Did you even read the article (speech)? Or did you just see a chance to make an anti-geek comment? The article was an illogical rant. It reads like an stoned 14 year old was trying to impress someone by mixing lots of interesing words together.
Trying to follow the flow was a challenge, add in the terrible content and you have a true piece of shit.
It has nothing todo with "whiney geeks", I know lots of geeks who are dying for good contrarian view article (see: here), but the article there is not good, it is horrible.
Thank god it wasn't just me -- it was the dumbest thing I have seen in some time. I hope people don't tie this jackass to open-source in any way, shape or form.
Today, the father of Timothy of Slashdot fame was arrested when his son finally turned on him with a bold and public statement about his fathers criminal past and present.
Supportors of the DMCA where quoted as saying "We are very happy a public supporter of the DMCA has finally come forward from the slashdot crew movement"
Q:First, what do I do when someone submits a patch that violates my 'mission'? Should I try to be democratic about it and try to add it? Should I ignore it? What should I say to the contributor?
A: First of all, you explain what features you want in your HACKING file, and if they contribute something that you are not ready for, put it on the back burner. If they submit a patch you will NEVER be ready for, tell them that isn't what this project is about, it is YOUR project, they are welcome to have their own project.
Q: What if I get a patch that I don't understand? Perhaps it is garbage. Perhaps it is over my head and too complex for me to see how I can integrate it and still see the structure of my whole project.
A: It is your project, you ask for a detailed explanation of what it does, and advice for getting it integrated, or, if you just don't like it, don't integrate it, they can start their own project.
Q: What if someone gets angry and decides to fork the project? Under GPL, they would have the right to do this, but the excess competition could be unbeneficial when it would have been better for the contributor to wait for me to be ready for their suggestions at a later time.
A: Forks are not negative, don't put them in that light, forks are a natural occurance when two people have different goals. It doesn't hurt your project, it allows people who have simlilar goals with you to work on your project, and people who have similar goals with the other project to work on it. If you program isn't scratching my itch, I am not going to work on it anyway, so don't feel like you lost me, someone else just gained me. You can't assume competetion, if the projects are different enough to generate a fork, they are different enough to get different types of developers with different goals.
Someone might point out that a large part of the C++ Spec still has not be implemented in ANY compilers. It is easier to add features to a spec via ANSI committess, than to add it to the compiler. These
This becomes more of an issue with printers that just have a direct ethernet jacks. Also, a scary fact is lots of them have default administrative modes that allow crackers to literally just telnet too them and type in a password. Printers are becoming a security issue at many places, I would love to see some intelligent feedback in this thread.
Your network is only as good as the weakest link.:(
I think Lindows has a chance if it does just a few things right.
#1) Integrated control panel with major services support. This is the key to give people a feeling of "control" over their own system. You should be able to:
Change your resolution
Maintain users
Setup quotes
Setup apache
Setup ssh access
... much more...
in short, maintain your system settings
#2) Install/Update applications (I think they are focusing on this part), most importantly linux ones. This has to be easy.
#3) Don't focus too strongly on windows compatibility, it is a counter-motivation. I am a developer, and I would never develop native linux application if I knew that I could develop a windows one, and it would work via wine in linux. It removes the motivation to create native applications. This was one of the things that helped killed OS/2. OS/2 could run windows binaries, so developers never learned to use the great tools of OS/2, they just built windows binaries and tested them against OS/2.
#4) General polish, the overall look/feel and tightness of the system.
#5) Fonts... I can't tell you how many times I have heard an uproar over the ugly fonts used on linux, this _is_ a big deal to end users.
#6) Special settings for laptops (reduce bootup time, fatter fonts, hibernation, power-saving mode).
Now, that is a bunch of stuff I would like done, but realistically if they got 1 and 2 done, they would be WELL ahead in the game.
The solution presented in the parent post is the correct one. Documentation is fine and dandy, but it doesn't come close to experience. Great thing about rotating primes is that the "true blue expert" is still around, but he is off learning something new too. Everyone puts their ego on hold and pitches in to help. This will generate well rounded techs that can handle a broader array of issues, as a group and independantly.
The article misses a basic concept. People LIKE THE SOFTWARE that they are using. That explains why they are not suing en-masse for stuff like the "I Love You" virus. That explains why they are still demanding more and more features.
The day they create a law for software development, and the pace of the industry slows, there will be an OUTCRY among customers that they want new feature XYZ. Customers will get the law repealed so they can have the new buggy feature.
Customers have made a decision with their check books, they have decided that buggy software with lots of features and security holes is more important than secure/stable software.
Just like the drug problem, this is a DEMAND issue, not a SUPPLY issue. Cutting off/regulating the SUPPLY of crappy software isn't the answer you have to educate consumers so they know why they should want stable/secure software. If you cut off the supply, people will start buying software with the features they want (on the timeline they want) online from places that are not limitted by these laws/regulations.
It is about getting the job done. Lets point out a few things...
#1. You are on your employers hardware.
#2. You are on your employers time.
#3. It has been found you have no rights to privacy on your employers computers when the above two items are noted. You do, on the other hand, have a degree of privacy expected in phone conversations (but specifically NONE in email)
#4. Vnc (or similar) can massively assist in administration of a network.
#5. All users should be made aware of the above items, and know that they can be monitored, it is a way of reminding them they are HERE TO WORK and not to read dilbert (or slashdot) all day.
Notice I didn't put forth that screening everyones email is a good idea, I didn't put forth using a monitoring tool that lets you record EVERYTHING your users ever do. Having VNC on machines is a small step in the right direction, users have TOO MUCH power in most networks, and this cripples the admin and stops him from doing his job. Balance is the key, and most networks are unbalanced currently.
If you see a virus rip thru an internal network, you are probably someplace where the users have too much power. Users are not knowledgable enough to make many decisions, the welfare of the network and individual computers is the responsibility of the administer, with these two factors in mind, it is not that unresonable to put a simple program like VNC on their machine. Many admins belive it is not unresonable to monitor EVERY EMPLOYEE, ALL THE TIME... and more and more software comes out everyday to support them in their goals. Software to read emails (including web based) is coming out everyday.
My only request is that we draw a line between resonable (vnc) and unresonable (monitoring every single action on a PC)... because if we lump them together, and one is as bad as the other, everyone will go for MORE rather than less.
Beyond the fun "fear" factor, this is the proper way todo things. If you combine it with a few other things (roaming profiles, imap server, auto-relocation of My Documents to server location). It is a really good thing, and you will be able to keep your workplace running and stable.
Also, I recommend you put tightVNC on the machines, set it so that it can only be connected to from your IP address (registry setting), and you now have remote control (or viewing) of your entire network. Show this to your boss, he will be impressed, show it to the employees, they will be afraid.
If that isn't enough control, I also recommend you setup a squid proxy for outgoing connections so you can monitor and cache web data.
One thing to take note of (in reference to the above message in this thread) -- only ghost machines with the same exact hardware!
I agree entirely with the above post, and, our IT department uses a wiki every single day, it has brought our group together and has become the knowledge center.
Features you really want in a Wiki/Weblog
Revision History
Login
Upload
Data/Article Connections
Everyone can participate
Recommendations for getting it in use
Seed the database with the data you control
Create some good "general" pages like PhoneBook, SoftWare, Documents, ToDo, ScratchBoard, SandBox
Put software and shared apps in it
Put backgrounds or other goofy stuff related to your company up
Let it be known it is an open-forum and EVERYONE is welcome to edit EVERYTHING.
My company personally uses OpenWiki backed by Microsoft SQL 2000 (you can leave it with the default of a Jet 4.0 database).
What I did to jumpstart usage is started a few good wiki pages, such as PhoneBook and SoftWare. Places where we could keep track of phone numbers, and upload all the software we deploy around.
That was about 2 months ago, and it started with around 10 pages, it is now well above 500 pages, and growing everyday. And many of the pages are long (50+ pages printed out) full of great documentation.
Long ago, I used php on a very small project, and it worked wonderfully (due to the utter simplicity of the project).
Since then, I have not touched it, due to immature error handling, terrible objects and inconsistancies between functions and methods.
It seems that this version (based on the Code Samples) has fixed most everything I once hated, and that I might get to use php in a production enviroment sometime soon.
Most important things to me are try/catch and destructors.
"very little ability to get paid" my ass. That is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. Most business is not B2C (Business to Consumer) -- a ton of business is B2B (Business to Business). A simple thing will happen, the "preformer" will be unable to "make money" with crappy material, he will barter a deal with the "composer" (probably for a percentage of the take) and they will both be happy. Remember, if either one is crap it doesn't work. The idea that because someone can't sell something directly to the consumer, they can't make money. Hell, I would bet the "composer" would actually be better off, because he can sell his work to multiple artists and better he chances, and can simply choose to "ride the highest wave" once it gets to decision making time.
I have setup a general access lab using linux and LTSP, but it was only for 16 highschool students, so I am not sure how relevant to your quest. I would recommend looking for studies regarding LTSP.
Thank you for saying it. Cliff is on crack with these postings. I have a theory that these are all problems Cliff is personally having, and he is using us as his personal help desk staff.
I just dropped XML as an option, and the reason for I used it is ease of development. It is MUCH easier to parse an XML document when compared to most other formats, and this is by design. XML has strict rules on structure and so forth.
Using XML would reduce the barrier to entry, so that if I want to write a parser that would read a doc file, I could grab an nice XML parsing function (or object) and get the the data I need, then it would be my responsibility to display it as the user expects.
Currently half the battle is just KNOWING where stuff is stored, how to read it, and do it without screwing up the document, and then you have to know how to RE-save it without screwing up the document. XML would make this ALOT easier.
Today, Staroffice can read doc files (thru ALOT of work, and it still gets alot of them wrong) and if Sun wanted to, they could make it look totally different than the document you wrote in word [just like your silly xhtml example], so I do not see how your argument even relates to XML... XML would make working with the file format easier, nothing else, yet, that SINGLE thing would massively lower the entry cost for working with MS file formats.
Fair and important point, I believe that the government should put a requirement on those who sell them software that the file formats are open. They are one of the few (possibly the only) customer(s) who can make such a demand.
I think the true "key to the kingdom" is in the file formats. People are scared to break away from MS file formats more than anything, they are a powerful force in keeping MS in a dominate position.
If the formats where standardized (in lets say XML) it would greatly reduce EVERYONES dependacy on MS.
The government has an even greater reason to fear MS file formats. That reason is REALLY OLD DATA. The government needs to be able to work with extremely old file formats, and if that file format is not standard and has simply been "retired" by a company (MS) they are shit out of luck, and will end up making another company you rich for converting those "Word 2000" docs to "BobbySoft QuickEdit 2035".
My answer to your question is: "you are going about it all wrong" -- if you really want to be a game developer, here are some facts and tips
Facts
When looking to break into an existing industry with a new company, you should not even bother trying until you have worked for at least one of the players in that market.
Game coders are known for being very smart, very hard working, and very underpaid. This is a simple market reality because:
Many developers want to be game programmers
Most games are flops and never make back the money they put into development
Tips
Start getting in on public betas and tests of games you like
Be a very active participant in the discussions and bug reporting
Make yourself personally accessable to the game developers
Someday, if you are lucky, you might get a shot at being an actual game coder, and if you are really lucky, that game might be a success! (A friend of mine slid into a development position at DAOC, but she had 10+ years experience coding, was a early tester of DAOC, lived in the area, and made herself extremely involved in testing and feedback, and had to take a massive pay cut to join the team).
After you get this successful game under your belt, and you have a clue how the industry, the work enviroment, and the distribution work, then you can rethink this entire concept of an "open-source game" -- and if you decide todo it at that point, at least you will have a god-damn clue .
I do not intend to be harsh or mean, but the game market is really brutal, and from what I have heard, really fun to be involved in, so I wish you the best of luck. Perhaps you could use an individually completed open-source game as a resume point.
Slashdot Mirror
EGO! check out this -> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/15/004324 7&mode=nested&tid=126
Did you even read the article (speech)? Or did you just see a chance to make an anti-geek comment? The article was an illogical rant. It reads like an stoned 14 year old was trying to impress someone by mixing lots of interesing words together.
Trying to follow the flow was a challenge, add in the terrible content and you have a true piece of shit.
It has nothing todo with "whiney geeks", I know lots of geeks who are dying for good contrarian view article (see: here), but the article there is not good, it is horrible.
Thank god it wasn't just me -- it was the dumbest thing I have seen in some time. I hope people don't tie this jackass to open-source in any way, shape or form.
I swear the word "movement" typed itself.. sorry about that :)
Today, the father of Timothy of Slashdot fame was arrested when his son finally turned on him with a bold and public statement about his fathers criminal past and present.
:)
Supportors of the DMCA where quoted as saying "We are very happy a public supporter of the DMCA has finally come forward from the slashdot crew movement"
Why isn't this common sense is my question. This is such a basic concept. Do we create locks and make it a crime for even the home owner to test them?
This issue has reached silly levels, and there is no one willing to step up and point out how stupid it is. It is a frustrating day.
(if this doesn't show) that the goddamn patent system has broken down when it comes to IP Law and current in use technology, I don't know what will...
Sad.
-- Robert
please excuse speling and gramar
Someone might point out that a large part of the C++ Spec still has not be implemented in ANY compilers. It is easier to add features to a spec via ANSI committess, than to add it to the compiler. These
:)
This becomes more of an issue with printers that just have a direct ethernet jacks. Also, a scary fact is lots of them have default administrative modes that allow crackers to literally just telnet too them and type in a password. Printers are becoming a security issue at many places, I would love to see some intelligent feedback in this thread.
:(
Your network is only as good as the weakest link.
Now, that is a bunch of stuff I would like done, but realistically if they got 1 and 2 done, they would be WELL ahead in the game.
The solution presented in the parent post is the correct one. Documentation is fine and dandy, but it doesn't come close to experience. Great thing about rotating primes is that the "true blue expert" is still around, but he is off learning something new too. Everyone puts their ego on hold and pitches in to help. This will generate well rounded techs that can handle a broader array of issues, as a group and independantly.
The article misses a basic concept. People LIKE THE SOFTWARE that they are using. That explains why they are not suing en-masse for stuff like the "I Love You" virus. That explains why they are still demanding more and more features.
The day they create a law for software development, and the pace of the industry slows, there will be an OUTCRY among customers that they want new feature XYZ. Customers will get the law repealed so they can have the new buggy feature.
Customers have made a decision with their check books, they have decided that buggy software with lots of features and security holes is more important than secure/stable software.
Just like the drug problem, this is a DEMAND issue, not a SUPPLY issue. Cutting off/regulating the SUPPLY of crappy software isn't the answer you have to educate consumers so they know why they should want stable/secure software. If you cut off the supply, people will start buying software with the features they want (on the timeline they want) online from places that are not limitted by these laws/regulations.
Notice I didn't put forth that screening everyones email is a good idea, I didn't put forth using a monitoring tool that lets you record EVERYTHING your users ever do. Having VNC on machines is a small step in the right direction, users have TOO MUCH power in most networks, and this cripples the admin and stops him from doing his job. Balance is the key, and most networks are unbalanced currently.
If you see a virus rip thru an internal network, you are probably someplace where the users have too much power. Users are not knowledgable enough to make many decisions, the welfare of the network and individual computers is the responsibility of the administer, with these two factors in mind, it is not that unresonable to put a simple program like VNC on their machine. Many admins belive it is not unresonable to monitor EVERY EMPLOYEE, ALL THE TIME... and more and more software comes out everyday to support them in their goals. Software to read emails (including web based) is coming out everyday.
My only request is that we draw a line between resonable (vnc) and unresonable (monitoring every single action on a PC)
Beyond the fun "fear" factor, this is the proper way todo things. If you combine it with a few other things (roaming profiles, imap server, auto-relocation of My Documents to server location). It is a really good thing, and you will be able to keep your workplace running and stable.
Also, I recommend you put tightVNC on the machines, set it so that it can only be connected to from your IP address (registry setting), and you now have remote control (or viewing) of your entire network. Show this to your boss, he will be impressed, show it to the employees, they will be afraid.
If that isn't enough control, I also recommend you setup a squid proxy for outgoing connections so you can monitor and cache web data.
One thing to take note of (in reference to the above message in this thread) -- only ghost machines with the same exact hardware!
Features you really want in a Wiki/Weblog
Recommendations for getting it in use
My company personally uses OpenWiki backed by Microsoft SQL 2000 (you can leave it with the default of a Jet 4.0 database).
What I did to jumpstart usage is started a few good wiki pages, such as PhoneBook and SoftWare. Places where we could keep track of phone numbers, and upload all the software we deploy around.
That was about 2 months ago, and it started with around 10 pages, it is now well above 500 pages, and growing everyday. And many of the pages are long (50+ pages printed out) full of great documentation.
Long ago, I used php on a very small project, and it worked wonderfully (due to the utter simplicity of the project).
Since then, I have not touched it, due to immature error handling, terrible objects and inconsistancies between functions and methods.
It seems that this version (based on the Code Samples) has fixed most everything I once hated, and that I might get to use php in a production enviroment sometime soon.
Most important things to me are try/catch and destructors.
"very little ability to get paid" my ass. That is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. Most business is not B2C (Business to Consumer) -- a ton of business is B2B (Business to Business). A simple thing will happen, the "preformer" will be unable to "make money" with crappy material, he will barter a deal with the "composer" (probably for a percentage of the take) and they will both be happy. Remember, if either one is crap it doesn't work. The idea that because someone can't sell something directly to the consumer, they can't make money. Hell, I would bet the "composer" would actually be better off, because he can sell his work to multiple artists and better he chances, and can simply choose to "ride the highest wave" once it gets to decision making time.
I have setup a general access lab using linux and LTSP, but it was only for 16 highschool students, so I am not sure how relevant to your quest. I would recommend looking for studies regarding LTSP.
I am currently taking time (measured in seconds) until total slashdot meltdown of the poor little ipaq.
Thank you for saying it. Cliff is on crack with these postings. I have a theory that these are all problems Cliff is personally having, and he is using us as his personal help desk staff.
* For the clueless, the last sentence was a joke.
I just dropped XML as an option, and the reason for I used it is ease of development. It is MUCH easier to parse an XML document when compared to most other formats, and this is by design. XML has strict rules on structure and so forth.
Using XML would reduce the barrier to entry, so that if I want to write a parser that would read a doc file, I could grab an nice XML parsing function (or object) and get the the data I need, then it would be my responsibility to display it as the user expects.
Currently half the battle is just KNOWING where stuff is stored, how to read it, and do it without screwing up the document, and then you have to know how to RE-save it without screwing up the document. XML would make this ALOT easier.
Today, Staroffice can read doc files (thru ALOT of work, and it still gets alot of them wrong) and if Sun wanted to, they could make it look totally different than the document you wrote in word [just like your silly xhtml example], so I do not see how your argument even relates to XML... XML would make working with the file format easier, nothing else, yet, that SINGLE thing would massively lower the entry cost for working with MS file formats.
Fair and important point, I believe that the government should put a requirement on those who sell them software that the file formats are open. They are one of the few (possibly the only) customer(s) who can make such a demand.
I think the true "key to the kingdom" is in the file formats. People are scared to break away from MS file formats more than anything, they are a powerful force in keeping MS in a dominate position.
If the formats where standardized (in lets say XML) it would greatly reduce EVERYONES dependacy on MS.
The government has an even greater reason to fear MS file formats. That reason is REALLY OLD DATA. The government needs to be able to work with extremely old file formats, and if that file format is not standard and has simply been "retired" by a company (MS) they are shit out of luck, and will end up making another company you rich for converting those "Word 2000" docs to "BobbySoft QuickEdit 2035".
- Tips
- Start getting in on public betas and tests of games you like
- Be a very active participant in the discussions and bug reporting
- Make yourself personally accessable to the game developers
Someday, if you are lucky, you might get a shot at being an actual game coder, and if you are really lucky, that game might be a success! (A friend of mine slid into a development position at DAOC, but she had 10+ years experience coding, was a early tester of DAOC, lived in the area, and made herself extremely involved in testing and feedback, and had to take a massive pay cut to join the team).After you get this successful game under your belt, and you have a clue how the industry, the work enviroment, and the distribution work, then you can rethink this entire concept of an "open-source game" -- and if you decide todo it at that point, at least you will have a god-damn clue .
I do not intend to be harsh or mean, but the game market is really brutal, and from what I have heard, really fun to be involved in, so I wish you the best of luck. Perhaps you could use an individually completed open-source game as a resume point.