And the story of shifting liability is such a sham. Oracle isn't liable for anything. If you install Oracle and lose a bunch of data, you're still liable for it. And even if Oracle was liable, is that going to get your data back? No.
I wrote against Postgres for years and avoided stored procedures as much as possible for exactly the reason you describe; to avoid lock in. I never understood why so many people are perfectly happy to dive right into lockedinville. Avoiding lock in always served me and my company well.
OSS works great for software that geeks use. API libraries, text editors, programming utilities, etc... For software that normal people use, and geeks don't so much, like word processors and spread sheets, well of course it doesn't work so well. Why would it?
Quoth the article: "A professional consultant who doesn't take the time to maintain a professional appearance often doesn't have the wherewithal to perform adequately on the job."
You're right on with the filters. They need to get that nasty cloud out of their beer. But how would they get it cold? Without cold beer, you don't so much live as just exist.
Sendmail sucks (configuration nightmare), but it works. YMMV.
I would be looking to store email in a proper SQL database.
On the plus side, you get reliability, backup/restore, scalability, etc., depending on what you spend. You also don't tax your file system with too many files, or have scalability issues with huge mail boxes or huge user counts (a good SQL server laughs at a million user records). You also get easy navigation through the email stores; standard tools allow you to delete old messages, whatever you can dream up. It's easy; install the server with whatever options you need, and point your software at the server.
The problem with this approach is lack of software availability. You will almost certainly have to modify or write new software to handle mail delivery (to storage), POP3, and IMAP. I know of one solution and it's pretty immature still.
PostgreSQL would probably be fine for what you need, so the cost factor could be low.
My opinion is that you WILL have to write software to make this work. The building blocks are out there, but no package that I'm aware of will scale like you want and use a database. I recently tried to revamp our mail server using a database and web management tools, and gave up. I just didn't have time to write or rewrite and support the software needed. If the server was large enough to warrant a full time admin, I probably would have done it.
We WILL share! SOMEBODY has to do the work and take the risks involved... Would you like to share the risks too? I don't really want to. They will do the hard risky work, and the rest of us will pay them for their trouble. What's so complicated about that?
One day in history class in high school, my teacher started a discussion about whether Hitler was a hero. I think he simply pointed out that some people had called him that, and it spiraled from there. The class bassically agreed among ourselves that, by definition, Hitler could be considered a hero in some sences, and the teacher disagreed (can't entirely blame him for that).
He got up, grabbed the dictionary from the shelf, opened it and read the definition of "hero" out loud, which of course pretty well validated what we the class had been trying to say.
He then slammed the dictionary closed and said "the dictionary is wrong," there was much muffled laughter, and the discussion was over.
The point is, teachers are just as human as the rest of us, and are often prone to some idealism, which has much to do with their occupation. However, most teachers, in my experience, are naturally very open minded and readily open to discussion.
I think our examples, thankfully, are not at all representative of the norm.
Yes I see a problem. I'm not sure it would be considered acceptable to do ones business on Mars. They could release microbes into the Martian environment.
On the other hand, now that I think about it, what if, billions of years ago, aliens came to Earth and did their business? What if we, and indeed all life on Earth, evolved from alien piss? Or worse, POOP?? Could that be the way that life has propagated accross the universe from the earliest times?
Fission power and solar power work just fine for automobiles? Did I miss the memo?
We should keep shoveling money at fusion. It may solve A LOT of problems (it WILL if we can work out the right details), such as how to get into, out of, and around in space. We won't be running out of fuel any time soon either, and it's available pretty much everywhere. Hopefully it will be useable in cars, or smaller. Who knows.
Fission is the nuclear equivilant of oil. It works (spectacularly well in some cases), but it's dirty and non-renewable in practical terms. I'm pretty sure it doesn't work for cars.
Solar is, well, solar. It's great except it suffers from a severe lack of energy density.
"Does anyone else think of the irony that the resources we spend on trying to find new places to explore or colonize hundreds or thousands of years down the road would greatly increase the standard of living for the world's poor today?"
Because all we really want is a Unix shell on Windows. If they would have made that a working reality from the get go, everybody would have been happy.
Why would we get excited over a newly invented wheel from a bunch of clowns who have never understood the importance of the wheel? We want THE wheel, the one that we know works, the one we already know how to operate, the one that will leverage decades of infastructure and experience.
I don't think you have to be a zealot to simply want what already works.
When are we going to stop with the time travel crap? It's impossible. It has been debunked a million times with pure, simple logic. Yet, people keep dragging it back up.
You will never be able to make it big on the stock market or get that hot chick by screwing around in the past! Enough already!
So we should just drop everything and concentrate on "more serious problems"? Do you have any idea what these "more serious problems" even are, or how we might solve them? What makes you think that these "more serious problems" are even solvable?
You just don't get it, that's all. Neither does NASA it seems. The original space race solved a breath taking number of problems. Any further, serious push into space will solve more problems.
You don't solve problems by staring at them scratching your collective head. Very often, you solve problems by applying new ideas and technologies that were developed doing something entirely unrelated. Welcome to reality.
Slashdot Mirror
And the story of shifting liability is such a sham. Oracle isn't liable for anything. If you install Oracle and lose a bunch of data, you're still liable for it. And even if Oracle was liable, is that going to get your data back? No.
I wrote against Postgres for years and avoided stored procedures as much as possible for exactly the reason you describe; to avoid lock in. I never understood why so many people are perfectly happy to dive right into lockedinville. Avoiding lock in always served me and my company well.
This could also result in some really cool Street View footage.
Kim Jong Un: No, you idiots, I said we need to have a missile ERECTION! ERECTION! We should vote on what to do with them!
I'm a geek and guess what I'm using right now?
OSS works great for software that geeks use. API libraries, text editors, programming utilities, etc... For software that normal people use, and geeks don't so much, like word processors and spread sheets, well of course it doesn't work so well. Why would it?
Santa lived in Turkey. I dunno what made people think he went north after having been dead several hundred years.
Quoth the article:
"A professional consultant who doesn't take the time to maintain a professional appearance often doesn't have the wherewithal to perform adequately on the job."
What an unbelievable load of shit.
And then what do you do with the amonia? What gets it back into the heating chamber?
You're right on with the filters. They need to get that nasty cloud out of their beer. But how would they get it cold? Without cold beer, you don't so much live as just exist.
I'd agree with the parent for the most part.
Sendmail sucks (configuration nightmare), but it works. YMMV.
I would be looking to store email in a proper SQL database.
On the plus side, you get reliability, backup/restore, scalability, etc., depending on what you spend. You also don't tax your file system with too many files, or have scalability issues with huge mail boxes or huge user counts (a good SQL server laughs at a million user records). You also get easy navigation through the email stores; standard tools allow you to delete old messages, whatever you can dream up. It's easy; install the server with whatever options you need, and point your software at the server.
The problem with this approach is lack of software availability. You will almost certainly have to modify or write new software to handle mail delivery (to storage), POP3, and IMAP. I know of one solution and it's pretty immature still.
PostgreSQL would probably be fine for what you need, so the cost factor could be low.
My opinion is that you WILL have to write software to make this work. The building blocks are out there, but no package that I'm aware of will scale like you want and use a database. I recently tried to revamp our mail server using a database and web management tools, and gave up. I just didn't have time to write or rewrite and support the software needed. If the server was large enough to warrant a full time admin, I probably would have done it.
We WILL share! SOMEBODY has to do the work and take the risks involved... Would you like to share the risks too? I don't really want to. They will do the hard risky work, and the rest of us will pay them for their trouble. What's so complicated about that?
Evolution is a fact? Did I miss the memo?
One day in history class in high school, my teacher started a discussion about whether Hitler was a hero. I think he simply pointed out that some people had called him that, and it spiraled from there. The class bassically agreed among ourselves that, by definition, Hitler could be considered a hero in some sences, and the teacher disagreed (can't entirely blame him for that).
He got up, grabbed the dictionary from the shelf, opened it and read the definition of "hero" out loud, which of course pretty well validated what we the class had been trying to say.
He then slammed the dictionary closed and said "the dictionary is wrong," there was much muffled laughter, and the discussion was over.
The point is, teachers are just as human as the rest of us, and are often prone to some idealism, which has much to do with their occupation. However, most teachers, in my experience, are naturally very open minded and readily open to discussion.
I think our examples, thankfully, are not at all representative of the norm.
Yes I see a problem. I'm not sure it would be considered acceptable to do ones business on Mars. They could release microbes into the Martian environment.
On the other hand, now that I think about it, what if, billions of years ago, aliens came to Earth and did their business? What if we, and indeed all life on Earth, evolved from alien piss? Or worse, POOP?? Could that be the way that life has propagated accross the universe from the earliest times?
DUN DUN DUN...
Wow.
Fission power and solar power work just fine for automobiles? Did I miss the memo?
We should keep shoveling money at fusion. It may solve A LOT of problems (it WILL if we can work out the right details), such as how to get into, out of, and around in space. We won't be running out of fuel any time soon either, and it's available pretty much everywhere. Hopefully it will be useable in cars, or smaller. Who knows.
Fission is the nuclear equivilant of oil. It works (spectacularly well in some cases), but it's dirty and non-renewable in practical terms. I'm pretty sure it doesn't work for cars.
Solar is, well, solar. It's great except it suffers from a severe lack of energy density.
"Does anyone else think of the irony that the resources we spend on trying to find new places to explore or colonize hundreds or thousands of years down the road would greatly increase the standard of living for the world's poor today?"
No. Hippie.
I think he should hop down onto Martian soil, look around, click his tongue, and say...
"Ya know, I just... I don't like it! I just don't like it! I'm going back inside."
...and that's when you begin to detect the muffled laughter...
That's good, because I heard zomby dogs prefer iced tea...
Because all we really want is a Unix shell on Windows. If they would have made that a working reality from the get go, everybody would have been happy.
Why would we get excited over a newly invented wheel from a bunch of clowns who have never understood the importance of the wheel? We want THE wheel, the one that we know works, the one we already know how to operate, the one that will leverage decades of infastructure and experience.
I don't think you have to be a zealot to simply want what already works.
When are we going to stop with the time travel crap? It's impossible. It has been debunked a million times with pure, simple logic. Yet, people keep dragging it back up.
You will never be able to make it big on the stock market or get that hot chick by screwing around in the past! Enough already!
Verily. And that past nastification is what shields you from the brains.
I got the idea that the parent poster isn't really too impressed with such things as flavor or humor... Probably not real fun to work for.
So we should just drop everything and concentrate on "more serious problems"? Do you have any idea what these "more serious problems" even are, or how we might solve them? What makes you think that these "more serious problems" are even solvable?
You just don't get it, that's all. Neither does NASA it seems. The original space race solved a breath taking number of problems. Any further, serious push into space will solve more problems.
You don't solve problems by staring at them scratching your collective head. Very often, you solve problems by applying new ideas and technologies that were developed doing something entirely unrelated. Welcome to reality.