1) Telecommuting is a giant ergonomic plus in and of itself. The workers will automatically adjust their home environment to their liking for when they are working (and even when they're not).
This doesn't really make sense - as comfortable as I may be at home, comfort doesn't keep the carpel tunnel away, and in fact my perception of comfort today (which might be sitting in an ez-chair with a notebook or something) could be very bad for me. It isn't unreasonable to ask a company who pays for a computer, a monitor, keyboard, etc.. to at least *help* pay for a chair, and maybe a desk - if you work primarily (or ONLY) from home, then it's cheaper than doing the same at the office. My employer doesn't do this, and I didn't ask them to - but it would have been nice. Also, rather than outfitting you with an entire home office, they could give you a small budget to help create your home office, since the quality of your home office will be reflected in your work. If you are uncomfortable or inconvenienced because you could only afford cheap office furniture, you probably won't work as much as if your home office is a place you like to be. I don't think I would want them completely furnishing my home office, because If/when I move to another job, I would have to give back (or pay for) all of the furniture they gave me.
Sure - Telecommuting is a priveledge, it's great, I love it and I'm sure that everyone else who has the priveledge loves it, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be some care taken to ensure that employees are safe from hazards that will keep us from working.
I've seen the argument that in moving from the home office to the kitchen for lunch, you may trip and fall and could sue the company - this is absurd, that's like saying that if you get in an accident driving from the office to Pizza Hut you could sue the company, you've left the realm of your job. If there is a hazard in your home, it's your fault - but if you're working from home, it's reasonable (if the employer is providing you with equipment) for them to provide you with healthy equipment. Simply publishing information and letting us make our own decisions isn't the best thing - Office furniture is expensive, I think that the chairs used in our offices list at over $600 - that's more than any single thing I own is worth, with the exceptions of my car and my computer. I could buy a couch for that, or a recliner, or a big screen TV - Most people wouldn't go to that expenditure on their own, and wouldn't be able to get the kind of deals on used office furniture that a company could (It's easy to buy 20 or 30 used chairs at a discount, but who wants to deal with one person? It wouldn't be unreasonable for companies to buy extra furniture for telecommuters and allow them the option of buying it for their home office, rather than paying retail).
Anyway, I could rant and rant;p I just don't think it's completely unreasonable for OSHA to have policies on the home office of a Full-Time employee (contract workers are, of course, on their own). I fall somewhere inbetween, and I can't complain (nor do I).
I think that/. would probably be the best place to look for opinions on this kind of matter. Where do you think the highest concentration of telecommuters are? Probably in the computer industry, because it seems to make use of technology wayyy before any other industry - it's in our nature to telecommute. Even those who work at companies usually communicate primarily through electronic means, because it's natural to us, espescially those of us who grew up on the 'net. I don't know if the media uses/., but with the increasing number of technical issues in the news, they probably should, because we have a unique outlook.
I think the point that everyone is missing, and that Bruce made, is that there is noone with Linux experience *or* any known developers, i.e. if I have been working with Linux since its' inception but just haven't done anything recognizable, and suddenly had an idea worth recognition and wanted to capitalize off of it, that's fine - OR if I had an unsuccessful business venture that went public (NetUSA?) and decided that the Linux industry was the way to go, I should get some decent developers with experience, and probably some marketing/management people who understand Linux, the community, the ideas, etc.. and then I would be ok.. but if I simply take the word 'Linux' and maybe one developer, I might be able to create a successful company - but my first task should be to create a product, not to file for an IPO. It isn't that *all* of these need to be present, but at least one.. There's nothing wrong with being an unknown - but what would make an unknown think he could interest the public in 23M worth of stock without doing anything significant first, except that 'Linux' is a big buzz word - and it is, my family knows that I work for a Linux company and is always asking me about investments in Linux, etc.. People want in, because it's new and big and it's internet-related. It's the ultimate buzz, and that's what LinuxOne is banking on (or hoping to bank on;p)
The difference between LinuxOne (as we've seen it so far, at least) and VA Linux, Andover.net, etc.. is that LinuxOne was created to go public, they filed for their IPO before they had a product. VA Linux's IPO was not met with the same skepticism, they have been around for a long, long time and are the leader in Linux Hardware, as well as employing TONS of open-source developers to do work that doesn't directly benefit their sales. Andover.net purchased websites such as Slashdot that are phenomenally popular and growing quickly. Regardless of whether or not either one turned a profit, it is normal for a business to go a year or so without turning a profit - you have to build a customer base and branding - and should do so before you ask the public to invest in you. VA Linux, RedHat, and Andover.net have all done this, LinuxOne has not - you can call a spade a spade, but don't call an ace a spade..
What you (and most others on this post) don't seem to understand is that this is *already* how it works. The Backstreet boys share their revenue with Yanni, and Yanni shares his pitiful revenue with Britney Spears. Organizations such as ASCAP and BMI control distribution of royalties for music, whether you buy a CD or hear it on the radio or see a video on TV. Radio stations, clubs, MTV, etc.. all pay a blanket amount to ASCAP and BMI (both, regardless of whose music they play more of) and it is "fairly" distributed among the artists based on who is at the top of the charts this month. If you're very small, and only have a couple of published songs that noone ever plays, you may get specific payments (i.e. my dad had a song that was played at the '86 (?) olympics in LA, and he got a small check for it). This makes a lot of sense for handling digital distribution, because it's about as arbitrary as a jukebox or radio station might be.. keep stats on which songs are downloaded most and pay those artists.. bah-da-bing, bah-da-boom:)
We changed our name recently from Pacific HiTech to TurboLinux (more info at www.turbolinux.com), but we are the same company. We're beginning to focus on performance, high availability, etc.. And yes, Dave is here.. -- Justin Ryan Developer Relations, TurboLinux
As a linux user and advocate I'm insulted by this. The term FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) can describe 90-someodd percent of anti-Linux writings. Most is written by people who fall into a couple of groups:
(1) Don't know about linux or care to know
(2) Benefit from MS products and don't care to see linux succeed
(3) noone listens to them anymore so they join in and bash linux, this increases readership, they get tons of e-mail, albeit mostly flames, and feel loved once again
There are writings that show linux in a light that I don't necessary agree with, but that aren't exactly what you'd call FUD, and there are amateur postings and writings pro-linux that are pure FUD, or maybe it's opposite (comfort, certainty, and sureness?). Some linux advocates take it much too far. They flame writers who they disagree with, they don't beleive anything that shows linux in a negative light, and they follow blindly. These are, by large, the sheep who have moved from the microsoft flock to the linux flock. They will always be in a flock somewhere, but will not really be accepted by those outside of the flock with similar beleifs, i.e. the smart linux users, the *real* windows professionals, etc.. they decree that anything linux is good and anything else is bad. That's bullshit. I'm not afraid to say that I get paid to advocate linux, more specifically the version of linux my company makes, but everything I tell people is true. I don't answer questions I don't know the answer to, I don't make up stories so people will agree that our product is better. If people do not beleive, I try to show them. I think linux is a wonderful product, I enjoy using it, developing with and for it, and playing around with it when I'm bored. there is *always* something new and exciting going on in the linux world. That's awesome.
There becomes a point on the path of a windows professional where you are no longer solving challenging problems, but trying to correct for bad software design. A couple of percent, even 40% difference in performance is not big when you stress the TCO which is a term that Microsoft almost seems to have coined. A 100-pc network with 3 NT servers would cost more for software than hardware. Double the server hardware and use linux and viola, you've corrected for the small performance difference. Add a contribution to the kernel code to help tighten up the IP stack and you're on the way to greatness:)
Anyway, I guess I went a bit long but I'm tired of Linux users and advocates being portrayed as a bunch of foaming-at-the-mouth, semi-retarded, religious( in the software sense) idiots. Many of us are intelligent, reasonable, and pretty damned nice. We just don't tend to shout as loud. I don't see linus as my lord and savior, though he seems to be a pretty cool guy.
Sure BSD is solid and designed by real OS researchers. That's great, but how much longer has BSD been around than Linux? and how close is linux today? take that and look 5 years down the road. Becuase Linux doesn't restrict who can contribute to the kernel and countless other software that is incredibly important, you end up with much more contributors and much higher quality software. In short, the bazaar wins over the cathedral.
Not quite a fork off, more of a fork on:) We started out differently, but ended up using and modifying the kernel patch for the virtual server project. FYI we are doing most, if not all, of the development on the 2.2 patch, afaik.
Read the reply to the 'GPL versus $1,000' post for more detail, but we haven't declared closed-source yet, as the FAQ says we have not decided on Licensing for the monitoring and configuration portions yet (as it puts it, this basically covers tlclusterd which does load balancing, makes sure all the other hosts are up using more than just a ping - it actually tests the web server, and tlclusteradm, the basic admin tool.. the TurboNetCfg module that admins the CWS is open-sourced, as is the rest of the Turbo* config tools).. stay tuned, as I said, for our decision on the licensing for these tools.
Any questions? e-mail me : justin@turbolinux.com, we're out to make people happy!:)
As the other reply says, our main target is going to be business customers. If you can grab the kernel patch, recompile your kernel, etc.. you don't buy commercial software.. you probably also work for a company that pays you enough that maybe the time it takes you to do that costs more than the software:) The point is that our software is commercially developed and supported, we make it easier to manage and easier to implement, and take care of some of the work that would cost our customers time and money on our end..
As far as a GPLed monitor and config, it isn't just a 'monitor and config', it is a cluster daemon that does load balancing and offers up faul-tolerance, etc.. Let's also pay attention to 'TurboLinux has not announced Licensing for the monitoring and configuration portions', this means we are looking at different licensing models, it doesn't mean we are definitely going to close the source.. stay tuned for our decision, we aren't out to chet the Linux world, we just want people to buy our stuff.
FYI part of the config is opensourced, the module to TurboNetCfg that sets up the cluster webserver is open-sourced (the beta download is approx 120k I think, it has the kernel patch, tlcusteradm, tlcusterd, and the module for NetCfg, check it out)
Free Software is a great thing, but so is paying the bills, it can be hard to find a balance. This is not a product that would sell in the numbers that the others will, and it requires *much* more development work than the core distribution, so it is more costly.
If you have suggestions on any of our products, comments, etc.. let me know, my e-mail is justin@turbolinux.com, I'm a Developer Relations Associate with PHT and beleive me, we really do care:)
Slashdot Mirror
This doesn't really make sense - as comfortable as I may be at home, comfort doesn't keep the carpel tunnel away, and in fact my perception of comfort today (which might be sitting in an ez-chair with a notebook or something) could be very bad for me. It isn't unreasonable to ask a company who pays for a computer, a monitor, keyboard, etc.. to at least *help* pay for a chair, and maybe a desk - if you work primarily (or ONLY) from home, then it's cheaper than doing the same at the office. My employer doesn't do this, and I didn't ask them to - but it would have been nice. Also, rather than outfitting you with an entire home office, they could give you a small budget to help create your home office, since the quality of your home office will be reflected in your work. If you are uncomfortable or inconvenienced because you could only afford cheap office furniture, you probably won't work as much as if your home office is a place you like to be. I don't think I would want them completely furnishing my home office, because If/when I move to another job, I would have to give back (or pay for) all of the furniture they gave me.
Sure - Telecommuting is a priveledge, it's great, I love it and I'm sure that everyone else who has the priveledge loves it, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be some care taken to ensure that employees are safe from hazards that will keep us from working.
I've seen the argument that in moving from the home office to the kitchen for lunch, you may trip and fall and could sue the company - this is absurd, that's like saying that if you get in an accident driving from the office to Pizza Hut you could sue the company, you've left the realm of your job. If there is a hazard in your home, it's your fault - but if you're working from home, it's reasonable (if the employer is providing you with equipment) for them to provide you with healthy equipment. Simply publishing information and letting us make our own decisions isn't the best thing - Office furniture is expensive, I think that the chairs used in our offices list at over $600 - that's more than any single thing I own is worth, with the exceptions of my car and my computer. I could buy a couch for that, or a recliner, or a big screen TV - Most people wouldn't go to that expenditure on their own, and wouldn't be able to get the kind of deals on used office furniture that a company could (It's easy to buy 20 or 30 used chairs at a discount, but who wants to deal with one person? It wouldn't be unreasonable for companies to buy extra furniture for telecommuters and allow them the option of buying it for their home office, rather than paying retail).
Anyway, I could rant and rant ;p I just don't think it's completely unreasonable for OSHA to have policies on the home office of a Full-Time employee (contract workers are, of course, on their own). I fall somewhere inbetween, and I can't complain (nor do I).
I think that /. would probably be the best place to look for opinions on this kind of matter. Where do you think the highest concentration of telecommuters are? Probably in the computer industry, because it seems to make use of technology wayyy before any other industry - it's in our nature to telecommute. Even those who work at companies usually communicate primarily through electronic means, because it's natural to us, espescially those of us who grew up on the 'net. I don't know if the media uses /., but with the increasing number of technical issues in the news, they probably should, because we have a unique outlook.
I think the point that everyone is missing, and that Bruce made, is that there is noone with Linux experience *or* any known developers, i.e. if I have been working with Linux since its' inception but just haven't done anything recognizable, and suddenly had an idea worth recognition and wanted to capitalize off of it, that's fine - OR if I had an unsuccessful business venture that went public (NetUSA?) and decided that the Linux industry was the way to go, I should get some decent developers with experience, and probably some marketing/management people who understand Linux, the community, the ideas, etc.. and then I would be ok.. but if I simply take the word 'Linux' and maybe one developer, I might be able to create a successful company - but my first task should be to create a product, not to file for an IPO. It isn't that *all* of these need to be present, but at least one.. There's nothing wrong with being an unknown - but what would make an unknown think he could interest the public in 23M worth of stock without doing anything significant first, except that 'Linux' is a big buzz word - and it is, my family knows that I work for a Linux company and is always asking me about investments in Linux, etc.. People want in, because it's new and big and it's internet-related. It's the ultimate buzz, and that's what LinuxOne is banking on (or hoping to bank on ;p)
er uh.. ace a spade.. didnt make sense.. dont call a diamond a space.. brain fart..
The difference between LinuxOne (as we've seen it so far, at least) and VA Linux, Andover.net, etc.. is that LinuxOne was created to go public, they filed for their IPO before they had a product. VA Linux's IPO was not met with the same skepticism, they have been around for a long, long time and are the leader in Linux Hardware, as well as employing TONS of open-source developers to do work that doesn't directly benefit their sales. Andover.net purchased websites such as Slashdot that are phenomenally popular and growing quickly. Regardless of whether or not either one turned a profit, it is normal for a business to go a year or so without turning a profit - you have to build a customer base and branding - and should do so before you ask the public to invest in you. VA Linux, RedHat, and Andover.net have all done this, LinuxOne has not - you can call a spade a spade, but don't call an ace a spade..
What you (and most others on this post) don't seem to understand is that this is *already* how it works. The Backstreet boys share their revenue with Yanni, and Yanni shares his pitiful revenue with Britney Spears. Organizations such as ASCAP and BMI control distribution of royalties for music, whether you buy a CD or hear it on the radio or see a video on TV. Radio stations, clubs, MTV, etc.. all pay a blanket amount to ASCAP and BMI (both, regardless of whose music they play more of) and it is "fairly" distributed among the artists based on who is at the top of the charts this month. If you're very small, and only have a couple of published songs that noone ever plays, you may get specific payments (i.e. my dad had a song that was played at the '86 (?) olympics in LA, and he got a small check for it). This makes a lot of sense for handling digital distribution, because it's about as arbitrary as a jukebox or radio station might be.. keep stats on which songs are downloaded most and pay those artists.. bah-da-bing, bah-da-boom :)
We changed our name recently from Pacific HiTech to TurboLinux (more info at www.turbolinux.com), but we are the same company. We're beginning to focus on performance, high availability, etc.. And yes, Dave is here.. -- Justin Ryan Developer Relations, TurboLinux
As a linux user and advocate I'm insulted by this. The term FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) can describe 90-someodd percent of anti-Linux writings. Most is written by people who fall into a couple of groups:
:)
(1) Don't know about linux or care to know
(2) Benefit from MS products and don't care to see linux succeed
(3) noone listens to them anymore so they join in and bash linux, this increases readership, they get tons of e-mail, albeit mostly flames, and feel loved once again
There are writings that show linux in a light that I don't necessary agree with, but that aren't exactly what you'd call FUD, and there are amateur postings and writings pro-linux that are pure FUD, or maybe it's opposite (comfort, certainty, and sureness?). Some linux advocates take it much too far. They flame writers who they disagree with, they don't beleive anything that shows linux in a negative light, and they follow blindly. These are, by large, the sheep who have moved from the microsoft flock to the linux flock. They will always be in a flock somewhere, but will not really be accepted by those outside of the flock with similar beleifs, i.e. the smart linux users, the *real* windows professionals, etc.. they decree that anything linux is good and anything else is bad. That's bullshit. I'm not afraid to say that I get paid to advocate linux, more specifically the version of linux my company makes, but everything I tell people is true. I don't answer questions I don't know the answer to, I don't make up stories so people will agree that our product is better. If people do not beleive, I try to show them. I think linux is a wonderful product, I enjoy using it, developing with and for it, and playing around with it when I'm bored. there is *always* something new and exciting going on in the linux world. That's awesome.
There becomes a point on the path of a windows professional where you are no longer solving challenging problems, but trying to correct for bad software design. A couple of percent, even 40% difference in performance is not big when you stress the TCO which is a term that Microsoft almost seems to have coined. A 100-pc network with 3 NT servers would cost more for software than hardware. Double the server hardware and use linux and viola, you've corrected for the small performance difference. Add a contribution to the kernel code to help tighten up the IP stack and you're on the way to greatness
Anyway, I guess I went a bit long but I'm tired of Linux users and advocates being portrayed as a bunch of foaming-at-the-mouth, semi-retarded, religious( in the software sense) idiots. Many of us are intelligent, reasonable, and pretty damned nice. We just don't tend to shout as loud. I don't see linus as my lord and savior, though he seems to be a pretty cool guy.
let's all just be friends..
Sure BSD is solid and designed by real OS researchers. That's great, but how much longer has BSD been around than Linux? and how close is linux today? take that and look 5 years down the road. Becuase Linux doesn't restrict who can contribute to the kernel and countless other software that is incredibly important, you end up with much more contributors and much higher quality software. In short, the bazaar wins over the cathedral.
Not quite a fork off, more of a fork on :) We started out differently, but ended up using and modifying the kernel patch for the virtual server project. FYI we are doing most, if not all, of the development on the 2.2 patch, afaik.
Later,
Justin
Read the reply to the 'GPL versus $1,000' post for more detail, but we haven't declared closed-source yet, as the FAQ says we have not decided on Licensing for the monitoring and configuration portions yet (as it puts it, this basically covers tlclusterd which does load balancing, makes sure all the other hosts are up using more than just a ping - it actually tests the web server, and tlclusteradm, the basic admin tool.. the TurboNetCfg module that admins the CWS is open-sourced, as is the rest of the Turbo* config tools).. stay tuned, as I said, for our decision on the licensing for these tools.
:)
Any questions? e-mail me : justin@turbolinux.com, we're out to make people happy!
Later,
Justin
As the other reply says, our main target is going to be business customers. If you can grab the kernel patch, recompile your kernel, etc.. you don't buy commercial software.. you probably also work for a company that pays you enough that maybe the time it takes you to do that costs more than the software :) The point is that our software is commercially developed and supported, we make it easier to manage and easier to implement, and take care of some of the work that would cost our customers time and money on our end..
:)
As far as a GPLed monitor and config, it isn't just a 'monitor and config', it is a cluster daemon that does load balancing and offers up faul-tolerance, etc.. Let's also pay attention to 'TurboLinux has not announced Licensing for the monitoring and configuration portions', this means we are looking at different licensing models, it doesn't mean we are definitely going to close the source.. stay tuned for our decision, we aren't out to chet the Linux world, we just want people to buy our stuff.
FYI part of the config is opensourced, the module to TurboNetCfg that sets up the cluster webserver is open-sourced (the beta download is approx 120k I think, it has the kernel patch, tlcusteradm, tlcusterd, and the module for NetCfg, check it out)
Free Software is a great thing, but so is paying the bills, it can be hard to find a balance. This is not a product that would sell in the numbers that the others will, and it requires *much* more development work than the core distribution, so it is more costly.
If you have suggestions on any of our products, comments, etc.. let me know, my e-mail is justin@turbolinux.com, I'm a Developer Relations Associate with PHT and beleive me, we really do care
Later,
Justin