I don't like the name "memristor". It's too close to one of the other three fundamental names. Of course, "flux capacitory" comes to mind, but it also uses one of the other names in its name. So I propose calling it a "fluxor". What do y'all think?
(of course, they're used on the starship Outreach:-) )
Well, yes. OSS hasn't been a big player (in my work) until the past five to ten years. Although relatively new, OSS has been a saviour. Where I have the influence, I now require all components be GPL and that we GPL back everything we do. But, I don't have as much influence as I'd like, so I get to see plenty of non-OSS (=COTS or M$) failures occur... at the expense of my stock and ultimately everyone's paycheck.
So yes, OSS is great, and that's why I'm still in the game; if it wasn't for that I'd have bailed hi-tech in the 90s (and been a poor, but happy, rancher).
To clarify my first post, I presumed the context of "COTS" meant the closed-source, must-be-licensed, commercial-off-the-shelf software. There's actually some open, GPL'd COTS and this latter category is just fine, IMHO.
I've been in this game for nearly four decades, and seen the industry pendulum swing thru two complete cycles from all-custom to all-COTS. This was both in the private (Digital/Compaq/HP) and government (military & mil contractor) sectors of the IT industry. To be fair, my experiences are only in very large shops and companies. I don't know how this applies to small shops.
Everything I've experienced has taught me one very clear lesson: COTS does not work, for anything beyond a mail client or a suite of 'office' tools. Your internal business critical applications must be custom developed. And when custom developed, in-house development fares better than contracted custom devo.
I've noticed that COTS always seems to look better on paper, and starts off with a lower price tag. But even in the first week of deployment, that biz process you tried to bend to fit the software, just doesn't work when bent that way. So you start to loose business, or you have to modify the COTS software. Usually both. After a year, if you haven't gotten smarter and scrapped the COTS software entirely, and if your business unit is clever enought to stay afloat after that bad COTS decision, you find that you've had to customize it so much that it doesn't even look like the original. Oh, and surprise!, you've spent at least triple what it would have cost for an in-house development effort.
But wait, it gets worse. Eventually the COTS software just can't be customized any further, and must be scrapped. Your good developers... er, 'customizers'... see the ship is sinking. Most of them jump ship to the company that produced the COTS software, so they can do 'real coding'. Now you're doubly screwed.
Well for one thing, I plan to get a bunch of these RFID tags, encode them with the ID's I read from all the passing-by city folk, and then inject the tags into squirrils, coyotes, and prairie dogs.
Every so often I'll round up a bunch of the critters and let 'em loose in different parts of the county.
Have fun tracking, big bro!
I recall a system prototyped (developed?) by Digital Equipment Corporation (now Compaq, soon HP?) called Millicent - as in "milli-cents". It had something to do with an inexpensive way for companies to charge for web and other Internet content without the billing system's cost overwhelming the amount being charged.
This seems like a candidate here, if this penny-per-page (or $0.0005/page or whatever) system comes about. IMHO, I hope it doesn't.
Anyone have more info on Millicent?
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I don't like the name "memristor". It's too close to one of the other three fundamental names. Of course, "flux capacitory" comes to mind, but it also uses one of the other names in its name. So I propose calling it a "fluxor". What do y'all think? (of course, they're used on the starship Outreach :-) )
So yes, OSS is great, and that's why I'm still in the game; if it wasn't for that I'd have bailed hi-tech in the 90s (and been a poor, but happy, rancher).
To clarify my first post, I presumed the context of "COTS" meant the closed-source, must-be-licensed, commercial-off-the-shelf software. There's actually some open, GPL'd COTS and this latter category is just fine, IMHO.
Everything I've experienced has taught me one very clear lesson: COTS does not work, for anything beyond a mail client or a suite of 'office' tools. Your internal business critical applications must be custom developed. And when custom developed, in-house development fares better than contracted custom devo.
I've noticed that COTS always seems to look better on paper, and starts off with a lower price tag. But even in the first week of deployment, that biz process you tried to bend to fit the software, just doesn't work when bent that way. So you start to loose business, or you have to modify the COTS software. Usually both. After a year, if you haven't gotten smarter and scrapped the COTS software entirely, and if your business unit is clever enought to stay afloat after that bad COTS decision, you find that you've had to customize it so much that it doesn't even look like the original. Oh, and surprise!, you've spent at least triple what it would have cost for an in-house development effort.
But wait, it gets worse. Eventually the COTS software just can't be customized any further, and must be scrapped. Your good developers... er, 'customizers'... see the ship is sinking. Most of them jump ship to the company that produced the COTS software, so they can do 'real coding'. Now you're doubly screwed.
Well for one thing, I plan to get a bunch of these RFID tags, encode them with the ID's I read from all the passing-by city folk, and then inject the tags into squirrils, coyotes, and prairie dogs. Every so often I'll round up a bunch of the critters and let 'em loose in different parts of the county. Have fun tracking, big bro!
Hey, where can I get fireworks like those? Nothin' even close can be turned up north of the border. :-)
I recall a system prototyped (developed?) by Digital Equipment Corporation (now Compaq, soon HP?) called Millicent - as in "milli-cents". It had something to do with an inexpensive way for companies to charge for web and other Internet content without the billing system's cost overwhelming the amount being charged. This seems like a candidate here, if this penny-per-page (or $0.0005/page or whatever) system comes about. IMHO, I hope it doesn't. Anyone have more info on Millicent?