I ask the Slashdot crowd, what they believe the compiler can be trusted to optimize and what must be hand optimized?"
This question needs be considered, because the poster is staring right at the answer and is still missing it. You can write code. You have a compiler. OPTOMIZE THE COMPILER. That's the beauty of open source. Pry open the insides of GCC and tweak it so that it optimizes your code better. If you're a decent programmer, submit the idea back to the community. For some reaon people don't seem to remember that your compiler is just software too, it's not sacred, optimize to your hearts content. I don't know if this is because people are too used to closed source compilers or very high level programminging languages like Python and Ruby.
This antidigital windbag doesn't have a clue what he's talin' about. Clearly he's only concerned with the job of stupid librarians who can be easily replaced by Google vast array of Linux boxes running perl and python. If this jerk had ever been root on a box he'd understand the situation he and the rest of his library sissy friends find themselves in. He'd soil his trowsers if he had a clue about what a beowulf cluster could do to him. I'm so sickandtired of people blasting my blog, the blog subculture, the fact that blooggers are the new digerati, the new press, the new way to a free open and open society. I wouldn't be surprised if he's a affilliatted with the RIAA, MPAA, SCO or Microsoft. He even contradicts himself in his own rambling babble saying "If a fraction of the [Blog People] were devoted to buying books and providing librarians for the library-starved children of California, the effort would be of far more use to humanity and society." Idiot! Everyone knows the only thing kids go to library's for are the open access to computers which means pr0n and war3z.
Bottom line, just because my blog isn't censored by the neocon right wing fascist fox & friends loving librarians doesn't mean everything I've said about Bush, the RIAA, my water cooling, Open Source as a way of life, and why Paris Hilton is too hot to hate, but too dumb to love. Editors, libraries, congresscritters, all of that is meant to eliminate free speach by a society bent on taking over other cuntries' oil so they can destroy the world with toxic air polluttents (join the Kyoto protocol or I'm moving!) I for one say no.
Bottom line, What he doesn't understand is that blogs aren't about being right or wrong, that doesn't matter in the slightest bit. The point of blogs is to expand the minds and thought namespace of the readers of the blogs, to incense them and give them a sense of holy ignorance and anger that they can use as fuel for seeming important, informed, educated, and as if they've got all the right answers. My blog is like a gas stations for your ego. Stop by, fill up, and contribute back to and open society that will take what they like and what is useful to them and add it to their own thoughts, and ideas, and then give it back. It's the GPL for your mind! But this guy can't see himself as anything but the gate keeper to information, there must be hard copy books stored in his library so he can "sssssshhhhhhhhh!" you when your IPod is up too loud.
In the the end, you can't burn 1s and 0s, but paper and librarians burn like a mutherf***er.
Freeman is an expert in privacy law, was only recently appointed to his VP spot at Claria (less than 1 year ago), and it makes sense to have representation from this segment of the market on this 20 person panel. Claria and other similar companies have a legal business, as annoying as we may find it, so it makes sense to include them in the discussion. If they're view isn't understood early on, then it's likely that once any legislation is implemented they'll sue and tie the whole thing up in the courts. This should raise some eyebrows, but that's about it.
I'm always slightly suspicious of these dumbed down news stories. That talk about undeniable evidence and "no reasonable" person could object to the claims, seems heavy handed. Ultimately, we haven't seen any proof and we're relying on a reporter and a scientist to analyze, interpret, and apply the findings for us. We all have to do this to some degree because we're not experts in every field, but it'd be nice if there was some unbiased fair report of the findings that discussed the weakness and strengths fo the report, and helped answer questions about what the model itself was based on, and hwo trustworthy models are, and what the actual statistics where and what that means to us.
Because by cleaning up our own act we can then sell the "right to pollute" to those countries, forcing them to either pay for their deeds or clean up as well.
We can barely get China to enforce laws requiring that their corporations and citizens pay for software produced outside of China... and we're going to somehow get them to spend billions of dollars on ultra clean technologies and processes that they could use to reinvest in their economy? I'm sure some progress could be made here, but to say that b/c the US is doing it everyone else will seems pretty naive.
It could be that market for Lotus Notes users that run Linux on the desktop isn't large enough to warrent investing in a Linux client. It could be the same with the server as well... the market may not provide a significant return on the investment.
1. Global warming will result in colder temperatures in some currently heavily populated regions. 2. People tend to stay inside when it is colder. 3. Staying inside increases the likely hood of procreation.
The parent post is absolutely correct. IBM is giving back now by investing in Linux. The other, less obvious, contribution is that by actually recognizing the market for Linux and investing in it, IBM is expanding that market, which is expanding the total # of individuals who use and can in turn contribute back to Linux and it's related apps.
You sir, frankly, suck! Here I was thinking I had a sure fire way to strike it rich and you come in here with your logic and your facts and ruin everything. Here's what I had..
1.) Get $3 billion 2.) Build out WiMax network 3.) Sell to 90% of US Population for $19.95 per month. 3.) Profit!
Oh well, I've always got my backup plan... you've heard of 8 Minute Abs workout video. Well I'm going to release a new video called 7 Minute Abs. Same great ab workout, for one minute less. Who wouldn't buy it?
I agree with you. They could even pay for each person to carry a portable WiMax reciever with them. This could feed GPS information to a central database that in turn could charge people for consuming public resources, keep people from being wrongly accused of committing crimes b/c the government computer could clearly demonstrate that you were not at the scene, and this device could also send important civic notices to the person carrying it.
I can't stand the "not with my tax dollars" arguments from people that would vote for someone like Bush.
You are so right on. These neocon, richest 1% loving, vote tampering, minority opressing, homophobic, fundie, redneck fascists should own up and realize that the government has been gracious enough to all us to keep the money we work for and if they want it back so they can use it to provide services for the betterment of us all... well then they should be able to have it back. Hell yeah!
If I did have one of those cool portable WiMax devices, I could have just been reminded that we've always been at war with Eurasia.
Well, so far many posts have done a good job in demonstrating a significant level of paranoia, but we can do better. So here are some thoughts... talk amoungst yourselves.
Microsoft will allow people to purchase a CD w/ the new anti-spyware product. The CD will be laced with a newly developed and extremely addictive mind control drug.
Microsoft releasing anti-spyware software to counteract a leaked internal memo revealing that Bill Gates writes trojan horses in his spare time for kicks and giggles. Bill Gates screen name, G1ll_B4t3s will still be reavealed to the world.
Massive log files will not go away after the beta and will be used to fill up the average user's hard drive, forcing them to purchase a new PC, and thereby purchase a new copy of Windows through the OEM
All non-Microsoft products, media, and websites will be considered spyware. End users will be "protected" from them by immediately deleting the files, downloading an acceptable Microsoft replacement, and conventiently charging their credit card.
Secret code within the anti-spyware tool will hunt down and delete all evidence of Steve Balmer's presence on The Grassy Knoll.
Microsoft does not need to charge for this tool because they're being funded by an alien venture capitalist bent on subjegating all of mankind.
The code for the tool has been reverse engineered by an elite team of Russian crackers. They have found the cygwin libraries embedded deep within the code... and a single comment. That read.// Core library required to run beowulf clustering software. Can you imagine a beowulf cluster of these?
You've just strengthened the original contributors point. The point is that $1 billion in losses is not insignificant. And, as you pointed out, $27B is net revenue not profit, so the impact of that $1 billion on total profit is actually very significant. The grandparent post illustrated this as well, but you were too busy being a smart ass to have noticed.
Larry Page says he would 'like to see a model where you can buy into the world's content. Let's say you pay $20 per month.'
This is absolutely wrong. What Page was saying is all content that is charge for today could be made accessible for a flat fee and the creators of the content would be rewarded for the use of their content. He's talking about aggregating content and making it ALL available at a price point that people can afford, while at the same time reward content creators for their effort, not taking already free content and charging for it.
In the case a better predictor of the future is to look at past performance; the past performance of Michael Capellas. This guy turned Compaq around and sold it. He turned MCI around and sold it. Michael's the reliable predictor here, not the random number generator.
If your needs are general enough that there is one well defined "main branch", then yes, of course, you are better off sticking to it. Sure, do that for your email and web-server needs. But what if your business is spacecraft control or nuclear waste disposal or titanium welding or any other specialized process.
I agree w/ you here and think you've made a very good point, w/ this added destinction.
There's absolutely no way that we will spend that kind of money without having both the source code and the trained people to do whatever is needed with that source code.
Again, thanks for the clarification... many of us work in "normal" shops w/o this kind of specialization and expenditure, so a view into a different kind of environment is helpful.
When the software is important enough, having the source code is an absolute necessity which every system administrator will insist upon.
You addressed yourself on this point... That's bullshit.
There's a disturbing meme going through the industry that "COTS" (commercial, off-the-shelf) software can be sold without source code.
Your wording implies that this is somehow a change, a new trend moving through the industry... yeah right. Open Source and commercial software are not new bedfellows, but neither is the idea that you keep your commercial code locked up as far away from the users and the competition as you can.
When your company's business is totally dependent on a system, you must have access to the source code, no matter what the licence is.
What are you going to do with that source code? Wouldn't the issue be that you purchased a piece of software to do a certain task and it doesn't, so the vendor needs to improve/fix their software. Even if you did find a bug, why are you supporting the vendor's software by digging through their code to identify the bug? That's there job... that's what you paid for. And even if you did patch the issue and fix it yourself, what good would that do you because that would invalidate your support contract? So what's the point? I guess you could use the code to better utilize any APIs exposed by the vendor, but again, why should you have to... why don't the APIs work like they should and why doesn't the documentation explain how to use them?
Plus, this is really pretty impractical. Even in a scenario where you have access to all of the source code, like w/ a LAMP setup, do you really know enough to risk editing the code, recompile it, and run it in production system that is absolutely critical to your business. And do you do this at the risk of forking away from the main branch of code, again for your business critical system? Do you review all of the code for Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL, all of the related libraries and modules, and every new patch?
Having access to the source code can have its advantages, but it's not a must, and closed source commercial software is a viable and common business model that can provide a great deal of value (and has) to end users.
MP3s lose information due to their compressions scheme. So if you converted from and MP3 to OGG to WMA you'd end up with file missing all of the information from each round of compression. Using a lossless encoding format, like FLAC or WMA Lossles, would allow you to copy to whichever media format you prefer.
Yes, there is a huge reason to be concerned. You're asking for financial advice on/., which means your judgement is seriously impaired. You are as likely to get sound financial advice here as you are to be told to invest your money in an initiative to "Open Source" Star Trek Enterprise so it can be owned by the community. Just think of the returns! You'll have that beowulf cluster in no time.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks goodness this mirror was up an running to catch this moment in history!
I ask the Slashdot crowd, what they believe the compiler can be trusted to optimize and what must be hand optimized.
What can compilers trust the Slashdot crowd to optimize?
I ask the Slashdot crowd, what they believe the compiler can be trusted to optimize and what must be hand optimized?"
This question needs be considered, because the poster is staring right at the answer and is still missing it. You can write code. You have a compiler. OPTOMIZE THE COMPILER. That's the beauty of open source. Pry open the insides of GCC and tweak it so that it optimizes your code better. If you're a decent programmer, submit the idea back to the community. For some reaon people don't seem to remember that your compiler is just software too, it's not sacred, optimize to your hearts content. I don't know if this is because people are too used to closed source compilers or very high level programminging languages like Python and Ruby.
This antidigital windbag doesn't have a clue what he's talin' about. Clearly he's only concerned with the job of stupid librarians who can be easily replaced by Google vast array of Linux boxes running perl and python. If this jerk had ever been root on a box he'd understand the situation he and the rest of his library sissy friends find themselves in. He'd soil his trowsers if he had a clue about what a beowulf cluster could do to him. I'm so sickandtired of people blasting my blog, the blog subculture, the fact that blooggers are the new digerati, the new press, the new way to a free open and open society. I wouldn't be surprised if he's a affilliatted with the RIAA, MPAA, SCO or Microsoft. He even contradicts himself in his own rambling babble saying "If a fraction of the [Blog People] were devoted to buying books and providing librarians for the library-starved children of California, the effort would be of far more use to humanity and society." Idiot! Everyone knows the only thing kids go to library's for are the open access to computers which means pr0n and war3z.
Bottom line, just because my blog isn't censored by the neocon right wing fascist fox & friends loving librarians doesn't mean everything I've said about Bush, the RIAA, my water cooling, Open Source as a way of life, and why Paris Hilton is too hot to hate, but too dumb to love. Editors, libraries, congresscritters, all of that is meant to eliminate free speach by a society bent on taking over other cuntries' oil so they can destroy the world with toxic air polluttents (join the Kyoto protocol or I'm moving!) I for one say no.
Bottom line, What he doesn't understand is that blogs aren't about being right or wrong, that doesn't matter in the slightest bit. The point of blogs is to expand the minds and thought namespace of the readers of the blogs, to incense them and give them a sense of holy ignorance and anger that they can use as fuel for seeming important, informed, educated, and as if they've got all the right answers. My blog is like a gas stations for your ego. Stop by, fill up, and contribute back to and open society that will take what they like and what is useful to them and add it to their own thoughts, and ideas, and then give it back. It's the GPL for your mind! But this guy can't see himself as anything but the gate keeper to information, there must be hard copy books stored in his library so he can "sssssshhhhhhhhh!" you when your IPod is up too loud.
In the the end, you can't burn 1s and 0s, but paper and librarians burn like a mutherf***er.
Freeman is an expert in privacy law, was only recently appointed to his VP spot at Claria (less than 1 year ago), and it makes sense to have representation from this segment of the market on this 20 person panel. Claria and other similar companies have a legal business, as annoying as we may find it, so it makes sense to include them in the discussion. If they're view isn't understood early on, then it's likely that once any legislation is implemented they'll sue and tie the whole thing up in the courts. This should raise some eyebrows, but that's about it.
I'm always slightly suspicious of these dumbed down news stories. That talk about undeniable evidence and "no reasonable" person could object to the claims, seems heavy handed. Ultimately, we haven't seen any proof and we're relying on a reporter and a scientist to analyze, interpret, and apply the findings for us. We all have to do this to some degree because we're not experts in every field, but it'd be nice if there was some unbiased fair report of the findings that discussed the weakness and strengths fo the report, and helped answer questions about what the model itself was based on, and hwo trustworthy models are, and what the actual statistics where and what that means to us.
You're right it's inevitable... global warming, no matter what the outcome, will without a doubt cause more humans.
Because by cleaning up our own act we can then sell the "right to pollute" to those countries, forcing them to either pay for their deeds or clean up as well.
We can barely get China to enforce laws requiring that their corporations and citizens pay for software produced outside of China... and we're going to somehow get them to spend billions of dollars on ultra clean technologies and processes that they could use to reinvest in their economy? I'm sure some progress could be made here, but to say that b/c the US is doing it everyone else will seems pretty naive.
It could be that market for Lotus Notes users that run Linux on the desktop isn't large enough to warrent investing in a Linux client. It could be the same with the server as well... the market may not provide a significant return on the investment.
Here's a hypothesis.
1. Global warming will result in colder temperatures in some currently heavily populated regions.
2. People tend to stay inside when it is colder.
3. Staying inside increases the likely hood of procreation.
Therefore, global warming will cause humans.
The parent post is absolutely correct. IBM is giving back now by investing in Linux. The other, less obvious, contribution is that by actually recognizing the market for Linux and investing in it, IBM is expanding that market, which is expanding the total # of individuals who use and can in turn contribute back to Linux and it's related apps.
When the find the life on Mars... his name will be Kaaaaahhhhhnnn!
You sir, frankly, suck! Here I was thinking I had a sure fire way to strike it rich and you come in here with your logic and your facts and ruin everything. Here's what I had..
1.) Get $3 billion
2.) Build out WiMax network
3.) Sell to 90% of US Population for $19.95 per month.
3.) Profit!
Oh well, I've always got my backup plan... you've heard of 8 Minute Abs workout video. Well I'm going to release a new video called 7 Minute Abs. Same great ab workout, for one minute less. Who wouldn't buy it?
I agree with you. They could even pay for each person to carry a portable WiMax reciever with them. This could feed GPS information to a central database that in turn could charge people for consuming public resources, keep people from being wrongly accused of committing crimes b/c the government computer could clearly demonstrate that you were not at the scene, and this device could also send important civic notices to the person carrying it.
I can't stand the "not with my tax dollars" arguments from people that would vote for someone like Bush.
You are so right on. These neocon, richest 1% loving, vote tampering, minority opressing, homophobic, fundie, redneck fascists should own up and realize that the government has been gracious enough to all us to keep the money we work for and if they want it back so they can use it to provide services for the betterment of us all... well then they should be able to have it back. Hell yeah!
If I did have one of those cool portable WiMax devices, I could have just been reminded that we've always been at war with Eurasia.
You've just strengthened the original contributors point. The point is that $1 billion in losses is not insignificant. And, as you pointed out, $27B is net revenue not profit, so the impact of that $1 billion on total profit is actually very significant. The grandparent post illustrated this as well, but you were too busy being a smart ass to have noticed.
You had it right, and then lost it near the end of your thought. You should have stopped at...
I suspect they only want to tax
Another great idea to help recover tax dollars that have managed to find their way into the pockets of the populace.
Larry Page says he would 'like to see a model where you can buy into the world's content. Let's say you pay $20 per month.'
This is absolutely wrong. What Page was saying is all content that is charge for today could be made accessible for a flat fee and the creators of the content would be rewarded for the use of their content. He's talking about aggregating content and making it ALL available at a price point that people can afford, while at the same time reward content creators for their effort, not taking already free content and charging for it.
In the case a better predictor of the future is to look at past performance; the past performance of Michael Capellas. This guy turned Compaq around and sold it. He turned MCI around and sold it. Michael's the reliable predictor here, not the random number generator.
If your needs are general enough that there is one well defined "main branch", then yes, of course, you are better off sticking to it. Sure, do that for your email and web-server needs. But what if your business is spacecraft control or nuclear waste disposal or titanium welding or any other specialized process.
I agree w/ you here and think you've made a very good point, w/ this added destinction.
There's absolutely no way that we will spend that kind of money without having both the source code and the trained people to do whatever is needed with that source code.
Again, thanks for the clarification... many of us work in "normal" shops w/o this kind of specialization and expenditure, so a view into a different kind of environment is helpful.
You haven't seen goatse yet have you?
When the software is important enough, having the source code is an absolute necessity which every system administrator will insist upon.
You addressed yourself on this point... That's bullshit.
There's a disturbing meme going through the industry that "COTS" (commercial, off-the-shelf) software can be sold without source code.
Your wording implies that this is somehow a change, a new trend moving through the industry... yeah right. Open Source and commercial software are not new bedfellows, but neither is the idea that you keep your commercial code locked up as far away from the users and the competition as you can.
When your company's business is totally dependent on a system, you must have access to the source code, no matter what the licence is.
What are you going to do with that source code? Wouldn't the issue be that you purchased a piece of software to do a certain task and it doesn't, so the vendor needs to improve/fix their software. Even if you did find a bug, why are you supporting the vendor's software by digging through their code to identify the bug? That's there job... that's what you paid for. And even if you did patch the issue and fix it yourself, what good would that do you because that would invalidate your support contract? So what's the point? I guess you could use the code to better utilize any APIs exposed by the vendor, but again, why should you have to... why don't the APIs work like they should and why doesn't the documentation explain how to use them?
Plus, this is really pretty impractical. Even in a scenario where you have access to all of the source code, like w/ a LAMP setup, do you really know enough to risk editing the code, recompile it, and run it in production system that is absolutely critical to your business. And do you do this at the risk of forking away from the main branch of code, again for your business critical system? Do you review all of the code for Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL, all of the related libraries and modules, and every new patch?
Having access to the source code can have its advantages, but it's not a must, and closed source commercial software is a viable and common business model that can provide a great deal of value (and has) to end users.
MP3s lose information due to their compressions scheme. So if you converted from and MP3 to OGG to WMA you'd end up with file missing all of the information from each round of compression. Using a lossless encoding format, like FLAC or WMA Lossles, would allow you to copy to whichever media format you prefer.
Any reason to worry yet?
/., which means your judgement is seriously impaired. You are as likely to get sound financial advice here as you are to be told to invest your money in an initiative to "Open Source" Star Trek Enterprise so it can be owned by the community. Just think of the returns! You'll have that beowulf cluster in no time.
Yes, there is a huge reason to be concerned. You're asking for financial advice on