...thanks for setting me straight with some facts from the field. Your reply is worth every modpoint wasted on my original snark. Hope you get modded up. --M
I don't remember, honestly. All I remember is a general dissatisfaction and anoyance from the experience. It may have been an episode that has yet to air on SciFi. I just got the DVD yesterday and have only re-seen the first episode so far. Looking forward to watching it all at my leisure, rather than waiting for SciFi to broadcast. And, of course, the DVD looks a hell of a lot better!:) --M
OK. So I saw one episode of Firefly when it was out a few years ago and hated it. Didn't bother with it again. Then it was canceled. But so many friends have recommended the show that when SciFi began rebroadcasting I PVR'd the episodes in order and began watching. Decided I liked it. So I went to Amazon and checked out the DVD. It's in the Amazon top 10 fer Christ Sakes! Bought it. Delivery was slow because they're back ordered! I think Fox really screwed up here... they threw away a goldmine. --M
Not true. I'm with Comcast/Boston and am able to copy all the cable and premium chanels, except for pay per view. If you're only able to copy OTA broadcasts then your local head-end is misconfigured. There are three levels of copyprotection: none, or unencrypted; copy-once, or encrypted with the right to copy to tape once; and copy-never. Cable and premium chanels are supposed to be set to "Copy Once". Your HTPC can't record these files because they're encrypted and the PC doesn't have a driver with the proper decryption keys. But the D-VHS deck will. Please see this thread over at AVS Forum for details. --M
That's exactly the way they want it to go down. Your best option right now is to check if your cable company provides a digital box with firewire out (cable companies are now forced to provide firewire out if you ask). If so, buy a D-VHS videotape recorder and timeshift / archive to tape. The JVC HMDH40000 and HMDH5U both offer 1080i component out (the 5U also offers HDMI). But the format will die as Blu-Ray / HD-DVD comes to market due to pressure from Hollywood. --M
Look. They control the media / entertainment industry and will use TV and Cable News to propagate their message. They have huge war-chests for campaign contributions. They essentially control access to policy and the consensus opinion management. There's no way to change that fact without a sea-change in anti-trust law, as in Teddy Roosevelt's days with the collapse of the Gilded Age.
Boycott is the only effective counter to their power (even given the problems you present) because to do nothing is even less effective as a consumer strategy to corporate abuse of power. Or can you recommend a better alternative? --M
Blu-Ray and other "protected" devices will display content over analog component pathways, however, it will be down-rezed to 480p. So that shiney new HDTV you just bought at Circuit City (some models even today still don't support HDMI or DVI/HDCP) may display 1080i or 720p, but good luck getting an HD signal to that device. We're talking millions of consumers here, who may not even understand that they've been screwed out of thousands of dollars because of the entertainment cartel. This touches upon anti-trust issues, entertainment / consumer electronics industry collusion, and the corporate killing of "fair use" provisions in copyright law. Bad, bad stuff.
Yeah - I'm pissed. I understand the entertainment industry's desire to prevent broadscale copyright violations and offshore piracy, but sticking it to end consumers will neither prevent organized copyright crime nor will it help sell HD content to pissed off consumers. Like I said... Hollywood and the electronics industry deserves an organized boycott (because we know neither Democrats or Republicans will do a damn thing about it). --M
Seriously. Hollywood has an organized boycott coming for this. Not only are they screwing every HDTV owner who lacks HDMI or DVI/HDCP inputs (a huge number of sets were sold with component only inputs), but now they plan to screw computer owners over too. Just don't buy their shit. Let the new Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD decks sit unsold on shelves for a year or two and watch the these cartels shit their pants with all that unsold inventory. Maybe they'll even respond to consumer wishes afterward!
But it won't happen spontaneously. An organized boycott is the only solution. --M
What does your rant against hydrogen have to do with a toy electric fireplace for rich people? The toy burns hydrogen. You have a political axe to grind against hydrogen and fuel cells. Of course it's on topic! Or maybe this is just a pre-written rant for use whenever hydrogen is mentioned. That fuel cell cars and the whole "hydrogen economy" under consideration by policymakers has nothing to do with the topic at hand is irrevant. Lame.... --M
Output resolution (480p, 720p, 1080i) is not really relevant here (output can just be scaled to the display device). The primary problem with HD-DVD is a bandwidth limitation of ~7 - ~8mbits/sec from the red laser out the drive. So, the question becomes: will ~7mbits/sec throughput be enough bandwidth for acceptable visual quality High Definition MPEG4 media? This is the problem with HD-DVD that Blue-Ray, with its ~29mbits/sec throughput, solves. Any additional storage capacity Blue-Ray offers is cake.
RE: the potential for MS to push Windows Media 9 via their product: it has yet to be accepted as a standard High Definition format, so even if the XBox 360 supports it that doesn't mean media (film titles) will become available. MPEG4 has already been accepted as a standard, which is why satellite and cable companies are currently planning a migration from MPEG2 to MPEG4 in their next generation STBs. WM9 looks DOA at this point. --M
If I get to choose between paying for content or having advertising shoved down my throat, I'll just pay for the content. Unfortunately, the last time we were offered this choice - the emergence of cable TV - we got the shaft and wound up both paying for the content and having advertising shoved into our faces to boot. Guess what. It's my computer; it's my TV; it's my magazine; they're my eyes. I don't have view these ads if I choose not to. That simple. JMO. --M
The thing is, it doesn't stop resource theft. It might reduce resource theft on your server by cutting usage down to a decision within the smtp transaction instead of a complex baysian spam filter after the transaction. OK, that's good. But there's still network resources used with dns lookups, plus the infected zombies. I mean, OK - use an RBL for now. What else can one do? But this just can't continue. IMO: legitimate email has become worthless as a communications medium. I mean, I know people (professionals) who have just dumped email because of spam! We're hitting a tipping point here where email has hit that point where it's so much a PITA that its benefits just aren't worth the trouble. Which says to me - we need to do something drastic to fix this problem. --M
You are missing the point. Just because the RBLs you're using have blocked some SPAM, and only blocked "THREE" false positives, does not mean that the process is viable. Look, I've got three RBLs configured in my mail server. On top of that I use per connection limits, and have set up RCPT throttling. On top of that I hacked the sendmail source (simple one liner) to hang up on connections that do too many RCPT requests in one session, to really stop the dictionary attacks. And you know what? The fuckers just upped the number of connections across varying IP addresses and continued with their dictionary attacks as before. I had set up a fork limit to sendmail until the SPAMMERS opened so many connections it actually blocked legitimate incoming mail. So where does this end? When folks regularly begin seeing sendmail consume a mail server's entire process table with inbound SPAM connections? Because they'll do it. They have enough zombie bot resources. Face it, there's no stopping these guys with an open protocol. It's that simple. --M
The point is that it will always be impossible to keep an accurate map of infected vs. uninfected systems when dealing with numbers this large. There will always be inaccuracies within the database, leading to some disenfranchised legitimate email users. While at the same time the SPAMMERS continue on, infecting new hosts with zombie bots and other malware, in order to send out SPAM. That this is a criminal enterprise is no matter. The fact that they can do this and that it remains profitable is enough to confirm that it will happen. The only solution is to transition to a new protocol that enables authentication so that it won't happen. Then we all turn our old sendmail servers off and tell the SPAMMERS to go fuck themselves. Yes, the confusion will hurt for a bit. But the outcome would (IMO) be worth it. --M
blocking spammers via a central database just doesn't work. The spammers are constantly moving from zombie client to zombie client in huge waves of hundreds of thousands of infected systems, making the RBL always filled with obsolete and incorrect information. The problem - as everyone knows - is that the protocol is fundamentally broken. It's a tragedy of the commons played out in front of our eyes.
By allowing the abuse it's outcome becomes a certainty. We're going to have to bite the bullet and dump open SMTP. And I think we're going to have to do this quickly. The levels of SPAM continue to rise. I often see ten to twenty times as many spam connections on my mail servers than legitimate connections, and this is a constant, flowing, amount of SPAM 24/7. Even with RBLs, spamassassin, etc, SPAM still gets through. The solution will not be found with another bandaid. It's time to dump SMTP and move to something that demands cryptographic authentication for users and hosts before allowing the transport session to complete. --M
Me: Oh, I don't think so. Per-seat licensing of Windows, Office Professional, and whatever other tools are recurring costs at each upgrade.
ABG: As are the time costs of installing new versions of Linux and its tools. I'm still using the same versions of Windows and Office as when I started this job three years ago, and we've upgraded Visual Studio once in that time. How many times do you think we'd have had to upgrade our Linux-based tools during the same period?
As many or as few times as management deems desirable. You could continue with the same distribution the entire time, if you prefer. The primary issue is not upgrading for features, but security management over time. So, assuming a standard corporate firewall to the outside, and a competent admin staff on the inside, supporting the same distribution with security fixes isn't terribly tough. Were it Redhat, automated package management would make the tast very easy. Debian, even easier. Note that for both distributions security updates don't impact API changes - unlike Windows updates often do. A security fix is backported to the released version.
There will come a time when the vendor will stop providing support. Redhat doesn't support RH7.x any longer (though it's easy to find third party security fixes still). Microsoft will soon stop supporting Windows 2000 and has long since stopped supporting Windows 95/98/ME and NT 3.51/4. Maintaining support for a Linux release is as viable as it is cost effective. And because the source it is *possible*. One can't say the same for a commercial product like Windows or MacOS X (or Solaris, VMS, etc etc etc).
ME: But once you begin deploying in the hundreds or thousands it really adds up.
ABG: As does the time required to configure Linux and its brethren for all those extra staff. And the financial cost of the Windows platform upgrades is still less than a day of employee time, no matter how many employees you're doing it for.
No. Certainly not in my experience. Scripting installation solutions is simply a no brainer. Hell, nearly ten years ago Sun offered a no-brainer installation solution with Solaris Jumpstart. Similar systems exist for Linux. Plug the system in to a network and it auto-installs. Of course, if you're talking about desktops one will always need bodies to plant the machine on a desk. But with a network mounted homedir, say AFS, kerberos authentication, and LDAP for user db maps, every machine would get the same OS image while every user would have roaming logins. Most setup work happens server-side. --M
In other words, even if we were all instantly and permanently as productive with Linux and a Linux-based office suite and development tool, and they also required no ongoing support costs because we could pretty much do it all ourselves, the most switching to Linux would save my employer is the cost of a day of my time. It would take that day just to set the new system up.
Oh, I don't think so. Per-seat licensing of Windows, Office Professional, and whatever other tools are recurring costs at each upgrade. Depending on how large the installation, the savings could be enourmous. For a small office, you're right - it's not much. But once you begin deploying in the hundreds or thousands it really adds up.
Take Independence Air, a low-cost Washington (D.C.) carrier that had been running the reservation system on its Web site with Linux. The company, which uses Microsoft's Windows operating systems in most other pieces of its business, needed to hire consultants who could write code for Linux, since its Windows developers couldn't.
"That cost was killing me," says Stephen Shaffer, Independence's director of software systems. After eight months, he replaced the system with Windows and a batch of other Microsoft applications, which he believes will cut his costs by 70% a year.
Naturally, Microsoft sees the Cowen survey as proof that Linux is finding resistance. "This data completely validates what I've seen," says Martin Taylor, Microsoft's general manager for platform strategy. Not only is Linux maxing out on Unix users but it's not finding new customers among stalwart Windows users, he says.
These statements are skewed to show that Independence Air's Linux deployment cost too much in consultant fees, and therefore Linux is "expensive" to deploy in comparison to Windows. But they really say no such thing. Independence Air's problem was not its Linux deployment, but the fact that it chose to deploy a small part of their infrastructure without in house knowledge. They already had hired a Windows skill base, and therefore the comparison in utility between their Windows skillset for the entire Windows deployment against a small Linux deployment was bound to come out poorly for Linux. One sees savings with Linux in scale, not individually. Deploy hundreds of hosts and you'll save huge. Deploy a few hosts to drive a small piece of corporate infrastructure and not only will the savings be marginal, but you may have to hire external help to support the deployment.
So. Don't deploy Linux for small tasks if you're already heavily invested in an alternate technology. Duh. But to claim poor savings across the board as a result of this anecdote is simply stupid. With in house Linux (or UNIX) personnel and a large deployment - of course you'll save big. Which is why the UNIX houses have dumped commercial UNIX desktops for Linux. And why so many have dumped all their small UNIX servers for Linux (and BSD) on Intel. Because it's cheap. Very cheap (and cost effective). --M
Speaking as someone who's been using Linux since '94 and BSD and commercial UNIX since long before that, and who purchased a Mac and "switched" from Intel/Linux to OS X a bit over two years ago....
I'm not sure what the value proposition is here for a MacOS X against Linux. What value has Apple offered over Linux?
Good power management support on laptops
Commercial software like Microsoft Office and other content creation applications
Good coherent desktop development environment and tools. Included with this are spectacular fonts (readability - most important) and spectacular device independent rendering engine.
What does Linux offer?
Very cheap. Will continue to run on commodity Intel hardware. The new Mac will almost certainly be more expensive with the OS locked down with hardware DRM.
Much faster and more efficient in-kernel threading than OS X, and much wider secondary hardware support.
Acceptable windowing environment and development tools (though certainly not better than OS X).
The one killer feature that Apple offers over Linux is quality laptop power management. This can be fixed. Wine runs MS/Office OK. The font issue has been mostly resolved and X on Linux is now nice to read with. Linux will most definitely be cheaper to deploy, especially in large numbers. While I don't doubt Apple is making the right decision by migrating off of PPC to Intel, neither do I think Linux deployments are in trouble due to this move.
Why does it piss [some people] off so much that someone makes some money off finding this story?
When Jon Katz left they decided to hate Michael Sims. Now Sims is gone so they need a new target. Not that Katz, Sims, offered any great insight or content to slashdot, but the hatred and paranoia against them is beyond reason. That said, I don't much like Piquepaille's site and don't click on his links. But he does offer the service of collecting and collating technology information - a service not much different from slashdot I might add - and clearly, some people find it interesting and worthwhile. The claims of some kickback scheme going on really reek of defamation though. Get some proof or STFU. --M
Slashdot Mirror
...thanks for setting me straight with some facts from the field. Your reply is worth every modpoint wasted on my original snark. Hope you get modded up. --M
Yes... I appear to have mistaken laws in the Netherlands with laws in Finland. My bad... --M
....You can smoke pot, but don't you dare illegally download music! Hmmm.... --M
I don't remember, honestly. All I remember is a general dissatisfaction and anoyance from the experience. It may have been an episode that has yet to air on SciFi. I just got the DVD yesterday and have only re-seen the first episode so far. Looking forward to watching it all at my leisure, rather than waiting for SciFi to broadcast. And, of course, the DVD looks a hell of a lot better! :) --M
OK. So I saw one episode of Firefly when it was out a few years ago and hated it. Didn't bother with it again. Then it was canceled. But so many friends have recommended the show that when SciFi began rebroadcasting I PVR'd the episodes in order and began watching. Decided I liked it. So I went to Amazon and checked out the DVD. It's in the Amazon top 10 fer Christ Sakes! Bought it. Delivery was slow because they're back ordered! I think Fox really screwed up here... they threw away a goldmine. --M
Not true. I'm with Comcast/Boston and am able to copy all the cable and premium chanels, except for pay per view. If you're only able to copy OTA broadcasts then your local head-end is misconfigured. There are three levels of copyprotection: none, or unencrypted; copy-once, or encrypted with the right to copy to tape once; and copy-never. Cable and premium chanels are supposed to be set to "Copy Once". Your HTPC can't record these files because they're encrypted and the PC doesn't have a driver with the proper decryption keys. But the D-VHS deck will. Please see this thread over at AVS Forum for details. --M
That's exactly the way they want it to go down. Your best option right now is to check if your cable company provides a digital box with firewire out (cable companies are now forced to provide firewire out if you ask). If so, buy a D-VHS videotape recorder and timeshift / archive to tape. The JVC HMDH40000 and HMDH5U both offer 1080i component out (the 5U also offers HDMI). But the format will die as Blu-Ray / HD-DVD comes to market due to pressure from Hollywood. --M
Look. They control the media / entertainment industry and will use TV and Cable News to propagate their message. They have huge war-chests for campaign contributions. They essentially control access to policy and the consensus opinion management. There's no way to change that fact without a sea-change in anti-trust law, as in Teddy Roosevelt's days with the collapse of the Gilded Age.
Boycott is the only effective counter to their power (even given the problems you present) because to do nothing is even less effective as a consumer strategy to corporate abuse of power. Or can you recommend a better alternative? --M
Blu-Ray and other "protected" devices will display content over analog component pathways, however, it will be down-rezed to 480p. So that shiney new HDTV you just bought at Circuit City (some models even today still don't support HDMI or DVI/HDCP) may display 1080i or 720p, but good luck getting an HD signal to that device. We're talking millions of consumers here, who may not even understand that they've been screwed out of thousands of dollars because of the entertainment cartel. This touches upon anti-trust issues, entertainment / consumer electronics industry collusion, and the corporate killing of "fair use" provisions in copyright law. Bad, bad stuff.
Yeah - I'm pissed. I understand the entertainment industry's desire to prevent broadscale copyright violations and offshore piracy, but sticking it to end consumers will neither prevent organized copyright crime nor will it help sell HD content to pissed off consumers. Like I said... Hollywood and the electronics industry deserves an organized boycott (because we know neither Democrats or Republicans will do a damn thing about it). --M
Seriously. Hollywood has an organized boycott coming for this. Not only are they screwing every HDTV owner who lacks HDMI or DVI/HDCP inputs (a huge number of sets were sold with component only inputs), but now they plan to screw computer owners over too. Just don't buy their shit. Let the new Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD decks sit unsold on shelves for a year or two and watch the these cartels shit their pants with all that unsold inventory. Maybe they'll even respond to consumer wishes afterward!
But it won't happen spontaneously. An organized boycott is the only solution. --M
What does your rant against hydrogen have to do with a toy electric fireplace for rich people? The toy burns hydrogen. You have a political axe to grind against hydrogen and fuel cells. Of course it's on topic! Or maybe this is just a pre-written rant for use whenever hydrogen is mentioned. That fuel cell cars and the whole "hydrogen economy" under consideration by policymakers has nothing to do with the topic at hand is irrevant. Lame.... --M
Output resolution (480p, 720p, 1080i) is not really relevant here (output can just be scaled to the display device). The primary problem with HD-DVD is a bandwidth limitation of ~7 - ~8mbits/sec from the red laser out the drive. So, the question becomes: will ~7mbits/sec throughput be enough bandwidth for acceptable visual quality High Definition MPEG4 media? This is the problem with HD-DVD that Blue-Ray, with its ~29mbits/sec throughput, solves. Any additional storage capacity Blue-Ray offers is cake.
RE: the potential for MS to push Windows Media 9 via their product: it has yet to be accepted as a standard High Definition format, so even if the XBox 360 supports it that doesn't mean media (film titles) will become available. MPEG4 has already been accepted as a standard, which is why satellite and cable companies are currently planning a migration from MPEG2 to MPEG4 in their next generation STBs. WM9 looks DOA at this point. --M
Maybe folks are Listening To the Fine PodCast before commenting?!?!? Naaaaa.... --M
If I get to choose between paying for content or having advertising shoved down my throat, I'll just pay for the content. Unfortunately, the last time we were offered this choice - the emergence of cable TV - we got the shaft and wound up both paying for the content and having advertising shoved into our faces to boot. Guess what. It's my computer; it's my TV; it's my magazine; they're my eyes. I don't have view these ads if I choose not to. That simple. JMO. --M
The thing is, it doesn't stop resource theft. It might reduce resource theft on your server by cutting usage down to a decision within the smtp transaction instead of a complex baysian spam filter after the transaction. OK, that's good. But there's still network resources used with dns lookups, plus the infected zombies. I mean, OK - use an RBL for now. What else can one do? But this just can't continue. IMO: legitimate email has become worthless as a communications medium. I mean, I know people (professionals) who have just dumped email because of spam! We're hitting a tipping point here where email has hit that point where it's so much a PITA that its benefits just aren't worth the trouble. Which says to me - we need to do something drastic to fix this problem. --M
You are missing the point. Just because the RBLs you're using have blocked some SPAM, and only blocked "THREE" false positives, does not mean that the process is viable. Look, I've got three RBLs configured in my mail server. On top of that I use per connection limits, and have set up RCPT throttling. On top of that I hacked the sendmail source (simple one liner) to hang up on connections that do too many RCPT requests in one session, to really stop the dictionary attacks. And you know what? The fuckers just upped the number of connections across varying IP addresses and continued with their dictionary attacks as before. I had set up a fork limit to sendmail until the SPAMMERS opened so many connections it actually blocked legitimate incoming mail. So where does this end? When folks regularly begin seeing sendmail consume a mail server's entire process table with inbound SPAM connections? Because they'll do it. They have enough zombie bot resources. Face it, there's no stopping these guys with an open protocol. It's that simple. --M
The point is that it will always be impossible to keep an accurate map of infected vs. uninfected systems when dealing with numbers this large. There will always be inaccuracies within the database, leading to some disenfranchised legitimate email users. While at the same time the SPAMMERS continue on, infecting new hosts with zombie bots and other malware, in order to send out SPAM. That this is a criminal enterprise is no matter. The fact that they can do this and that it remains profitable is enough to confirm that it will happen. The only solution is to transition to a new protocol that enables authentication so that it won't happen. Then we all turn our old sendmail servers off and tell the SPAMMERS to go fuck themselves. Yes, the confusion will hurt for a bit. But the outcome would (IMO) be worth it. --M
blocking spammers via a central database just doesn't work. The spammers are constantly moving from zombie client to zombie client in huge waves of hundreds of thousands of infected systems, making the RBL always filled with obsolete and incorrect information. The problem - as everyone knows - is that the protocol is fundamentally broken. It's a tragedy of the commons played out in front of our eyes.
By allowing the abuse it's outcome becomes a certainty. We're going to have to bite the bullet and dump open SMTP. And I think we're going to have to do this quickly. The levels of SPAM continue to rise. I often see ten to twenty times as many spam connections on my mail servers than legitimate connections, and this is a constant, flowing, amount of SPAM 24/7. Even with RBLs, spamassassin, etc, SPAM still gets through. The solution will not be found with another bandaid. It's time to dump SMTP and move to something that demands cryptographic authentication for users and hosts before allowing the transport session to complete. --M
Whoa. Talk about the /. effect... so that's what it's like, eh? Wonder if it'll pass 1000... --M
As many or as few times as management deems desirable. You could continue with the same distribution the entire time, if you prefer. The primary issue is not upgrading for features, but security management over time. So, assuming a standard corporate firewall to the outside, and a competent admin staff on the inside, supporting the same distribution with security fixes isn't terribly tough. Were it Redhat, automated package management would make the tast very easy. Debian, even easier. Note that for both distributions security updates don't impact API changes - unlike Windows updates often do. A security fix is backported to the released version.
There will come a time when the vendor will stop providing support. Redhat doesn't support RH7.x any longer (though it's easy to find third party security fixes still). Microsoft will soon stop supporting Windows 2000 and has long since stopped supporting Windows 95/98/ME and NT 3.51/4. Maintaining support for a Linux release is as viable as it is cost effective. And because the source it is *possible*. One can't say the same for a commercial product like Windows or MacOS X (or Solaris, VMS, etc etc etc).
No. Certainly not in my experience. Scripting installation solutions is simply a no brainer. Hell, nearly ten years ago Sun offered a no-brainer installation solution with Solaris Jumpstart. Similar systems exist for Linux. Plug the system in to a network and it auto-installs. Of course, if you're talking about desktops one will always need bodies to plant the machine on a desk. But with a network mounted homedir, say AFS, kerberos authentication, and LDAP for user db maps, every machine would get the same OS image while every user would have roaming logins. Most setup work happens server-side. --M
In other words, even if we were all instantly and permanently as productive with Linux and a Linux-based office suite and development tool, and they also required no ongoing support costs because we could pretty much do it all ourselves, the most switching to Linux would save my employer is the cost of a day of my time. It would take that day just to set the new system up.
Oh, I don't think so. Per-seat licensing of Windows, Office Professional, and whatever other tools are recurring costs at each upgrade. Depending on how large the installation, the savings could be enourmous. For a small office, you're right - it's not much. But once you begin deploying in the hundreds or thousands it really adds up.
These statements are skewed to show that Independence Air's Linux deployment cost too much in consultant fees, and therefore Linux is "expensive" to deploy in comparison to Windows. But they really say no such thing. Independence Air's problem was not its Linux deployment, but the fact that it chose to deploy a small part of their infrastructure without in house knowledge. They already had hired a Windows skill base, and therefore the comparison in utility between their Windows skillset for the entire Windows deployment against a small Linux deployment was bound to come out poorly for Linux. One sees savings with Linux in scale, not individually. Deploy hundreds of hosts and you'll save huge. Deploy a few hosts to drive a small piece of corporate infrastructure and not only will the savings be marginal, but you may have to hire external help to support the deployment.
So. Don't deploy Linux for small tasks if you're already heavily invested in an alternate technology. Duh. But to claim poor savings across the board as a result of this anecdote is simply stupid. With in house Linux (or UNIX) personnel and a large deployment - of course you'll save big. Which is why the UNIX houses have dumped commercial UNIX desktops for Linux. And why so many have dumped all their small UNIX servers for Linux (and BSD) on Intel. Because it's cheap. Very cheap (and cost effective). --M
I'm not sure what the value proposition is here for a MacOS X against Linux. What value has Apple offered over Linux?
- Good power management support on laptops
- Commercial software like Microsoft Office and other content creation applications
- Good coherent desktop development environment and tools. Included with this are spectacular fonts (readability - most important) and spectacular device independent rendering engine.
What does Linux offer?- Very cheap. Will continue to run on commodity Intel hardware. The new Mac will almost certainly be more expensive with the OS locked down with hardware DRM.
- Much faster and more efficient in-kernel threading than OS X, and much wider secondary hardware support.
- Acceptable windowing environment and development tools (though certainly not better than OS X).
The one killer feature that Apple offers over Linux is quality laptop power management. This can be fixed. Wine runs MS/Office OK. The font issue has been mostly resolved and X on Linux is now nice to read with. Linux will most definitely be cheaper to deploy, especially in large numbers. While I don't doubt Apple is making the right decision by migrating off of PPC to Intel, neither do I think Linux deployments are in trouble due to this move.Why does it piss [some people] off so much that someone makes some money off finding this story?
When Jon Katz left they decided to hate Michael Sims. Now Sims is gone so they need a new target. Not that Katz, Sims, offered any great insight or content to slashdot, but the hatred and paranoia against them is beyond reason. That said, I don't much like Piquepaille's site and don't click on his links. But he does offer the service of collecting and collating technology information - a service not much different from slashdot I might add - and clearly, some people find it interesting and worthwhile. The claims of some kickback scheme going on really reek of defamation though. Get some proof or STFU. --M
*sigh* Sorry about that. It's http://scientificlinux.org. --M