect that there is no correlation between homosexuality and high tech. Rather, it is much easier for gays who work in tech to come out than it is for some others.
1. Some admitted generalities that may have something to do with it:
2. We work with intelligent, well educated people who think outside the box.
3. We are very much in demand, and firing (or not hiring) because of someone's sexual orientation hurts the employer more than the employee.
4.We tend to live in metropolitan high-tech areas that are more progressive than rural areas.
I am gay, and as a contractor I have lots of interview experience. I often out myself during an interview, because if they have a problem with it I'd rather find out then and not later. I haven't missed a job opportunity yet because of it. Now, back in the 80's, I was fired from two jobs. Times, they are a changing'.
Conventional wisdom in the world of Free Sofware says that most development happens because it scratches somebody's itch. Obviously something else is driving the volunteers at Project Gutenberg, because you must already own a copy of a book before you can scan or type it and contribute it to the project. Yet some volunteers have given a great deal of their time, especially when working on extremely large works (e.g., Gibbons' The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, all 6 volumes).
After many years leading the project, what have you learned about volunteer motivations? What drives them to give so freely? What implications does this have that might change our understanding of Free Software projects?
With the advent of Beowulf and other Linux clustering technologies, supercomputing is being redefined. There is more than one way to scale, and clustering is far more economical than traditional big-iron approaches.
There may always be a market for the old-style supercomputers, but it is almost certainly going to be much smaller in the years to come.
This announcement seems like Cray acknowledging that fact, and trying to keep up with the changes so they will still have a market when and if the big-iron approach dies.
Now too much connectivity is responsible for the breakdown of marriages?
Connectivity is like any number of other technological advances in that it can be abused. But to make such sweeping statements as this is absurd. I have an always-on internet connection, but that doesn't mean I'm always at my computer. When I got it, I didn't stop going out with my friends, nor did I become incapable of carrying on a conversation outside of IRC.
When I go on vacation, I leave my pager at home. My email can wait until I get back. The technology is under my control, not vice versa. And my marriage is doing quite well, thank you.
Sorry, Chicken Little, but the sky is not falling.
Slashdot Mirror
This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Religious Wars".
No, it's not necessarily the OS's fault. But in these cases, the machines were running either Windows + SQL Server, which more stable, or Windows + IIS, which was never anything close to stable. No other software installed, no other services running.
"Despite the propaganda, Microsoft didn't win the PC wars by skullduggery or deceit. They won by targetting the "influential end user" (their words) and providing lots of information."
Yes, Microsoft did target the "influential end user". They also targeted their channels, i.e., illegal tying contracts with OEMs who had to pay for a copy of windows for every pc they shipped, whether or not it actually held windows, along with many other such tricks.
If it hadn't been for the illegal cheating, they would still be a big and powerful software company, but they wouldn't have the monopoly power they hold today.
I work as a consultant, and I've been in over 10 different NT/IIS shops over the past few years. I would say the average uptime I've seen for NT, in these real world shops, has been about a week.
At one shop, reboots were happening daily. At one shop, the servers were usually up for a month or sometimes even two. Two months is the longest I have personally ever seen an NT box stay up under load.
"At least with NT, there's an out -- they can call MS support and eventually get an answer. And MS is ALWAYS there. Your company doesn't have to rely on Timmy's little brother or "that guy from the computer store" to solve your linux problems when there's no one else around."
Hehe. Now *that* sounds like a fairy tale. I've been programming for Windows since version 1.0, and DOS before that. I've done the MS support thing. MS is not ALWAYS there. I don't ever call them anymore, because I never seem to talk to anyone who knows more about their software than I do.
And don't give me that bs about how your Linux support is all from Timmy's little brother. Usually you can get help from the actual *authors* of an application if there is a bug. If your problem is just learning how to use the system, you can find help on user mailing lists, where people are very friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable.
While many young and inexperienced people start up free software projects, those aren't the projects businesses rely on. Businesses rely on SAMBA, Apache, the Linux Kernel, sendmail, and other server applications which are developed by experienced, professional programmers.
And for a company like this example, with 7,000 employees, a support contract is available from Red Hat as well as many other firms.
Both the Gnome and KDE usability groups have been very active lately. Their desktops are getting closer and closer to the point where they really are ready for your mom to run.
Neither project seems to be lacking in programmers. Instead, they are advancing so fast that it is a big job just to stay on top of the improvements. Hell, the improvements in KDE from 2.1 to 2.2 were larger than those from Win95 to Win98 -- and the Windows update took 3 years while the KDE update took closer to 3 months, and was only a point release.
Now, given the incredible rate of improvement in the desktops, and the increasing efforts of the usability teams, tell me why having two of them makes it *less* likely Linux will find a place in the desktop market. It seems rather the other way around to me.
Er, read the article. The source is not just being open sourced, but GPLed. So it *is* becoming Free Software.
It doesn't have to be official GNU software to be Free; it only has to be under a Free license.
And don't think for a moment that this would have happened without both the GNU project and the Linux kernel -- dare I say GNU/Linux? The GNU utilities have gotten better than most of their proprietary equivalents, and Linux is quickly getting better than the proprietary Unices. That's why the vendors are slowly giving way to the unstoppable Linux. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
Drepper has also had several very contentious disagreements with Linus over kernel development decisions. In those cases, he made similarly vehement complaints about Linus being a control freak. Search the linux-kernel archives or Kernel Traffic to see for yourself.
Personally, I won't take Drepper's word for this. I suspect that there is both more and less to this story than Drepper is telling us.
Free Speech! Free Dmitry!
The only standard that decides whether the parasite's host is likely to prevail over a competitor without the parasite is whether the parasite is helpful or harmful. Does it help the organism survive and reproduce, or not?
And, the generally better medical care and generally better living conditions in the Western world is a very recent phenomena - only in the last millenium or two. That's only an instant in evolutionary time.
While the state of the art in withstanding an attack has advanced measurably with the new kernel (SYN cookies, etc.), the Ramen Worm and other recent security problems have shown pretty conclusively that it takes a long time for security patches and package updates to make it into production servers.
Red Hat hopes to make a splash through their automated update services, but so far they don't seem to be making much of a splash.
What is really amazing is that there aren't more DDoS attacks, considering the continued vulnerability.
If you note the domain that conducted the interview, you will see that it is a site for gay teenagers. They care.
Why is it that if my partner and I hold hands, we're "blatantly advertising", but if a heterosexual couple holds hands, you don't think twice?
Why is it that if my partner and I kiss goodbye in front of my office, we're "blatantly advertising", but nobody even notices a het couple doing the same?
Why is it that het couples can make out in bars and get only amused looks from the other patrons, but my partner and I would risk physical violence?
Maybe it's all a matter of perspective? Maybe you see the same action when performed by a het couple vs. a gay couple as somehow different? Isn't that homophobia, albeit a subtle and relatively mild form?
1. Some admitted generalities that may have something to do with it:
2. We work with intelligent, well educated people who think outside the box.
3. We are very much in demand, and firing (or not hiring) because of someone's sexual orientation hurts the employer more than the employee.
4.We tend to live in metropolitan high-tech areas that are more progressive than rural areas.
I am gay, and as a contractor I have lots of interview experience. I often out myself during an interview, because if they have a problem with it I'd rather find out then and not later. I haven't missed a job opportunity yet because of it. Now, back in the 80's, I was fired from two jobs. Times, they are a changing'.
Conventional wisdom in the world of Free Sofware says that most development happens because it scratches somebody's itch. Obviously something else is driving the volunteers at Project Gutenberg, because you must already own a copy of a book before you can scan or type it and contribute it to the project. Yet some volunteers have given a great deal of their time, especially when working on extremely large works (e.g., Gibbons' The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, all 6 volumes).
After many years leading the project, what have you learned about volunteer motivations? What drives them to give so freely? What implications does this have that might change our understanding of Free Software projects?
There may always be a market for the old-style supercomputers, but it is almost certainly going to be much smaller in the years to come. This announcement seems like Cray acknowledging that fact, and trying to keep up with the changes so they will still have a market when and if the big-iron approach dies.
Connectivity is like any number of other technological advances in that it can be abused. But to make such sweeping statements as this is absurd. I have an always-on internet connection, but that doesn't mean I'm always at my computer. When I got it, I didn't stop going out with my friends, nor did I become incapable of carrying on a conversation outside of IRC.
When I go on vacation, I leave my pager at home. My email can wait until I get back. The technology is under my control, not vice versa. And my marriage is doing quite well, thank you.
Sorry, Chicken Little, but the sky is not falling.