Not a retard or anunprincipled windbag but a realist. Do you think Bill Gates would be worth $32billion if he'd given MSDOS and Windows for free?
The author of the letter shouldn't be advising someone who might be entirely capable of generating a handsome income while also working on free software to do otherwise. this condescending, defeatist rhetoric sounds like a con job with an agenda, or an elaborate rationalization for his (the author's) benefit, not the addressee.
Say for a moment free software does continue to be successful, even enormously successful over the next few years, what does the future look like to those thinking of entering the field at that time?
the future would look incredibly bright, once the single-platform Microsoft McProgrammer mindset is vanquished and diverse software cooperates on the basis of free, non-patented standards.
i admit i'm a bit confused by these doom-and-gloom predictions for the software market by some programmers. i see a suppressed software development renaissance just waiting to explode, in the form of F/OSS.
Why, you could practically hear the cobwebs gathering around his wizened face as he thought aaaallll the way back through the hoary ages to - gasp - 1990, when he was a carefree 21 year old like the addressee. someone get this incredibly wise 35-year-old a wheelchair before he keels over.
The good looking, intelligent girl over there at the bar that you'd really like to talk to doesn't care much whether you are famous amongst a group of geeks and neither does she even remotely fathom why you'd be famous for that stuff in the first place. I mean - get real here.
well, that was particularly insulting. nothing quite like the threat of "no pussy!" to drive intelligent young programmers away from open source / free software.
User-generated content is a huge sleeping giant that, if a bit low on production value, is capable of being so precisely targetted at its audience that it could nibble away at the market share of the lowest-common-conceptual-denominator-despite-its-l as-vegas-style-production-value shlock coming out of hollywood these days.
unfortunately the promise of commercial-free, user-created content is ruthlessly stymied by broadband providers' policies forbidding Joe Schmoe User from setting up his own servers, and by gutting upload speeds to pathetically low rates of transfer.
welcome to the "you-are-a-docile-receptive-sheep" consumer media ghetto.
So millions and millions of people post content, but how much is useful, easy to read, and informative? Probably less than one percent.
All those attributes are largely in the eye of the beholder.
I think it's too often stated that the net "democratizes". The true beauty of the net is that it pluralizes. even if there are only a few hundred agitors scattered across an oppressed country - or for that matter, only a couple dozen globally-dispersed teenagers who obsess over geri ryan's ass - they can communicate, discuss, and get community critique of their otherwise lonely and isolated ideas.
So to answer your question - a LOT of it is "useful, easy to read, and informative" - to its target audience.
Other factors are lots of home-grown VB-apps that need to be ported or converted into Webapps, with the added complexity that there's no budget and virtually no knowledge about how to do that...
no kidding. and the idiots who whipped up these VB apps "so fast" will never feel the heat of not using a platform-neutral development environment.
meanwhile, i bend over backwards to make sure my apps run on any platform, and i get the cold shoulder because it takes me longer to write them, and the web-based reports aren't as "pretty" as the printouts from the recorded-excel-macro app that my microsoft-only douchebag co-worker puts together.
what's frustrating is that the decision-makers are so short-sighted and technologically ignorant that they won't recognize the nature of the situation even after it has played itself out.
after I learned how to do it, it proved to be '''much''' easier to administer and manage than it is in windows.
and you can do a lot more with it too. i'm a hero in the office because i figured out how to solve a long-standing Windows printing problem using CUPS and its filter capabilities. now all our problematic print jobs are routed to CUPS first where the print data is massaged before sending it on to its final destination.
i asked about this problem on some windows irc channels and received brilliant responses like "write a middleware" and "well, i don't use obsolete legacy software".
it wasn't easy to figure out how to do using CUPS, but at least it was *possible*. some more documentation and transparency about how it works would be nice though.
i get your point, but protecting peoplesoft from oracle might be rather advantageous for F/OSS.
i couldn't help but notice that oracle's acquisition attempt came almost immediately after peoplesoft started making noises about porting its applications to postgresql on linux.
Umm, isn't legislating against 'monopolies' a breach of rights (to free trade for instance)? [...] Corporations have become the new scapegoats for our failures as businesses and consumers.
you don't really know what you're talking about. in order for the free market to work, there must be competition. when someone has a monopoly, they control the market, and there is no competition. that's why there are laws that discourage monopolies.
A couple of years ago, the Bank of Japan's Washington, DC office scheduled their annual holiday party on December 7th and sent out invitations before realizing that they had invited economists from every nation to a bash on Pearl Harbor Day.
a decade or two ago, when japanese productivity was the marvel of the industrialized world and US supremacy seemed in doubt, the documentation to some US-bound japanese VCR's included instructions on how to set the date, using December 7th as the example date.
It's that Windows UI designers repeatedly make conscious design decisions that result in the gun always pointing at even the feet of the knowledgeable user, with the user blindfolded, and with a voice screaming "PULL THE TRIGGER! PULL THE TRIGGER! SHOOT NOW!".
i think the move is primarily strategic. as noted in the article, you're able to deliver far less energy using weapons from space than from terrestrial sources. the problem for the US is that its traditional allies are starting to look more and more like strategic adversaries every day. space weapons allow the US to deliver military force *immediately* without having to worry about the next french/russian/german mutual masturbation festival, or what turkey's islamic parliament thinks about positioning infidel forces on its soil, or getting overfly rights from countries neighboring an enemy's territory.
also noted in the article: regardless of where the weapons are, there's a lot of communications stuff that *all* US forces depend on flying around up there. if it's possible, i imagine they want to protect that.
the US is in the unenviable position of being top-dog and being resented for it. china is playing it REAL smart, staying out of sight and biding its time as these global resentments and the resulting increased US military spending take their toll on the US economy.
oh well. i have no kids. if we can hold out another 30 years or so, i'm ok with that.
i learned long ago that, even if you want to save the world, the world doesn't really give a fuck.
Slashdot Mirror
now maybe those creationists will finally shut their fucking pie-holes.
Yes, my friend, we have all asked ourselves that question at one point or another - since when, indeed, does Microsoft give a flying frip?
a question for the ages.
The author of the letter shouldn't be advising someone who might be entirely capable of generating a handsome income while also working on free software to do otherwise. this condescending, defeatist rhetoric sounds like a con job with an agenda, or an elaborate rationalization for his (the author's) benefit, not the addressee.
those suckers should send me a complimentary doll, given the amount of traffic i've probably directed to their site :-)
the future would look incredibly bright, once the single-platform Microsoft McProgrammer mindset is vanquished and diverse software cooperates on the basis of free, non-patented standards.
i admit i'm a bit confused by these doom-and-gloom predictions for the software market by some programmers. i see a suppressed software development renaissance just waiting to explode, in the form of F/OSS.
whether or not to trust the insights of someone who's followed this decision path is left as an exercise for the /.'er.
Why, you could practically hear the cobwebs gathering around his wizened face as he thought aaaallll the way back through the hoary ages to - gasp - 1990, when he was a carefree 21 year old like the addressee. someone get this incredibly wise 35-year-old a wheelchair before he keels over.
The good looking, intelligent girl over there at the bar that you'd really like to talk to doesn't care much whether you are famous amongst a group of geeks and neither does she even remotely fathom why you'd be famous for that stuff in the first place. I mean - get real here.
well, that was particularly insulting. nothing quite like the threat of "no pussy!" to drive intelligent young programmers away from open source / free software.
unprincipled windbag.
unfortunately the promise of commercial-free, user-created content is ruthlessly stymied by broadband providers' policies forbidding Joe Schmoe User from setting up his own servers, and by gutting upload speeds to pathetically low rates of transfer.
welcome to the "you-are-a-docile-receptive-sheep" consumer media ghetto.
All those attributes are largely in the eye of the beholder.
I think it's too often stated that the net "democratizes". The true beauty of the net is that it pluralizes. even if there are only a few hundred agitors scattered across an oppressed country - or for that matter, only a couple dozen globally-dispersed teenagers who obsess over geri ryan's ass - they can communicate, discuss, and get community critique of their otherwise lonely and isolated ideas.
So to answer your question - a LOT of it is "useful, easy to read, and informative" - to its target audience.
no kidding. and the idiots who whipped up these VB apps "so fast" will never feel the heat of not using a platform-neutral development environment.
meanwhile, i bend over backwards to make sure my apps run on any platform, and i get the cold shoulder because it takes me longer to write them, and the web-based reports aren't as "pretty" as the printouts from the recorded-excel-macro app that my microsoft-only douchebag co-worker puts together.
what's frustrating is that the decision-makers are so short-sighted and technologically ignorant that they won't recognize the nature of the situation even after it has played itself out.
i need a new job.
what do you use, and is it cross-platform?
and you can do a lot more with it too. i'm a hero in the office because i figured out how to solve a long-standing Windows printing problem using CUPS and its filter capabilities. now all our problematic print jobs are routed to CUPS first where the print data is massaged before sending it on to its final destination.
i asked about this problem on some windows irc channels and received brilliant responses like "write a middleware" and "well, i don't use obsolete legacy software".
it wasn't easy to figure out how to do using CUPS, but at least it was *possible*. some more documentation and transparency about how it works would be nice though.
i get your point, but protecting peoplesoft from oracle might be rather advantageous for F/OSS.
i couldn't help but notice that oracle's acquisition attempt came almost immediately after peoplesoft started making noises about porting its applications to postgresql on linux.
you don't really know what you're talking about. in order for the free market to work, there must be competition. when someone has a monopoly, they control the market, and there is no competition. that's why there are laws that discourage monopolies.
i thought that was for Gates's "second" to behead him with, as per custom.
...is *extremely* high, once the law decides to go after you. at least for individuals - we'll see what happens to a megacorp.
a decade or two ago, when japanese productivity was the marvel of the industrialized world and US supremacy seemed in doubt, the documentation to some US-bound japanese VCR's included instructions on how to set the date, using December 7th as the example date.
These whiners are just the kinds of people who need to be killed, corpse-fucked, and eaten.
hehehehheeee.... fuckin hilarious.....
i vote for no brains, no balls, and a ten-inch strap-on. for his boyfriend.
Just one lousy linux, and she wouldn't get it for me!
it's building up inside!
stick me in an institution
said it was the only solution
to get the needed professional help
protect me from the enemy - myself
GROAN! No, please don't! I learned Red Hat, and now Debian - I'm not ready for another open source OS yet!
social security is an insurance plan. insurance plans are based on the premise of distributing risk.
RTFA. only nuclear / wmd weapons in space are illegal.
i think the move is primarily strategic. as noted in the article, you're able to deliver far less energy using weapons from space than from terrestrial sources. the problem for the US is that its traditional allies are starting to look more and more like strategic adversaries every day. space weapons allow the US to deliver military force *immediately* without having to worry about the next french/russian/german mutual masturbation festival, or what turkey's islamic parliament thinks about positioning infidel forces on its soil, or getting overfly rights from countries neighboring an enemy's territory.
also noted in the article: regardless of where the weapons are, there's a lot of communications stuff that *all* US forces depend on flying around up there. if it's possible, i imagine they want to protect that.
the US is in the unenviable position of being top-dog and being resented for it. china is playing it REAL smart, staying out of sight and biding its time as these global resentments and the resulting increased US military spending take their toll on the US economy.
oh well. i have no kids. if we can hold out another 30 years or so, i'm ok with that. i learned long ago that, even if you want to save the world, the world doesn't really give a fuck.