Note: This discussion is a diversion, not necesarily off-topic.:)
While the recession continues(and grows deeper)
A recession is a period of general economic decline; specifically, a decline in GDP for two or more consecutive quarters. We've actually had growth (in the USA anyway) for at least the last two quarters and, I believe, the last four.
Anyway, you're correct that a weak economy is a good way to encourage companies to at least consider open-source software, especially when companies cannot afford to take the hits of security breaches and downtime that competitors are notorious for providing. That doesn't even take into account the licensing costs that are saved by using open-source software.
Considering this story about binary modules in the Linux 2.6 kernel, it's either not a problem for proprietary software developers to have these restrictions placed on them, or they haven't gotten wind of the news (which is highly unlikely).
I think one of the biggest problems that stifles innovation in the technology sector of the US, at least, is a distorted understanding of how patents should work.
Search Engine Competition is Good!
on
HotBot Returns
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· Score: 5, Insightful
It's a great idea to have as many search engines out there doing it as many ways as they can come up with. Unfortunately, HotBot isn't doing that at all. They're just using other search engines' results as a way to somehow put the domain to use and serve ads. This does nothing to improve the search experience for users and will likely only minimally benefit the company itself.
About the only thing I can see that could be considered innovative on this site is the ability to change the appearance by changing colors or uploading a CSS file. That could be beneficial for branding with ISP install CDs or something, but that doesn't even compare with using the Google API and making something that looks totally unique. I'm not convinced these guys have gotten the word that you have to do something that's really worthwhile to make money on the web now.
Which solution would better?
on
Plans For New TLDs
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Would it be better to have many tightly regulated TLDs, such has only allowing non-profit organizations to use.org, or would it be better to have just a couple of very generic TLDs?
As it stands, most of the existing TLDs are not very regulated, thereby defeating the orginal point of having different TLDs. The other big problem is that existing.com owners get first pick of the new TLDs, meaning that it's just another domain companies have to buy/borrow/steal to prevent supposed trademark infringement. It certainly isn't to make it possible for me to go register amazon.info or yahoo.sex.
- Why is there still no standard model for adding and removing apps? The number of competing models for package management alone is sickening.
- Why do we still have to choose between a bunch of different desktops, ALL of which are mutually incompatible?
If you add that every installation is different and decide that this should also be more uniform, then you've essentally made every distro identical. This is great for the poeple that like RPM, KDE and a GUI installer (assuming those are chosen as the "sanctioned" standards), but this is horrible for the large groups of people that dislike all of those. The various Linux distros all offer their unique solutions to each of these issues to cater to specific sectors, and if you smooth out the differences, then all the reasons that certain people use Linux go away, forcing them look for a system that gives them the flexibility they once had in Linux. This is exactly the opposite effect that I think you had in mind.
If you want a completely sanctioned system, always use the same distro and use only their packages. After you find out how inflexible that is, come back here and post about how good it is that we have umpteen different distros to serve different purposes.
It seems to me that the science business sector is playing the same venture capital games that another sector we all know so well has played for the last several years. I really hope for their own sakes that they maintain their integrity.
I'm really not trying to troll here, and even though he makes some interesting points, it's very difficult to trust the business opinions of a man that has one major dropped ball in his experience and is now trying to push his automation software as the Next Big Thing in IT. I don't honestly think he has any clue what the NBT is, but neither does anybody else.
I don't have time to wait for and e-mail, or a programmer to come back from snowboarding...or whatever when a 4million hit a day e-com site goes down. Sorry, you just can't play in that league without some security around your hardware, software, and everything else. Which your average everyday OSS project just does not have. Sorry if I got your nickers in a twist. Just the way it is.
It's working fine for Yahoo!, which uses FreeBSD. FreeBSD isn't exactly providing any support. For that matter, look at all of those 4 million hit sites running Apache. Google runs Linux on their server farm. Now, imagine how incompetent these guys would have looked if they had neglected these software options because they couldn't get phone support. So, no, that's not "just the way it is."
That's rather disingenuous of you, actually, to basically assume that your thoughts on this subject should take precident before all others. In response, I would say that there are many more avenues for support in an OSS solution than would exist with a proprietary application.
3) Just about every OSS application in existence maintains mailing lists for developers and users alike for you to be able to receive and provide support for that particular application.
4) There are many consulting companies and individuals out there that provide support on an as-needed basis should you be unable to find your answer elsewhere.
The fact remains, that with an OSS solution, many more people (including developers on the project) are likely to have a better understanding of the application that are willing and able to provide knowledgable support just because of its openness, if that's, indeed, what you want. You may not actually be able to use the phone, but instead, you can send an email to a group of people that are actually passionate about the application, instead of trying to get help from poeple who either don't care, can't understand the application as well as the designers, or who are there to get their $10/hour for a few hours before they go home to finish their homework. When my boss is breathing down my neck about a problem, I'd much rather let him know I'm discussing the issue with one of the guys that designed the application rather than a highschool kid that reads a script to meet his inbound call quota.
If you can run perl scripts on the server, grab http://nist.time.gov/timezone.cgi?/d/0, where the 0 is the timezone offset (-5 for Eastern US time), then parse the time and date out of that. Once you have those values, use the date and clock functions to set your system time.
If you can't trust Amazon.com user opinions, what makes you think you can trust answers on Ask Slashdot? Many of us rattle off about every issue out of ignorance and get modded up despite that ignorance. Can you trust us?
Why is it that with all of their resources, the RIAA is unable to figure out a way to make the amazingly technology that is decentralized filesharing work for them (at least in a way that they acknowledge)? I tend to think the fact that they can't is evidence of their stifled creativity.
Don't have a single point of failure. Whitelisting IPs for access is great, but just like any other method of authentication, it has its weaknesses and should be used in conjunction with any number of other authentication mechanisms.
That explains why Microsoft puts all those bugs in their software. To protect their intellectual property and prevent their software from being used for military implementations.
Slashdot Mirror
Note: This discussion is a diversion, not necesarily off-topic. :)
While the recession continues(and grows deeper)
A recession is a period of general economic decline; specifically, a decline in GDP for two or more consecutive quarters. We've actually had growth (in the USA anyway) for at least the last two quarters and, I believe, the last four.
Anyway, you're correct that a weak economy is a good way to encourage companies to at least consider open-source software, especially when companies cannot afford to take the hits of security breaches and downtime that competitors are notorious for providing. That doesn't even take into account the licensing costs that are saved by using open-source software.
Considering this story about binary modules in the Linux 2.6 kernel, it's either not a problem for proprietary software developers to have these restrictions placed on them, or they haven't gotten wind of the news (which is highly unlikely).
I think one of the biggest problems that stifles innovation in the technology sector of the US, at least, is a distorted understanding of how patents should work.
that does nothing but erode Freedom.
It's a great idea to have as many search engines out there doing it as many ways as they can come up with. Unfortunately, HotBot isn't doing that at all. They're just using other search engines' results as a way to somehow put the domain to use and serve ads. This does nothing to improve the search experience for users and will likely only minimally benefit the company itself.
About the only thing I can see that could be considered innovative on this site is the ability to change the appearance by changing colors or uploading a CSS file. That could be beneficial for branding with ISP install CDs or something, but that doesn't even compare with using the Google API and making something that looks totally unique. I'm not convinced these guys have gotten the word that you have to do something that's really worthwhile to make money on the web now.
Sorry, that was a typo. Go Here.
but were bound to them, even though they did not specifically have to click an 'I agree'
How many of you would like to be bound to an EULA even if you didn't click an 'I agree'?
You can get a .geek from OpenNIC.
Would it be better to have many tightly regulated TLDs, such has only allowing non-profit organizations to use .org, or would it be better to have just a couple of very generic TLDs?
.com owners get first pick of the new TLDs, meaning that it's just another domain companies have to buy/borrow/steal to prevent supposed trademark infringement. It certainly isn't to make it possible for me to go register amazon.info or yahoo.sex.
As it stands, most of the existing TLDs are not very regulated, thereby defeating the orginal point of having different TLDs. The other big problem is that existing
1) Enter preference (e.g. "hair:Blonde sex:Female age:25 breasts:big")
2) Click "I'm Feeling Lucky"
Yeah, Randy Cohen is probably right. This is not a good idea.
Maybe the same thing will happen to the RIAA that happened to WorldCom and Enron.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of ratbots...
Being led around by the external stimuli known as the Pied Piper.
- Why is there still no standard model for adding and removing apps? The number of competing models for package management alone is sickening.
- Why do we still have to choose between a bunch of different desktops, ALL of which are mutually incompatible?
If you add that every installation is different and decide that this should also be more uniform, then you've essentally made every distro identical. This is great for the poeple that like RPM, KDE and a GUI installer (assuming those are chosen as the "sanctioned" standards), but this is horrible for the large groups of people that dislike all of those. The various Linux distros all offer their unique solutions to each of these issues to cater to specific sectors, and if you smooth out the differences, then all the reasons that certain people use Linux go away, forcing them look for a system that gives them the flexibility they once had in Linux. This is exactly the opposite effect that I think you had in mind.
If you want a completely sanctioned system, always use the same distro and use only their packages. After you find out how inflexible that is, come back here and post about how good it is that we have umpteen different distros to serve different purposes.
It seems to me that the science business sector is playing the same venture capital games that another sector we all know so well has played for the last several years. I really hope for their own sakes that they maintain their integrity.
I'm really not trying to troll here, and even though he makes some interesting points, it's very difficult to trust the business opinions of a man that has one major dropped ball in his experience and is now trying to push his automation software as the Next Big Thing in IT. I don't honestly think he has any clue what the NBT is, but neither does anybody else.
I don't have time to wait for and e-mail, or a programmer to come back from snowboarding...or whatever when a 4million hit a day e-com site goes down. Sorry, you just can't play in that league without some security around your hardware, software, and everything else. Which your average everyday OSS project just does not have. Sorry if I got your nickers in a twist. Just the way it is.
It's working fine for Yahoo!, which uses FreeBSD. FreeBSD isn't exactly providing any support. For that matter, look at all of those 4 million hit sites running Apache. Google runs Linux on their server farm. Now, imagine how incompetent these guys would have looked if they had neglected these software options because they couldn't get phone support. So, no, that's not "just the way it is."
No matter what anyone else here says...
That's rather disingenuous of you, actually, to basically assume that your thoughts on this subject should take precident before all others. In response, I would say that there are many more avenues for support in an OSS solution than would exist with a proprietary application.
1) groups.google.com is an infinitely valuable resource.
2) The Linux Documentation Project maintains a searchable list of man pages, HOWTOs and other documentation.
3) Just about every OSS application in existence maintains mailing lists for developers and users alike for you to be able to receive and provide support for that particular application.
4) There are many consulting companies and individuals out there that provide support on an as-needed basis should you be unable to find your answer elsewhere.
The fact remains, that with an OSS solution, many more people (including developers on the project) are likely to have a better understanding of the application that are willing and able to provide knowledgable support just because of its openness, if that's, indeed, what you want. You may not actually be able to use the phone, but instead, you can send an email to a group of people that are actually passionate about the application, instead of trying to get help from poeple who either don't care, can't understand the application as well as the designers, or who are there to get their $10/hour for a few hours before they go home to finish their homework. When my boss is breathing down my neck about a problem, I'd much rather let him know I'm discussing the issue with one of the guys that designed the application rather than a highschool kid that reads a script to meet his inbound call quota.
If you can run perl scripts on the server, grab http://nist.time.gov/timezone.cgi?/d/0, where the 0 is the timezone offset (-5 for Eastern US time), then parse the time and date out of that. Once you have those values, use the date and clock functions to set your system time.
If you like the way this site works, you can get the code here.
Boy, I totally misread that. I'll RTFA next time, I promise.
And people always thought I was paranoid about doubleclick.net being able to find out my real name and address.
If you can't trust Amazon.com user opinions, what makes you think you can trust answers on Ask Slashdot? Many of us rattle off about every issue out of ignorance and get modded up despite that ignorance. Can you trust us?
Why is it that with all of their resources, the RIAA is unable to figure out a way to make the amazingly technology that is decentralized filesharing work for them (at least in a way that they acknowledge)? I tend to think the fact that they can't is evidence of their stifled creativity.
Don't have a single point of failure. Whitelisting IPs for access is great, but just like any other method of authentication, it has its weaknesses and should be used in conjunction with any number of other authentication mechanisms.
That explains why Microsoft puts all those bugs in their software. To protect their intellectual property and prevent their software from being used for military implementations.
Oh wait... it didn't work.