Even better, the Oregon State University Open Source Lab (osuosl.org) was launched from with the campus networking group. If the original poster already has a similar foothold in their university, they should be able to follow similar steps to emulate the OSL's success.
An implicit sub-problem of his selected hardware is the requirement for portability. The drive will be moved to distant locations where a NAS or SAN will not be available.
I would guess that the parents complaining about games are the same ones whose children go to school on a shooting rampage. Seriously folks, the populace of the United States has some serious issues that are a direct result of reduced social expectation of individual responsibility. To be blunt, The parents of these children should be taking responsibility for their own (in)actions that led to their childrens' so-called "addictions", just as they should be held responsible for their kids becoming hooked on drugs (or other results that the parents did not want to see realized). Put the parents in jail overnight when they complain like this; teach them to take responsibility for their kids' actions, as any good parent should already be doing.
Microsoft moves their "A" team to the latest version of their OS. In your example, you will be left with "B" (or "C") team support resources. I worked on a CE device from 2.1 through 4.0beta; there is no realistic option but to move forward in lockstep with MS.
With Linux, you can still find support for the 2.4 kernel, and products are still moving to 2.6. Transitions can be managed at your pace; you can have all of your platform's source code in revision control, building everything from scratch indefinitely. I've worked on numerous embedded Linux platforms, and - speaking from an investment perspective - there is no other system that I would recommend for modern, complex embedded systems.
That doesn't mean you will spend less on the technology, but I believe these added costs indirectly translate in massive savings in other areas. I have encountered few things as frustrating as my experiences paying to have Microsoft debug their products; one such incident caused a major update of our product to be delayed by five months. I have no idea what that cost my employer (outside of my salary), but I do know it was non-zero and my life was miserable waiting for their fix.
This anecdote should reveal perhaps what I believe is the most significant positive impact on the development process: your engineers will enjoy a better quality of life by having complete control of the software system. Releases can be produced on your scheduled, and the component design of the Linux kernel and GNU operating system packages makes upgrading an iterative and incremental process. The Microsoft alternative provides no such flexibility; bringing up the next version of Microsoft's OS is an all or nothing task, as you can't (sanely) mix and match components between their major upgrades.
Moreover, the GPL license ensures you are free of vendor lock-in. There are already individuals and businesses that are willing to upgrade, fix, or replace the myriad of open systems. This marketplace should only continue to grow more competitive, barring government interventionism that erodes the legal power of free and open licenses. By contrast, no such open marketplace can (legally) exist for closed source platforms, so the cost of third-party support for such platforms often becomes prohibitive in a very short time.
Finally, I would bet that the bulk of your product's value will derive from your own custom applications running on your platform. For those assests that fall outside of your core business focus, you can leverage the community process to increase the rate of development, incorporating new features and fixes developed by your users and hackers (if your device is affordable). There are now numerous examples where this later crowd can provide definitive returns, even when they are not intentionally solicited (nslu2, wrt54g, tivo, psp, etc.). You will be far better off planning to work with hackers instead of spending time and money trying to keep them off of your platform; if you are careful, you can even plan to profit from their efforts.
While I am biased to believe that Microsoft cannot be trusted to take an truly independent report at face value, the OSDL will be hard pressed to pass on this opportunity. If you doubt this, imagine the spin Microsoft marketing could put on the alternate headline: "OSDL declines Microsoft offer for independent analysis". Looking at this angle, I actually have to tip my hat to Microsoft; the OSDL will have to handle this situation perfectly to avoid exposing an exploitable weakness. Above all, I think this move shows that Microsoft has escalated their offensive, bringing the battle for business customers onto free and open source software's home turf.
This comment is exactly what I was looking for before posting my thoughts to refute AOL's rights to monitor or censor transmissions through its network. Earlier posters argued that AOL can do what it wants based on its rights as a private business operating a private carrier, but *functionally* there are one the internet's biggest common carriers.
With this in mind, I personally question how long they will retain any rights to meddle in the affairs of their customers before they are declared a common carrier and are forced to respect the First Amendment rights of its customers. In my eyes, their present function parallels that of the sidewalks your company town example, but the final answer depends on whether or not those civil rights are written out of the Constitution completely in the coming years.
I can see nerds getting involved in the outdoors once again, bringing a whole new meaning to "phishing" - rigging up Zodiacs with networked fishfinder arrays and catching for themselves the latest in autonomous underwater robot technology.
Hell, I'd steal one.
Myself, I'm going to wait until the researchers notice the fleet's numbers are increasing without any new deployments. When the original units mysteriously stop communicating with their satellite uplinks, it will be open season on the buggers. That said, I look forward to the day we can track them down and reprogram them for free.
Those who can't wait for the inevitable hunt should, in the meantime, visit their local Department of Agriculture and discover the wonders of "invasive species." In Oregon, there are some pretty nifty critters that can sought out and... repurposed.
That said, I don't think there's a version of Linux that runs on a Nutria. Yet.
You missed the fundamental point that Red Hat (and any distribution) is not really selling the underlying code they are distributing. They are selling the results of their bundling all of these disparate free packages together, so the difference in the original ancestor post is quite valid. Their only obligation to the consumer would be to maintain the integrity of the bundle, which ultimately relies upon the free software of which it was comprised.
Slashdot Mirror
Gentoo managed to get this kind of setup working years ago, didn't they?
Even better, the Oregon State University Open Source Lab (osuosl.org) was launched from with the campus networking group. If the original poster already has a similar foothold in their university, they should be able to follow similar steps to emulate the OSL's success.
An implicit sub-problem of his selected hardware is the requirement for portability. The drive will be moved to distant locations where a NAS or SAN will not be available.
I would guess that the parents complaining about games are the same ones whose children go to school on a shooting rampage. Seriously folks, the populace of the United States has some serious issues that are a direct result of reduced social expectation of individual responsibility. To be blunt, The parents of these children should be taking responsibility for their own (in)actions that led to their childrens' so-called "addictions", just as they should be held responsible for their kids becoming hooked on drugs (or other results that the parents did not want to see realized). Put the parents in jail overnight when they complain like this; teach them to take responsibility for their kids' actions, as any good parent should already be doing.
Microsoft moves their "A" team to the latest version of their OS. In your example, you will be left with "B" (or "C") team support resources. I worked on a CE device from 2.1 through 4.0beta; there is no realistic option but to move forward in lockstep with MS.
With Linux, you can still find support for the 2.4 kernel, and products are still moving to 2.6. Transitions can be managed at your pace; you can have all of your platform's source code in revision control, building everything from scratch indefinitely. I've worked on numerous embedded Linux platforms, and - speaking from an investment perspective - there is no other system that I would recommend for modern, complex embedded systems.
That doesn't mean you will spend less on the technology, but I believe these added costs indirectly translate in massive savings in other areas. I have encountered few things as frustrating as my experiences paying to have Microsoft debug their products; one such incident caused a major update of our product to be delayed by five months. I have no idea what that cost my employer (outside of my salary), but I do know it was non-zero and my life was miserable waiting for their fix.
This anecdote should reveal perhaps what I believe is the most significant positive impact on the development process: your engineers will enjoy a better quality of life by having complete control of the software system. Releases can be produced on your scheduled, and the component design of the Linux kernel and GNU operating system packages makes upgrading an iterative and incremental process. The Microsoft alternative provides no such flexibility; bringing up the next version of Microsoft's OS is an all or nothing task, as you can't (sanely) mix and match components between their major upgrades.
Moreover, the GPL license ensures you are free of vendor lock-in. There are already individuals and businesses that are willing to upgrade, fix, or replace the myriad of open systems. This marketplace should only continue to grow more competitive, barring government interventionism that erodes the legal power of free and open licenses. By contrast, no such open marketplace can (legally) exist for closed source platforms, so the cost of third-party support for such platforms often becomes prohibitive in a very short time.
Finally, I would bet that the bulk of your product's value will derive from your own custom applications running on your platform. For those assests that fall outside of your core business focus, you can leverage the community process to increase the rate of development, incorporating new features and fixes developed by your users and hackers (if your device is affordable). There are now numerous examples where this later crowd can provide definitive returns, even when they are not intentionally solicited (nslu2, wrt54g, tivo, psp, etc.). You will be far better off planning to work with hackers instead of spending time and money trying to keep them off of your platform; if you are careful, you can even plan to profit from their efforts.
While I am biased to believe that Microsoft cannot be trusted to take an truly independent report at face value, the OSDL will be hard pressed to pass on this opportunity. If you doubt this, imagine the spin Microsoft marketing could put on the alternate headline: "OSDL declines Microsoft offer for independent analysis". Looking at this angle, I actually have to tip my hat to Microsoft; the OSDL will have to handle this situation perfectly to avoid exposing an exploitable weakness. Above all, I think this move shows that Microsoft has escalated their offensive, bringing the battle for business customers onto free and open source software's home turf.
I have to wonder if these patents will have a chilling effect on their ability to compete in the marketplace.
This comment is exactly what I was looking for before posting my thoughts to refute AOL's rights to monitor or censor transmissions through its network. Earlier posters argued that AOL can do what it wants based on its rights as a private business operating a private carrier, but *functionally* there are one the internet's biggest common carriers.
With this in mind, I personally question how long they will retain any rights to meddle in the affairs of their customers before they are declared a common carrier and are forced to respect the First Amendment rights of its customers. In my eyes, their present function parallels that of the sidewalks your company town example, but the final answer depends on whether or not those civil rights are written out of the Constitution completely in the coming years.
Myself, I'm going to wait until the researchers notice the fleet's numbers are increasing without any new deployments. When the original units mysteriously stop communicating with their satellite uplinks, it will be open season on the buggers. That said, I look forward to the day we can track them down and reprogram them for free.
Those who can't wait for the inevitable hunt should, in the meantime, visit their local Department of Agriculture and discover the wonders of "invasive species." In Oregon, there are some pretty nifty critters that can sought out and... repurposed.
That said, I don't think there's a version of Linux that runs on a Nutria. Yet.
That sounds like far too much. Cut it down to 0.1% and you might actually be allowing patents of true innovation.
You missed the fundamental point that Red Hat (and any distribution) is not really selling the underlying code they are distributing. They are selling the results of their bundling all of these disparate free packages together, so the difference in the original ancestor post is quite valid. Their only obligation to the consumer would be to maintain the integrity of the bundle, which ultimately relies upon the free software of which it was comprised.