I'm not sure exactly why Postgres was chosen, I have arrived the process a month ago, after it has already started, but I can guess.
Postgres has lately shown the largest and most active FreeSoftware/OpenSource database project. This is good because garantee us code support for a longer time.
We also have excelent technitians involved in the project from dbExperts, with big know-how in Postgres, since they are the ones who ported Postgres to Windows plataform (see them here.
Another point is the project projection among the FreeSoftware/OpenSource community, which give us a large amount of information about the software and bigger and better diversity of support software.
All this added to the technical features, and the compatibility with Ora*le (not saying that Postgres is 100% compatible with Ora*le) probably made Postgres the best choice. (remember, I arrived the process only a month ago)
I work for Conectiva (Brazil), involved in a project where a minor telecom company is replacing most of their Ora*le databases to PostgreSQL. Mostly due to cost reduction (should be for a more noble cause, but...)
Note, this is the first step of a big project involving migration to free plataforms everywhere it is possible inside the company.
IMHO it's a good idea, but they must keep in mind that there already are some limitations that I'm sure it'll be solved ASAP. Of course that a little of investment in the FreeSoftware/OpenSource comunity will help a lot too, but this is subject for another project;o)
About two year ago, in a FreeSoftware presentation by Richard Stalmann (did I spelled it correct?) I have asked him if he have ever considered the possibility of liberty restricting laws, such as DMCA, affect GPLed softwares, Free Softwares or even any kind of Open Source.
He told me that this possibily does not exist and that DMCA exists to protect copyrighted material that, in his opinion should, be protected. He told that Free Software is Copylefted and would not have any risk of being affected by such laws.
Unfortunately he was wrong. In the last year I saw two initiatives trying to ban FreeSoftware from US. I know that he don't have the obligation to preview such things, but it should be better if we have more "gurus" that are able to preview these kind of problems.
About all these attempts to ban FreeSoftware from US, all I have to say is that I'm really sorry that there's people in the government that can't understand that FreeSoftware is about Freedom and this is one of the base concepts of democracy. Don't US government consider itself democratic?
The lazyness of the Technology Companies amazes me, instead of developing safe protocols avoiding users to do whatever they don't want to, they try to solve this problem by creating laws and acts that legaly prohibit the users to user their equipament the way they want to.
IMHO Tech Co. should be treated just like us, regular citizens that must adapt ourselves to the new technology to keep employed.
It is really sad to see all this "moneyfull" companies doing whatever they want to the people of countries that call themselves democratics.
All this WiFi discussion is showing me just one thing: ISPs will begin to seriously consider to charge data transfer instead of connection speed or time.
Now a days ISPs plans infrastructure as telecom companies, they consider that an average user will use only x% of the bandwidth sold. Considering this they can lower prices and sell more.
With wirelessNAT opened to everybody the average user will consume almost 100% of the bandwidth sold, so the infrastructure avaiable need to be extended, this is cost, and somebody must pay for this.
They want to charge the user for the infrastructure extension, they always do this, but they can't raise prices this way, they need to find sowe other way.
The only way to charge fairly is to charge by data volume instead of connection time or speed. That's why I think that all this WiFi discussion will lead to new charging polices, and I'm pretty sure that this is the future of ISP charging.
DMCA is not a specific case, it's just a case that is very visible to us (nerds, geeks, techies, whatever).
The problem here is not about a single law, but it is about a whole system that is showing signs of unrealibility, the so called Democracy.
"From the people, by the people, to the people". DMCA is the proof that the organization that we call Democratic Government and the Representative System is not representing the people, but interests to big corporations.
We need to stop right now this kind of attitude! Our elected representatives are not representing our interests, lobbyists are convincing them to represent their interests. What about the people?
Of course that a healthy economy and low interest rates keeps people satisfied, but this is bread and circus, they keep people working and consuming and keep us happy.
Maybe we should review our concept of freedom, and mainly our concept of democratic government.
'A mouse can be just as dangerous as a bullet or a bomb.'
Although the mistake of considering the mouse the hacker's weapon (it should be the keyboard), he knows what he's talking about.
For they if someone dies, there's always somebody else giving birth somewhere. But if they lose money, they can't win it again. So, for them money is much more important then lives.
As we all know RIAA polices, they will won't worry about false positives, and sue every single user that they can ever suppose to be sharing files.
...Until judges say: "THAT'S ENOUGH!"
IMHO RIAA is just speeding the process, they can't stop a moving train immediatally, and they can't just stop the information revolution. They should be thinking a way to adapt to the environment, not the opposite.
Now a days Tossati is so influent not only in Brazil, but also worldwidely, that he doesn't need to agree with Conectiva. He agrees only if he wants to.
Today Tossati can open his own linux company and be his own boss for the rest of his life. If he's saying that UnitedLinux is cool then it is cool for him (for him).
Besides this, what the heck! As stated by GigsVT here Tossati develops the kernel, not applications, nor distros.
Whatever they say they'll do, they can't have any control. If they say you cannot share your connection how will they be sure that you are not sharing? Even using an regular eth connection with your neighbor, what can do?
Once the data arrived your computer you can pass it anywhere you want, you can send it through your eth connection our wifi, or whatever, you can even throw it back to the internet. The point is that They can't do anything, simply because then can't know what you are doing with all the data arriving in your computer.
What amazes me the most is that the Cable Companies seems to don't know this. Why don't they know it? What is happening? Do they only recruit lawyers? Don't they have technical consulting there? Don't they have a employer with a QI 90+ to tell them that it probably won't work and the best is to consult somebody who knows what s/he's doing?
This shows the quality of the service we are buying, we, nothing more then geeks, know more about their bussiness then themselves.
Thanks god it won't happen here in Brazil. Our legislation won't allow such a thing. I know that our legislator can be bought (that's why we also have lobbies here) but I'm sure that we'll have a major disaster using Pa$$port before it happens.
I don't care! They must find me first, and sue me for sharing less then 100 musics through gnutella, musics which I have downloaded through gnutella too.
I bet much more then my own pants on this: "They will NEVER reach me, or whoever has no more then 10GB of shared mp3.
Even if they find me, and sues me, how much should I have to pay? $100? $200? They don't even know what they are talking about!
I'll ask once more: Where are the f****** advisors? Don't they have lawyers to ask what is possible and what is not?
If RIAA doesn't want to see sales going down, all it's needed is increase quality and lower prizes. C'mon, recently there are no good albuns starring around.
RIAA must realize two things.
1. Increase quality, forget about mass control, focus in your real bussiness: music;
2. Lower prizes, and realize that you have a brand new adversary, CDBurners/MP3/P2P.
By adapting itself to the reality I'm sure that there won't be bad results for any album ever launched.
After many and many stupid acts, this is an intelligent act. Space technology can always be applied down here on the surface, not talking about the experiments that can took place only in 0g.
To show how far the technology can advance, imagine the advances in the fisiotherapeutics when a group of astronauts stays 9 months in 0g and then another 6 monthsin 1/3g and back 9 months in 0g again.
Well, this is just an example. It's very important for the humanity, not just for US.
The Echelon project cannot be completely implemented due to the Echelon paradox:
If you have a system that classifies every information in the internet and also make it avaiable in the internet; the more data it classifies, the more data it generates, the more information need to be classified.
So it's impossible to classify every information in the internet and make it avaiable without add more information to the internet.
That's why I don't believe that Echelon is watching me now.
That's exactly the point. That's the way it should be. The application does exactly one thing, cryptography, and nothing else. This is the unix way.
All applications should be responsible for a single task, we have wonderful examples to show us that this modularity is very positive, powerful applications, few bugs, easy customizations.
OTOH we have only few examples of stable applications that have lots of functionalities, usually hard to customize, adapt to new paradigms and maintaince.
The idea is keep all development teams independent of each other, by following few, but well defined, standards. That's the way X works, we must choose a window manager, X developers don't need to worry about user interface.
IMHO this is the way it should be, of course, a tarball/rpm/deb/whatever that packs the application and GUI is a great idea, but much more important then this is the quality of the application
For those who don't know yet, VBA virii exists just due to a single function. Something called CopyFunction (or something like this), that copies a function from a document to another. If MS removes this function no VBA virii will ever exist againg.
Note that this function is very well documented and is not hidden anywhere, all you need to do is search at VBA documentation.
Now is MS insecure due to obscurity or is it insecure anyway? Maybe that conspiracy theory that MS owns Antivirus software companies is right.
RIAA can't avoid this convergence, they can't avoid the connection between their incompatible audio system and the computer, and as everybody here knows if it is in the computer there's no way to avoid user to do whatever he wants.
So I think that RIAA must find (again) another way to avoid the so called mp3-piracy (IMHO the problem is the CD-R drives, but...)
This shows (again) that the political system called by Americans as Democracy is not that democratic. Where is the statement "From the people, for the people"?
The representatie system the way it is implemented today only represents big corporations and business associations, both capable of keeping expensive lobbies so the legislators can legislate as their will, not as the people needs.
The status quo are supported including for those who controls the media. Ideas like this will never become popular. Don't let them control your opinion, think for yourselves.
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I'm not sure exactly why Postgres was chosen, I have arrived the process a month ago, after it has already started, but I can guess.
Postgres has lately shown the largest and most active FreeSoftware/OpenSource database project. This is good because garantee us code support for a longer time.
We also have excelent technitians involved in the project from dbExperts, with big know-how in Postgres, since they are the ones who ported Postgres to Windows plataform (see them here.
Another point is the project projection among the FreeSoftware/OpenSource community, which give us a large amount of information about the software and bigger and better diversity of support software.
All this added to the technical features, and the compatibility with Ora*le (not saying that Postgres is 100% compatible with Ora*le) probably made Postgres the best choice. (remember, I arrived the process only a month ago)
I work for Conectiva (Brazil), involved in a project where a minor telecom company is replacing most of their Ora*le databases to PostgreSQL. Mostly due to cost reduction (should be for a more noble cause, but...)
Note, this is the first step of a big project involving migration to free plataforms everywhere it is possible inside the company.
IMHO it's a good idea, but they must keep in mind that there already are some limitations that I'm sure it'll be solved ASAP. Of course that a little of investment in the FreeSoftware/OpenSource comunity will help a lot too, but this is subject for another project ;o)
About two year ago, in a FreeSoftware presentation by Richard Stalmann (did I spelled it correct?) I have asked him if he have ever considered the possibility of liberty restricting laws, such as DMCA, affect GPLed softwares, Free Softwares or even any kind of Open Source.
He told me that this possibily does not exist and that DMCA exists to protect copyrighted material that, in his opinion should, be protected. He told that Free Software is Copylefted and would not have any risk of being affected by such laws.
Unfortunately he was wrong. In the last year I saw two initiatives trying to ban FreeSoftware from US. I know that he don't have the obligation to preview such things, but it should be better if we have more "gurus" that are able to preview these kind of problems.
About all these attempts to ban FreeSoftware from US, all I have to say is that I'm really sorry that there's people in the government that can't understand that FreeSoftware is about Freedom and this is one of the base concepts of democracy. Don't US government consider itself democratic?
The lazyness of the Technology Companies amazes me, instead of developing safe protocols avoiding users to do whatever they don't want to, they try to solve this problem by creating laws and acts that legaly prohibit the users to user their equipament the way they want to.
IMHO Tech Co. should be treated just like us, regular citizens that must adapt ourselves to the new technology to keep employed.
It is really sad to see all this "moneyfull" companies doing whatever they want to the people of countries that call themselves democratics.
Something must be done...
I talked to a friend of mine, employee of a small telecom company, in a manager position. He told me exactly what you did.
It's not just a good point, but probably much more fiseable then mine.
All this WiFi discussion is showing me just one thing: ISPs will begin to seriously consider to charge data transfer instead of connection speed or time.
Now a days ISPs plans infrastructure as telecom companies, they consider that an average user will use only x% of the bandwidth sold. Considering this they can lower prices and sell more.
With wirelessNAT opened to everybody the average user will consume almost 100% of the bandwidth sold, so the infrastructure avaiable need to be extended, this is cost, and somebody must pay for this.
They want to charge the user for the infrastructure extension, they always do this, but they can't raise prices this way, they need to find sowe other way.
The only way to charge fairly is to charge by data volume instead of connection time or speed. That's why I think that all this WiFi discussion will lead to new charging polices, and I'm pretty sure that this is the future of ISP charging.
Please, send to me his article, I'll proudly publish it here in Brazil.
Or maybe somewhere else in Europe!
You can call me Troll, but DMCA sux!
The lowest score to the best comment.
Please, mod him up!
DMCA is not a specific case, it's just a case that is very visible to us (nerds, geeks, techies, whatever).
The problem here is not about a single law, but it is about a whole system that is showing signs of unrealibility, the so called Democracy.
"From the people, by the people, to the people". DMCA is the proof that the organization that we call Democratic Government and the Representative System is not representing the people, but interests to big corporations.
We need to stop right now this kind of attitude! Our elected representatives are not representing our interests, lobbyists are convincing them to represent their interests. What about the people?
Of course that a healthy economy and low interest rates keeps people satisfied, but this is bread and circus, they keep people working and consuming and keep us happy.
Maybe we should review our concept of freedom, and mainly our concept of democratic government.
- 'A mouse can be just as dangerous as a bullet or a bomb.'
Although the mistake of considering the mouse the hacker's weapon (it should be the keyboard), he knows what he's talking about.For they if someone dies, there's always somebody else giving birth somewhere. But if they lose money, they can't win it again. So, for them money is much more important then lives.
Now we are sure that this is the way they think!
As we all know RIAA polices, they will won't worry about false positives, and sue every single user that they can ever suppose to be sharing files.
IMHO RIAA is just speeding the process, they can't stop a moving train immediatally, and they can't just stop the information revolution. They should be thinking a way to adapt to the environment, not the opposite.
Just one question...
Now a days Tossati is so influent not only in Brazil, but also worldwidely, that he doesn't need to agree with Conectiva. He agrees only if he wants to.
Today Tossati can open his own linux company and be his own boss for the rest of his life. If he's saying that UnitedLinux is cool then it is cool for him (for him).
Besides this, what the heck! As stated by GigsVT here Tossati develops the kernel, not applications, nor distros.
Whatever they say they'll do, they can't have any control. If they say you cannot share your connection how will they be sure that you are not sharing? Even using an regular eth connection with your neighbor, what can do?
Once the data arrived your computer you can pass it anywhere you want, you can send it through your eth connection our wifi, or whatever, you can even throw it back to the internet. The point is that They can't do anything, simply because then can't know what you are doing with all the data arriving in your computer.
What amazes me the most is that the Cable Companies seems to don't know this. Why don't they know it? What is happening? Do they only recruit lawyers? Don't they have technical consulting there? Don't they have a employer with a QI 90+ to tell them that it probably won't work and the best is to consult somebody who knows what s/he's doing?
This shows the quality of the service we are buying, we, nothing more then geeks, know more about their bussiness then themselves.
Shame...
Thanks god it won't happen here in Brazil. Our legislation won't allow such a thing. I know that our legislator can be bought (that's why we also have lobbies here) but I'm sure that we'll have a major disaster using Pa$$port before it happens.
So, I don't worry about this.
I don't care! They must find me first, and sue me for sharing less then 100 musics through gnutella, musics which I have downloaded through gnutella too.
I bet much more then my own pants on this: "They will NEVER reach me, or whoever has no more then 10GB of shared mp3.
Even if they find me, and sues me, how much should I have to pay? $100? $200? They don't even know what they are talking about!
I'll ask once more: Where are the f****** advisors? Don't they have lawyers to ask what is possible and what is not?
Let's see who will be the first!
If RIAA doesn't want to see sales going down, all it's needed is increase quality and lower prizes. C'mon, recently there are no good albuns starring around.
RIAA must realize two things.
By adapting itself to the reality I'm sure that there won't be bad results for any album ever launched.
After many and many stupid acts, this is an intelligent act. Space technology can always be applied down here on the surface, not talking about the experiments that can took place only in 0g.
To show how far the technology can advance, imagine the advances in the fisiotherapeutics when a group of astronauts stays 9 months in 0g and then another 6 monthsin 1/3g and back 9 months in 0g again.
Well, this is just an example. It's very important for the humanity, not just for US.
The Echelon project cannot be completely implemented due to the Echelon paradox:
So it's impossible to classify every information in the internet and make it avaiable without add more information to the internet.
That's why I don't believe that Echelon is watching me now.
But now the falling building will be the ones designed by Pentagon using M$.
Or maybe their server, leaving them completely out of business (do they care about this?).
All I know is that Mr. Laden now have a easy target.
That's exactly the point. That's the way it should be. The application does exactly one thing, cryptography, and nothing else. This is the unix way.
All applications should be responsible for a single task, we have wonderful examples to show us that this modularity is very positive, powerful applications, few bugs, easy customizations.
OTOH we have only few examples of stable applications that have lots of functionalities, usually hard to customize, adapt to new paradigms and maintaince.
The idea is keep all development teams independent of each other, by following few, but well defined, standards. That's the way X works, we must choose a window manager, X developers don't need to worry about user interface.
IMHO this is the way it should be, of course, a tarball/rpm/deb/whatever that packs the application and GUI is a great idea, but much more important then this is the quality of the application
If it is, then this shall be an article to Philips lawyers. If it isn't the CD isn't even compatible with your stereo CDPlayer.
For those who don't know yet, VBA virii exists just due to a single function. Something called CopyFunction (or something like this), that copies a function from a document to another. If MS removes this function no VBA virii will ever exist againg.
Note that this function is very well documented and is not hidden anywhere, all you need to do is search at VBA documentation.
Now is MS insecure due to obscurity or is it insecure anyway? Maybe that conspiracy theory that MS owns Antivirus software companies is right.
RIAA can't avoid this convergence, they can't avoid the connection between their incompatible audio system and the computer, and as everybody here knows if it is in the computer there's no way to avoid user to do whatever he wants.
So I think that RIAA must find (again) another way to avoid the so called mp3-piracy (IMHO the problem is the CD-R drives, but...)
This shows (again) that the political system called by Americans as Democracy is not that democratic. Where is the statement "From the people, for the people"?
The representatie system the way it is implemented today only represents big corporations and business associations, both capable of keeping expensive lobbies so the legislators can legislate as their will, not as the people needs.
The status quo are supported including for those who controls the media. Ideas like this will never become popular. Don't let them control your opinion, think for yourselves.