When you view Open Source as a commercial venture vs. hobbyist Open Source you begin to see the difference. Each time a company wants to start a commercial venture they have at least one big advantage - they don't have to start from scratch. Ventures, successful or not, return at least two benefits back to the community - the development improvements and experience.
Compared to closed or traditional ventures, the companies have to start from virtual scratch and when they fail most of their development and experience is either locked up in legal limbo or sold to another competitor for pennies on the dollar.
Keep in mind that what you see in Open Source applications is about the level of quality you saw around the time when Windows 95 first entered the market. Big projects like KDE and OpenOffice are just getting to the stage of development where the features are there but the usability and stability issues haven't been ironed out. From here on out the real game begins. Open Source is just starting to be taken seriously. Heck, if you would have asked even a hardcore Open Source advocate a year ago if it were likely that Wal-Mart would ever sell Linux based computers in the retail market they would have scoffed.
Sure, there are plenty of issues to be ironed out. But if every Open Source and Linux company dropped off the face of the earth tomorrow it would have negligible effect. The next wave of developers would pick up the pieces and move on. Can't say the same for Microsoft or Lotus. Their products would die and users would be left high and dry.
FACT: most successful business ventures make no profit for at least the first two years.
What makes you think Open source companies are any different? We should be shocked if any succeed given the number of market and institutional impediments they face.
It took at least two hundred years for the existing business model to develop. Expect it to take more than a few years for a new model to take hold. The inroads Open Source has mode so far are nothing short of phenomenal.
Even Microsoft is starting to see the writing on the wall. Software as a retail item is an all but dead model. that is why they are pushing for a service based model. That is why they see Open Source as such a threat. I've said it before and I'll say it again,"What happens when Open Source matches commercial quality and usability? What happens when software becomes a commodity?". My answer is that you have to sell the service. You will still need someone to install, maintain, customize and use the software. For most, the software is the tool. Like a hammer to build a house.
Reading Dr. Wallace's opinion of the current academic establishment reminds me all too much of my own dissatisfaction with the entire education system. Wonder if something along the lines of an Open Source Research Funding initiative is warranted? I only mention this because Open Source seems to be the answer to many of the woes of the software industry. Might it not also solve some of the problems of academia? Drive the money and research dollars from those of the public who are interested in an area to those who wish to do the research in that area. As a side effect it could also have an impact on who gets the recognition and eventually who are put in positions of influence.
New DEV IDE, writing COM (oops!).NET components. Maybe switching to C# instead of VBScript, configuring the servers, new features, etc. When a three day intro course for ASP.NET runs $1000+ it becomes cost prohibitive.
This may be more true than people realize. Even RedHat has implemented it with Up2Date that ties platform and user data to services.
Most Open Source advocates point to a business model that is largly service based. Software for free but support for pay. Much of the traditional software business, especially retail, has been anonymous. Buy the software and run it. This shift will inevitably result in pushing "trust" issues and maintaining customer profiles.
So the next step (talk to Oracle, Sun, MS and Even RedHat) will be distributed services. All you get is services. The only problem is the whole "trust" issue. Who do you trust with your personal data? Your corporate information? Add to this the whole.BOMB wave and you create a really big impediment. What if your accounting service provider goes under? What if your medical data service provider goes under? No easy answers here.
So for now we remain at status quo. People and companies store their own data and slowly migrate to distributed applications. But the real question is, how do companies trying to exist on the old business model of "pay for software" model survive in a market of free software?
As a consumer who is happy with that status quo, I could care less. I say free beer for everyone. It's a dog-eat-dog corporate world and only the innovative will survive. Give me a reason to spend more money and put my personal or business data at risk.
Even if.NET is a step forward, many business probably face the same problems our company and customers are facing. With all the belt tightening going around, implementing a new platform and retraining a bunch of employees is just out of the question.
IMHO the letter doesn't hit the mark. Since UCITA and intellectual property rights are so difficult in the first place the letter should be short, to the point and easily understandable. Not to mention that the conference is in FOUR DAYS. maybe a little late to sway opinions.
example:
TO: NCCUSL Commissioners FROM: Joe Blow RE: Discussion of UCITA on July 29, 2002 at NCCUSL Annual Conference
I am an Open Source software developer who is very concerned about the adoption of UCITA. UCITA seeks to unfairly tilt the time-tested balance in commercial law between the needs of businesses and consumers. Commercial law has weathered the test of time very well. With the advent on the computer era many special interrest groups have sucessfully lobbied to gain "special" rights for businesses that tilt the balance of Consumer Rights.
blah blah Open Source is....
blah blah here are the specific parts if UCITA that hard individuals rights and Open source business models...
Looks like one bad decision after the next. First that moronic Compaq-HP merger and then this. Horrible to see a great company brought down by stupid mangement.
Carleton S. (Carly) Fiorina is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett-Packard. Click the link to tell her what you think.
Press biscuits on bottom of a greased(Pam) 9"x14" pan until covered. Cook hamburger following directions on Taco seasoning mix. Mix in refried beans. Spread Taco meat/bean mix over biscuits. Evenly spread grated cheese over top. Cook following biscuit instructions (usually about (400-425F) or until cheese begins to bubble and turn brown.
Serve with salsa, chopped lettuce, onions, tomato, etc. Quick and easy recipe that serves at least four people.
Much of what has been done has been done to disrupt terrorist support networks. Money, training and housing. Without these the terrorists will have a much harder time. If you read detailed accounts of what terrorists went through on their way from teenager to terrorist it becomes evident that support networks were in place across the world for at least a decade.
This all sounds too familiar. Employees with skills are relegated to to the real work and be treated like crap. Meanwhile, the incompetants and backbiters are promoted into managment and oversight. I call this the "turds float" theory.
People wouldn't be so paranoid if this were being discussed more as an option and not somthing hardwired into future hardware and OS versions.
I'll decide what I consider acceptable risk. I've been working with computers for 18 years and havn't had anything I couldn't handle. In fact every problem I have had was a issue with a security hole in a Microsoft product. Now Microsoft is pushing that the only solution is to give somone else the power to monkey with my computer and decide what I can store/run on my hard drive. Get real.
Sure it won't stop those who already have IDs, but it may catch the next wave of attackers. Congress is also trying to pass a uniform standard for driver's licenses. Probably along the same line as the new passports (embedded computer chip, digital watermarks,etc). We've been caught with our pants down but you have to pick some point to attempt to stop the next attack.
Case in point: Six months ago I was handed a printed copy of our family that was to be published by my late uncle. About 1500 pages of history and geneology. After using a scanner and OCR to get the raw text I used Regular Expressions to:
1) Identify heirarchical relationships that were only denoted by standard oldered list types (1,1a,2,2a,3, I, II, etc). 2) Insert html markup to reproduce proper highlighting for names and indented lists. 3) Generate internal HTML links between individuals, their unique GEDCOM (LDS Geneology)number within the document. 4) Build an index for chapters and an appendix to link from name, sorted bu surname back into the main document. 5) Add special markup for converting the end HTML into indexed and linked PDF using HTMLDoc.
Time to complete the job -2 Weeks. Without the use of Regular expression this task would have been alsmost impossible and all my Uncle's work he did to put the information together for the last two years of his life would have been lost.
Personally I'm glad to see Apple seems to have broken the MHZ VooDoo madness. With a CPU at 800MHZ and the new Intel processors at 2200+ MHZ it would have been a big issue in the past. Either Apple has done a good job of sidestepping the issue, people are happy with current speeds or a little of both. Maybe a little more development will be put into other areas that have a bigger impact on user experience and system performance.
Slashdot Mirror
Escher psychic factorization.
When you view Open Source as a commercial venture vs. hobbyist Open Source you begin to see the difference. Each time a company wants to start a commercial venture they have at least one big advantage - they don't have to start from scratch. Ventures, successful or not, return at least two benefits back to the community - the development improvements and experience.
Compared to closed or traditional ventures, the companies have to start from virtual scratch and when they fail most of their development and experience is either locked up in legal limbo or sold to another competitor for pennies on the dollar.
Keep in mind that what you see in Open Source applications is about the level of quality you saw around the time when Windows 95 first entered the market. Big projects like KDE and OpenOffice are just getting to the stage of development where the features are there but the usability and stability issues haven't been ironed out. From here on out the real game begins. Open Source is just starting to be taken seriously. Heck, if you would have asked even a hardcore Open Source advocate a year ago if it were likely that Wal-Mart would ever sell Linux based computers in the retail market they would have scoffed.
Sure, there are plenty of issues to be ironed out. But if every Open Source and Linux company dropped off the face of the earth tomorrow it would have negligible effect. The next wave of developers would pick up the pieces and move on. Can't say the same for Microsoft or Lotus. Their products would die and users would be left high and dry.
What makes you think Open source companies are any different? We should be shocked if any succeed given the number of market and institutional impediments they face.
It took at least two hundred years for the existing business model to develop. Expect it to take more than a few years for a new model to take hold. The inroads Open Source has mode so far are nothing short of phenomenal.
Even Microsoft is starting to see the writing on the wall. Software as a retail item is an all but dead model. that is why they are pushing for a service based model. That is why they see Open Source as such a threat. I've said it before and I'll say it again,"What happens when Open Source matches commercial quality and usability? What happens when software becomes a commodity?". My answer is that you have to sell the service. You will still need someone to install, maintain, customize and use the software. For most, the software is the tool. Like a hammer to build a house.
Reading Dr. Wallace's opinion of the current academic establishment reminds me all too much of my own dissatisfaction with the entire education system. Wonder if something along the lines of an Open Source Research Funding initiative is warranted? I only mention this because Open Source seems to be the answer to many of the woes of the software industry. Might it not also solve some of the problems of academia? Drive the money and research dollars from those of the public who are interested in an area to those who wish to do the research in that area. As a side effect it could also have an impact on who gets the recognition and eventually who are put in positions of influence.
Maybe the purpose of the weapon is to pop large quantities of popcorn to distract enemy soldiers.
New DEV IDE, writing COM (oops!) .NET components. Maybe switching to C# instead of VBScript, configuring the servers, new features, etc. When a three day intro course for ASP.NET runs $1000+ it becomes cost prohibitive.
This may be more true than people realize. Even RedHat has implemented it with Up2Date that ties platform and user data to services.
.BOMB wave and you create a really big impediment. What if your accounting service provider goes under? What if your medical data service provider goes under? No easy answers here.
Most Open Source advocates point to a business model that is largly service based. Software for free but support for pay. Much of the traditional software business, especially retail, has been anonymous. Buy the software and run it. This shift will inevitably result in pushing "trust" issues and maintaining customer profiles.
So the next step (talk to Oracle, Sun, MS and Even RedHat) will be distributed services. All you get is services. The only problem is the whole "trust" issue. Who do you trust with your personal data? Your corporate information? Add to this the whole
So for now we remain at status quo. People and companies store their own data and slowly migrate to distributed applications. But the real question is, how do companies trying to exist on the old business model of "pay for software" model survive in a market of free software?
As a consumer who is happy with that status quo, I could care less. I say free beer for everyone. It's a dog-eat-dog corporate world and only the innovative will survive. Give me a reason to spend more money and put my personal or business data at risk.
What web sites have converted? Could you give a few examples?
Even if .NET is a step forward, many business probably face the same problems our company and customers are facing. With all the belt tightening going around, implementing a new platform and retraining a bunch of employees is just out of the question.
example:
Carleton S. (Carly) Fiorina is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett-Packard. Click the link to tell her what you think.
Gotta be at least one story like this.
Ingredients:
1/2 to 1 lb Ground beef
1 Can Refried Beans
2 Rolls Instant Biscuits (them flaky ones rock!)
1 Packet Taco Seasoning (Ortega)
4 cups graded Cheddar Cheese
Press biscuits on bottom of a greased(Pam) 9"x14" pan until covered. Cook hamburger following directions on Taco seasoning mix. Mix in refried beans. Spread Taco meat/bean mix over biscuits. Evenly spread grated cheese over top. Cook following biscuit instructions (usually about (400-425F) or until cheese begins to bubble and turn brown.
Serve with salsa, chopped lettuce, onions, tomato, etc. Quick and easy recipe that serves at least four people.
"Open Source" is also a term used in the US intellegence community to refer to publicly available information (news, journals, speeches, etc.)
The Turds Float theory doen't make the assumption that the employee was ever competant at any level.
Much of what has been done has been done to disrupt terrorist support networks. Money, training and housing. Without these the terrorists will have a much harder time. If you read detailed accounts of what terrorists went through on their way from teenager to terrorist it becomes evident that support networks were in place across the world for at least a decade.
With extra power comes extra responsability.
This all sounds too familiar. Employees with skills are relegated to to the real work and be treated like crap. Meanwhile, the incompetants and backbiters are promoted into managment and oversight. I call this the "turds float" theory.
Sad to see even h4x0rZ can't avoid it.
People wouldn't be so paranoid if this were being discussed more as an option and not somthing hardwired into future hardware and OS versions.
I'll decide what I consider acceptable risk. I've been working with computers for 18 years and havn't had anything I couldn't handle. In fact every problem I have had was a issue with a security hole in a Microsoft product. Now Microsoft is pushing that the only solution is to give somone else the power to monkey with my computer and decide what I can store/run on my hard drive. Get real.
Sure it won't stop those who already have IDs, but it may catch the next wave of attackers. Congress is also trying to pass a uniform standard for driver's licenses. Probably along the same line as the new passports (embedded computer chip, digital watermarks ,etc). We've been caught with our pants down but you have to pick some point to attempt to stop the next attack.
All my graphics are ".jpg" files.
Case in point: Six months ago I was handed a printed copy of our family that was to be published by my late uncle. About 1500 pages of history and geneology. After using a scanner and OCR to get the raw text I used Regular Expressions to:
1) Identify heirarchical relationships that were only denoted by standard oldered list types (1,1a,2,2a,3, I, II, etc).
2) Insert html markup to reproduce proper highlighting for names and indented lists.
3) Generate internal HTML links between individuals, their unique GEDCOM (LDS Geneology)number within the document.
4) Build an index for chapters and an appendix to link from name, sorted bu surname back into the main document.
5) Add special markup for converting the end HTML into indexed and linked PDF using HTMLDoc.
Time to complete the job -2 Weeks. Without the use of Regular expression this task would have been alsmost impossible and all my Uncle's work he did to put the information together for the last two years of his life would have been lost.
Amazon has slipped the shipping date twice. I don't know about you, but this book is definitly a "Must Have".
Personally I'm glad to see Apple seems to have broken the MHZ VooDoo madness. With a CPU at 800MHZ and the new Intel processors at 2200+ MHZ it would have been a big issue in the past. Either Apple has done a good job of sidestepping the issue, people are happy with current speeds or a little of both. Maybe a little more development will be put into other areas that have a bigger impact on user experience and system performance.
At some point you need to develop instead of monkey around with the source code control tool.