As far as I can tell, SCO now plans to sue every single end user of AIX. Which should help the adoption of Linux in a big, big way, since all those users now need to replace their AIX installations.
I don't think that would be practical for SCO. For example, isn't ASCI White an AIX machine? What about super mega corporations whose infrastructure runs on AIX (I'm thinking of a big home improvement chain, for instance)? I don't think a company who just plonked down a cool million for a big p-series server is going to budge very much.
I think SCO should expect a rude gesture from these IBM customers and nothing more.
I think the big issue in question is all "future sales of AIX". That's the kicker...
Not necessarily. SCO's claims are sort of like a bug on a windshield (IBM just needs to wipe them away, and all is well, again).
AIX has built a decent reputation as a competitor to Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX, etc. That alone is sufficient to consider it in future purchases, especially if some nice IBM hardware comes along for the ride.
The Consumers Report on the Lindows PC is what is really damaging. Millions of people actually rely on them for reviews and they were "Not Impressed".
This is unfortunate, because CR's product reviews are also subjective and less "scientific" than they like to claim. Most often, CR's bias lies in their choices of measurement and analysis techniques. It is also hard to guess what the reviewer's expectations were before the review began. (basically, these are the faults of all product reviews)
However, Consumer Reports is indispensible for their large aggregate database of car and appliance reliability histories. The sample sizes, in these cases, are very large and can be assumed to be more trustworthy.
This is why I usually rely on their periodic Automobile and Buyer's Guide issues but not their regular issues.
For $200 plus another $80 in parts we recently purchased 10 machines...
If the Lindows PCs were used as X Terminals or used NFS for all read-write filesystems, these $199 PCs would be literally disposable office desktops. Just buy a couple spares for less than $500 and trash the ones that break. Seriously, these PCs are cheaper than any hourly support costs I can imagine (time == money).
If you're making a system for Grandma, it would be better if it had a CD-RW drive instead of a regular CD drive. That way you easily back the system up for Grandma when you come to visit.
Now that CD-RW drives are less than $25 (usually after a rebate), upgrading the Lindows PCs would be very affordable. However, if Lindows does not have "drag-n-drop" type support for burning CDs, a Grandma-ized front-end to mkisofs and cdrecord might be needed.
# The Post article said shipping costs $80. I'm guessing that's for overnight. I paid $25 for UPS ground.
Between the misreported shipping price and assuming the one PC was slow due to the size of that 3GB drive, the review is irresponsible and probably done by a journalist operating at the boundaries of their experience.
Reviews that misreport information are worse than useless, because uninformed readers are hungry for information to make decisions. In this case, unfortunately, a retraction is too late--the damage is already done for many readers.
This sounds so cowardly and backwards for true Linux enthusiasts.
If you saw a war approaching between two (relative) superpowers, and involvement would probably mean instant defeat, what would you do? Lindows is simply taking the path of least resistance, in this case, which is simply good business.
Microsoft is different, however, because MS is right in Lindows' cross-hairs. If they weren't agressive with MS, then Lindows would have lasted months not years.
This is totally insane. I'd much rather have an older, _more experienced_ coder, who may be slower (tho I don't believe that to be true) than some fresh out of college coder.
Agreed.
Semi-relevant but semi-stupid analogy: who would choose a Ford Probe over a Ford Tractor to plow a field? A software project manager would.
Being an Engineer, not an IT person, I would have to say that the IT industry should take a look at other engineering disciplines.
Score: 6, Wishful Thinking
Software Engineering is an oxymoron. It will be until some great software catastrophe wipes out a country or two, and people realize that Mountain Mover 2.0 isn't a 6-month project, anymore.
Re:Depends on the Individual
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 1
There is no comparison. While he may be more technical and able to do the marching snare roll, etc. I rock all over him on a kit. We both put in the same amount of practice time.
Yes, but you've been listening to music decades longer.
Slightly OT question: could a child really ever be good at jazz? I would think a crufty old man who has been to hell and back would be better...
...the decision to go with less experienced programmers also affects software quality, in the long run.
Yes, it does. Period. Young'uns are more likely to choose immature tools, more likely to make predictable mistakes, more likely to jump on whatever bandwagon started rolling last week, and on and on.
If you wanted to assemble a great symphony, you don't interview at the mall record store on Saturday night. If you want to build a bridge, you don't go to the day care and see who has a knack for Lincoln Logs.
Seriously, kids graduating from college are more like that toddler with Lincoln Logs than most of us would like to admit.
Re:Oracle RAC sucks big hairy balls
on
Sun's Last Stand
·
· Score: 1
Plus it's not totally transparent and requires you to mod the apps to support failover clusters (contrary to Oracle claims). Plus it costs $20K per processor per node for RAC alone.
Using your licensing numbers, a full RAC rack would cost upwards of $1,000,000 or more. That's really not much better than the cost of two decent "midframe" SMP servers. I guess people are saying "why manage 20 or 30 servers, when we can get by with two".
Re:Why can't I get Java working on my RH8 box?
on
Sun's Last Stand
·
· Score: 1
I've never been able to really get Java working with Mozilla on my box.
Isn't it as trivial as sym-linking or copying the JRE shared object to Mozilla's plug-in directory? The Mozilla documentation even tells you how to do it!
Does Dell still sell servers with system boards and RAID controllers that need replacing twice a year and whose internal layout requires bending a PCB to get out the RAM? (Yes, the Dell server I'm referring to was one data point, but geez what a piece of crap).
Usually, the Sun and IBM servers are built to be much more maintainable, which makes a sysadmin's job much nicer. Not to mention that Sun and IBM probably have much better testing programs for their hardware before putting them up for sale.
Sometimes choosing the BMW over the Yugo is worth every penny to a business.
Re:Linux's uptimes approaching Solaris'
on
Sun's Last Stand
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Linux uptimes comparable with Solaris on busy sites
Uptime makes for very good anectodal evidence, but it also makes for a poor benchmark, in general. The reason is that uptime is very much a function of a business' own policies regarding patching, maintainence, etc. These policies have much more effect on uptime than software or hardware reliability, unless, of course, you buy a more expensive hot-swap-even-the-damn-kernel server ("midframe" and high-end Sun servers at $100K+).
Regardless, I agree it is not debatable that both Solaris and Linux make damn fine webserver platforms.
Sun is still selling compelling products, but they have always lagged in marketing skills, it seems. Isn't this the reputation they have always had?
For example, the V210/240 is comparable to a dual-CPU 2GHZ Xeon server--but it also comes with FOUR gigabit Ethernet interfaces and U320 SCSI. It would be a clustering monster (think Oracle RAC). Also, only the newer Opteron servers can compare feature-for-feature (me thinks Sun would do well selling Opterons).
The Sun ONE marketing is a bit confusing, at first, but is basically amounts to all the non-operating system software Sun sells. They are also looking to pull an interesting stunt by delivering all software to a customer and unlocking what the customer buys. This is very similar to how high-end CAD/CAM software sells, and it generally works well.
I think Sun is doing a lot of good stuff. I just hope they weather the economy and keep putting the pressure on Microsoft, IBM, and HP. Sun, whether you like them or not, is an important part of keeping the IT industry in check.
The term needs to be used correctly and more sparingly or it'll lose all meaning.
I think much of the meaning is already gone. People will jump on whatever techology looks well presented enough. They get burned, eventually, but, for some reason, these setbacks are quickly forgotten. This process has been repeating for decades and is probably due to the constant influx of unqualified people into the software and IT industries.
The scary thing is, we're going to be seeing many, many more people like him as these games become more popular and our society becomes even more disconnected.
I'm not so sure. Computer games are just a new outlet for certain types of people who were always there. Usually, people like this have a history, usually with their parents, where, once that history is known, their current behavior is quite understandable.
However, Microsoft just might find themselves marginalized.
UNIX was only tens of thousands of dollars when mainframes were ten times as expensive. Windows NT was only thousands of dollars when UNIX was ten times as much. Enter a maturing Linux, Mozilla, OpenOffice.org...
The conclusion seems somewhat inevitable. Open Source is a natural destination of things like kernels, office suites, web browsers, and other everyday commodity software.
You try telling a clueless administrator what Linux is. They would be like, "Loonics? Is that some type of pirate stuff?":)
1) Tell them it is the latest-n-greatest in educational software for computers. Tell them that hundreds of universities use it. Tell them how cost-effective it is. (no lying needed!)
2) Don't tell them at all. (riskier, but getting the students hooked first might force the administration to play along)
"Economists now credit the company's Everyday Low Prices with contributing to Everyday Low Inflation..."
"...more than one-eighth of U.S. productivity growth between 1995 and 1999 could be explained 'by only two syllables: Wal-Mart.'"
"With little fanfare and no advertising, Wal-Mart's Ol' Roy dog food... has charged past Nestle's Purina as the world's top-selling brand. Great Value bleach outsells Clorox in some stores."
"Wal-Mart is the world's biggest grocer"
"Well, what about Microsoft? Its margins are--can this be right?--44%, and it's sitting on $38 billion in cash. Mr. Sam would not approve. Log on to walmart.com and you'll find $199 computers powered by a fledgling Windows competitor, Lindows. "
"Wal-Mart's turnover is so rapid that 70% of its merchandise is rung up at the register before the company has paid for it."
"Wal-Mart will open roughly a store a day this year."
I don't know whether to cheer them on or cower in fear. This company single-handedly affects inflation, of all things. Holy shit.
Zero tolerance should mean zero tolerance, now if you want to argue if it is a good idea to have a zero tolerance policy, that is a different matter, but also off topic like the parent.
Zero tolerance policies are probably one of the stupidest most naive things to ever be implemented in schools. Hence, the similarity to the PC-only policy of the school in the article. When a policy is absolute, it serves only to shut out good alternatvies and ends up victimizing the people who were supposed to be protected.
There isn't enough space for all the computers and the decision has already been made to get rid of the extra PCs and keep all the Macs.
Just a thought: You could get a second-hand Sun SPARCstation 20 or Ultra 1 workstation...just to stir things up a bit. Just seeing that odd-looking beige and purple pizzabox on the corner desk would embed in the students' minds that there really are alternatives out there beyond Microsoft and Apple. Solaris isn't a bad first UNIX, either, and is a good stepping-stone to Linux, especially Red Hat.
Another good option (and probably more feasible) would be putting Linux or NetBSD on a couple of the macs (maybe one of each!).
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I can tell, SCO now plans to sue every single end user of AIX. Which should help the adoption of Linux in a big, big way, since all those users now need to replace their AIX installations.
I don't think that would be practical for SCO. For example, isn't ASCI White an AIX machine? What about super mega corporations whose infrastructure runs on AIX (I'm thinking of a big home improvement chain, for instance)? I don't think a company who just plonked down a cool million for a big p-series server is going to budge very much.
I think SCO should expect a rude gesture from these IBM customers and nothing more.
I think the big issue in question is all "future sales of AIX". That's the kicker...
Not necessarily. SCO's claims are sort of like a bug on a windshield (IBM just needs to wipe them away, and all is well, again).
AIX has built a decent reputation as a competitor to Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX, etc. That alone is sufficient to consider it in future purchases, especially if some nice IBM hardware comes along for the ride.
The Consumers Report on the Lindows PC is what is really damaging. Millions of people actually rely on them for reviews and they were "Not Impressed".
This is unfortunate, because CR's product reviews are also subjective and less "scientific" than they like to claim. Most often, CR's bias lies in their choices of measurement and analysis techniques. It is also hard to guess what the reviewer's expectations were before the review began. (basically, these are the faults of all product reviews)
However, Consumer Reports is indispensible for their large aggregate database of car and appliance reliability histories. The sample sizes, in these cases, are very large and can be assumed to be more trustworthy.
This is why I usually rely on their periodic Automobile and Buyer's Guide issues but not their regular issues.
For $200 plus another $80 in parts we recently purchased 10 machines...
If the Lindows PCs were used as X Terminals or used NFS for all read-write filesystems, these $199 PCs would be literally disposable office desktops. Just buy a couple spares for less than $500 and trash the ones that break. Seriously, these PCs are cheaper than any hourly support costs I can imagine (time == money).
If you're making a system for Grandma, it would be better if it had a CD-RW drive instead of a regular CD drive. That way you easily back the system up for Grandma when you come to visit.
Now that CD-RW drives are less than $25 (usually after a rebate), upgrading the Lindows PCs would be very affordable. However, if Lindows does not have "drag-n-drop" type support for burning CDs, a Grandma-ized front-end to mkisofs and cdrecord might be needed.
# The Post article said shipping costs $80. I'm guessing that's for overnight. I paid $25 for UPS ground.
Between the misreported shipping price and assuming the one PC was slow due to the size of that 3GB drive, the review is irresponsible and probably done by a journalist operating at the boundaries of their experience.
Reviews that misreport information are worse than useless, because uninformed readers are hungry for information to make decisions. In this case, unfortunately, a retraction is too late--the damage is already done for many readers.
This sounds so cowardly and backwards for true Linux enthusiasts.
If you saw a war approaching between two (relative) superpowers, and involvement would probably mean instant defeat, what would you do? Lindows is simply taking the path of least resistance, in this case, which is simply good business.
Microsoft is different, however, because MS is right in Lindows' cross-hairs. If they weren't agressive with MS, then Lindows would have lasted months not years.
From the linked BBC article:
Each melon sells for 10,000 yen, equivalent to about $83. It is almost double, or even triple, that of a normal watermelon.
So a normal watermelon costs $28 in Japan??? I'm guessing they are imported and not common in that country.
This is totally insane. I'd much rather have an older, _more experienced_ coder, who may be slower (tho I don't believe that to be true) than some fresh out of college coder.
Agreed.
Semi-relevant but semi-stupid analogy: who would choose a Ford Probe over a Ford Tractor to plow a field? A software project manager would.
Being an Engineer, not an IT person, I would have to say that the IT industry should take a look at other engineering disciplines.
Score: 6, Wishful Thinking
Software Engineering is an oxymoron. It will be until some great software catastrophe wipes out a country or two, and people realize that Mountain Mover 2.0 isn't a 6-month project, anymore.
There is no comparison. While he may be more technical and able to do the marching snare roll, etc. I rock all over him on a kit. We both put in the same amount of practice time.
Yes, but you've been listening to music decades longer.
Slightly OT question: could a child really ever be good at jazz? I would think a crufty old man who has been to hell and back would be better...
...the decision to go with less experienced programmers also affects software quality, in the long run.
Yes, it does. Period. Young'uns are more likely to choose immature tools, more likely to make predictable mistakes, more likely to jump on whatever bandwagon started rolling last week, and on and on.
If you wanted to assemble a great symphony, you don't interview at the mall record store on Saturday night. If you want to build a bridge, you don't go to the day care and see who has a knack for Lincoln Logs.
Seriously, kids graduating from college are more like that toddler with Lincoln Logs than most of us would like to admit.
Plus it's not totally transparent and requires you to mod the apps to support failover clusters (contrary to Oracle claims). Plus it costs $20K per processor per node for RAC alone.
Using your licensing numbers, a full RAC rack would cost upwards of $1,000,000 or more. That's really not much better than the cost of two decent "midframe" SMP servers. I guess people are saying "why manage 20 or 30 servers, when we can get by with two".
I've never been able to really get Java working with Mozilla on my box.
Isn't it as trivial as sym-linking or copying the JRE shared object to Mozilla's plug-in directory? The Mozilla documentation even tells you how to do it !
Dell PowerEdge 6650
Does Dell still sell servers with system boards and RAID controllers that need replacing twice a year and whose internal layout requires bending a PCB to get out the RAM? (Yes, the Dell server I'm referring to was one data point, but geez what a piece of crap).
Usually, the Sun and IBM servers are built to be much more maintainable, which makes a sysadmin's job much nicer. Not to mention that Sun and IBM probably have much better testing programs for their hardware before putting them up for sale.
Sometimes choosing the BMW over the Yugo is worth every penny to a business.
Linux uptimes comparable with Solaris on busy sites
Uptime makes for very good anectodal evidence, but it also makes for a poor benchmark, in general. The reason is that uptime is very much a function of a business' own policies regarding patching, maintainence, etc. These policies have much more effect on uptime than software or hardware reliability, unless, of course, you buy a more expensive hot-swap-even-the-damn-kernel server ("midframe" and high-end Sun servers at $100K+).
Regardless, I agree it is not debatable that both Solaris and Linux make damn fine webserver platforms.
Sun is still selling compelling products, but they have always lagged in marketing skills, it seems. Isn't this the reputation they have always had?
For example, the V210/240 is comparable to a dual-CPU 2GHZ Xeon server--but it also comes with FOUR gigabit Ethernet interfaces and U320 SCSI. It would be a clustering monster (think Oracle RAC). Also, only the newer Opteron servers can compare feature-for-feature (me thinks Sun would do well selling Opterons).
The Sun ONE marketing is a bit confusing, at first, but is basically amounts to all the non-operating system software Sun sells. They are also looking to pull an interesting stunt by delivering all software to a customer and unlocking what the customer buys. This is very similar to how high-end CAD/CAM software sells, and it generally works well.
I think Sun is doing a lot of good stuff. I just hope they weather the economy and keep putting the pressure on Microsoft, IBM, and HP. Sun, whether you like them or not, is an important part of keeping the IT industry in check.
Yea, its generally my policy to avoid using the words Gates and G-d in the same sentence.
What about: "God help us, Gates is more powerful than the President!"
The term needs to be used correctly and more sparingly or it'll lose all meaning.
I think much of the meaning is already gone. People will jump on whatever techology looks well presented enough. They get burned, eventually, but, for some reason, these setbacks are quickly forgotten. This process has been repeating for decades and is probably due to the constant influx of unqualified people into the software and IT industries.
The scary thing is, we're going to be seeing many, many more people like him as these games become more popular and our society becomes even more disconnected.
I'm not so sure. Computer games are just a new outlet for certain types of people who were always there. Usually, people like this have a history, usually with their parents, where, once that history is known, their current behavior is quite understandable.
It will be a continual game of catch-up.
However, Microsoft just might find themselves marginalized.
UNIX was only tens of thousands of dollars when mainframes were ten times as expensive. Windows NT was only thousands of dollars when UNIX was ten times as much. Enter a maturing Linux, Mozilla, OpenOffice.org...
The conclusion seems somewhat inevitable. Open Source is a natural destination of things like kernels, office suites, web browsers, and other everyday commodity software.
You try telling a clueless administrator what Linux is. They would be like, "Loonics? Is that some type of pirate stuff?" :)
1) Tell them it is the latest-n-greatest in educational software for computers. Tell them that hundreds of universities use it. Tell them how cost-effective it is. (no lying needed!)
2) Don't tell them at all. (riskier, but getting the students hooked first might force the administration to play along)
"Economists now credit the company's Everyday Low Prices with contributing to Everyday Low Inflation..."
... has charged past Nestle's Purina as the world's top-selling brand. Great Value bleach outsells Clorox in some stores."
"...more than one-eighth of U.S. productivity growth between 1995 and 1999 could be explained 'by only two syllables: Wal-Mart.'"
"With little fanfare and no advertising, Wal-Mart's Ol' Roy dog food
"Wal-Mart is the world's biggest grocer"
"Well, what about Microsoft? Its margins are--can this be right?--44%, and it's sitting on $38 billion in cash. Mr. Sam would not approve. Log on to walmart.com and you'll find $199 computers powered by a fledgling Windows competitor, Lindows. "
"Wal-Mart's turnover is so rapid that 70% of its merchandise is rung up at the register before the company has paid for it."
"Wal-Mart will open roughly a store a day this year."
I don't know whether to cheer them on or cower in fear. This company single-handedly affects inflation, of all things. Holy shit.
Zero tolerance should mean zero tolerance, now if you want to argue if it is a good idea to have a zero tolerance policy, that is a different matter, but also off topic like the parent.
Zero tolerance policies are probably one of the stupidest most naive things to ever be implemented in schools. Hence, the similarity to the PC-only policy of the school in the article. When a policy is absolute, it serves only to shut out good alternatvies and ends up victimizing the people who were supposed to be protected.
There isn't enough space for all the computers and the decision has already been made to get rid of the extra PCs and keep all the Macs.
Just a thought: You could get a second-hand Sun SPARCstation 20 or Ultra 1 workstation...just to stir things up a bit. Just seeing that odd-looking beige and purple pizzabox on the corner desk would embed in the students' minds that there really are alternatives out there beyond Microsoft and Apple. Solaris isn't a bad first UNIX, either, and is a good stepping-stone to Linux, especially Red Hat.
Another good option (and probably more feasible) would be putting Linux or NetBSD on a couple of the macs (maybe one of each!).