The United States government favors Microsoft products while NASA favors Linux?
Don't be too quick to paint with that broad brush.
NASA is a large and somewhat disparate organization. Especially when it comes to IT resources. There are large-scale official directions and policies for a NASA Center's IT (and with One NASA - perhapse the entire organization) that may or may not hold true when it comes to individual Divisions or projects.
For example, Johnson Space Center (JSC) has been a pretty solid Microsoft shop over the past several years. Much of this was spearheaded by JSC's former CIO, Jack Garman who set an aggressively pro-Microsoft policy. The policy was so aggressive, that it lead to the infamous "Mac Attack" jihad at JSC - eventually leading to a Congressional inquiry. Yet JSC is not all-Microsoft.
JSC has a variety of IT resources in its environment. JSC's datacenter is chock full of hardware running various flavors of Unix. Many engineering environments include Unix workstations / labs to churn the various modeling and CAD applications needed (although this is another common battlefield between Unix and WinNT/2K). Macs are still around - and somewhat more common than during the old Jihad days. Linux pops up more and more often with "Linux compatability" becoming more a concern for IT architects.
So does NASA favor Linux? No. Not in a policy sense (or at least, not yet). But NASA is just the kind of environment where Linux has and continues to flourish.
Here, here. Another bit that caught my attention was from Susan Kevorkian, a consumer technologies analyst at IDC:
This "will make people who would otherwise be habitual users think twice about investing their time in the P2P networks," she said. "As the quality of the files on the free P2P services go down, it makes the offerings from the legitimate online services, like Pressplay and MusicNet, that much more attractive."
The irony to this statement is that there has always been a quality issue with P2P networks. Numerous others have already made jokes referring to this elsewhere in this conversation. Just because a file exists doesn't mean that whoever created it knew how encode or edit the file for the best quality. This, without intervention from those who would push intentionally sabotaged files.
Convenience is another issue of existing P2P systems. Sometimes finding content takes time and effort - especially if your tastes are less popular. And of course, the quality issue plays a part of this as one will have to review the content and occasionally toss it out and start the search anew.
The "legitimate" offerings from content providers should have been a home run. They could offer both quality and convenience. But they failed. Existing "legitimate" offerings tend to have a limited library of available content provided in disabled file formats - managing to miss both the quality and convenience that should have made their offerings raging successes. Nevermind the comparitively hefty pricing.
In short, putting resources towards this sort of strategy is foolish. At best, they're simply adding to existing issues... and with debatable effectiveness (thos who value no-cost solutions tend to also have the time to invest). Instead, they should be reviewing their current business models and making those more attractive.
But then, as the origional poster pointed out, a reluctancy to improve the business model has been the problem for years now.
Windows 2000 is the best thing that has come out of Redmond, period.
I have to agree.
I have a fairly healthy dislike for Microsoft and many of its products (based on both personal and professional experience - I used to be quite a Microsoft cheerleader). However, I do see Win2K as something Microsoft finally did right (nigling criticisms aside). If I have to use Windows (and I occasionally do), its Win2k.
David Boiieies, hero of the Linux folk! God bless him, he went up against evil Microsoft!
Now, he's a pariah. Bad David, Bad!
Bad David? Heck. Who the hell is he? Its bad SCO. The only reason David Boies is mentioned is because he's been involved in a few highly visible cases (one of which involving Microsoft).
You're even hypocritical enough to say "if you can't compete, sue"! Nevermind that Sun, Netscape, and the various states' attorneys lived by the same mantra when they went after Microsoft.
Competition only works in a free market. An abusive monopoly within a market changes it. And Microsoft was (is?) an abusive monopoly. The entire court battle with Microsoft was about competition; little suprise that it involved Microsoft's competitors.
This situation is different. SCO is not joining with other industry elements to make a case against an abusive monopoly. Instead, they are taking legal action against systems that have existed for years - decades, perhapse. And they do this at a time when it can be argued that SCO is sinking below the waves for the third time.
SCO could have valid claims. But at this point, it seems like a desperate and despicable move.
This is great. I love it. I hope they tear a swath of destruction across your beloved Linux vendors. It's only fair, since you all cheered him on when he went after MS.
Thanks for providing a practical example of "zealotry" not being limited only to one single vendor, technology, or platform.
Yeah, except the toolkit will NOT be released for Linux, just the game itself, so Linux people will most likely not contribute a whole lot to the NWN content community.
This is from fuzzy memory... so keep in mind that the details may be off a bit...
I remember reading a blurb on the NWN site (could have been their forums) where a rep noted that the toolkit was written in Delphi. Borland had promised a Linux port and assured Bioware that a quick re-compile would be all that's required to "port" the toolkit to Linux. Of course - the promised Linux port was already far off-schedule at the time.
It may be that Linux NWN fans will STILL have to turn to Wine(X) even after release of a native client.
but this really seems like tabloid style news. Shocking and not true.
Where was the claim that this is any kind of news or reporting of an event? Cringely's piece is simply a "what if". Even he says its not likely to happen.
The underdeveloped characters are stereotypes and he uses excruciating detail to describe minutia which DOES NOT MATTER. Writing involves showing the TELLING details and having a strong sense of POV.
I would argue that the details DO matter. What makes these stories interesting are the technical / political / social concepts each story explores. To better express these concepts, a certain degree of detail is needed.
The trouble is, this detail ends up highlighting a lack of detail elsewhere. There are attempts at fleshing out the world in which these concepts are playing out. But these attempts ultimately fall flat. One example, as has been pointed out, is the commonly underdeveloped character.
Doctorow has a good start. Enough to be kind of interesting now. I hope he improves with time. Then he may be worthy of the breathless praise his critics currently scoff at.
Definitions, Titles, and Categorization
on
Hacker's Delight
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I noticed this book at the local Barnes and Noble. Unfortuately, it was (and still is) mis-catagorized and firmly stuck in the "Security" area of the technical / computer section.
Now I know that I'm toying with the usual hacker/cracker jihad. None the less, it seems the definition of "hacker" associated with secuirty is so engrained in to society that it manages to overcome even the content of the book itself. I would have thought the B&N folks, being in the book profession, would manage to catch this. Judging a book by its cover and all that (makes me wonder where a book called 'Pinky Fuzzy Bunnies' that studies furry erotica would land).
Of course, B&N are not the definitive measure of language. Where they stick a book doesn't go much beyond acknowledging one use of our much-flamed word. It doesn't negate the history of the word nor offer final proof of its popular definition. But it does show the power of that popular definition despite the obvious intent of the book's author.
I have to agree. The whole notion that those millions of people would have been "somewhere else" is ludicrous.
The Internet has been around a long, long time. But, it was beyond even being unfriendly to the average Joe Enduser. It was the province of physicists and such.
The Internet did exist for some time without general public knowledge. Getting access was not easy. And knowing how to make use of said access would be beyond most of today's general users. But there was a major change to that interface; the graphical browser. Mosaic which, in turn, spawned Netscape came on the scene. It made the World Wide Web click-easy. And it coupled in a few other useful protocols. Using the "Internet" now only required the ability to type in an address and click.
Meanwhile, the proprietary on-line services were doing their thing. AOL had long been on the scene, born from an on line gaming service for (among others) Commodore64 platforms. AOL's biggest concern at the time was the apparent launch of the Microsoft Network. MSN would compete directly with AOL... and had the advantage of putting an icon on 90% of the desktops out there (or at least, once Windows 95 shipped). Thus began the war between AOL and Microsoft.
Whispers about this "Internet" thing picked up. Microsoft acknowledged them - but considered it a niche technology (though didn't completely ignore it). AOL included less-than-well-defined access to Internet services as a kind of portal service. AOL users began showing up in Usenet discussions, in some cases becoming overnight annoyances with "me too" posts and threats to turn other users in to AOL's moderators (despite the fact that neither the forums nore the other users in question had anything to do with AOL).
The Internet gained more and more buzz and soon threatened to overcome the very space that proprietary online services now held. AOL pushed the Internet as a major selling point. It was now their business. Meanwhile, MSN reinvented itself. It wasn't just another AOL. It was an ISP. The Internet became Microsoft's business too.
Would millions of people have gone "somewhere else" without AOL? No. They would have gone to their local ISP. They were going to the Internet with or without AOL. AOL was simply wise enough to become part of this change rather than be swept away by it.
Did AOL make it possible for non-techies to access the Internet? Sure. But then, the technology was going that way already. Mosiac. Netscape. And then finally Microsoft with not only IE, but with integrated dial-up networking capability (previously only available through third party apps).
AOL did not create a niche market. They survived a slow but inevitable change. A major shift in technology. A shift that became an incremental landslide. An event that could have made them a footnote in history (much as it did other long-standing industry icons such as Compuserve).
Sure - AOL did their best to be user friendly (although just how much impact they had there is up to debate). They marketed. And they pushed in to new markets (though I do know some areas where local ISPs were available before AOL POPs). One could make a case that AOL's relationship with the Internet has been largely symbiotic.
But AOL did not create the Internet boom. They survived it.
A wily and ruthless competitor can, under my understanding of US copyright, challenge your copyright, using the previous incident as an instance of negligence to protect your copyright.
Actually - I believe you're confusing Copyright with Trademark.
Do NOT discount this, as it is the reason Alfred E. Neuman and MAD managed to avoid two potentially damaging lawsuits from people who had originally copyrighted his image. (You can check up on the whole story in their published "History of MAD")
You might want to re-read that part. According to toonpedia (and perhapse another source), the issue was more a question of who owned the copyright. There were previous uses of the visage that predated the copyright claims in question. It wasn't that the copyright had been diluted like a trademark, but rather the copyright claim was invalid.
Therefore, my point is still valid, and your counterexample shown to be a weak arguement.
Depends on the point you're arguing.
The origional post stated that there ARE developers being paid for their code. In RedHat's case, they DO employ developers to work on Open Source projects.
Now whether this employment is a good business decision for RedHat might be up to some debate. But to say that RedHat gets nothing for their money ignores the obvious. RedHat gets to direct development of technology that is important to their business interests. Yes, their business model is more complex than "create code, sell code." And much of their current (and future - take a look at their enterprise strategy) business model is heavily linked to service and support. But then... services is an aspect of business that IBM has found very lucrative.
Now all RedHat has to do is convince customers that they are on par with IBM when it comes to enterprise solutions.
It might also be worth noting that "pay the developers, give away the program" is not unheard of in the proprietary sofware world too. Why did AOL buy Mirabilus (ICQ) and Nullsoft (WinAmp) - and continue to develop and give away the product? Why does Microsoft develop Windows Media streaming servers and clients - then give it away? Its not because they get nothing for their money.
The point is no ones paying any of these people for actually writing the code. They get paid for developing hardware, applications, or support for the code.
That's odd. RedHat alone has done a lot of work with various aspects of Open Source code (including Linux). Just greping the linux kernel source tree for "redhat" shows quite a few hits. So does IBM ("@ibm.com").
Maybe I misunderstand your point - but it looks like these companies ARE paying people write code.
If I understand the point correctly, you're pointing out that a Corporation is not a cause. That due to the nature of business and the Corporate structure, a Corporation can not be fully trusted. And that Corporate interest is not about higher causes but what bennefits the Corporation. And I agree. I guess this is the basis for the "Apple hurt me harder brigade" - criticism of those Apple customers who are willing to make any sacrifice if it "helps Apple".
Having said that - just because a Corporation is such, it doesn't mean its the same as any other. The distinctions are made on a case by case bassis. And even then, are due to change over time and worthy of constant scrutiny.
Is RedHat different than Microsoft? Sure. One can point to numerous differences between the two. They're entirely different entities with different modes of business. But, keeping with what has already been said, that doesn't mean RedHat gets off without continued scrutiny.
One of the guidelines to this scrutiny is whether a Corporation's interests coincide with one's own. If the two match, then the business relationship (and it should always remain strickly business) is a good one. But once a Corporation begins to pit its interest against those of its customers, then the customer base should take note.
It might be worth pointing out that a customer's interest can be financial as well as one's own moral code. A Corporation itself may not have morals. But it will mind the morals of its customers if it wishes to retain them.
Even a few hundred zombies on some script kiddy IRC channel doesn't invalidate the contention.
...
Being cracked isn't a unique experience, but it's not as common as the FUD-mongers would have us believe.
It may not be a common experience, but you don't want your personal computer to end up as one of those particular 100. Or a victim of one of the myriad of other scams and malicious code devices. "It can never happen to me" and "what are the odds" do little to solve the problem if you are unlucky and it does happen to you.
Its interesting that you would label this cautionary attitude as "FUD". But its not entirely unwarrented. "Security" has become the biggest boon to the snake oil industry since day trading and the misconception that ".com" is a business plan. But it does not negate the fact that our current situation is horrid and that it CAN be improved. Not with snakeoil. But with decently engineered products that keep basic infosec concepts in mind. And a consumer base who cares.
But then - that doesn't really fall in line with the habits of the largest FUD mongers: those who would gain from the status quo. And politicians.
articles about Microsoft = Bad mean nothing when they're posted on OSS/Linux advocacy sites.
Sure. But times have changed.
It used to be a small group of advocates would compare notes and bitch in their own little confines, well seperated from the mainstream business and tech press. Slashdot is a prime example of one such enclave. And whatever message preached to the choir would stop at the confines of that site... or at least the advocate community if some linking happened.
And then Linux and Microsoft's bad behavior both became big news. Slashdot started showing up more and more in spurious mainstream articles. And its not just Slashdot. Other sources for various advocate groups are more common in an increasing number of non-Microsoft (or Microsoft-critical) articles.
Once an idea, or a particularly well-written article (and even some not-so-well-written), make it in to the advocacy community there's now a good chance some reporter for the mainstream business and tech press will pick it up. Granted - its not the same article. And sometimes the message gets garbled going through that filter. But the idea is still making it where those outside the advocacy group are exposed to it - and with any luck, they get a link to the origional article and the unfiltered message.
Yes. This is no Wall Street Journal expose on why Microsoft is bad for your business. But then, its note entirely a message doomed to obscurity either.
Instead, the sh in SunOS 5.8 still diplays ^[[A when I try to recall previous commands by up arrow (of course, I can immediately type in "zsh" and be in a more friendly environment, but such workarounds should not be needed),
Get with your sysadmin. Ask him to set your default shell to your current favorite (apparently zsh). Voila, you're set.
I find the Unix shell rather interesting. It enables various users to run environments that appeal to them without forcing "defaults" on the entire user base. In addition, by building scripts against the standard Bourne Shell you have a pretty good chance of those scripts working on any Unix platform. And you can do this even if you prefer the oddities of, say, C Shell or the Korn Shell.
When was the last time you had to mess with environment variables on a Windows 2000/XP machine to get a windows program running?
Just the other week. I installed GnuPG on a Win2K machine and had to tweak my path environment variable (or its equivilant) to find it no matter what directory I was in. Granted - I didn't install GnuPG using an installer. And I have the binaries where Win2K doesn't expect.
Its much the same for any Unix/unix-like environment I've used. Usually I don't have to mess with my path. Unless I'm doing something unexpected.
It seems that this point is more due to inexperience than a design flaw.
This isn't about best practices or business plans or anything like that...it's a guy who got software for no cost whining because the vendor has copyrighted the documentation and charges for support.
Actually, from what I've read (and I've not found too much on the WebGUI site either now that its recoverd from Slashdotting) its not simply a case of copyright and fees. Its also an NDA restricting any further dissemination of information covered.
But then, the details seem kind of light. The most pertinent bit from the site seems to be:
As a member of the Support Center you must agree to the following terms:
1. You shall not to share your account information and privileged access with any other party.
2. You shall not to share the information contained herein with any other party.
Sure. If I plagiarized entire passages of an O'Reilly book, I should expect some kind of legal threat / action. But if I, say, bought a subscription to their online resources and learned how Perl works then sat down at my fave word processor and hammered out my own instructions on Perl I would hardly expect O'Reilly to say 'boo'.
It seems that this is not the case with this particular group. Not only do they claim copyright over their documentation (which is fine), but they also include some kind of NDA that forbids any further dissemination of the information covered by that documentation. This is where they've attracted criticism.
O'Reilly does not have the same restrictions with their books. And that's why O'Reilly is not being criticized the same way.
Sure. But no matter what technology is being used in a particular IT environment, it is still the same variable. Capable technicians, engineers, system architects, and administrators. Neither Proprietary nor Open Source approaches negate this.
even after all the support efforts in the world for proprietary software (and thats a big effort), there all still endusers without a clue. Open source is going to need similar efforts to infiltrate most corporations.
It depends on where you expect to deploy Open Source software. The desktop is always difficult. It doesn't matter what technology you deploy - there will always be users who seem hell-bent on breaking it or making it difficult.
Now, as an infrastructure solution, you're dealing with totally different issues. Or, at least, should be (back to those variables again). And in this context... don't look now... but Open Source is already infiltrating Corporate IT.
but their are too many people involved in open source (also proprietary, but fewer) that would ruin a business by trying to integrate open source software with out benefits like support.
You would be suprised. The proprietary world has just as many people who get hung up on a technology religion as the Open Source world. And they're just as dangerous to their respective IT environments.
Another bugaboo is "support". Its a nice idea. But it doesn't always pan out. I've had excellent support from some contracts. And I've had dismal support too. In fact, I recently walked in to a new environment where they are moving away from a major industry vendor to a new vendor over support issues. Putting down cash is no guarentee (at least, if you expect more than someone answering a phone).
In the end, the success of an IT operation rests on its people. These people will have to understand a technology enough to implement a workable and sustainable solution. They may need to know how to search for and read through HOWTOs. Maybe they need to know the right questions to ask the vendor's helpdesk. But in any case, they're going to have to know what they're about... or able figure it out fast.
In any case - the professional / corporate enterprise can get just as much value out of Open Source and the home use / hobbist. Assuming they have the right people.
Books that, if "reverse engineered" and rewritten, would result in derivative works under law and still be protected.
So are you telling me that if I write my own HOWTO or publish a book on, say, Perl or Sendmail... I can expect legal action from O'Reilly? Oddly enough, O'Reilly doesn't seem to be the only publisher in the Open Source software space.
home use/hobbyist -- open source is great professional/corporate business -- open source needs a lot of work in this arena
Just to clarify - are we talking business as in development? You mention "home use" and that seems to imply end-user for business use too.
I've used Open Source software on a professional bassis for several years. Its been just as successful as the occasional proprietary system. But then - I'm entirely on the end user / consultant side of the business process.
...where he was entertained by voluptuous female robots and learned that the first humans were created 25,000 years ago by space travelers called Elohim, who cloned themselves.
...
That's a lot more believable and less violent than the Xenu and the volcanoes story.
Eventually it'll come out that the Raelians' and Scientologists' belief systems were based on visits by the same alien race. Its just that the Scientologists got stuck with intergalactic Puritans. Rael's aliens? Apparently cosmic hippies out spreading free love and having a good time.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't be too quick to paint with that broad brush.
NASA is a large and somewhat disparate organization. Especially when it comes to IT resources. There are large-scale official directions and policies for a NASA Center's IT (and with One NASA - perhapse the entire organization) that may or may not hold true when it comes to individual Divisions or projects.
For example, Johnson Space Center (JSC) has been a pretty solid Microsoft shop over the past several years. Much of this was spearheaded by JSC's former CIO, Jack Garman who set an aggressively pro-Microsoft policy. The policy was so aggressive, that it lead to the infamous "Mac Attack" jihad at JSC - eventually leading to a Congressional inquiry. Yet JSC is not all-Microsoft.
JSC has a variety of IT resources in its environment. JSC's datacenter is chock full of hardware running various flavors of Unix. Many engineering environments include Unix workstations / labs to churn the various modeling and CAD applications needed (although this is another common battlefield between Unix and WinNT/2K). Macs are still around - and somewhat more common than during the old Jihad days. Linux pops up more and more often with "Linux compatability" becoming more a concern for IT architects.
So does NASA favor Linux? No. Not in a policy sense (or at least, not yet). But NASA is just the kind of environment where Linux has and continues to flourish.
The irony to this statement is that there has always been a quality issue with P2P networks. Numerous others have already made jokes referring to this elsewhere in this conversation. Just because a file exists doesn't mean that whoever created it knew how encode or edit the file for the best quality. This, without intervention from those who would push intentionally sabotaged files.
Convenience is another issue of existing P2P systems. Sometimes finding content takes time and effort - especially if your tastes are less popular. And of course, the quality issue plays a part of this as one will have to review the content and occasionally toss it out and start the search anew.
The "legitimate" offerings from content providers should have been a home run. They could offer both quality and convenience. But they failed. Existing "legitimate" offerings tend to have a limited library of available content provided in disabled file formats - managing to miss both the quality and convenience that should have made their offerings raging successes. Nevermind the comparitively hefty pricing.
In short, putting resources towards this sort of strategy is foolish. At best, they're simply adding to existing issues... and with debatable effectiveness (thos who value no-cost solutions tend to also have the time to invest). Instead, they should be reviewing their current business models and making those more attractive.
But then, as the origional poster pointed out, a reluctancy to improve the business model has been the problem for years now.
I have to agree.
I have a fairly healthy dislike for Microsoft and many of its products (based on both personal and professional experience - I used to be quite a Microsoft cheerleader). However, I do see Win2K as something Microsoft finally did right (nigling criticisms aside). If I have to use Windows (and I occasionally do), its Win2k.
Too bad they're moving away from it.
Bad David? Heck. Who the hell is he? Its bad SCO. The only reason David Boies is mentioned is because he's been involved in a few highly visible cases (one of which involving Microsoft).
Competition only works in a free market. An abusive monopoly within a market changes it. And Microsoft was (is?) an abusive monopoly. The entire court battle with Microsoft was about competition; little suprise that it involved Microsoft's competitors.
This situation is different. SCO is not joining with other industry elements to make a case against an abusive monopoly. Instead, they are taking legal action against systems that have existed for years - decades, perhapse. And they do this at a time when it can be argued that SCO is sinking below the waves for the third time.
SCO could have valid claims. But at this point, it seems like a desperate and despicable move.
Thanks for providing a practical example of "zealotry" not being limited only to one single vendor, technology, or platform.
This is from fuzzy memory... so keep in mind that the details may be off a bit...
I remember reading a blurb on the NWN site (could have been their forums) where a rep noted that the toolkit was written in Delphi. Borland had promised a Linux port and assured Bioware that a quick re-compile would be all that's required to "port" the toolkit to Linux. Of course - the promised Linux port was already far off-schedule at the time.
It may be that Linux NWN fans will STILL have to turn to Wine(X) even after release of a native client.
Where was the claim that this is any kind of news or reporting of an event? Cringely's piece is simply a "what if". Even he says its not likely to happen.
Oddly enough, understanding infosec issues requires a healthy dose of paranoia.
I would argue that the details DO matter. What makes these stories interesting are the technical / political / social concepts each story explores. To better express these concepts, a certain degree of detail is needed.
The trouble is, this detail ends up highlighting a lack of detail elsewhere. There are attempts at fleshing out the world in which these concepts are playing out. But these attempts ultimately fall flat. One example, as has been pointed out, is the commonly underdeveloped character.
Doctorow has a good start. Enough to be kind of interesting now. I hope he improves with time. Then he may be worthy of the breathless praise his critics currently scoff at.
I noticed this book at the local Barnes and Noble. Unfortuately, it was (and still is) mis-catagorized and firmly stuck in the "Security" area of the technical / computer section.
Now I know that I'm toying with the usual hacker/cracker jihad. None the less, it seems the definition of "hacker" associated with secuirty is so engrained in to society that it manages to overcome even the content of the book itself. I would have thought the B&N folks, being in the book profession, would manage to catch this. Judging a book by its cover and all that (makes me wonder where a book called 'Pinky Fuzzy Bunnies' that studies furry erotica would land).
Of course, B&N are not the definitive measure of language. Where they stick a book doesn't go much beyond acknowledging one use of our much-flamed word. It doesn't negate the history of the word nor offer final proof of its popular definition. But it does show the power of that popular definition despite the obvious intent of the book's author.
Be it for good or not - there it is.
The Internet did exist for some time without general public knowledge. Getting access was not easy. And knowing how to make use of said access would be beyond most of today's general users. But there was a major change to that interface; the graphical browser. Mosaic which, in turn, spawned Netscape came on the scene. It made the World Wide Web click-easy. And it coupled in a few other useful protocols. Using the "Internet" now only required the ability to type in an address and click.
Meanwhile, the proprietary on-line services were doing their thing. AOL had long been on the scene, born from an on line gaming service for (among others) Commodore64 platforms. AOL's biggest concern at the time was the apparent launch of the Microsoft Network. MSN would compete directly with AOL... and had the advantage of putting an icon on 90% of the desktops out there (or at least, once Windows 95 shipped). Thus began the war between AOL and Microsoft.
Whispers about this "Internet" thing picked up. Microsoft acknowledged them - but considered it a niche technology (though didn't completely ignore it). AOL included less-than-well-defined access to Internet services as a kind of portal service. AOL users began showing up in Usenet discussions, in some cases becoming overnight annoyances with "me too" posts and threats to turn other users in to AOL's moderators (despite the fact that neither the forums nore the other users in question had anything to do with AOL).
The Internet gained more and more buzz and soon threatened to overcome the very space that proprietary online services now held. AOL pushed the Internet as a major selling point. It was now their business. Meanwhile, MSN reinvented itself. It wasn't just another AOL. It was an ISP. The Internet became Microsoft's business too.
Would millions of people have gone "somewhere else" without AOL? No. They would have gone to their local ISP. They were going to the Internet with or without AOL. AOL was simply wise enough to become part of this change rather than be swept away by it.
Did AOL make it possible for non-techies to access the Internet? Sure. But then, the technology was going that way already. Mosiac. Netscape. And then finally Microsoft with not only IE, but with integrated dial-up networking capability (previously only available through third party apps).
AOL did not create a niche market. They survived a slow but inevitable change. A major shift in technology. A shift that became an incremental landslide. An event that could have made them a footnote in history (much as it did other long-standing industry icons such as Compuserve).
Sure - AOL did their best to be user friendly (although just how much impact they had there is up to debate). They marketed. And they pushed in to new markets (though I do know some areas where local ISPs were available before AOL POPs). One could make a case that AOL's relationship with the Internet has been largely symbiotic.
But AOL did not create the Internet boom. They survived it.
Actually - I believe you're confusing Copyright with Trademark.
You might want to re-read that part. According to toonpedia (and perhapse another source), the issue was more a question of who owned the copyright. There were previous uses of the visage that predated the copyright claims in question. It wasn't that the copyright had been diluted like a trademark, but rather the copyright claim was invalid.
Depends on the point you're arguing.
The origional post stated that there ARE developers being paid for their code. In RedHat's case, they DO employ developers to work on Open Source projects.
Now whether this employment is a good business decision for RedHat might be up to some debate. But to say that RedHat gets nothing for their money ignores the obvious. RedHat gets to direct development of technology that is important to their business interests. Yes, their business model is more complex than "create code, sell code." And much of their current (and future - take a look at their enterprise strategy) business model is heavily linked to service and support. But then... services is an aspect of business that IBM has found very lucrative.
Now all RedHat has to do is convince customers that they are on par with IBM when it comes to enterprise solutions.
It might also be worth noting that "pay the developers, give away the program" is not unheard of in the proprietary sofware world too. Why did AOL buy Mirabilus (ICQ) and Nullsoft (WinAmp) - and continue to develop and give away the product? Why does Microsoft develop Windows Media streaming servers and clients - then give it away? Its not because they get nothing for their money.
That's odd. RedHat alone has done a lot of work with various aspects of Open Source code (including Linux). Just greping the linux kernel source tree for "redhat" shows quite a few hits. So does IBM ("@ibm.com").
Maybe I misunderstand your point - but it looks like these companies ARE paying people write code.
If I understand the point correctly, you're pointing out that a Corporation is not a cause. That due to the nature of business and the Corporate structure, a Corporation can not be fully trusted. And that Corporate interest is not about higher causes but what bennefits the Corporation. And I agree. I guess this is the basis for the "Apple hurt me harder brigade" - criticism of those Apple customers who are willing to make any sacrifice if it "helps Apple".
Having said that - just because a Corporation is such, it doesn't mean its the same as any other. The distinctions are made on a case by case bassis. And even then, are due to change over time and worthy of constant scrutiny.
Is RedHat different than Microsoft? Sure. One can point to numerous differences between the two. They're entirely different entities with different modes of business. But, keeping with what has already been said, that doesn't mean RedHat gets off without continued scrutiny.
One of the guidelines to this scrutiny is whether a Corporation's interests coincide with one's own. If the two match, then the business relationship (and it should always remain strickly business) is a good one. But once a Corporation begins to pit its interest against those of its customers, then the customer base should take note.
It might be worth pointing out that a customer's interest can be financial as well as one's own moral code. A Corporation itself may not have morals. But it will mind the morals of its customers if it wishes to retain them.
It may not be a common experience, but you don't want your personal computer to end up as one of those particular 100. Or a victim of one of the myriad of other scams and malicious code devices. "It can never happen to me" and "what are the odds" do little to solve the problem if you are unlucky and it does happen to you.
Its interesting that you would label this cautionary attitude as "FUD". But its not entirely unwarrented. "Security" has become the biggest boon to the snake oil industry since day trading and the misconception that ".com" is a business plan. But it does not negate the fact that our current situation is horrid and that it CAN be improved. Not with snakeoil. But with decently engineered products that keep basic infosec concepts in mind. And a consumer base who cares.
But then - that doesn't really fall in line with the habits of the largest FUD mongers: those who would gain from the status quo. And politicians.
Sure. But times have changed.
It used to be a small group of advocates would compare notes and bitch in their own little confines, well seperated from the mainstream business and tech press. Slashdot is a prime example of one such enclave. And whatever message preached to the choir would stop at the confines of that site... or at least the advocate community if some linking happened.
And then Linux and Microsoft's bad behavior both became big news. Slashdot started showing up more and more in spurious mainstream articles. And its not just Slashdot. Other sources for various advocate groups are more common in an increasing number of non-Microsoft (or Microsoft-critical) articles.
Once an idea, or a particularly well-written article (and even some not-so-well-written), make it in to the advocacy community there's now a good chance some reporter for the mainstream business and tech press will pick it up. Granted - its not the same article. And sometimes the message gets garbled going through that filter. But the idea is still making it where those outside the advocacy group are exposed to it - and with any luck, they get a link to the origional article and the unfiltered message.
Yes. This is no Wall Street Journal expose on why Microsoft is bad for your business. But then, its note entirely a message doomed to obscurity either.
Get with your sysadmin. Ask him to set your default shell to your current favorite (apparently zsh). Voila, you're set.
I find the Unix shell rather interesting. It enables various users to run environments that appeal to them without forcing "defaults" on the entire user base. In addition, by building scripts against the standard Bourne Shell you have a pretty good chance of those scripts working on any Unix platform. And you can do this even if you prefer the oddities of, say, C Shell or the Korn Shell.
Just the other week. I installed GnuPG on a Win2K machine and had to tweak my path environment variable (or its equivilant) to find it no matter what directory I was in. Granted - I didn't install GnuPG using an installer. And I have the binaries where Win2K doesn't expect.
Its much the same for any Unix/unix-like environment I've used. Usually I don't have to mess with my path. Unless I'm doing something unexpected.
It seems that this point is more due to inexperience than a design flaw.
Actually, from what I've read (and I've not found too much on the WebGUI site either now that its recoverd from Slashdotting) its not simply a case of copyright and fees. Its also an NDA restricting any further dissemination of information covered.
But then, the details seem kind of light. The most pertinent bit from the site seems to be:
Maybe its a misunderstanding?
Sure. If I plagiarized entire passages of an O'Reilly book, I should expect some kind of legal threat / action. But if I, say, bought a subscription to their online resources and learned how Perl works then sat down at my fave word processor and hammered out my own instructions on Perl I would hardly expect O'Reilly to say 'boo'.
It seems that this is not the case with this particular group. Not only do they claim copyright over their documentation (which is fine), but they also include some kind of NDA that forbids any further dissemination of the information covered by that documentation. This is where they've attracted criticism.
O'Reilly does not have the same restrictions with their books. And that's why O'Reilly is not being criticized the same way.
Sure. But no matter what technology is being used in a particular IT environment, it is still the same variable. Capable technicians, engineers, system architects, and administrators. Neither Proprietary nor Open Source approaches negate this.
It depends on where you expect to deploy Open Source software. The desktop is always difficult. It doesn't matter what technology you deploy - there will always be users who seem hell-bent on breaking it or making it difficult.
Now, as an infrastructure solution, you're dealing with totally different issues. Or, at least, should be (back to those variables again). And in this context... don't look now... but Open Source is already infiltrating Corporate IT.
You would be suprised. The proprietary world has just as many people who get hung up on a technology religion as the Open Source world. And they're just as dangerous to their respective IT environments.
Another bugaboo is "support". Its a nice idea. But it doesn't always pan out. I've had excellent support from some contracts. And I've had dismal support too. In fact, I recently walked in to a new environment where they are moving away from a major industry vendor to a new vendor over support issues. Putting down cash is no guarentee (at least, if you expect more than someone answering a phone).
In the end, the success of an IT operation rests on its people. These people will have to understand a technology enough to implement a workable and sustainable solution. They may need to know how to search for and read through HOWTOs. Maybe they need to know the right questions to ask the vendor's helpdesk. But in any case, they're going to have to know what they're about... or able figure it out fast.
In any case - the professional / corporate enterprise can get just as much value out of Open Source and the home use / hobbist. Assuming they have the right people.
So are you telling me that if I write my own HOWTO or publish a book on, say, Perl or Sendmail... I can expect legal action from O'Reilly? Oddly enough, O'Reilly doesn't seem to be the only publisher in the Open Source software space.
Just to clarify - are we talking business as in development? You mention "home use" and that seems to imply end-user for business use too.
I've used Open Source software on a professional bassis for several years. Its been just as successful as the occasional proprietary system. But then - I'm entirely on the end user / consultant side of the business process.
Eventually it'll come out that the Raelians' and Scientologists' belief systems were based on visits by the same alien race. Its just that the Scientologists got stuck with intergalactic Puritans. Rael's aliens? Apparently cosmic hippies out spreading free love and having a good time.