While there are successful models of monetization of open source, they are few and far between and most of these models are hard to replicate. This takes away the basic incentive of a co-operative...
I don't think so. Think about the dynamic of a company that wants to make a profit on open souce software installation, support, and management. The software is free and available to anyone, so the company's assets are primarily the expertise and skill in using the software, which is seem by the end customers as increased capability for them. There is a positive feedback loop set in motion here, where the company, in order to increase customer capabilities (and, thus, its percieved value to the customers), must increase the utility of the project for its customers and also increase its own expertise. The best way that they can accelerate development of the project's capabilities is to use their own personnel to add to the code base. To keep costs of supporting diverged code low, there is also a tendency to contribute the resulting code to the project (and on projects based on the GPL, there is a licensing requirement to do so). All of which in turn produces an increase in the level of expertise and knowledge in the tool by the company. Ulitmately, because of this feedback loop, most actual development takes place under the auspices of companies building a business based on the projects. And, if you examine really successful FOSS projects, you'll find that most code comes from companies or individuals that have built their businesses (or want to build their businesses) on the code produced by the project.
As an example, do you think that Linus could devote as much time to Linux, if his employer did not pay him to do it? At the same level of involvement?
If more than one profit making entity engages in this acttivity, it does look a lot like a co-op. As an example, you can look at dairy co-operatives. Each member of the co-op is an independent business, but each sells only to the co-op. The co-op markets the product jointly and, due to its marketing power, can usually crush non-co-op competitors. As the co-op gains a higher price for the product, it can pay its members more for the product. Again, a positive feedback loop beneficial to all members of the co-op is set in motion. The only difference is that dairy co-ops usually don't accept drop off of milk that someone wanting to get into the dairy business might contribute but, as we see, the contributions of those sort tend to be minimal, anyhow.
Every time I see public art, Christmas decorations, government-participation in parades, I grinch about it. I just can't see the government holding any legitimate position costing even one dollar in any non-critical activity...
I'd be much closer to your point of view if I really felt that the government would spend any funds removed fron non-criticial activities on those that were critical, rather than simply shifting them to another non-critical item. Given that there will always be some governemental activities that some deem "non-critical" and that people will disagree on which of these activities belong in which category, there willa lways be money spent on "non-critical" activities. I think that any dollars spent on art are relatively innocuous and so I support those decisions. After all, the government could be using them for more security (read abridgement of rights) or YACS (Yet Another Corporate Subsidy). Both of these potentially could have much greater negative consequences than giving a museum $10,000 to put on an exhibit that includes an Andre Serrano work (And oddly enough, you don't hear much about the other works displayed in the show, huh? Why is that?).
The smart people are the most likely to suffer from confidence problems, where as the not so smart people tend to be more self-confident by nature.
I don't think it's by nature. I think that smart people are smart enough to know what they don't know and, as such, are much less likely to make definitive statements which makes them look tentative (and thus uncofident). They are also more likely to have nuanced views on issues and, thus, appear non-resolute. And stupid people? They don't know what they don't know and will make ridiculous, absolute pronouncements at the drop of a hat. I could now make a political comment, but I refrain. So it's not nature - it's just better, more complex models and better self-awareness.
The more important question is what can be done to either provide more secure replacements or make sure binaries can be functional without having to be trusted by the OS.
Wait for Hurd, because the micro-kernel approach makes sure that drivers run in isolation?
Yes, I know that this is put in a flambaitic manner, but is there any better reason to make sure your kernel consists of as little as possible? Even if the server that handles the device crashes, the rest of your system won't be compromised. The performance excuse is getting a bit old, especially if you're talking workstation functionality. Most people don't need the performance that a monolithic kernel provides, just as most people don't need 3+GHz CPUs. My feeling is that as long as folks writing OSes continue to stick their head in the sand with respect to this issue, they're always going to be whistling past the graveyard.
The bottom line is that the law means something or it doesn't. The decision may not have been the one most sysadmins (or even users) hoped for (and God knows it's not the one I would have wanted), but it was decided within the rules of the law and in accordance of the law as written now. I would hate to think that a judge would make a decision based on what his friends and neighbors might think. This is supposed to be a country of laws. Should it ever not be, that would be a very bad thing.
So stop the judge-bashing. Cases are not supposed to be decided on pragmatic issues when the pragma directly violates previous jurisprudence - legislation is the solution to pragmatics not matching current judicial findings. The bottom line is that Spamhaus f*cked up by not appearing in court. They should have. And, because of that, the judge rendered judgement in a proper fashion. If Spamhaus didn't understand the impact that not showing up in court would have on them (especially if they already had the wherewithal to hire a lawyer to file motions with said court), then they have no one to blame but themselves.
Spamhaus is now free to ignore the court's ruling (they are, of course, based in another country with servers in a third and can do so with relative impunity). The court is also now free to attempt to enforce its judgement in any way it sees fit within the bounds of the law. That's the way the system works. If you don't like it, change the system. Don't bitch at the actors who are merely doing their jobs (and, in fact, appearing to be doing so in an relatively competant way).
So how about sharing the name of your institution so that people who don't like that sort of thing can avoid it? And, if you're not willing to do so, explain why.
My feeling is that, since you didn't share the name, you have a sneaking suspicion that this might not be viewed in a favorable light by potential students and might not be the kind of thing your administration wants advertised. But why not? If it has such positive educational benefits (as you claim), why not trumpet it to the world: We filter our Internet access!!!
So, for the record, what school?
P.S. Anyone running administrative networks on the same subnets as general student access without traffic shaping gets what they deserve.
"I did have working sanitation, an electrical grid, viable farming and transportation infrastructures"... do you notice that any of the elements you are listing cost more than $100 to provide to a child?
Not if you amortize them over an entire village, state, or country of children and you don't insist on the highest technology to provide it. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the children being talked about here could also use the same $100 for food for six months.
So why should we have to? That's like putting mercury in the water supply and blaming everyone for not having water filters and chelation therapy handy.
He's helped the Republicans by giving them a new "horrid enemy" since the Commies went away. Just think, if he hadn't had the masterful insight to use a random attack by a bunch of nuts in 2001 to launch a random attack in the Middle East, increasing recruting for the "Islamo-facist" threat, we might have had to take all that money we give to defense contractors and done other things with it! God knows what having a "peace dividend" might have done!
And the nightmare has only gotten worse with the progress N.Korea has made with thier nuclear arsenal.
Yes. And a large contributor to NK continuing to work on their "Happy Atom Fun Bomb" was the last five years of diplomatic foot dragging by the Bush administration. Do you remeber the first year after the "Axis of Evil" SotU when we'd only talk to them in multi-lateral talks? It looks like they took advantage of that time because they told us shortly thereafter that they had nukes when they did agree to multilateral talks. Their two major demands during the six meetings over the next nine months? Energy assistance and a request for non-agression from the US. The second seems reasonable to me, what with us attacking Iraq and all. Of course, we said no, causing the talks to (again) collapse in Septmber of 2004. And so, since then, there have been no meaningful negotiations.
Granted, KJI *is* crazy whack. But we have a long history (back to the 1950's) of treating the NK with no respect, threatening them at every turn with sanctions and force of arms (even more so than we do Cuba, and look at how well that's worked), and keeping large numbers of troops massed on their borders (We see them as defensive only, but with the last four years or so of American activities, would *you*, as a leader of a nation seen in an unfavorable light, see them that way?). If you were in KJI's shoes would you turn down the chance to build "The Great Equalizer"?
All I'm saying is that our foreign policy hasn't worked too well in this case. It will go down in history as one of the great diplomatic failures of our time. And, whatever you think the chances were of keeping NK non-nuclear, they dropped precipitously once this administration started their sabre rattling and invasions in 2002.
It's clear to me that the current administration has pretty much forgotten the importance of human intelligence, instead relying on high-tech gadgetry.
Of course. Human intelligence is an oxymoronic concept.
With amusement, Your new high-tech gadget overlords
And what I'll say is that if you look at the "horror" stories, there are usually one of the three issues I mentioned involved (most of which are never mentioned by those doing the story telling). Yes, people may be busy building their own companies, but if they have time to listen to horror stories, they should also have time to hear about the reality of the situation. If they don't, they have an issue with doing due dilligence, anyway. So, I stand by my take on the situation - I don't think that people who are so paranoid as to think that VC's are out to "steal their company" have much hope of working well with VC's. They should look elsewhere.
How do I structure a VC deal so that I can't be kicked out of my own company?
Oh! This one's easy!
You can't. It's *their* money. Even if you can't be kicked out, they can destroy the company out from underneath you. If you can't live with this fact of life, find alternate funding sources.
Actually, the fact that you're even asking this question shows that you're enough out of touch with the reality of the situation that you probably shouldn't be looking at VC funding at all.
In general, the VC's *do* want you to succeed. Places where you might have conflict generally revolve around three issues - your performance in your chosen position isn't very good, you have a hard time "playing with others" including personnel the VC might bring in to help you (and by asking for VC money, you've already acknowledged that you can't do it on your own), or there's a fundamental disconnect in your vision and the vision of the board WRT strategy (in which case, you shouldn't have taken the money in the first place).
VC's are not there to screw up your life, steal your work, or eat your children (OK, maybe the eat the children thing, but...). They are there to make money. As long as you and *their* company can help them do that, you're golden. If you can't, you should be kicked out.
Does it really matter if jobs go from LA to Las Vegas?
Oddly enough the folks in California seem to think so - enough that they offer a whole bunch of incentives for various businesses. Oddly, the federal govenment seems to ignore this simple fact that other levels of government take for granted.
So, the reality is the opposite of what your theory predicts.
But we all know that reality has a well-documented Liberal bias! Besides, when did this administration care about anything as fungible as reality? When did the American populace start thinking of reality as a type of TV show? Where do I go now that I've gone too far?
This guy from Singapore installed a router here and he was in India at the time. It was really amazing how foreigners can defy physics now. Geez the internet is changing everything.
I know you were modded as funny, but besides physical installation, you can do almost all of the provisioning of the system remotely now. And how much talent and time does it take to screw a router into a rack, plug in the electric power, and plug in the cables between the switches and the external line? So what you're saying is that the IT industry can exist on physical installation alone? Somehow I doubt that. And, BTW, they probably don't need someone as expensive as you to do that sort of thing.
A private sector company can't be expected to invest in research that pays off in ten years; there are too many uncertainties in business to ask investors to shoulder that.
And a failure for the investors to shoulder that burden (especially in a high-tech company) will lead to almost certain negative results within twenty years. So who better to shoulder the burden? I know, we'll just dump the company onto "greater fools". I'm beginning to think a law requiring people to hold an investment for five years, just to make sure they think about long-term consequences, would be a good thing...
Slashdot Mirror
The nineties called - they want their Enron back...
I don't think so. Think about the dynamic of a company that wants to make a profit on open souce software installation, support, and management. The software is free and available to anyone, so the company's assets are primarily the expertise and skill in using the software, which is seem by the end customers as increased capability for them. There is a positive feedback loop set in motion here, where the company, in order to increase customer capabilities (and, thus, its percieved value to the customers), must increase the utility of the project for its customers and also increase its own expertise. The best way that they can accelerate development of the project's capabilities is to use their own personnel to add to the code base. To keep costs of supporting diverged code low, there is also a tendency to contribute the resulting code to the project (and on projects based on the GPL, there is a licensing requirement to do so). All of which in turn produces an increase in the level of expertise and knowledge in the tool by the company. Ulitmately, because of this feedback loop, most actual development takes place under the auspices of companies building a business based on the projects. And, if you examine really successful FOSS projects, you'll find that most code comes from companies or individuals that have built their businesses (or want to build their businesses) on the code produced by the project.
As an example, do you think that Linus could devote as much time to Linux, if his employer did not pay him to do it? At the same level of involvement?
If more than one profit making entity engages in this acttivity, it does look a lot like a co-op. As an example, you can look at dairy co-operatives. Each member of the co-op is an independent business, but each sells only to the co-op. The co-op markets the product jointly and, due to its marketing power, can usually crush non-co-op competitors. As the co-op gains a higher price for the product, it can pay its members more for the product. Again, a positive feedback loop beneficial to all members of the co-op is set in motion. The only difference is that dairy co-ops usually don't accept drop off of milk that someone wanting to get into the dairy business might contribute but, as we see, the contributions of those sort tend to be minimal, anyhow.
The only correct answer to this is "Plenty of hot babes!" (of course, I take no responsibility for you not getting the job when you give this answer).
I'd be much closer to your point of view if I really felt that the government would spend any funds removed fron non-criticial activities on those that were critical, rather than simply shifting them to another non-critical item. Given that there will always be some governemental activities that some deem "non-critical" and that people will disagree on which of these activities belong in which category, there willa lways be money spent on "non-critical" activities. I think that any dollars spent on art are relatively innocuous and so I support those decisions. After all, the government could be using them for more security (read abridgement of rights) or YACS (Yet Another Corporate Subsidy). Both of these potentially could have much greater negative consequences than giving a museum $10,000 to put on an exhibit that includes an Andre Serrano work (And oddly enough, you don't hear much about the other works displayed in the show, huh? Why is that?).
I believe you misspelled "money".
I don't think it's by nature. I think that smart people are smart enough to know what they don't know and, as such, are much less likely to make definitive statements which makes them look tentative (and thus uncofident). They are also more likely to have nuanced views on issues and, thus, appear non-resolute. And stupid people? They don't know what they don't know and will make ridiculous, absolute pronouncements at the drop of a hat. I could now make a political comment, but I refrain. So it's not nature - it's just better, more complex models and better self-awareness.
Wait for Hurd, because the micro-kernel approach makes sure that drivers run in isolation?
Yes, I know that this is put in a flambaitic manner, but is there any better reason to make sure your kernel consists of as little as possible? Even if the server that handles the device crashes, the rest of your system won't be compromised. The performance excuse is getting a bit old, especially if you're talking workstation functionality. Most people don't need the performance that a monolithic kernel provides, just as most people don't need 3+GHz CPUs. My feeling is that as long as folks writing OSes continue to stick their head in the sand with respect to this issue, they're always going to be whistling past the graveyard.
Secure, fast, cheap - pick any two.
The bottom line is that the law means something or it doesn't. The decision may not have been the one most sysadmins (or even users) hoped for (and God knows it's not the one I would have wanted), but it was decided within the rules of the law and in accordance of the law as written now. I would hate to think that a judge would make a decision based on what his friends and neighbors might think. This is supposed to be a country of laws. Should it ever not be, that would be a very bad thing.
So stop the judge-bashing. Cases are not supposed to be decided on pragmatic issues when the pragma directly violates previous jurisprudence - legislation is the solution to pragmatics not matching current judicial findings. The bottom line is that Spamhaus f*cked up by not appearing in court. They should have. And, because of that, the judge rendered judgement in a proper fashion. If Spamhaus didn't understand the impact that not showing up in court would have on them (especially if they already had the wherewithal to hire a lawyer to file motions with said court), then they have no one to blame but themselves.
Spamhaus is now free to ignore the court's ruling (they are, of course, based in another country with servers in a third and can do so with relative impunity). The court is also now free to attempt to enforce its judgement in any way it sees fit within the bounds of the law. That's the way the system works. If you don't like it, change the system. Don't bitch at the actors who are merely doing their jobs (and, in fact, appearing to be doing so in an relatively competant way).
My feeling is that, since you didn't share the name, you have a sneaking suspicion that this might not be viewed in a favorable light by potential students and might not be the kind of thing your administration wants advertised. But why not? If it has such positive educational benefits (as you claim), why not trumpet it to the world: We filter our Internet access!!!
So, for the record, what school?
P.S. Anyone running administrative networks on the same subnets as general student access without traffic shaping gets what they deserve.
Not if you amortize them over an entire village, state, or country of children and you don't insist on the highest technology to provide it. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the children being talked about here could also use the same $100 for food for six months.
So why should we have to? That's like putting mercury in the water supply and blaming everyone for not having water filters and chelation therapy handy.
He's helped the Republicans by giving them a new "horrid enemy" since the Commies went away. Just think, if he hadn't had the masterful insight to use a random attack by a bunch of nuts in 2001 to launch a random attack in the Middle East, increasing recruting for the "Islamo-facist" threat, we might have had to take all that money we give to defense contractors and done other things with it! God knows what having a "peace dividend" might have done!
Yes. And a large contributor to NK continuing to work on their "Happy Atom Fun Bomb" was the last five years of diplomatic foot dragging by the Bush administration. Do you remeber the first year after the "Axis of Evil" SotU when we'd only talk to them in multi-lateral talks? It looks like they took advantage of that time because they told us shortly thereafter that they had nukes when they did agree to multilateral talks. Their two major demands during the six meetings over the next nine months? Energy assistance and a request for non-agression from the US. The second seems reasonable to me, what with us attacking Iraq and all. Of course, we said no, causing the talks to (again) collapse in Septmber of 2004. And so, since then, there have been no meaningful negotiations.
Granted, KJI *is* crazy whack. But we have a long history (back to the 1950's) of treating the NK with no respect, threatening them at every turn with sanctions and force of arms (even more so than we do Cuba, and look at how well that's worked), and keeping large numbers of troops massed on their borders (We see them as defensive only, but with the last four years or so of American activities, would *you*, as a leader of a nation seen in an unfavorable light, see them that way?). If you were in KJI's shoes would you turn down the chance to build "The Great Equalizer"?
All I'm saying is that our foreign policy hasn't worked too well in this case. It will go down in history as one of the great diplomatic failures of our time. And, whatever you think the chances were of keeping NK non-nuclear, they dropped precipitously once this administration started their sabre rattling and invasions in 2002.
Like budget negotiations?
I guess it's back to IM again!
Love and kisses,
Mark Foley (R-FL and big stud!)
Probably the kind that would find us tastey...
Of course. Human intelligence is an oxymoronic concept.
With amusement,
Your new high-tech gadget overlords
And what I'll say is that if you look at the "horror" stories, there are usually one of the three issues I mentioned involved (most of which are never mentioned by those doing the story telling). Yes, people may be busy building their own companies, but if they have time to listen to horror stories, they should also have time to hear about the reality of the situation. If they don't, they have an issue with doing due dilligence, anyway. So, I stand by my take on the situation - I don't think that people who are so paranoid as to think that VC's are out to "steal their company" have much hope of working well with VC's. They should look elsewhere.
Oh! This one's easy!
You can't. It's *their* money. Even if you can't be kicked out, they can destroy the company out from underneath you. If you can't live with this fact of life, find alternate funding sources.
Actually, the fact that you're even asking this question shows that you're enough out of touch with the reality of the situation that you probably shouldn't be looking at VC funding at all.
In general, the VC's *do* want you to succeed. Places where you might have conflict generally revolve around three issues - your performance in your chosen position isn't very good, you have a hard time "playing with others" including personnel the VC might bring in to help you (and by asking for VC money, you've already acknowledged that you can't do it on your own), or there's a fundamental disconnect in your vision and the vision of the board WRT strategy (in which case, you shouldn't have taken the money in the first place).
VC's are not there to screw up your life, steal your work, or eat your children (OK, maybe the eat the children thing, but...). They are there to make money. As long as you and *their* company can help them do that, you're golden. If you can't, you should be kicked out.
Then the bloggers should have done swimmingly on the test!
Oddly enough the folks in California seem to think so - enough that they offer a whole bunch of incentives for various businesses. Oddly, the federal govenment seems to ignore this simple fact that other levels of government take for granted.
And chances are a lot of them would be more interesting to look at than a hunk of silicon and metal...
But we all know that reality has a well-documented Liberal bias! Besides, when did this administration care about anything as fungible as reality? When did the American populace start thinking of reality as a type of TV show? Where do I go now that I've gone too far?
I know you were modded as funny, but besides physical installation, you can do almost all of the provisioning of the system remotely now. And how much talent and time does it take to screw a router into a rack, plug in the electric power, and plug in the cables between the switches and the external line? So what you're saying is that the IT industry can exist on physical installation alone? Somehow I doubt that. And, BTW, they probably don't need someone as expensive as you to do that sort of thing.
And a failure for the investors to shoulder that burden (especially in a high-tech company) will lead to almost certain negative results within twenty years. So who better to shoulder the burden? I know, we'll just dump the company onto "greater fools". I'm beginning to think a law requiring people to hold an investment for five years, just to make sure they think about long-term consequences, would be a good thing...