This isn't necessarily true. Decent Sun computers go from about $500 used up to, well, imagine a really big number.
I'm not making up that $500 number either. I just saw an Ultra 30 special for that much (250MHz CPU, 36GB UltraSCSI storage, 256MB RAM, accel 2D graphics). A Solaris license would be required, but even those are cheap (or free). This sort of workstation would do just fine hosting a small to moderate database.
$500 isn't the cheapest, either, since the older 32-bit Sun workstations easily sell for only a few hundred dollars or less used now-a-days.
One of the added benefits of Solaris: Sun is perfectly happy to stay off your back, if you want them to. Their automatic monitoring features are "opt-in" (e.g., service agreements). What a concept.
You forgot to mention how Word tables scale. It doesn't take long before I can type much faster than the caracters are printed to the screen in Word. I'm also a crappy typist, as 40 WPM is the best I ever did (most of the time I'm much worse).
Working with Word gives me the impression that they either have some really bad algorithms in there or they are trying to do way too much work on-the-fly. Sure, all the bells and whistles can look cool for a while, but it really gets to be a PITA for anything non-trivial.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that Word's output is pretty damn ugly compared to TeX or Framemaker. I saw a Calculus textbook that was written in Word, and I strongly felt sorry for the author who had put so much time into writing it. TeX-based textbooks, especially math ones, are beautiful in comparison.
In my experience, they cease being robust the moment they encounter a file or directory name with a space in it.
Yes, spaces in file names tend to break scripts for a number of reasons. My favorite is when the files are used as the list in a "for" loop, and the loop tries an iteration for each part of the filenames. The problem is that the space character has special meaning in shell scripts, which simply makes using spaces in file names a bad practice. Similarly, using '"', '#', '&', '*', '$', '|', '`', and ''' in filenames is just not wise. Throw regular expressions into the mix, and even more characters can get in the way. This is why thorough testing is just as important for shell scripts as programs written in other languages.
Just for completeness, shell scripts aren't alone with regard to this problem. Pretty much every programming language that uses ordinary characters as metacharacters, such as '"' and ';', are in the same boat.
In our discussion, he still wasn't listening with a serious attitude... until he asked if we could buy it... and when I said "yes", then the lightbulb went off in his simple little mind. He repeated with, "You mean, they have pricing and licenses?" I replied "YES", just to make him happy... and with that freshly learned knowledge, he now takes Red Hat seriously.
Similarly, this is why Sun chose to charge a nominal fee for StarOffice. Their potential customers just didn't like "free".
Before I try to rant about patent term lengths, does anyone know of industries that have the rapid adoption and turnover rates that software does? Perhaps there are other industries that have learned to deal with this just fine using existing patent laws?
In a way, are we spoiled because we can't have our cake today and eat it tomorrow? It seems in the traditional industries, people just wait.
When did shell scripts cease being robust? I didn't see this bit of news posted as a Slashdot article anytime recently...if it were I would have dumped UNIX in a second. My customers deserve the best, and, now, I learn that I've been living in a fantasy?!? Dammit, I'm taking the afternoon off...(sob)...
The presumption that the unspent money will be spent well is simply blind and poorly applied faith.
Given the state of the current system, I agree with you. But the current system came about after years and years of greed and abuse. If there were a history of frugality, instead, the money wouldn't be dealt out like it is today; everyone would make out as well with less money.
Even though this is purely wishful thinking, it doesn't hurt to think about it, even when there is no real hope of affecting the status quo.
I do agree with you for the most part, but I disagree with your sweeping bias against Sun, IBM, and Oracle. There are times where the elegance, consistency, and functionality of a Sun server is very worthwhile, and there are times where the raw flexibility of an Oracle database server is unquestionably justified.
In my earlier post, I was trying to point out that the costs far outweighed what was actually required for the government project in my example. However, you seem to have the opinion that all of the expensive options have equivalent cheaper options, which isn't always the case.
For example, I would not hesitate to suggest Sun equipment running Oracle, if it squarely met the needs of the customer. Sometimes two $2500 rackmount PCs just don't cut it, sometimes they do, but thay certainly cannot be applied to all cases.
In the eyes of a business (or its PHB [dilbert.com], at least), cost is seen as directly proportional to the quality of a product. This isn't just true in terms of software, but extends to all industries and products.
I agree but don't fully understand why people often default on the expensive==good mentality. One idea is that it is somehow genetically encoded into most people. How differently do people view technology from food or mates? Is the same logic used in choosing software as is used in choosing animals at a market? In other words, if it looks good and is presented well, then there must be less risk involved in choosing it, and less risk can be associated with an increased chance of mating and passing on one's genes. The aspects of human behavior driven by mating are some of the most stubborn and tend to drive people towards otherwise-irrational decisions.
...people are sometimes looking to spend more money so they use up their whole budget (otherwise they get less money next year).
From what I've seen, they just like to spend lots of money no matter what time of year.
$200,000 of software on a 2-CPU server for a *very* low-volume website? Yup, because they can use all the buzzwords and brand names in their reports, they like the important feeling when signing big purchase orders, and they forget that they are flushing public money that could be spent on painting lines on roads and buying books for school libraries.
I think truly realistic contract bids clash with the egos of those choosing the contractors. I think many people prefer saying "I'm in charge of a $3 million contract" rather than saying "I saved the city/state/country $1.7 million dollars by making conscientious purchasing decisions."
A more hierarchical naming convention may address this better. Use the coarsest parts of the name first gradually refining the file name towards the end. This is like the numbers:... + 1000's + 100's + 10's + 1's +...
The policeman's testimony does not meet the burden of proof to convict you. The burden of proof in a criminal case is "proof beyond any reasonable doubt" that you did it.
Even in cases where there isn't a jury? Being wrongly convicted of even a small crime can be damaging to a person's reputation. Imagine a highly trusted doctor or pastor being charged with marijuana possession or shoplifting based on forged reports or evidence. The evening news' bloodsucking journalists will ensure the accused's career is over before reasonable doubt is even an issue.
That policeman giving you a speeding ticket at 2 AM on a lonely road is the only witness. If you challenge the ticket in front of a judge, the judge (and jury) will consider your word and the word of the officer. The officer will appear often in front of that judge, and risks a lot if he lies...and if the judge notices any pattern which makes him suspicious of the officer.
I agree that in a healthy court environment, the police officer is inclined to not lie.
However, the situation I'm reaching for would be most likely in a small town, where the cop is the judge's brother-in-law/best man/life-long-friend. What if everyone in the court room were in on the act? I'm pretty ignorant, so I don't know how likely this would be.
I suspect this is what I would consider a "brain fart"...how would it be there to shade the beginning of life?
Just read "What about land shadowed by rocks?" and the brain fart disappears.
If it is something as simple as heat then I would think that exsisting lab expirments could have reporduced the results of self replicating organisims in the lab.
I doubt that scientists know what to mix together to even try such "lets make a bacterium" experiments. Remember, life had billions of years to work with and probably had millions of failed starts.
However, scientists can and do manufacture viruses, which are much simpler than other microorganisms. Even Mad Cow disease is just a self-replicating protein (it doesn't even reach the status of a virus).
Why don't they go a step further and just arrest every person who is found walking outside at any time? Evidence shows that most crimes involve walking outside at some point before and after the actual crime. This method would most surely take care of our nation's crime problems.
This same information would be in a policeman's notebook. "Stopped John Smith, 123 Main St, at 9th & Vine for loitering 2002-08-25 23:18"
What's to stop the police officer from making up the data? What if my car spashes some mud onto a police car just as it leaves the car wash, and the officer spots my license plate and wants to exact a small revenge. He files a report that I was seen giving a known drug dealer a small package at 123 Main St., and, by chance, my only alibi is that I was at home alone reading a book. Next thing I know, I'm being questioned about a drug deal in front of the Live TV News camera crew.
I really have no experience with courts, lawyers, judges, etc. How does an average citizen's testimony really stack up against that of a police officer, who may be lying?
The energy travels underground in a tight path, very little dispersion.
Then, the organisms nearby would be just fine, as they weren't fused into glass. Your idea about lightning killing off life before it could thrive really depends on lightning hitting every square centimeter of the Earth repeatedly over time. I think the probabilities, here, are working in the organisms' favor. Also: What about cracks in rocks energized by geothermal activity? What about the bottom of the ocean which is energized by volcanic vents? What about land shadowed by trees and rocks? What about areas of the Earth that never have thunderstorms (some deserts and arctic areas are like this)?
...programs like Mozilla are practically required. So, even surfing the web brings my 750 to it's knees.
I don't see how. I run Mozilla on an AMD K6-200 (GNOME 1.4, 128MB RAM@100MHz, 5400RPM disk, 56K modem), and Mozilla runs just fine. It takes a tolerable while to load. Once loaded, its performance is very tolerable.
The only things that tend to bring any computer to its knees are Flash, overly complex tables and mega-long web pages, Java Applets, and badly done JavaScript. Most good websites don't use these things, so surfing generally isn't a problem for me.
As we know it, yes. If I get struck by lightning, my nervous system just won't handle it. Trees tend to get shattered by lightning, as well.
But chemicals and microorganisms are different. Energy is needed for many chemical reactions to occur, and lightning is simply a source of energy (just like the Sun or volcanic vents in the ocean). Lightning could have been the random element needed to get initial life-like molecules going. Or not--I really don't know. Also, I don't see why microorganisms would necessarily be killed by lightning. The ground is a huge energy sink, and the lightning would be highly attenuated around the impact site. Some microorganisms just might enjoy an occasional strong eletric field, anyway.
I have heard of Cygwin and have used the MKS toolkit. While these do a good job of making Windows feel more like UNIX, they are another piece of 3rd-party software that must be installed to make Windows useful (from my point of view). This certainly isn't bad in small offices, but it is likely that such toolkits would be spotty in large installations.
Also, many traditional Windows users are totally numb towards such toolkits and will continue to use whatever they are used to. I learned this the hard way after writing platform-indpendent Makefiles to work with MKS Make and a couple versions of UNIX--not one Windows user used them (they just continued to use their IDEs or whatever). I have learned that no amount of quality code, documentation, and advocacy will sway people who simply don't want to learn something slightly different from what they already know.
I guess my point is that there really is a philosophical divide between Windows and UNIX. There will always be people who simply won't try nor like the alternatives, no matter how attractively they are presented. Trying to make one environment behave like the other (UNIX-like things for Windows; Windows-like things for UNIX) just doesn't always work out as well as planned.
Seriously, what platform would that be? Are you referring to Windows? What about MS Office for OS X? Or are you referring to their commitment to the Xbox? Ok, that last was a stab at MS.
The Windows operating system and Office for Windows basically make up the bulk of Microsoft's success. Their other efforts, such as games, smaller productivity apps, and Office for Mac, have already reached their markets and probably can't keep the company going in its current form if Office for Windows were to lose significant numbers of users. Their server software, such as Exchange, serves mostly to aid in Office lock-in, so if enthusiasm for Office declines, the demand for their server software will follow.
I think Linux, Mac OS X, and OpenOffice/StarOffice are hitting central nerves within Microsoft. This is good for everyone, since free markets require competition to keep going strong. For example, would Microsoft have put so much effort into making Windows 2000 stable had Linux and UNIX not been running rings around Windows NT? Would C# have been submitted to a standards organization if the Open Source movement hadn't been advocating standarization, in general, for so long? For a long time, Microsoft had created a market for many people where Windows was the only choice. Fortunately for us, Microsoft is being brought into check, and that market isn't quite as closed as it used to be.
When the markets stabilize into some new form, I think there is little chance that Microsoft will resemble what they are now. They will have much smaller profit margins and will certainly not be in a position to bully OEMs and squash smaller competitors. Then, new companies, in the spirit of Be, will be on a more level playing field with a real chance of success. I look forward to this future.
This is not trying to be a troll, but it seems there is always one more "clincher" in the movement away from MS products. IE / Office / Outlook / Photoshop you name it, but now it is Exchange.
This goes both ways, and it is a matter of what people are used to. Whenever I use Windows I think:
Where's Bourne shell??? Where's vi, sed, and egrep??? Where's UFS and NFS??? What happened to root's ability to do anything worthwhile??? How do I get GUI applications to display over the network??? How do I read a PostScript file???
I know that many of these things can be done on Windows eventually, but there is always one more thing I can't do on Windows that I'm used to doing in UNIX.
If you look at the stock price of MS and compare it to the stock price of IBM in the eighties you will probably see quite a few similarities.
There are many similaries in such cases where history repeats itself. However, IBM came out fairly well, in the long run, partly due to their ability to diversify. Microsoft, on the other hand, is just a software company with one successful platform. I think Microsoft will experience a much harder fall during the generation transfer you speak of.
Why not take time off f the useless mp3 player/id3 reader/all of the other crap and contribute to a worthwhile project?
Useless or worthwhile to whom?
Trust me, one day someone--most likely a corporation burned by Exchange--will fund the development of an Exchange replacement. These things tend to need a critical mass of outrage against the status quo before real changes begin. If Exchange is an anchor to enough organizations or just a single big enough organization, something will happen about it.
It is important to be patient about Open Source. Open Source software undergoes evolution on natural terms, not arbitrary business terms, which means it will always tend toward fufilling real needs but on a more realistic timeline.
However, I still encourage you to advocate ideas about Exchange, because public awareness is the most important weapon against companies like Microsoft and their less-than-stellar products. Just don't be disappointed in the amount of time it takes for real change to occur.
BTW a friend works at Jiffy Lube and always has interesting stories on how the boss makes him take suckers to the cleaners.
I had to take my car to Jiffy Lube for a while when I lived in an apartment. It isn't bad, as long as the customer knows how to say "No."
Unfortunately, for a lot of people, this isn't easy, so they end up with new air filters, wipers, transmission fluid, and PCV valves. Basically, quick-lube shops, dealership service shops, and some sleazy independent mechanics take ignorant people to the cleaners, which is why I'm glad I took the time to read magazines and manuals about car maintenance.
Thankfully, I have a home with a garage and tools, now. I really love not having other people getting their dirty hands into my car.
Slashdot Mirror
...Solaris boxes are rather expensive...
This isn't necessarily true. Decent Sun computers go from about $500 used up to, well, imagine a really big number.
I'm not making up that $500 number either. I just saw an Ultra 30 special for that much (250MHz CPU, 36GB UltraSCSI storage, 256MB RAM, accel 2D graphics). A Solaris license would be required, but even those are cheap (or free). This sort of workstation would do just fine hosting a small to moderate database.
$500 isn't the cheapest, either, since the older 32-bit Sun workstations easily sell for only a few hundred dollars or less used now-a-days.
One of the added benefits of Solaris: Sun is perfectly happy to stay off your back, if you want them to. Their automatic monitoring features are "opt-in" (e.g., service agreements). What a concept.
You forgot to mention how Word tables scale. It doesn't take long before I can type much faster than the caracters are printed to the screen in Word. I'm also a crappy typist, as 40 WPM is the best I ever did (most of the time I'm much worse).
Working with Word gives me the impression that they either have some really bad algorithms in there or they are trying to do way too much work on-the-fly. Sure, all the bells and whistles can look cool for a while, but it really gets to be a PITA for anything non-trivial.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that Word's output is pretty damn ugly compared to TeX or Framemaker. I saw a Calculus textbook that was written in Word, and I strongly felt sorry for the author who had put so much time into writing it. TeX-based textbooks, especially math ones, are beautiful in comparison.
In my experience, they cease being robust the moment they encounter a file or directory name with a space in it.
Yes, spaces in file names tend to break scripts for a number of reasons. My favorite is when the files are used as the list in a "for" loop, and the loop tries an iteration for each part of the filenames. The problem is that the space character has special meaning in shell scripts, which simply makes using spaces in file names a bad practice. Similarly, using '"', '#', '&', '*', '$', '|', '`', and ''' in filenames is just not wise. Throw regular expressions into the mix, and even more characters can get in the way. This is why thorough testing is just as important for shell scripts as programs written in other languages.
Just for completeness, shell scripts aren't alone with regard to this problem. Pretty much every programming language that uses ordinary characters as metacharacters, such as '"' and ';', are in the same boat.
In our discussion, he still wasn't listening with a serious attitude... until he asked if we could buy it... and when I said "yes", then the lightbulb went off in his simple little mind. He repeated with, "You mean, they have pricing and licenses?" I replied "YES", just to make him happy... and with that freshly learned knowledge, he now takes Red Hat seriously.
Similarly, this is why Sun chose to charge a nominal fee for StarOffice. Their potential customers just didn't like "free".
...or that they should have shorter terms...
Before I try to rant about patent term lengths, does anyone know of industries that have the rapid adoption and turnover rates that software does? Perhaps there are other industries that have learned to deal with this just fine using existing patent laws?
In a way, are we spoiled because we can't have our cake today and eat it tomorrow? It seems in the traditional industries, people just wait.
...with far more robustness than a shell script.
When did shell scripts cease being robust? I didn't see this bit of news posted as a Slashdot article anytime recently...if it were I would have dumped UNIX in a second. My customers deserve the best, and, now, I learn that I've been living in a fantasy?!? Dammit, I'm taking the afternoon off...(sob)...
The presumption that the unspent money will be spent well is simply blind and poorly applied faith.
Given the state of the current system, I agree with you. But the current system came about after years and years of greed and abuse. If there were a history of frugality, instead, the money wouldn't be dealt out like it is today; everyone would make out as well with less money.
Even though this is purely wishful thinking, it doesn't hurt to think about it, even when there is no real hope of affecting the status quo.
I do agree with you for the most part, but I disagree with your sweeping bias against Sun, IBM, and Oracle. There are times where the elegance, consistency, and functionality of a Sun server is very worthwhile, and there are times where the raw flexibility of an Oracle database server is unquestionably justified.
In my earlier post, I was trying to point out that the costs far outweighed what was actually required for the government project in my example. However, you seem to have the opinion that all of the expensive options have equivalent cheaper options, which isn't always the case.
For example, I would not hesitate to suggest Sun equipment running Oracle, if it squarely met the needs of the customer. Sometimes two $2500 rackmount PCs just don't cut it, sometimes they do, but thay certainly cannot be applied to all cases.
In the eyes of a business (or its PHB [dilbert.com], at least), cost is seen as directly proportional to the quality of a product. This isn't just true in terms of software, but extends to all industries and products.
I agree but don't fully understand why people often default on the expensive==good mentality. One idea is that it is somehow genetically encoded into most people. How differently do people view technology from food or mates? Is the same logic used in choosing software as is used in choosing animals at a market? In other words, if it looks good and is presented well, then there must be less risk involved in choosing it, and less risk can be associated with an increased chance of mating and passing on one's genes. The aspects of human behavior driven by mating are some of the most stubborn and tend to drive people towards otherwise-irrational decisions.
...people are sometimes looking to spend more money so they use up their whole budget (otherwise they get less money next year).
From what I've seen, they just like to spend lots of money no matter what time of year.
$200,000 of software on a 2-CPU server for a *very* low-volume website? Yup, because they can use all the buzzwords and brand names in their reports, they like the important feeling when signing big purchase orders, and they forget that they are flushing public money that could be spent on painting lines on roads and buying books for school libraries.
I think truly realistic contract bids clash with the egos of those choosing the contractors. I think many people prefer saying "I'm in charge of a $3 million contract" rather than saying "I saved the city/state/country $1.7 million dollars by making conscientious purchasing decisions."
e.g.
i pt_Final_Draft_JNeuroSci02.doc
... + 1000's + 100's + 10's + 1's + ...
c i02_Manuscript_Draft_Final.doc
Manuscript_First_Draft_JNeuroSci02.doc
Manuscr
become:
Manuscript_F...i02.doc
Mansucript_F...i02.doc
A more hierarchical naming convention may address this better. Use the coarsest parts of the name first gradually refining the file name towards the end. This is like the numbers:
For example, ranking by class first might help:
JNeuroSci02_Manuscript_Draft_First.doc
JNeuroS
This leaves the most volatile part of the name at the end making distinguishing the versions easier.
Obviously you have no experience with the law...
This is a pretty accurate assessment.
The policeman's testimony does not meet the burden of proof to convict you. The burden of proof in a criminal case is "proof beyond any reasonable doubt" that you did it.
Even in cases where there isn't a jury? Being wrongly convicted of even a small crime can be damaging to a person's reputation. Imagine a highly trusted doctor or pastor being charged with marijuana possession or shoplifting based on forged reports or evidence. The evening news' bloodsucking journalists will ensure the accused's career is over before reasonable doubt is even an issue.
That policeman giving you a speeding ticket at 2 AM on a lonely road is the only witness. If you challenge the ticket in front of a judge, the judge (and jury) will consider your word and the word of the officer. The officer will appear often in front of that judge, and risks a lot if he lies...and if the judge notices any pattern which makes him suspicious of the officer.
I agree that in a healthy court environment, the police officer is inclined to not lie.
However, the situation I'm reaching for would be most likely in a small town, where the cop is the judge's brother-in-law/best man/life-long-friend. What if everyone in the court room were in on the act? I'm pretty ignorant, so I don't know how likely this would be.
I suspect this is what I would consider a "brain fart"...how would it be there to shade the beginning of life?
Just read "What about land shadowed by rocks?" and the brain fart disappears.
If it is something as simple as heat then I would think that exsisting lab expirments could have reporduced the results of self replicating organisims in the lab.
I doubt that scientists know what to mix together to even try such "lets make a bacterium" experiments. Remember, life had billions of years to work with and probably had millions of failed starts.
However, scientists can and do manufacture viruses, which are much simpler than other microorganisms. Even Mad Cow disease is just a self-replicating protein (it doesn't even reach the status of a virus).
Why don't they go a step further and just arrest every person who is found walking outside at any time? Evidence shows that most crimes involve walking outside at some point before and after the actual crime. This method would most surely take care of our nation's crime problems.
This same information would be in a policeman's notebook. "Stopped John Smith, 123 Main St, at 9th & Vine for loitering 2002-08-25 23:18"
What's to stop the police officer from making up the data? What if my car spashes some mud onto a police car just as it leaves the car wash, and the officer spots my license plate and wants to exact a small revenge. He files a report that I was seen giving a known drug dealer a small package at 123 Main St., and, by chance, my only alibi is that I was at home alone reading a book.
Next thing I know, I'm being questioned about a drug deal in front of the Live TV News camera crew.
I really have no experience with courts, lawyers, judges, etc. How does an average citizen's testimony really stack up against that of a police officer, who may be lying?
The energy travels underground in a tight path, very little dispersion.
Then, the organisms nearby would be just fine, as they weren't fused into glass. Your idea about lightning killing off life before it could thrive really depends on lightning hitting every square centimeter of the Earth repeatedly over time. I think the probabilities, here, are working in the organisms' favor. Also: What about cracks in rocks energized by geothermal activity? What about the bottom of the ocean which is energized by volcanic vents? What about land shadowed by trees and rocks? What about areas of the Earth that never have thunderstorms (some deserts and arctic areas are like this)?
...programs like Mozilla are practically required. So, even surfing the web brings my 750 to it's knees.
I don't see how. I run Mozilla on an AMD K6-200 (GNOME 1.4, 128MB RAM@100MHz, 5400RPM disk, 56K modem), and Mozilla runs just fine. It takes a tolerable while to load. Once loaded, its performance is very tolerable.
The only things that tend to bring any computer to its knees are Flash, overly complex tables and mega-long web pages, Java Applets, and badly done JavaScript. Most good websites don't use these things, so surfing generally isn't a problem for me.
Lightning kills life...
As we know it, yes. If I get struck by lightning, my nervous system just won't handle it. Trees tend to get shattered by lightning, as well.
But chemicals and microorganisms are different. Energy is needed for many chemical reactions to occur, and lightning is simply a source of energy (just like the Sun or volcanic vents in the ocean). Lightning could have been the random element needed to get initial life-like molecules going. Or not--I really don't know. Also, I don't see why microorganisms would necessarily be killed by lightning. The ground is a huge energy sink, and the lightning would be highly attenuated around the impact site. Some microorganisms just might enjoy an occasional strong eletric field, anyway.
Use Cygwin!
I have heard of Cygwin and have used the MKS toolkit. While these do a good job of making Windows feel more like UNIX, they are another piece of 3rd-party software that must be installed to make Windows useful (from my point of view). This certainly isn't bad in small offices, but it is likely that such toolkits would be spotty in large installations.
Also, many traditional Windows users are totally numb towards such toolkits and will continue to use whatever they are used to. I learned this the hard way after writing platform-indpendent Makefiles to work with MKS Make and a couple versions of UNIX--not one Windows user used them (they just continued to use their IDEs or whatever). I have learned that no amount of quality code, documentation, and advocacy will sway people who simply don't want to learn something slightly different from what they already know.
I guess my point is that there really is a philosophical divide between Windows and UNIX. There will always be people who simply won't try nor like the alternatives, no matter how attractively they are presented. Trying to make one environment behave like the other (UNIX-like things for Windows; Windows-like things for UNIX) just doesn't always work out as well as planned.
Seriously, what platform would that be? Are you referring to Windows? What about MS Office for OS X? Or are you referring to their commitment to the Xbox? Ok, that last was a stab at MS.
The Windows operating system and Office for Windows basically make up the bulk of Microsoft's success. Their other efforts, such as games, smaller productivity apps, and Office for Mac, have already reached their markets and probably can't keep the company going in its current form if Office for Windows were to lose significant numbers of users. Their server software, such as Exchange, serves mostly to aid in Office lock-in, so if enthusiasm for Office declines, the demand for their server software will follow.
I think Linux, Mac OS X, and OpenOffice/StarOffice are hitting central nerves within Microsoft. This is good for everyone, since free markets require competition to keep going strong. For example, would Microsoft have put so much effort into making Windows 2000 stable had Linux and UNIX not been running rings around Windows NT? Would C# have been submitted to a standards organization if the Open Source movement hadn't been advocating standarization, in general, for so long? For a long time, Microsoft had created a market for many people where Windows was the only choice. Fortunately for us, Microsoft is being brought into check, and that market isn't quite as closed as it used to be.
When the markets stabilize into some new form, I think there is little chance that Microsoft will resemble what they are now. They will have much smaller profit margins and will certainly not be in a position to bully OEMs and squash smaller competitors. Then, new companies, in the spirit of Be, will be on a more level playing field with a real chance of success. I look forward to this future.
This is not trying to be a troll, but it seems there is always one more "clincher" in the movement away from MS products. IE / Office / Outlook / Photoshop you name it, but now it is Exchange.
This goes both ways, and it is a matter of what people are used to. Whenever I use Windows I think:
Where's Bourne shell???
Where's vi, sed, and egrep???
Where's UFS and NFS???
What happened to root's ability to do anything worthwhile???
How do I get GUI applications to display over the network???
How do I read a PostScript file???
I know that many of these things can be done on Windows eventually, but there is always one more thing I can't do on Windows that I'm used to doing in UNIX.
If you look at the stock price of MS and compare it to the stock price of IBM in the eighties you will probably see quite a few similarities.
There are many similaries in such cases where history repeats itself. However, IBM came out fairly well, in the long run, partly due to their ability to diversify. Microsoft, on the other hand, is just a software company with one successful platform. I think Microsoft will experience a much harder fall during the generation transfer you speak of.
Why not take time off f the useless mp3 player/id3 reader/all of the other crap and contribute to a worthwhile project?
Useless or worthwhile to whom?
Trust me, one day someone--most likely a corporation burned by Exchange--will fund the development of an Exchange replacement. These things tend to need a critical mass of outrage against the status quo before real changes begin. If Exchange is an anchor to enough organizations or just a single big enough organization, something will happen about it.
It is important to be patient about Open Source. Open Source software undergoes evolution on natural terms, not arbitrary business terms, which means it will always tend toward fufilling real needs but on a more realistic timeline.
However, I still encourage you to advocate ideas about Exchange, because public awareness is the most important weapon against companies like Microsoft and their less-than-stellar products. Just don't be disappointed in the amount of time it takes for real change to occur.
BTW a friend works at Jiffy Lube and always has interesting stories on how the boss makes him take suckers to the cleaners.
I had to take my car to Jiffy Lube for a while when I lived in an apartment. It isn't bad, as long as the customer knows how to say "No."
Unfortunately, for a lot of people, this isn't easy, so they end up with new air filters, wipers, transmission fluid, and PCV valves. Basically, quick-lube shops, dealership service shops, and some sleazy independent mechanics take ignorant people to the cleaners, which is why I'm glad I took the time to read magazines and manuals about car maintenance.
Thankfully, I have a home with a garage and tools, now. I really love not having other people getting their dirty hands into my car.