You guys are nuts... for a big company to say that a high-ranking employee was fired for any reason is a pretty risky thing to do from a legal standpoint. They must've had a darned good reason to can Scott. Even when a CXX is caught doing something, it's usually handled much more gracefully - he's allowed to resign "for personal reasons" or "to seek a different position" or allowed to stay on the payroll while he finds another job, even if the true reason was that the guy was sleeping with his secretary or got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He also might've been caught on the losing end of a corporate power play - the folks who report to him and the folks who are his peers are always jockeying for position, looking for an opportunity to look good to *his* boss in case they see an opportunity to set him up to get rid of him...
Regardless, most of the opinions posted here about why the guy was sacked are just plain silly.
In a way, Microsoft is trying to emulate IBM when it tried to jam MCA down the throat of the PC world back in the mid-80's. What happened to IBM then should happen to Microsoft now, too.
Most of the people on Slashdot are emotional juveniles who think that a clever put-down instead of a thoughtful answer is applauded, when in fact the applause is only coming from their peers - more emotional juveniles. Emotionally mature people shun such nonsense, preferring honest, thoughtful, intelligent answers.
90% of the replies to this post will no doubt prove my point.
"...if you shout loud enough, you're bound to be heard. If you need proof of this, then just look at how Linux has progressed in its development."
That's the real problem - the squeaky wheel gets the grease, or in other words, strong personalities tend to dominate, regardless of their technical knowledge or ability. It worked that way with 386BSD, it worked that way with Linux, and it's worked that way with almost every other software project out there, open source or not.
Nope... sorry, but you've been given wrong information. There are many, many people that are HIV+ that have never developed AIDS, and many people that have AIDS that are not HIV+.
I do agree! You can't run Vista on a box that has an aged 'beige to yellow' hue.
And you also can't run Vista on most computers made within the last two or three years, either. I've got a 2.8GHz Compaq Desktop sitting in front of me that I bought in early 2005 (2 years old). It's plenty fast enough to run Windows 2000 or XP, but it won't run Vista! It's not the lack of memory, but the lack of certified signed drivers, and Vista won't let you install non-signed drivers. So, it's either mix and match hardware unti I find hardware that will run Vista, or buy a whole new computer. Either way, Microsoft and hardware manufacturers get a big chunk of my money and I lose.
So, no, Vista's not for me - and not for a lot of businesses that don't have deep pockets. Maybe you have a fat bottom line and don't care about having to buy whole new computers for your office every time Microsoft thinks it needs even more money, but I don't.
The point is, Linux and the BSD variants will run on almost anything, including current computers. Vista can't make the same claim. And in case you haven't noticed, bringing in as much money as possible while spending the least amount of money is the name of the game in business, or at least enough to pay your employees.
That's an odd statement. How would you justify it?
Which part - the Microsoft-centric, or the trailing in technology?
Microsoft doesn't necessarily have the latest, greatest, or best in technology, despite repeated attempts to self-aggrandize at the expense of Linux and other operating systems. It can be argued (and rather successfully) that Windows isn't the best choice for many server installations, and even for a significant portion of desktops - because of stability issues, draconian DRM and licensing issues designed to fatten Microsoft's and partners bottom lines at the expense of consumers, the desire to own the computer market completely instead of acknowledging that there are other operating systems around (some better than Windows) and the fact that Windows is the #1 target of malicious attacks (whether or not this is due to the popularity of Windows or that Windows has more security issues per K lines of code than many other operating systems is a matter of debate), which Microsoft could be more forthcoming about and more agile to respond.
As for the US trailing many other countries in the world, one simply needs to look at where we get most of our technology - from overseas, particularly Japan. Where is most software innovation going on? Europe, mostly - and mostly in areas other than Windows. Windows is inherently handicapped, in part because you simply can't get rid of the GUI, and this encourages a generation of point-and-click administrators and people who call themselves programmers who have little knowledge of what goes on underneath the covers (a position that Microsoft encourages, partly because their code isn't open and partly because Microsoft seeks to protect what they regard as their trade secrets), where Linux and the BSD variants encourage just the opposite. I can get FreeBSD to run in 64MB or less of RAM and in far less than 200 MB of disk space and have a fully-functional server, out-of-the-box - I don't think you can say the same of Windows, especially Windows XP and Vista.
Another indication - the US trails a lot of other nations in the number of high-speed internet connections per capita. South Korea has 100 MB to the door for most people in the larger cities, and it's cheaper to boot - while we suffer with less than 10 MB connections at twice the cost. It's not about national pride, it's not about innovation, it's about making as much money as possible, even at the expense of consumers - and that has become the defining characteristic of Microsoft, sadly enough.
Microsoft has a problem finding _qualified_ applicants.
Define "qualified". I've been turned down for jobs because I didn't have experience with a particular version of a software product. I had extensive experience with version X, but not with version Y. "But the differences between version X and version Y are pretty small, especially for what you're doing!" Sorry - that was the artifical bar.
For others it's a particular language - Perl or PHP or C++, for example, instead of focusing on the thought process and problem-solving skillset. The tool itself is much less significant than the business or technical problem to be solved. I'd rather have a rational, logical thinker that knew C that I could get up to speed in a C++ environment (in most cases, C will do the job just fine) than someone who was an expert at C++ but had no rational problem-solving skills. But most hiring managers, especially in HR (where they have no clue as to technical ability anyway) just screen for buzzwords anyway. Stupid, but it is what it is, I suppose. That's why the US (which is Microsoft-centric in the extreme) trails most of the rest of the world in technology.
trying to find an "old but stable" operating system is a mess as the F/OSS operating system support-base seems to be more focused on the latest stable builds rather than what mission-critical users would want: older software that has a longer history of running well for a given situation.
I can see you've not done a lot of research. There are a lot more choices out there than Linux. FreeBSD, for one, is very stable and has been around as long as Linux has. It's also not been plagued by the "release-of-the-week" syndrome that has seemingly been foisted onto Linux by programmers eager to make a name for themselves and be out in the spotlight.
We switched over to FreeBSD from Linux for our server architecture and haven't looked back since.
And why should anyone give a damn about what ESR thinks? Just because the guy's written a book? So what? That doesn't make him any more qualified than anyone else to be listened to. Frankly, I have no idea why Slashdot trumpets his pronouncements as if they came from On High. ESR has a big mouth and a bigger ego - I guess that's what it takes to make it in today's OSS community. Very sad.
So please Gnome people start behaving, be humble, accept the patches and do not upset Linus, we really need him, even if he isn't always the nicest person around;)
Excuse me? Since when is it OK to call people names in a public forum, especially if it's someone like Linus? It's Linus who also needs to "start behaving"... Linus, have you lost your mind?
Texas is a "right to work" state, which means that (1) you can quit a job at any time, notice or no notice, and (2) you can be terminated at any time, with or without reason, as long as no EEOC laws were broken. They can't sue you for jack. I'm quite sure any attorney you consult will tell you the same thing.
This is all misdirection and FUD, generated by the New World Order and the globalists. The truth is, the dinosaurs were all relocated to other planets by aliens. I know, I was there.
DRM is like having to prove that you own your car and have a valid license to drive every time you want to go somewhere. DRM is like having to prove you own your house before you can unlock the front door.
Ever hear me on the air? Not much time for ham radio right now, either. I made it to Dayton and turned down a position on the TAPR board. So much to do, so little Bruce.
I hear ya. I'm sure I've heard you on the air at some point. I'm fairly active in using packet for tactical disaster comm, but I hadn't heard anything really useful come out of TAPR in some time. I guess now I'm in Sedona, I need to revisit the issue. I've gotten really, really busy with a horse business I got involved in, and most of my time is spent out at the stables with 30+ Gypsy horses! Too little time to get on the radio, let alone write software:(
Most of the time, people are not re-elected because of personality clashes with the rest of the board. Perhaps Bruce has an abrasive or forceful personality that didn't sit well with the rest of the board? Perhaps there's an ego problem somewhere here? Ego is what drives this industry, and ego is what gets most people into problems with others, no matter how much they want to cover it up or deny it or not even admit it to themselves.
with the availability of cheap music artists lose their incentive to create.
Yeah, right. Like with the availability of cheap (free) software programmers lose their incentive to create, too. The only trouble with your argument is that it's not true, and never was.
So, which "multi-billion dollar industry" company do you work for, hmm?
<% Set MyDB = OpenDatabase... Set MyRS = MyDB.OpenRecordset("SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE blah ORDER BY blahblah") %> <html><head></head><body> <table> <% While Not MyRS.EOF %> <tr><td><% =Field1 %></td><td><% =Field2 %></td></tr> <% MyRS.MoveNext %> </table> <% MyRS.Close MyDB.Close %> </body></html>
or in Escapade:
<DBOPEN...> <html><head></head><body> <table> <SQL SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE blah ORDER BY blahblah>
<tr><td>$Field1</td><td>$Field2</td></tr> </SQL> </body></html>
You're dancing around the issue, sir. First you say that no good developer would work for free. I started with that. And yes, Alan Cox and Remy Card worked on Linux for years (as did we all), as a labor of love, before some were fortunate enough to be able to be in a position to be paid for their work. Most are not, and that's a fact.
Slashdot Mirror
You guys are nuts ... for a big company to say that a high-ranking employee was fired for any reason is a pretty risky thing to do from a legal standpoint. They must've had a darned good reason to can Scott. Even when a CXX is caught doing something, it's usually handled much more gracefully - he's allowed to resign "for personal reasons" or "to seek a different position" or allowed to stay on the payroll while he finds another job, even if the true reason was that the guy was sleeping with his secretary or got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He also might've been caught on the losing end of a corporate power play - the folks who report to him and the folks who are his peers are always jockeying for position, looking for an opportunity to look good to *his* boss in case they see an opportunity to set him up to get rid of him...
Regardless, most of the opinions posted here about why the guy was sacked are just plain silly.
In a way, Microsoft is trying to emulate IBM when it tried to jam MCA down the throat of the PC world back in the mid-80's. What happened to IBM then should happen to Microsoft now, too.
Most of the people on Slashdot are emotional juveniles who think that a clever put-down instead of a thoughtful answer is applauded, when in fact the applause is only coming from their peers - more emotional juveniles. Emotionally mature people shun such nonsense, preferring honest, thoughtful, intelligent answers.
90% of the replies to this post will no doubt prove my point.
"...if you shout loud enough, you're bound to be heard. If you need proof of this, then just look at how Linux has progressed in its development."
That's the real problem - the squeaky wheel gets the grease, or in other words, strong personalities tend to dominate, regardless of their technical knowledge or ability. It worked that way with 386BSD, it worked that way with Linux, and it's worked that way with almost every other software project out there, open source or not.
Nope ... sorry, but you've been given wrong information. There are many, many people that are HIV+ that have never developed AIDS, and many people that have AIDS that are not HIV+.
Err, sorry, but HIV doesn't cause AIDS.
I do agree! You can't run Vista on a box that has an aged 'beige to yellow' hue.
And you also can't run Vista on most computers made within the last two or three years, either. I've got a 2.8GHz Compaq Desktop sitting in front of me that I bought in early 2005 (2 years old). It's plenty fast enough to run Windows 2000 or XP, but it won't run Vista! It's not the lack of memory, but the lack of certified signed drivers, and Vista won't let you install non-signed drivers. So, it's either mix and match hardware unti I find hardware that will run Vista, or buy a whole new computer. Either way, Microsoft and hardware manufacturers get a big chunk of my money and I lose.
So, no, Vista's not for me - and not for a lot of businesses that don't have deep pockets. Maybe you have a fat bottom line and don't care about having to buy whole new computers for your office every time Microsoft thinks it needs even more money, but I don't.
The point is, Linux and the BSD variants will run on almost anything, including current computers. Vista can't make the same claim. And in case you haven't noticed, bringing in as much money as possible while spending the least amount of money is the name of the game in business, or at least enough to pay your employees.
That's an odd statement. How would you justify it?
Which part - the Microsoft-centric, or the trailing in technology?
Microsoft doesn't necessarily have the latest, greatest, or best in technology, despite repeated attempts to self-aggrandize at the expense of Linux and other operating systems. It can be argued (and rather successfully) that Windows isn't the best choice for many server installations, and even for a significant portion of desktops - because of stability issues, draconian DRM and licensing issues designed to fatten Microsoft's and partners bottom lines at the expense of consumers, the desire to own the computer market completely instead of acknowledging that there are other operating systems around (some better than Windows) and the fact that Windows is the #1 target of malicious attacks (whether or not this is due to the popularity of Windows or that Windows has more security issues per K lines of code than many other operating systems is a matter of debate), which Microsoft could be more forthcoming about and more agile to respond.
As for the US trailing many other countries in the world, one simply needs to look at where we get most of our technology - from overseas, particularly Japan. Where is most software innovation going on? Europe, mostly - and mostly in areas other than Windows. Windows is inherently handicapped, in part because you simply can't get rid of the GUI, and this encourages a generation of point-and-click administrators and people who call themselves programmers who have little knowledge of what goes on underneath the covers (a position that Microsoft encourages, partly because their code isn't open and partly because Microsoft seeks to protect what they regard as their trade secrets), where Linux and the BSD variants encourage just the opposite. I can get FreeBSD to run in 64MB or less of RAM and in far less than 200 MB of disk space and have a fully-functional server, out-of-the-box - I don't think you can say the same of Windows, especially Windows XP and Vista.
Another indication - the US trails a lot of other nations in the number of high-speed internet connections per capita. South Korea has 100 MB to the door for most people in the larger cities, and it's cheaper to boot - while we suffer with less than 10 MB connections at twice the cost. It's not about national pride, it's not about innovation, it's about making as much money as possible, even at the expense of consumers - and that has become the defining characteristic of Microsoft, sadly enough.
Microsoft has a problem finding _qualified_ applicants.
Define "qualified". I've been turned down for jobs because I didn't have experience with a particular version of a software product. I had extensive experience with version X, but not with version Y. "But the differences between version X and version Y are pretty small, especially for what you're doing!" Sorry - that was the artifical bar.
For others it's a particular language - Perl or PHP or C++, for example, instead of focusing on the thought process and problem-solving skillset. The tool itself is much less significant than the business or technical problem to be solved. I'd rather have a rational, logical thinker that knew C that I could get up to speed in a C++ environment (in most cases, C will do the job just fine) than someone who was an expert at C++ but had no rational problem-solving skills. But most hiring managers, especially in HR (where they have no clue as to technical ability anyway) just screen for buzzwords anyway. Stupid, but it is what it is, I suppose. That's why the US (which is Microsoft-centric in the extreme) trails most of the rest of the world in technology.
trying to find an "old but stable" operating system is a mess as the F/OSS operating system support-base seems to be more focused on the latest stable builds rather than what mission-critical users would want: older software that has a longer history of running well for a given situation.
I can see you've not done a lot of research. There are a lot more choices out there than Linux. FreeBSD, for one, is very stable and has been around as long as Linux has. It's also not been plagued by the "release-of-the-week" syndrome that has seemingly been foisted onto Linux by programmers eager to make a name for themselves and be out in the spotlight.
We switched over to FreeBSD from Linux for our server architecture and haven't looked back since.
And why should anyone give a damn about what ESR thinks? Just because the guy's written a book? So what? That doesn't make him any more qualified than anyone else to be listened to. Frankly, I have no idea why Slashdot trumpets his pronouncements as if they came from On High. ESR has a big mouth and a bigger ego - I guess that's what it takes to make it in today's OSS community. Very sad.
Excuse me? Since when is it OK to call people names in a public forum, especially if it's someone like Linus? It's Linus who also needs to "start behaving" ... Linus, have you lost your mind?
FreeBSD... ;)
Texas is a "right to work" state, which means that (1) you can quit a job at any time, notice or no notice, and (2) you can be terminated at any time, with or without reason, as long as no EEOC laws were broken. They can't sue you for jack. I'm quite sure any attorney you consult will tell you the same thing.
This is all misdirection and FUD, generated by the New World Order and the globalists. The truth is, the dinosaurs were all relocated to other planets by aliens. I know, I was there.
DRM is like having to prove that you own your car and have a valid license to drive every time you want to go somewhere. DRM is like having to prove you own your house before you can unlock the front door.
Ever hear me on the air? Not much time for ham radio right now, either. I made it to Dayton and turned down a position on the TAPR board. So much to do, so little Bruce.
:(
I hear ya. I'm sure I've heard you on the air at some point. I'm fairly active in using packet for tactical disaster comm, but I hadn't heard anything really useful come out of TAPR in some time. I guess now I'm in Sedona, I need to revisit the issue. I've gotten really, really busy with a horse business I got involved in, and most of my time is spent out at the stables with 30+ Gypsy horses! Too little time to get on the radio, let alone write software
Most of the time, people are not re-elected because of personality clashes with the rest of the board. Perhaps Bruce has an abrasive or forceful personality that didn't sit well with the rest of the board? Perhaps there's an ego problem somewhere here? Ego is what drives this industry, and ego is what gets most people into problems with others, no matter how much they want to cover it up or deny it or not even admit it to themselves.
Like what?
i++, i-- map to just one ASM instruction. Depending on the processor, i*x maps to two or three. Hundreds? I think not.
with the availability of cheap music artists lose their incentive to create.
Yeah, right. Like with the availability of cheap (free) software programmers lose their incentive to create, too. The only trouble with your argument is that it's not true, and never was.
So, which "multi-billion dollar industry" company do you work for, hmm?
Then your thinking is *very* limited. Consider:
...>
<%
Set MyDB = OpenDatabase...
Set MyRS = MyDB.OpenRecordset("SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE blah ORDER BY blahblah")
%>
<html><head></head><body>
<table>
<% While Not MyRS.EOF %>
<tr><td><% =Field1 %></td><td><% =Field2 %></td></tr>
<% MyRS.MoveNext %>
</table>
<%
MyRS.Close
MyDB.Close
%>
</body></html>
or in Escapade:
<DBOPEN
<html><head></head><body>
<table>
<SQL SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE blah ORDER BY blahblah>
<tr><td>$Field1</td><td>$Field2</td></tr>
</SQL>
</body></html>
Slashdot away: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-6072047.html
Oh, here we go again ... SVN: "Samurai vs. Ninja" - Coming soon to a theater near you!
Yeah, they do ... and they also swallow ;)
You're dancing around the issue, sir. First you say that no good developer would work for free. I started with that. And yes, Alan Cox and Remy Card worked on Linux for years (as did we all), as a labor of love, before some were fortunate enough to be able to be in a position to be paid for their work. Most are not, and that's a fact.