Wait, what's that product from MS called SNA server... isn't that the industry leading SNA gateway? Why, I believe it is.. As a matter of fact it may have more market share for SNA access than OS/2!
BTW -- on my second unit. First one went into eternal re-bootville which is one good reason a box shouldn't rely on computer hardware for consumer electronics.
Cost $100 to have it "exchanged" through Philips because it was 3 months beyond the 3 month warranty.
Most days I couldn't live without it. When it's acting up I'd like to kick the butts of the developers.
Software issue or hardware?? Don't know, don't care. It's a package issue.
I want it, I need it to be faster on responding and not to ever appear to crash (heck, do a kernal dump in the background for all I care -- just let me go on with life!!!).
When it crashes/locks it's the worst. And it crashes/locks at least once a week. I loose no data but it becomes non-responsive (completely) for more than 15 minutes. Sometimes if you let it sit for an hour or two it will come around. Sometimes not.
Never opened. No hacks. Relatively simple usage. Could it be hardware? It's a Philips and it died once completely. This is the secodn model we've had. If you believe the news groups on that it's very common for the Philips unit to fry.
I don't think we've gone more than a full week without at least one go out to lunch (i.e.: lock for at least 15 minutes).
1. You are assuming that masses of windows users are unhappy. 2. You are assuming that the now significant Linux installed base is not something that would benefit Apple greatly (perhaps putting them back over 10% of market share again -- a great day for Apple). 3. You are neglecting the three horse race -- Windows/Apple/Other
A. Windows XP is pretty and functional
B. Apple OSX is pretty and functional and unix
C. Other ranges from attractive to down-right ugly -- from workable and reliable to intolerably rough and trash
If you are going for market share attack your weakest non Apple OS's. I.e.: Older versions of Windows, anyone in the other category. Don't do a prolonged attack on the first phase -- see who falls out and how much you gain then come back again in a second pass to work on the niche's you have identified.
the secret may be the algorithim and not the key values.
In other words -- perhaps we need to perform audits on 2% of the people who live in BelAir whose income is over x% of the mean or under y% of the mean.
The algorithim, regardless of the percentage, gives you the idea that you need to meet the mean -- not exceed or fall short of it.
Of course if the algorithim also includes "and 4% of the people who meet the mean" you may find that more people don't meet the old mean anymore (the mean will shift, the programmers will change their logic next time through).
O'Reily has been balanced and well thought out. Apologize now Michael for the accusation (in very poor taste) and let us get on with life. The more industry heavyweights you tick off the less that will find it in their hearts to even consider your message -- good or bad.
Can a product win in spite of the people representing it? Perhaps--but's it's usually easier to sell it than it is to cram it down peoples throats. Better PR.
is a consulting company and should be valued as such.
Nothing wrong with that.
Of course your product is billable hours, not software. Your competition is Arthur Anderson not Microsoft. Your scalability is limited by the laws of billable hours and not product development.
Two different models. The MS model is not wrong -- it's different and much more lucrative.
In your example programmers are like musicians and their product is the played song (with no copyright restrictions).
As such -- anyone can play anyone elses music.
Anyone can improve on anyone elses music.
The top 1% will get paid for playing.
The next 9% will form bands and work for peanuts.
The bottom 90% will either starve or learn to wait tables.
Of course your points stand:
1. Everyones skills will improve 2. The audience for your work is huge -- of course they are all listening to the top 1% or in a small case the next 9%. 3. The market is expanded incredibly. Garage bands are all the rage. If you can wait tables and play you may even survive.
And O'Reilly has it -- he is usually well thought out, not always right but usually close.
Now who are you Michael?
Frankly, I agree with O'Reilly in the big picture. I agree with you a bit as well -- in that open source should lobby. We need to apply the "be careful what you ask for" rule here. I still say you don't want the overhead of government in open source, regulating open source or touching it in any way. Do you not remember the golden rule of government? What I touch I can tax and regulate.
In the US the best government is the least government.
Ummm... you have missed the point. If the government controlled the format it would be the same format they standardized on in 1972. That would be it... no xml. no html. perhaps paper tape ebcidic files only.
Perhaps the answer there is not published to protect national security. In this day and age you may find that much work is done and released in a reasonable time frame (for the government) fo say 10 or 20 years back into the public domain. That's reasonable isn't it?
Come to think of it -- isn't that reasonable for a corporate GPL utilization as well? Does the GPL require release in a specified window of time? Anything noted as "timely" is vague.
Are you serious? Do you know what you are asking for?
POSIX perhaps?
This is a sure way for everyone to loose (money, time, etc.). It levels the playing field TO THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR. Forget innovation. Forget change.
I'd rather have the evils of MS, Oracle, etc. than the true evil that government oversight would bring with it.
Interesting that the groups associated with Open Source are attempting to limit a states choice options in software (i.e.: Open Source only laws).
Let the market rule. Some Open Source products rule. Some stink. Some proprietary products rule. Some stink. A law forbidding you from looking at Open Source products would be "bad". A law prohibiting you from considering non-Open Source products is just as bad if not worse.
Some of the technology -- yes. They founded a lot of the web (custom tags and all). I personally championed Netscape at a former employer to the point of purchasing (can you believe it) several hundred copies.
They dropped the ball big time as a company -- pretty much disolving completely.
Let's review. Open source product means it's beta for 6 years. Of course you can run it in production and many will because their is no open source alternative. Hence we will call it version.9x.
MS Software releases version 4.x. It's pretty good, supported but has some bugs. MS releases 5.0. It's better than 4.0, fewer bugs and still supported. MS releases 5.5. Better still and still supported. MS releases 6.0. Now we're cooking -- very nice and much fewer bugs.
Your choice was: open source -- beta for years and "unsupported" (community support but for a beta product which means THOU SHALT NOT RUN IT IN PRODUCTION) or MS release software -- relatively solid, improving with each actual RELEASE because MS has the guts to release it.
Hate them yes -- admire them as well. They release software. They improve their software through multiple iterations. They make money from it. All three things that many open source projects only dream of doing.
Anyone care to do a non-scientific poll of say, Source Forge, and find out how many products their are, how many are "release", how many are solidly beta, how many are stuck the quagmire of 1.0 (release but buggy and never having moved)and how many are truly alive? I think it would be interesting.
I'm not saying that MS will beat it -- but they do relatively active product management with a very visible management push behind their product lines.
Not so. For a RDP client you MUST have a licensed copy of W2K/XP (not 95/ME/whatever else). You could by a WTS only license to avoid the full W2K/XP cost at somewhat more than $36 -- this is not the network CAL.
Investigate corporate licensing and forget the match-up -- it was and is enforced at the consumer level. Corporations of any significant size usually license separtely and don't have this issue.
Quit whining -- W2K is the standard right now. O2K is also the standard. At 600 bucks a pop for office (see first comment -- you either don't know how to negotiate or haven't taken the time to learn about other licensing models) it's cheap. More money is spent and lost attempting to make a switch too soon to another partially formed solution.
Will Open Office/Linux be good enough for your business? It probably will be/may be. Be careful of the early adopter strategy unless you have an excellant reason. The amount of money you will lose in staff costs alone if you move prematurely is enough justification for your boss to hand you a box and tell you to clean out your desk. MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE the products are ready before you committ the company to them.
Slashdot Mirror
Real programmers ship. Not like Mozilla.
1. Code a decent product
2. Do you best effort at testing
3. SHIP to a date
4. Support (bug updates, fixes, etc.)
Start cycle again with new design
5. Profit.
Wait, what's that product from MS called SNA server... isn't that the industry leading SNA gateway? Why, I believe it is.. As a matter of fact it may have more market share for SNA access than OS/2!
Dedicated Tivo fan.
Just wish it would stay up.
BTW -- on my second unit. First one went into eternal re-bootville which is one good reason a box shouldn't rely on computer hardware for consumer electronics.
Cost $100 to have it "exchanged" through Philips because it was 3 months beyond the 3 month warranty.
Most days I couldn't live without it. When it's acting up I'd like to kick the butts of the developers.
Software issue or hardware?? Don't know, don't care. It's a package issue.
I want it, I need it to be faster on responding and not to ever appear to crash (heck, do a kernal dump in the background for all I care -- just let me go on with life!!!).
Going on one year of ownership now. I love it!!!
I hate it!!! When it works it's the best.
When it crashes/locks it's the worst. And it crashes/locks at least once a week. I loose no data but it becomes non-responsive (completely) for more than 15 minutes. Sometimes if you let it sit for an hour or two it will come around. Sometimes not.
Never opened. No hacks. Relatively simple usage. Could it be hardware? It's a Philips and it died once completely. This is the secodn model we've had. If you believe the news groups on that it's very common for the Philips unit to fry.
I don't think we've gone more than a full week without at least one go out to lunch (i.e.: lock for at least 15 minutes).
Now my ps2 can lock up daily.
Tivo is one of the first major Linux embedded systems. Too bad it has a reputation for being slow, buggy and crash prone.
I like my Tivo -- it time shifts things easily. If it were only more reliable. Makes me want windows some days.
Suggestion: hire a new IT department. It works for millions of other users -- not perfect but reliably.
More transactions are done per minute at the workstation level on Windows than any other OS.
Mistakes made:
1. You are assuming that masses of windows users are unhappy.
2. You are assuming that the now significant Linux installed base is not something that would benefit Apple greatly (perhaps putting them back over 10% of market share again -- a great day for Apple).
3. You are neglecting the three horse race -- Windows/Apple/Other
A. Windows XP is pretty and functional
B. Apple OSX is pretty and functional and unix
C. Other ranges from attractive to down-right ugly -- from workable and reliable to intolerably rough and trash
If you are going for market share attack your weakest non Apple OS's. I.e.: Older versions of Windows, anyone in the other category. Don't do a prolonged attack on the first phase -- see who falls out and how much you gain then come back again in a second pass to work on the niche's you have identified.
Is in proprietary mainframe systems.
.1% is in industry standard formats (.DOC, etc.) easily readable and usable by the common man.
The other
that the government doesn't already have the source to NT/etc.
What makes you think they don't? MS has licensed source for years.
the secret may be the algorithim and not the key values.
In other words -- perhaps we need to perform audits on 2% of the people who live in BelAir whose income is over x% of the mean or under y% of the mean.
The algorithim, regardless of the percentage, gives you the idea that you need to meet the mean -- not exceed or fall short of it.
Of course if the algorithim also includes "and 4% of the people who meet the mean" you may find that more people don't meet the old mean anymore (the mean will shift, the programmers will change their logic next time through).
Slashdot editors eat their own best friends.
Details at 11:00.
O'Reily has been balanced and well thought out. Apologize now Michael for the accusation (in very poor taste) and let us get on with life. The more industry heavyweights you tick off the less that will find it in their hearts to even consider your message -- good or bad.
Can a product win in spite of the people representing it? Perhaps--but's it's usually easier to sell it than it is to cram it down peoples throats. Better PR.
I live in a republic where my representatives govern me.
The last thing I want is a democracy where every Tom, Dick and Harry views the internal workings of the code. Please no. Aren't we ineffecient enough?
is a consulting company and should be valued as such.
Nothing wrong with that.
Of course your product is billable hours, not software. Your competition is Arthur Anderson not Microsoft. Your scalability is limited by the laws of billable hours and not product development.
Two different models. The MS model is not wrong -- it's different and much more lucrative.
In your example programmers are like musicians and their product is the played song (with no copyright restrictions).
As such -- anyone can play anyone elses music.
Anyone can improve on anyone elses music.
The top 1% will get paid for playing.
The next 9% will form bands and work for peanuts.
The bottom 90% will either starve or learn to wait tables.
Of course your points stand:
1. Everyones skills will improve
2. The audience for your work is huge -- of course they are all listening to the top 1% or in a small case the next 9%.
3. The market is expanded incredibly. Garage bands are all the rage. If you can wait tables and play you may even survive.
Did I miss something (I'm not a good waiter).
In software it has NEVER been the cost of the software that is the expensive part of the solution. This is an argument you will loose.
If the argument was that you use Product X because it's cheap then Oracle wouldn't be where it is today.
If the argument was you don't use Photoshop because MS Paint is cheap (free/etc.) then you wouldn't be in business today.
The argument has to be use product X because it's cost effective.
If you can't sell it on cost effective don't force it on me. I pay taxes as well.
And O'Reilly has it -- he is usually well thought out, not always right but usually close.
Now who are you Michael?
Frankly, I agree with O'Reilly in the big picture. I agree with you a bit as well -- in that open source should lobby. We need to apply the "be careful what you ask for" rule here. I still say you don't want the overhead of government in open source, regulating open source or touching it in any way. Do you not remember the golden rule of government? What I touch I can tax and regulate.
In the US the best government is the least government.
Ummm... you have missed the point. If the government controlled the format it would be the same format they standardized on in 1972. That would be it... no xml. no html. perhaps paper tape ebcidic files only.
Perhaps the answer there is not published to protect national security. In this day and age you may find that much work is done and released in a reasonable time frame (for the government) fo say 10 or 20 years back into the public domain. That's reasonable isn't it?
Come to think of it -- isn't that reasonable for a corporate GPL utilization as well? Does the GPL require release in a specified window of time? Anything noted as "timely" is vague.
Are you serious? Do you know what you are asking for?
POSIX perhaps?
This is a sure way for everyone to loose (money, time, etc.). It levels the playing field TO THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR. Forget innovation. Forget change.
I'd rather have the evils of MS, Oracle, etc. than the true evil that government oversight would bring with it.
Interesting that the groups associated with Open Source are attempting to limit a states choice options in software (i.e.: Open Source only laws).
Let the market rule. Some Open Source products rule. Some stink. Some proprietary products rule. Some stink. A law forbidding you from looking at Open Source products would be "bad". A law prohibiting you from considering non-Open Source products is just as bad if not worse.
Some of the technology -- yes. They founded a lot of the web (custom tags and all). I personally championed Netscape at a former employer to the point of purchasing (can you believe it) several hundred copies.
They dropped the ball big time as a company -- pretty much disolving completely.
Um...
.9x.
Let's review. Open source product means it's beta for 6 years. Of course you can run it in production and many will because their is no open source alternative. Hence we will call it version
MS Software releases version 4.x. It's pretty good, supported but has some bugs. MS releases 5.0. It's better than 4.0, fewer bugs and still supported. MS releases 5.5. Better still and still supported. MS releases 6.0. Now we're cooking -- very nice and much fewer bugs.
Your choice was: open source -- beta for years and "unsupported" (community support but for a beta product which means THOU SHALT NOT RUN IT IN PRODUCTION) or MS release software -- relatively solid, improving with each actual RELEASE because MS has the guts to release it.
Hate them yes -- admire them as well. They release software. They improve their software through multiple iterations. They make money from it. All three things that many open source projects only dream of doing.
Anyone care to do a non-scientific poll of say, Source Forge, and find out how many products their are, how many are "release", how many are solidly beta, how many are stuck the quagmire of 1.0 (release but buggy and never having moved)and how many are truly alive? I think it would be interesting.
I'm not saying that MS will beat it -- but they do relatively active product management with a very visible management push behind their product lines.
Not so. For a RDP client you MUST have a licensed copy of W2K/XP (not 95/ME/whatever else). You could by a WTS only license to avoid the full W2K/XP cost at somewhat more than $36 -- this is not the network CAL.
You must also have a network CAL.
The license is explicit.
Suggestions:
Investigate corporate licensing and forget the match-up -- it was and is enforced at the consumer level. Corporations of any significant size usually license separtely and don't have this issue.
Quit whining -- W2K is the standard right now. O2K is also the standard. At 600 bucks a pop for office (see first comment -- you either don't know how to negotiate or haven't taken the time to learn about other licensing models) it's cheap. More money is spent and lost attempting to make a switch too soon to another partially formed solution.
Will Open Office/Linux be good enough for your business? It probably will be/may be. Be careful of the early adopter strategy unless you have an excellant reason. The amount of money you will lose in staff costs alone if you move prematurely is enough justification for your boss to hand you a box and tell you to clean out your desk. MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE the products are ready before you committ the company to them.