attitude is like the orientation of the ship.. normally (if you're flying a plane) it's in relation to the horizon (tilted to the right, left up, down, etc..).. i dunno wtf it would be in relation to in space.. sun maybe.. *shrug*
TurboLinux, as a distribution, is focused on high-end/enterprise server customers (hence : TurboCluster, EnFuzion, many bundled commercial databases, etc..)..
It *is* possible that TurboLinux could change direction.. Who knows, but that ain't where it's goin right now, or where it's been goin for the past 18 months.. Probably with good reason : *everyone* is attacking the desktop market. You're going to see better desktop distros from Mandrake, Caldera, and Corel (if ya like that kinda stuff) - this is what they do..
For those that don't get it - TurboLinux was originally Pacific HiTech, but they changed their name and kicked out the founders. Perhaps something similar will happen here.
The founders changed the name when the company was small and young, over a year later they were terminated by the board of directors (who didn't exist at time of said name change). Here's the deal, as I understand it:
Cliff Miller (and wife Iris, the founders) started PHT, turned it into TL, hired Paul Thomas as the CEO, but wanted him to do what they wanted. The stockholders, as the story goes, told him that, as the CEO, it was his job to do what would make them the most money, which meant getting rid of Cliff. Cliff and Iris (very lovely people) have now started a new company, and I'm sure will do quite well. I wouldn't expect anything this drastic to happen with the (supposed) TL/LC merger.. Cliff & Iris's dismissal could only be described as a power struggle. The company was horribly divided at the time, IIRC - but has stabilized (is stabilizing? some? maybe?;p) now...
I would say it's more likely that TurboLinux would become more distro agnostic.. TurboLinux will probably be pushed, but not too hard.. Who cares what (free) distro they're using, if they're spending lots of money on classes and support, eh?
Why should anyone care what I say? Cuz I work for TurboLinux, and I see a large shift towards making money off services and support lately.. We've also been good friends with LinuxCare for a while now - so this wouldn't surprise me.. Can't confirm or deny anything, of course, because I conveniently haven't checked my e-mail yet this morning;p
I don't think you have anything to worry about - espescially with regards to supporting RedHat. RedHat and TurboLinux are, by and large, the same. The installers differ somewhat, the gui/curses config tools differ quite a bit, etc.. but if you like to get to the nitty gritty and edit text files, you're editing the same files, still using RPMs, etc.. You probably won't ever find a RH RPM that won't install on TurboLinux. DISCLAIMER: it's commonly assumed that TurboLinux *copied* RedHat, which isn't quite true. Up until RedHat 4.?, TurboLinux did the japanese localization of RH, and made small mods to the distro - then went off and did its' own thing. From what I'm told, their installer has as much of our code as ours has of theirs
We've also been developing our classes to be somewhat distro-independent. We teach Linux using TurboLinux, focusing on knowing what config files are being used, what other types of initscript setups and package managers are available, etc..
Of course, this is all speculation, but I s'pose speculation from me is better than speculation from.. some random person who doesn't know anything at all about TurboLinux:). For the record, I've been around ~2 years now, since we were Pacific HiTech.. It's been a bumpy road.. No official company statements here, just rantin' in the mornin about something I know a little about for once..
Guess this is a "ditto". I picked up a nice Kenwood receiver for ~$400 about a year ago, and it's got optical inputs as well as video/S-Video for all my A/V stuff.. not bad for the price, supports 5.1 positional, of course:)
Do you use any drugs?
Before discounting this question, take into account that it's being posted by a recent HS graduate who, for the most part, fits the same description.. would like to compare notes;p
peace
It's all well and good that the fifth amendment says that, and everyone pays quite a bit of lip service to it, but for years now there have been similar provisions in the law for drug offenses. Every year many americans have their land, cars, homes, etc.. seized because they are suspected of a serious drug-related offense. More than 50% of these people are NEVER charged with a crime, but also never receive their property back. There is one case where the FBI, DEA (pick your ABC agency here) shot and killed a man during an illegal search of his land. There was absolutely no evidence of any drug offenses found, and they later admitted that they really just went out to seize his land, knowing he had probably not done anything wrong.
The worst thing about asset forfeiture is that the assets are auctioned off, and the funds go to the law enforcement agency that seized them. So, of course, any time a state or federal legislative body attempts to change the stupid asset forfeiture laws, the DEA, FBI, and often local police departments adamantly oppose it. One midwest state recently passed a bill changing the final destination of funds from asset forfeitures. As soon as the law passed, law enforcement agencies began filing lawsuits contesting the law - on what grounds, I don't know:)
So, the moral of the story is : The government already gives fuck-all about our rights, they walk a thin line and, for the most part, govern themselves. Anyone who is on the ACLU's mailing list gets bulletins at least weekly with all sorts of horrible bills that are going through congress, state legislatures, etc..
Unfortunately, this doesn't often make much difference. It's nice to know where and how my rights are being violated, but something I've noticed since joining the ACLU is that, more often than not, bills are modified but not fixed. They say "OK, we changed it" and everyone who complained says "Wow, I'm surprised they changed it at all", but when you get down to it, your rights still end up being violated.. Does this mean the ACLU is useless or that we should stop complaining about our rights being violated? Of course not, but for all the bitching and whining the stupid bills (DMCA, UCITA, throw your own in here) generally end up being passed.
Back to the drug analogy, when marijuana was first made illegal with the marijuana tax act of 1930-something-or-other, it was actually said that you must be licensed to use it, but no license, in the 60-someodd years of the law, has ever been issued. The American Medical Association adamantly opposed the bill, but during the debate (which lasted less than 5 minutes, starting with something like "what is this bill about?" "Oh, I don't know, something called marijuana, I beleive it is some sort of narcotic") the proponents of the bill lied. When the AMA came back and said "hey, they lied, we think this law is horrible and that making this drug illegal will do more harm than good", our legislators said "well, too late, we already passed it - next issue!" and the law stands, unmodified, to this day.
I sincerely hope (but don't beleive) that we won't see things like this happen again, but by the time the Internet is better understood by the average person, it will be too late. The head of the American Internetworking Association (let's pretend there is one, it's the future;p) could go to congress and say "this bill (DMCA/UCITA/this new one) is stupid, it violates the rights of our citizens for no good reason" they will likely get the same response "well, too late, we already passed it - next issue!"
WTF can we do? I don't know but I wish I did - I guess the easy answer would be "Whatever the fuck we can". I noticed a post above from a Utahian (sp?) who commented on the lack of interest (in a linux users' group, of all places) in opposing stupid laws and the politicians that pass them - it's this kind of attitude that allows our rights to be taken away. I've been just as guilty of this as anyone else, but I try - let's all try..
On the brighter side of things, there are happier things that happen - like the judge who recently ruled that port scans are legal.. Some people have a clue, most people don't - but I suppose everyone feels that way..
Depends on how you look at it. Texas is the only state in the union that would be legally allowed to leave, because it (we;p) voluntarily entered, having been a sovereign nation..:)
This is a perfect example of *why* the DARE program is wrong. The Governor of New Mexico thinks drugs should be legalized. He explains many reasons why the DARE program doesn't work, why it has never worked, and why it will never work. He admits to having used drugs himselves, and that it is Fun, Good, etc.. but thinks (and this is where I disagree) that they are a handicap. Of course they *can* be - espescially "dumb drugs" like Alcohol. It is not unusual for a recovering alcoholic in a position of authority (say the VP of a High School) to be extra hard on "druggies".
In essence, the DARE program teaches a bunch of lies. It may help a 6 year old get her daddy to stop smoking (This is an effect I've seen for many people - there is no positive argument for smoking tobacco), but it will not keep a 14 year old from smoking pot. At some point, as the Gov. says, he or she will have a friend who smokes pot. That person will not be all fucked up. They will be smart, happy, excited about life, and this person will think to themselves "he/she smokes pot, and it didn't ruin his/her life, chances of success, etc...". "Hmm, maybe it isn't a gateway drug - maybe I won't end up as a crack addict laying in the street a year from now because I like to toke".
Once society can accept the fact that we are *all* drug users. We *all* like to alter our consciousness - if not at the level that psychadelic drugs such as Marijuana, LSD, and Psilocibin can take us - then at least at the level that Jolt!, Marlboro, Benadryl, Budweiser, Bacardi, and all of our other naughty little friends do. Essentially, any drug you take alters consciousness - each drug is the gateway to the next. Fortunately for most of us, I haven't heard anyone talking about the consciousness expanding properties of Cocaine, Heroin, etc..
Let's close by striking an analogy between hackers and drug users, mmkay?
As Linux/*nix hackers, we take much the same attitude towards our computers as drug users take towards their bodies (minds, really). We seek to know how everything works (there has been more than one "hack your mind" article on slashdot since I've been reading), to change how it works - make it more efficient, make ourselves more efficient (not in the busy little bee since, but in the Happiness and Enlightenment sense).
STOP THE DRUG WAR! Visit NORML.org, read some intelligent opinions. Remember that not *everyone* is responsible, but that I would venture to say that *most* people who use legal drugs (alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, prescription drugs, OTC stuff) abuse them at times - possibly more often than illegal drugs. Any drug can be abused. Drug abuse is bad. Drug _USE_ is not necessarily bad. Alcohol Kills. Tobacco Kills. Marijuana, LSD, Psilocibyn, and Mescaline are all perfectly safe drugs (with *no* known lethal dosage). Why is our world so backwards?
Why can't you see? Oh how I wish you could all see:)
Having taken a class similar to this one (probably, as he/she references the AP curriculum, etc..) the students probably have at least a basic understanding of C++, and as much as near-guru level knowledge of assembly - this is why they are bored:) We played quake2 a lot, im sure you could come up w/ better ideas.. Our teacher let us choose a final project that ranged from a game to a db-based web page, etc..
This is really late but I'm putting it out for history's sake, and because I'm kinda bored:) I don't know exactly why we skipped to 6.0, but it may have something to do with the fact that most (non-linux-using) people refer to Red Hat as Linux. It *is* Linux as far as they know. They may say 'I have Linux 6.0', not quite understanding the fairly new concept of several different companies marketing a product that is essentially the same - but has very different versioning schemes. They would say 'This is TurboLinux, it is 5.0, it is older' and so purely based on a misconception, may purchase Red Hat (or another distro who's versioning is higher than ours). We don't want that, and I don't think our customers want that, because it's just confusing. It would probably be a lot easier to explain if all the distros used versioning based on the kernel version (with a sub-version or something, i.e. 2.2.12-TL4), but it would look ugly and would require a lot of work and cooperation between distros:). We also have products in Japan and China that have been releasing quicker than our English products, so we may have needed to catch up with them in versioning and be a bit more synced up.
Unfortunately, I didn't catch this when it was fresh, but i thought I would put some useful info out there in case someone was browsing old posts.
First of all, I'd like to say that I'm not 100% informed on our decision not to completely open the source because I haven't been involved in any of the recent discussions. I want to answer your questions because they're good questions and I expected them (I just forgot to come back and check for responses to my posts).
My original post was based on what I knew from meetings we had in June and July. It has been some time, and I'm a bit out of the loop sometimes, being a telecommuter - TurboCluster hasn't really been related to my job lately. I found out that our policy is "to release the daemon source code six months after general availability of each product revision". For instance, we released TurboCluster Server in mid-November, and plan to release the daemon source in mid-May.
Why do you find this necessary, Justin? Is it:
So the capital markets have some 'IP' to include in their valuations?
I'd have to lean towards no, but because I don't really know the details of the final decision (I wasn't present) I'm not going to waste time speculating.
That your kernel mods et al are useless without the closed daemon, so the value of all your code is maintained internally anyway?
This is definitely not the reason. Our kernel mods include ip tunneling and other changes to the networking code - some of which are not useful outside of a cluster, but could be useful with other clustering solutions. Early on in the project, our product was very close to the Linux Virtual Server project, and we contributed a *lot* of code to them, in fact I beleive we did most of the work necessary to get it working with the 2.2 kernel. The version that we eventually released as TurboCluster 4.0 was probably the third version that we created. The code that we have closed is a fairly minimal portion that deals mostly, as I understand it, with the failover capabilities of TCS.
Something else?
Probably:)
Do you think this is something that other companies relying on open source products will have to do too, or is it something that is specific to clustering products?
I think it is something that doesn't necessarily *have* to be done, but that was probably a good idea in this case. We essentially didn't want anyone to be able to take our product and sell it as our own. They could probably reverse-engineer it and rewrite the code if they wanted, but there isn't much we can do about that. We simply want to be doing *some* innovation in house that gives us a marketable product. This is how I understand it, and why I personally think we decided to go the way we did. We made our decision with the community in mind - but with the goal of making money from the work we did.
I understand why members of the community would be unhappy with our decision, and I understand that it was not the only way to do it - but it is how we did it, and any other way would have surely been imperfect and caused some people to be unhappy with us. We can't please everyone, but we try.
Thanks for your comments - and I apologize for sounding like someone out of the marketing department. I just wanted to be sure to be clear about what I said so it couldn't be taken the wrong way.
Linux.com is a portal. The domain wasn't sold, the entire *site* was sold, IIRC. The domain also wasn't purchased purely to be sold, it was held and used for an extended period of time and then sold to an interested party - it wasn't misused, and still isn't being misused. Had it been purchased and turned into a porn site, Linus might have something to say.
The difference is that etoy.com is a domain that existed for years before etoys.com was even a dream - etoy could, theoretically, sue etoys.com for having their 'art fans' confused by a toy site. Had etoy created their domain *after* etoys was in business, well-known, etc.. there might be a case. Linus is defending the trademark from domain squatters - people who are making money directly on his trademark. This is akin to selling Coke jackets without Coca-Cola's permission. They have no product to sell except for crappy domains with the word 'linux' in them. Take out the word 'linux' and noone wants the domain. The purchasers of the domains, if they were using them for something at least remotely linux-related, wouldn't be infringing on the copyright, but the squatters were.
I haven't really had time to look through the posts and see if anyone else mentioned this - but IIRC, Korn became big simply because their music was available and good - no airplay, no MTV, just people listening and saying 'this rocks!'. They seem to be the most modern band out there in terms of using the internet - they broadcast a live performance of their new album over the 'net, on the radio, etc.. and millions watched. They released the first single from their album as an mp3 and millions listened. I think that we might lose out on acts like the backstreet boys that are more of a marketing plan than a musical act - but oh well:)
We still seem to be doing well in Asia - I'm not very involved with our Asian products, but I hear good news pretty often - and we did outsell several Microsoft products (retail sales, not OEM) for ~3 weeks this summer in Japan.
Enahs (and anyone else) : We're always trying to improve our products according to user suggestions - could you let us know what you didn't like about it? (preferably in an e-mail to me, rather than a/. post)
I would expect our upcoming v6.0 to be more mature for desktop use (we've tossed the old AfterStep and are using GNOME and KDE as our recommended desktops)
To be a little more specific - the *only* proprietary part of our Clustering software is a little daemon that runs on the routers/load balancers. You can have as many cluster members as you'd like that aren't running TurboCluster (TurboLinux Server, another distro, even another OS). If I'm not mistaken, we sell a 2-node license and an unlimited node license - many people need only two load balancers, others need more. The admin tools are open-source, the kernel modifications are open-source, etc..
I just wanted to post this before there is some confusion about it - because there always is. We keep a small portion closed simply so that we have *something* that is ours. We do, however, provide the source to an older version of TurboCluster - completely.
actually - it would mean less - more people watching movies on their computer is less people watching movies on $200-300 DVD players. It would, however, mean more revnue for companies like Xing that sell dvd and mpeg player software.
afaik, that isn't the case. I have 2 friends who work at circuit city and, of course, I buy most of my electronics there:) I bought my DVD player and was told to return it a week later and buy it again because I was about 5 days early for the movie giveaway deal (buy a DVD player and get 5 free DVDs or something like that). He may be referring to an older policy or something, but in my experience, circuit city has excellent return policies.
Also - can't blame them for embracing new technologies, you can only praise them for it. divx was questionable and by backing it they only helped it by making it available - they seem to be doing the same thing with this new mp3/dvd device. Divx was a pretty bad idea imho (and I think a lot of people agree, because it failed) - but they gave it a chance.
The problem with this idea is that 'the DVD industry' hasn't made a linux DVD player. In fact, 'the DVD industry' hasn't made a Windows player either. Various software companies, like Xing, have made Windows players - write them and tell them that you want a linux DVD player.
Writing a letter to Time Warner that you bought their latest DVD release and are using a tool they're against to view it isn't going to bring a DVD player to linux. Writing Xing and telling them that you can't spend $50 on their dvd player because you run Linux *is* a way.
If you don't want to pay for a player then I'd say you can prepare for a long wait unless the patent issues are resolved, because there are 70-something patents involved in writing a DVD player (and I happen to know of a company that plans on releasing a non-free, but fairly priced player for Linux some time in the near future).
Slashdot Mirror
attitude is like the orientation of the ship.. normally (if you're flying a plane) it's in relation to the horizon (tilted to the right, left up, down, etc..).. i dunno wtf it would be in relation to in space.. sun maybe.. *shrug*
TurboLinux, as a distribution, is focused on high-end/enterprise server customers (hence : TurboCluster, EnFuzion, many bundled commercial databases, etc..)..
It *is* possible that TurboLinux could change direction.. Who knows, but that ain't where it's goin right now, or where it's been goin for the past 18 months.. Probably with good reason : *everyone* is attacking the desktop market. You're going to see better desktop distros from Mandrake, Caldera, and Corel (if ya like that kinda stuff) - this is what they do..
Sorry to burst your (rumored) bubble ;p
Peace
For those that don't get it - TurboLinux was originally Pacific HiTech, but they changed their name and kicked out the founders. Perhaps something similar will happen here.
The founders changed the name when the company was small and young, over a year later they were terminated by the board of directors (who didn't exist at time of said name change). Here's the deal, as I understand it:
Cliff Miller (and wife Iris, the founders) started PHT, turned it into TL, hired Paul Thomas as the CEO, but wanted him to do what they wanted. The stockholders, as the story goes, told him that, as the CEO, it was his job to do what would make them the most money, which meant getting rid of Cliff. Cliff and Iris (very lovely people) have now started a new company, and I'm sure will do quite well. I wouldn't expect anything this drastic to happen with the (supposed) TL/LC merger.. Cliff & Iris's dismissal could only be described as a power struggle. The company was horribly divided at the time, IIRC - but has stabilized (is stabilizing? some? maybe? ;p) now...
Peace
I would say it's more likely that TurboLinux would become more distro agnostic.. TurboLinux will probably be pushed, but not too hard.. Who cares what (free) distro they're using, if they're spending lots of money on classes and support, eh?
Why should anyone care what I say? Cuz I work for TurboLinux, and I see a large shift towards making money off services and support lately.. We've also been good friends with LinuxCare for a while now - so this wouldn't surprise me.. Can't confirm or deny anything, of course, because I conveniently haven't checked my e-mail yet this morning ;p
I don't think you have anything to worry about - espescially with regards to supporting RedHat. RedHat and TurboLinux are, by and large, the same. The installers differ somewhat, the gui/curses config tools differ quite a bit, etc.. but if you like to get to the nitty gritty and edit text files, you're editing the same files, still using RPMs, etc.. You probably won't ever find a RH RPM that won't install on TurboLinux. DISCLAIMER: it's commonly assumed that TurboLinux *copied* RedHat, which isn't quite true. Up until RedHat 4.?, TurboLinux did the japanese localization of RH, and made small mods to the distro - then went off and did its' own thing. From what I'm told, their installer has as much of our code as ours has of theirs
We've also been developing our classes to be somewhat distro-independent. We teach Linux using TurboLinux, focusing on knowing what config files are being used, what other types of initscript setups and package managers are available, etc..
Of course, this is all speculation, but I s'pose speculation from me is better than speculation from.. some random person who doesn't know anything at all about TurboLinux :). For the record, I've been around ~2 years now, since we were Pacific HiTech.. It's been a bumpy road.. No official company statements here, just rantin' in the mornin about something I know a little about for once..
Peace
Guess this is a "ditto". I picked up a nice Kenwood receiver for ~$400 about a year ago, and it's got optical inputs as well as video/S-Video for all my A/V stuff.. not bad for the price, supports 5.1 positional, of course :)
Do you use any drugs? Before discounting this question, take into account that it's being posted by a recent HS graduate who, for the most part, fits the same description.. would like to compare notes ;p
peace
It's all well and good that the fifth amendment says that, and everyone pays quite a bit of lip service to it, but for years now there have been similar provisions in the law for drug offenses. Every year many americans have their land, cars, homes, etc.. seized because they are suspected of a serious drug-related offense. More than 50% of these people are NEVER charged with a crime, but also never receive their property back. There is one case where the FBI, DEA (pick your ABC agency here) shot and killed a man during an illegal search of his land. There was absolutely no evidence of any drug offenses found, and they later admitted that they really just went out to seize his land, knowing he had probably not done anything wrong.
The worst thing about asset forfeiture is that the assets are auctioned off, and the funds go to the law enforcement agency that seized them. So, of course, any time a state or federal legislative body attempts to change the stupid asset forfeiture laws, the DEA, FBI, and often local police departments adamantly oppose it. One midwest state recently passed a bill changing the final destination of funds from asset forfeitures. As soon as the law passed, law enforcement agencies began filing lawsuits contesting the law - on what grounds, I don't know :)
So, the moral of the story is : The government already gives fuck-all about our rights, they walk a thin line and, for the most part, govern themselves. Anyone who is on the ACLU's mailing list gets bulletins at least weekly with all sorts of horrible bills that are going through congress, state legislatures, etc..
Unfortunately, this doesn't often make much difference. It's nice to know where and how my rights are being violated, but something I've noticed since joining the ACLU is that, more often than not, bills are modified but not fixed. They say "OK, we changed it" and everyone who complained says "Wow, I'm surprised they changed it at all", but when you get down to it, your rights still end up being violated.. Does this mean the ACLU is useless or that we should stop complaining about our rights being violated? Of course not, but for all the bitching and whining the stupid bills (DMCA, UCITA, throw your own in here) generally end up being passed.
Back to the drug analogy, when marijuana was first made illegal with the marijuana tax act of 1930-something-or-other, it was actually said that you must be licensed to use it, but no license, in the 60-someodd years of the law, has ever been issued. The American Medical Association adamantly opposed the bill, but during the debate (which lasted less than 5 minutes, starting with something like "what is this bill about?" "Oh, I don't know, something called marijuana, I beleive it is some sort of narcotic") the proponents of the bill lied. When the AMA came back and said "hey, they lied, we think this law is horrible and that making this drug illegal will do more harm than good", our legislators said "well, too late, we already passed it - next issue!" and the law stands, unmodified, to this day.
I sincerely hope (but don't beleive) that we won't see things like this happen again, but by the time the Internet is better understood by the average person, it will be too late. The head of the American Internetworking Association (let's pretend there is one, it's the future ;p) could go to congress and say "this bill (DMCA/UCITA/this new one) is stupid, it violates the rights of our citizens for no good reason" they will likely get the same response "well, too late, we already passed it - next issue!"
WTF can we do? I don't know but I wish I did - I guess the easy answer would be "Whatever the fuck we can". I noticed a post above from a Utahian (sp?) who commented on the lack of interest (in a linux users' group, of all places) in opposing stupid laws and the politicians that pass them - it's this kind of attitude that allows our rights to be taken away. I've been just as guilty of this as anyone else, but I try - let's all try..
On the brighter side of things, there are happier things that happen - like the judge who recently ruled that port scans are legal.. Some people have a clue, most people don't - but I suppose everyone feels that way..
Depends on how you look at it. Texas is the only state in the union that would be legally allowed to leave, because it (we ;p) voluntarily entered, having been a sovereign nation.. :)
This is a perfect example of *why* the DARE program is wrong. The Governor of New Mexico thinks drugs should be legalized. He explains many reasons why the DARE program doesn't work, why it has never worked, and why it will never work. He admits to having used drugs himselves, and that it is Fun, Good, etc.. but thinks (and this is where I disagree) that they are a handicap. Of course they *can* be - espescially "dumb drugs" like Alcohol. It is not unusual for a recovering alcoholic in a position of authority (say the VP of a High School) to be extra hard on "druggies".
In essence, the DARE program teaches a bunch of lies. It may help a 6 year old get her daddy to stop smoking (This is an effect I've seen for many people - there is no positive argument for smoking tobacco), but it will not keep a 14 year old from smoking pot. At some point, as the Gov. says, he or she will have a friend who smokes pot. That person will not be all fucked up. They will be smart, happy, excited about life, and this person will think to themselves "he/she smokes pot, and it didn't ruin his/her life, chances of success, etc...". "Hmm, maybe it isn't a gateway drug - maybe I won't end up as a crack addict laying in the street a year from now because I like to toke".
Once society can accept the fact that we are *all* drug users. We *all* like to alter our consciousness - if not at the level that psychadelic drugs such as Marijuana, LSD, and Psilocibin can take us - then at least at the level that Jolt!, Marlboro, Benadryl, Budweiser, Bacardi, and all of our other naughty little friends do. Essentially, any drug you take alters consciousness - each drug is the gateway to the next. Fortunately for most of us, I haven't heard anyone talking about the consciousness expanding properties of Cocaine, Heroin, etc..
Let's close by striking an analogy between hackers and drug users, mmkay? As Linux/*nix hackers, we take much the same attitude towards our computers as drug users take towards their bodies (minds, really). We seek to know how everything works (there has been more than one "hack your mind" article on slashdot since I've been reading), to change how it works - make it more efficient, make ourselves more efficient (not in the busy little bee since, but in the Happiness and Enlightenment sense).
STOP THE DRUG WAR! Visit NORML.org, read some intelligent opinions. Remember that not *everyone* is responsible, but that I would venture to say that *most* people who use legal drugs (alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, prescription drugs, OTC stuff) abuse them at times - possibly more often than illegal drugs. Any drug can be abused. Drug abuse is bad. Drug _USE_ is not necessarily bad. Alcohol Kills. Tobacco Kills. Marijuana, LSD, Psilocibyn, and Mescaline are all perfectly safe drugs (with *no* known lethal dosage). Why is our world so backwards?
Why can't you see? Oh how I wish you could all see :)
Peace
Having taken a class similar to this one (probably, as he/she references the AP curriculum, etc..) the students probably have at least a basic understanding of C++, and as much as near-guru level knowledge of assembly - this is why they are bored :) We played quake2 a lot, im sure you could come up w/ better ideas.. Our teacher let us choose a final project that ranged from a game to a db-based web page, etc..
7-11 sells these. They're called internet shopping cards or something like that, and work as a credit card (Amex I think)..
Hey Dan it's Justin from TL (well, not anymore) - are you guys hiring?
If you're boycotting /. how are you posting this?
This is really late but I'm putting it out for history's sake, and because I'm kinda bored :) I don't know exactly why we skipped to 6.0, but it may have something to do with the fact that most (non-linux-using) people refer to Red Hat as Linux. It *is* Linux as far as they know. They may say 'I have Linux 6.0', not quite understanding the fairly new concept of several different companies marketing a product that is essentially the same - but has very different versioning schemes. They would say 'This is TurboLinux, it is 5.0, it is older' and so purely based on a misconception, may purchase Red Hat (or another distro who's versioning is higher than ours). We don't want that, and I don't think our customers want that, because it's just confusing. It would probably be a lot easier to explain if all the distros used versioning based on the kernel version (with a sub-version or something, i.e. 2.2.12-TL4), but it would look ugly and would require a lot of work and cooperation between distros :). We also have products in Japan and China that have been releasing quicker than our English products, so we may have needed to catch up with them in versioning and be a bit more synced up.
Unfortunately, I didn't catch this when it was fresh, but i thought I would put some useful info out there in case someone was browsing old posts.
First of all, I'd like to say that I'm not 100% informed on our decision not to completely open the source because I haven't been involved in any of the recent discussions. I want to answer your questions because they're good questions and I expected them (I just forgot to come back and check for responses to my posts).
My original post was based on what I knew from meetings we had in June and July. It has been some time, and I'm a bit out of the loop sometimes, being a telecommuter - TurboCluster hasn't really been related to my job lately. I found out that our policy is "to release the daemon source code six months after general availability of each product revision". For instance, we released TurboCluster Server in mid-November, and plan to release the daemon source in mid-May.
Why do you find this necessary, Justin? Is it:
So the capital markets have some 'IP' to include in their valuations?
I'd have to lean towards no, but because I don't really know the details of the final decision (I wasn't present) I'm not going to waste time speculating.
That your kernel mods et al are useless without the closed daemon, so the value of all your code is maintained internally anyway?
This is definitely not the reason. Our kernel mods include ip tunneling and other changes to the networking code - some of which are not useful outside of a cluster, but could be useful with other clustering solutions. Early on in the project, our product was very close to the Linux Virtual Server project, and we contributed a *lot* of code to them, in fact I beleive we did most of the work necessary to get it working with the 2.2 kernel. The version that we eventually released as TurboCluster 4.0 was probably the third version that we created. The code that we have closed is a fairly minimal portion that deals mostly, as I understand it, with the failover capabilities of TCS.
Something else?
Probably
Do you think this is something that other companies relying on open source products will have to do too, or is it something that is specific to clustering products?
I think it is something that doesn't necessarily *have* to be done, but that was probably a good idea in this case. We essentially didn't want anyone to be able to take our product and sell it as our own. They could probably reverse-engineer it and rewrite the code if they wanted, but there isn't much we can do about that. We simply want to be doing *some* innovation in house that gives us a marketable product. This is how I understand it, and why I personally think we decided to go the way we did. We made our decision with the community in mind - but with the goal of making money from the work we did.
I understand why members of the community would be unhappy with our decision, and I understand that it was not the only way to do it - but it is how we did it, and any other way would have surely been imperfect and caused some people to be unhappy with us. We can't please everyone, but we try.
Thanks for your comments - and I apologize for sounding like someone out of the marketing department. I just wanted to be sure to be clear about what I said so it couldn't be taken the wrong way.
Justin Ryan (TurboLinux)
Linux.com is a portal. The domain wasn't sold, the entire *site* was sold, IIRC. The domain also wasn't purchased purely to be sold, it was held and used for an extended period of time and then sold to an interested party - it wasn't misused, and still isn't being misused. Had it been purchased and turned into a porn site, Linus might have something to say.
The difference is that etoy.com is a domain that existed for years before etoys.com was even a dream - etoy could, theoretically, sue etoys.com for having their 'art fans' confused by a toy site. Had etoy created their domain *after* etoys was in business, well-known, etc.. there might be a case. Linus is defending the trademark from domain squatters - people who are making money directly on his trademark. This is akin to selling Coke jackets without Coca-Cola's permission. They have no product to sell except for crappy domains with the word 'linux' in them. Take out the word 'linux' and noone wants the domain. The purchasers of the domains, if they were using them for something at least remotely linux-related, wouldn't be infringing on the copyright, but the squatters were.
I haven't really had time to look through the posts and see if anyone else mentioned this - but IIRC, Korn became big simply because their music was available and good - no airplay, no MTV, just people listening and saying 'this rocks!'. They seem to be the most modern band out there in terms of using the internet - they broadcast a live performance of their new album over the 'net, on the radio, etc.. and millions watched. They released the first single from their album as an mp3 and millions listened. I think that we might lose out on acts like the backstreet boys that are more of a marketing plan than a musical act - but oh well :)
We still seem to be doing well in Asia - I'm not very involved with our Asian products, but I hear good news pretty often - and we did outsell several Microsoft products (retail sales, not OEM) for ~3 weeks this summer in Japan.
Enahs (and anyone else) : We're always trying to improve our products according to user suggestions - could you let us know what you didn't like about it? (preferably in an e-mail to me, rather than a /. post)
I would expect our upcoming v6.0 to be more mature for desktop use (we've tossed the old AfterStep and are using GNOME and KDE as our recommended desktops)
Hey MoNsTeR : We've got v6.0 coming soon with Glibc2.1 and lots of other cool stuff - Expect it within a month or so.
To be a little more specific - the *only* proprietary part of our Clustering software is a little daemon that runs on the routers/load balancers. You can have as many cluster members as you'd like that aren't running TurboCluster (TurboLinux Server, another distro, even another OS). If I'm not mistaken, we sell a 2-node license and an unlimited node license - many people need only two load balancers, others need more. The admin tools are open-source, the kernel modifications are open-source, etc..
I just wanted to post this before there is some confusion about it - because there always is. We keep a small portion closed simply so that we have *something* that is ours. We do, however, provide the source to an older version of TurboCluster - completely.
Justin Ryan (TurboLinux)
actually - it would mean less - more people watching movies on their computer is less people watching movies on $200-300 DVD players. It would, however, mean more revnue for companies like Xing that sell dvd and mpeg player software.
afaik, that isn't the case. I have 2 friends who work at circuit city and, of course, I buy most of my electronics there :) I bought my DVD player and was told to return it a week later and buy it again because I was about 5 days early for the movie giveaway deal (buy a DVD player and get 5 free DVDs or something like that). He may be referring to an older policy or something, but in my experience, circuit city has excellent return policies.
Also - can't blame them for embracing new technologies, you can only praise them for it. divx was questionable and by backing it they only helped it by making it available - they seem to be doing the same thing with this new mp3/dvd device. Divx was a pretty bad idea imho (and I think a lot of people agree, because it failed) - but they gave it a chance.
Go circuit city!
The problem with this idea is that 'the DVD industry' hasn't made a linux DVD player. In fact, 'the DVD industry' hasn't made a Windows player either. Various software companies, like Xing, have made Windows players - write them and tell them that you want a linux DVD player.
Writing a letter to Time Warner that you bought their latest DVD release and are using a tool they're against to view it isn't going to bring a DVD player to linux. Writing Xing and telling them that you can't spend $50 on their dvd player because you run Linux *is* a way.
If you don't want to pay for a player then I'd say you can prepare for a long wait unless the patent issues are resolved, because there are 70-something patents involved in writing a DVD player (and I happen to know of a company that plans on releasing a non-free, but fairly priced player for Linux some time in the near future).