The difference is that Microsoft has already spent the money to test and perfect the migration path.
I almost soiled my pants reading that. There is noting "perfected" coming from MS. I work at a fortune 500 with 140,000+ employess. MS came in and told all the PHB's that they just HAD to upgrade our Exchange server to Exchange 2003 running on MS Windows 2003. What a nightmare. The server is constantly going down, and our corporate email is not dependable. These problems cannot be blamed on our IT staff since several of MS's people have been here a few WEEKS trying to get it running smoothly.
I predict a failed migration, millions of euros in lost money and productivity
Now do you really think IBM will let that happen? Of course not. With Novell in the picture for SuSE, they will be there too to make sure that it gets finished. There is no such thing as a large scale migration of anything without problems. Migrating with MS's own products to newer versions can be a nightmare. We have had tons of issues doing large upgrades in addition to the one I pointed out above.
Bullshit, Stacey. These issues should be resolved BEFORE the migration, especially if its a large scale problem.
Yeah, you sound like you have done a lot of large scale migrations. There are only so many senarios you can plan for in advance. After that you just need a little luck and good developers/admins working for you.
Oh well, must suck to be a worker for the City of Munic.
Why would it suck? I think it would be a great challenge and when they DO finish, it will be a great example that the city of Munich can use to their advantage. Maybe put some of their top guys out for consulting for a little while? IBM is the largest IT company in the world. There name is on this and they won't let it just get ran into the mud. Also, IBM has the most talented Global Services division you can find on the planet. There is still more then a year to go. In about 1 year, all the positive press will come out and MS will be scrambling to play it down and MS weeines will be making excuses.
Intel has been saying they will release a Linux driver "anytime now". In the meantime, for $19.95, you can purchase Linuxant which uses the native MS Windows driver under Linux. It works great and supports your centrino.
There are just as many commercial applications for Linux as Mac. What is different is the TYPE of commercial applications. If you need audio/video stuff, then you will find more for Mac (you wil find far more for MS Windows). If you need server/Enterprise class applications, Linux beats Mac hands down. I personally need that latter and you need the former. So maybe for you Mac OS X is a better fit? That doesn't make it better then Linux, only better for you. The applications that I NEED to run just are not available for Mac OS X. I am not going to be childish and say Mac OS X sucks because of that. It just doesn't fit MY needs, just like Linux currently does not fit YOUR needs.
From your post, it also sounds as if you didn't know how to use Linux. Linux is snap to admin/update/etc. Fedora uses yum or apt. I type one command and my system is updated. If I want I can use a gui app called synaptic to do it if I didn't feel like typing one small command line. Debian has had this power for many moons now. Dependency problems have been solved on Linux for quite sometime. Does Mac OS X update the majority of your applications for you or only Mac OS X? With Linux, one command updates my entire system.
Cron is old and assumes that it is up all the time. You are thinking of anacron:
rpm -qi anacron
Anacron is a periodic command scheduler. It executes commands at intervals
specified in days. Unlike cron, it does not assume that the system is
running continuously. It can therefore be used to control the execution of
daily, weekly, and monthly jobs (or anything with a period of n days), on
systems that do not run 24 hours a day. When installed and configured
properly, Anacron will make sure that the commands are run at the specified
intervals as closely as machine-uptime permits.
Photoshop 7 runs great under Linux with Crossover Office. Disney paid Codeweavers to get it running so their graphics artist could use it. There had to be some merit in Linux for Disney to go through that trouble when they could just run Photoshop under MS windows or Mac OS X. Oh, Dreamweaver MX also runs just fine under Crossover Office. Acrobat? There is a Linux versio of Acrobat reader. As for making PDF files, Linux has tons of ways to do that. Have you ever heard of any2pdf? You can also use Open Office 1.1 and export just about anything to a PDF file. Open Office 1.1 can also export your presentations to Flash.
If you take away that GPLed software, Red Hat, Mandrake and SuSE have no business anymore.
I work at a fortune 500 company. The cost of software is nothing. Most IT companies make their money on the SUPPORT, not the software. MySQL sells a non-GPLed version for customers that want to make a proprietary application that is not covered by the GPL. Again, the money in IT is hardware and support. We run tons of enterprise class applications, the initial cost of the software is squat compared to the annual 24x7 support. Look at IBM. They are a massive IT company. Guess where they make tons of money? From their Global Services division. Selling enterprise support is where the money is, not selling the software. MS makes their tons of cash not by selling you a $99 dollar copy of MS XP Home, but from the corporate support contracts that they get.
There are plenty of other Open Source licenses out there if the GPL does not fit you. Though most of the other Open Source licenses give away full rights to the software such as BSD which would allow your software to be consumed into a proprietary closed source product. If the GPL does not fit your business model, then don't use it. It is that simple.
How in the world can you compare freedom of speech with some greedy corporations trying for perpetual copyrights? Again, copyright was setup to MOVE WORKS INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. If that is not the goal anymore, then it is not a copyright, and copyright should be done away with IMO for something else. Greedy corporations giving bribes to congress to continually extend copyrights is wrong IMO. It breaks the original purpose and agreement of copyright. Why should some greedy copyright holder have a right to get out of the copyright contract? If a person violates the copyright of a copyright holder, people start to screem, yet it is OK for the copyright holder to drop their end of the deal by giving money to congress critters to extend the terms of a copyright to practically be a perpetual copyright?
I have mod points, but I needed to reply to this trash.
the GPL, doesn't let me control my hard work beyond no commercial useage
Do you smoke crack? The GPL DOES allow commercial usage. The GPL just requires the SOURCE CODE to be provided. MySQL is licensed under the GPL with full access to the source. You can also BUY it under another license if you want to make a non-GPLed application.
and it doesn't let me profit from the sale of my work.
That must be some good crack you are smokin'. You can sell your GPLed work for whatever amount you want. You just also have to provide the SOURCE code. Again, look at MySQL as an example. They provide the source code under GPL or a non-GPLed license for a fee. Red Hat sells GPLed software, SuSE sells GPLed software, Mandrake sells GPLed software...
The _whole_ point of copyright is to move works into the public domain. A copyright is not some all powerful ownership that you have. Copyright was setup as an agreement between "The People" and the copyright holder, and after a _limited_ time, that work would be part of the public domain. Big businesses have been trying to destroy that part of the agreement by making large bribes^H^H^H^H donations to congress critters and they have managed to get copyrights extended well beyond the _limited_ time that our Founding Fathers had in mind.
Python is too slow. And Perl code can get ugly real fast IMO. Oh, and where in my post did I say that Open Source only runs on Linux? Don't read into things : )
I have experience with Java. You can tell swing to try to look like a native toolkit. Though IMO, it often does not. SWT doesn't emulate the look of a gui toolkit, it uses that toolkit. Don't get me wrong, I have seen some great swing apps that look nice, are fast and do not have that bad of a memory foot print. Take a look at IntelliJ, that is one nice gui IMO and doesn't hog too much memory. Now contrast that with JDeveloper from Oracle or JBuilder from Bea. JDeveloper and JBuilder are both slow as a dog and suck up tons of memory.
The JVM does not compile everything to native code. It does it when it notices something being used often. That is why you can get annoying "stickyness" in some GUI apps as the code is being compiled to native code or a garbage collection takes place.
Sun has focused on server type applications for the JVM, and the GUI apps have suffered because of it. If Sun opened up Java, I can see a lot of people fixing this area of Java that does need work IMO.
I can't wait for 1.5 to be ready for production use. The shared VM will be nice, though that won't help any one applications memory foot print. A simple Swing app can
easily suck up 200MB of memory. If you run multiple Java apps, you will notice some memory savings, though running just one Java app, the shared VM won't save any memory.
From my development with Java, I find Java to run a little faster under Linux then MS Windows, at least the apps I have developed have. I always run simple performance test on the Java apps I write, and have found them to always be slightly faster under Linux. Also, I find that the VM under MS Windows has a little smaller memory foot print then under Linux. For Solaris, I find the VM to be both slower then under Linux/Windows and having a larger memory foot print for the same task.
Do you know how many years it would take? Also, what would be the point? People/companies want ONE development framework that allows cross-platform support. Who would want to work with.Net under MS Windows, Java under Solaris and whatever under Linux? No company would spend the time and money to write an application to so many frameworks. So in the end you would end of with an application that only supports ONE OS.
Java has the potential, Sun just needs to open it so Java can grow at a faster rate. Look at SWT compared to Swing. Swing has been around longer and has a little more functionality. However, SWT is faster, has a smaller memory foot print and just looks great IMO. I don't want a Swing based Java GUI to look the same on all platforms. I want my Java apps to look like a native app. I alos like the idea of gcj. I personally would rather write once and compile anywhere over compile once run anywhere. I think compiling on each platform would give the fastest performance and lowest memory foot-print.
She was reading this (AstroDrabb) over my shoulder, and said; "He doesn't know what the **** he's talking about.
Wow! Your wife sounds like such a nice lady. Boy how I wish my wife had a mouth like that. You must be proud! And we all know what high values lawyers have!
I am a senior programmer not a lawyer. Where in my post did I say I was a lawyer? In fact, I said I could be way off base. So you and your wife can go chase an ambulance or something. I am sure there is someone who stubbed their toe that your wife can try to sue. Oh, and maybe your wife and you can take a few reading lessons to learn how to read a simple post. I guess this sentence in my post is hard for your lawyer wife to understand:
*Note*: I am not a lawyer and I can be completely wrong about copyright laws.
A foul mouth and poor reading comprehension, you landed a real keeper!
Mac OS X is way more then FreeBSD. You have all the proprietary stuff on top that makes Mac OS X. Supporting just FreeBSD will be useless to Mac OS X..Net will need to be ported to Aqua to support all the graphical applications built on.Net. Supporting just FreeBSD on Mac OS X would be like just supporting the Linux kernel under GNU/Linux. It wouldn't be a very useful development platform IMO. Also, what level of support will MS have for FreeBSD? Will it just be a C# compiler? That wouldn't be very useful. Will they support the.Net framework on FreeBSD? That is what would be needed to make it useful. Supporting the full.NET framework would mean supporting XFree86 under FreeBSD, which would also inderectly be supporting it under Linux. I personally would not count on MS supporting the.NET platform on anything but MS Windows. The most you will get for any other OS from MS is the C# compiler. Again, IMO that is nothig to write home about. By only supporting a C# compiler, all the other OS platforms will have to create their own.Net compatible framework such as the MONO effort. Now let us contrast this with what Sun did with Java. They didn't make Java only for Solaris and flip-the-bird to the other OS platforms. Sun made the framework run well on all the platforms that they support. And IMO, Java runs better/faster under Linux and MS Windows then under Solaris. Though, that may be due to running on faster Intel/AMD processors over slower Sparc processors.
If that is how things worked out, then it would be good. However, with MS controlling the.Net platform, you can be certain MS will do what they have done in the past. Look at something as simple as HTML. MS made IE use document.all, look home many stupid HTML/ASP guys use that and cannot even make a simple HTML page to work with standards. Instead of document.all, these IE only site just need to use document.getElementById and it will be standards compliant and work with IE, Mozilla, etc. According to w3schools, Mozilla has 9% of the browser market and keeps growing every month. Linux has 2.6% of the desktop and Mac has 2.5% of the desktop market. On page 12 of the March 2004 issue of Linux Journal, there is a stat from some analysts that Linux will have 45% of the server market within 3 years. Do you think MS will sit back and let.Net server applications also run on Linux? Of course not. Just as MS bastardized HTML to make other browsers "incompatible" with the web, MS will do things with.Net that will make.Net applications only work on MS Windows.
Also, I don't know where people get this idea that Linux users do not spend money. The fortune 500 I work at have spent a lot of money on Linux applications, like Oracle 9i and Oracle 9iAS, PeopleSoft, we have 24x7 support contracts with Red Hat, etc. I think the average Linux desktop user doesn't want to spend tons of money on normal day-to-day software. That is understandable to me. It costs far too much to get average desktop software for an MS Windows platform. Tons of MS Windows users just go and steal that software from p2p. I personally take the Linux approach and use freely available desktop software instead of stealing $1,000's of dollars of software. Go look at the average/. MS Windows using users desktop and I bet you will find tons of stolen software. Now compare that to the average/. GNU/Linux using users desktop and you will find zero stolen software.
In the end I hope you are right and Mono/.Net will be an alternative cross-platform development platform to bring competition to Java, which would be a good thing.
Your friend goes out and legally purchases a music CD, brings it home and pops it into his player. You knock on his door and enter his home and happen to hear the CD his is legally playing. Your saying that the SIAE can sue you for that? That is just insane!
So, whatever the motivation of Mono or dotGnu, I simply want to develop my cross-platform C# apps. That's MY motivation, and that's what matters to me.
Do you really think.Net is cross-platform? Please give us a link to your "cross-platform" C# application. I would like to run it under Linux and Mac OS X..Net is not cross-platform and will never be..Net is much more then a C# compiler. Without the.Net framework being on other platforms, you are limited to MS Windows only.
As for Java. I used to agree about the ugly user interface. That is until I tried Eclipse. Eclipse uses SWT which is a GUI kit for Java that uses native libraries. So under MS Windows, your Java apps look and fell just like any other Win32 application. Under Linux SWT uses GTK+2 so they look and feel is like a native Linux application. I personally think SWT is very nice. Here are some screenshots of The Azureus BitTorrent client. This client is written in Java and looks and acts like a normal Win32 app instead of an ugly Java swing app. It looks and acts the same under Linux as well.
Someone mod parent up. I lost my ability to mod since I posted on this topic.
This is exactly what MS will do. How freaking naive can MS weeines be? MS is all about dominating a market. Big deal if C# the language is a standard. The platform is what matters and MS controls their.Net platform. People/Companies will code to that MS.Net platform and leave all other platforms out of the game.
If you want a cross-platform framework, use Java. If you want a cross-platform application, use wxWindows or QT
In the most recent Linux Magazie or Linux Journal (I don't recall which since I get both), I just read that many analysts are predicting that Linux will have at a minimum 45% of the server market share by 2007, only three years away. If Linux gets that kind of market share within 3 years, don't you think MS will continue to do whatever they can to continue to lock customers into their platform? Why do you think MS ported their C# compiler to FreeBSD over Linux?
Again, C# the language is open and you or anyone else can create a compiler. Big deal, you can now compile your first Hello World! C# applications. The commercial C# applications will be built on.Net and limited to MS Only.
Is there anyone out there that actaully thinks MS would develop a true cross-platform solution? Can their be a human that is that naive?
It is pretty funny that MS picked FreeBSD over Linux. FreeBSD has a smaller market share and far less industry support then Linux, yet MS ports to FreeBSD? (I am not trolling against FreeBSD, I rather like it very much).
Also, where is the framework for those other platforms? Oh, thats right, there is none. So basically, this "cross-platform".Net that MS has developed only runs under MS Windows. Big deal if you can get a C# complier. Without the framework, you don't have much, or you will be spending a long, long time to create the framework you need to run your application(s). If I download the free "cross-platoform" C# compiler from MS, will I be able to develop GUI apps under FreeBSD, Mac OS X or Linux? Opps, sorry, you need a copy of MS Windows to do that.
This is true MS style. They make something and call it "cross-platform" for PR purposes. The only way you can run most/all.Net applications is to run them under MS Windows. The fortune 500 company I am a Senior developer at have recently been looking at POS systesm. Linux, Java and.Net based ones to be exact. Guess what OS all the "cross-platform".Net systems need? Thats rigth, MS Windows! Java is the only cross platform framework around. When Sun made a cross-platform framework (Java), they didn't only support thier OS and have the other OSes only be a PR stunt. Sun went and made Java truly cross-platform to give you CHOICE. Sure, Sun wants you to run Java on Solaris. But they do not try to leverage Java to sell Sun boxen. The enterprise Java apps we run can run under Solaris, Linux, AIX, HP-UX, MS Windows. That is true cross-platform.
Face it. MS will never put out something that is truly cross-platform. They want that sale for their OS. Too bad they were not split into two companies. One for OS and one for applications. Maybe then we could get some decent software from MS that doesn't lock you in to their platform.
What laws are you basing your comments on? I was under the impression that it is against the law to DISTRIBUTE a copyrighted work, not to look at it. Can the RIAA sue me for listening to a song I hear on my friends CD player if I have not purchased the song? Of course not. I also do not think it is illegal to use the knowledge you may gain from seeing the source code. Unless of course that knowledge is covered under a patent. I am not a lawyer and can be completely off-base here.
The other thing is that MS would have to PROVE that you did see/use the source code. You can just say that you reverse engineered it.
Of course it is illegal to USE the source code. So if some wine guy goes and plops down a chunk of MS's source code into wine, then yes, that would be illegal. I am not sure if it would be illegal for some wine guy to look at the code and use some of that knowlege gained that is not under a patent in wine. Think about this. I can walk into a book store and read through a book. I can later write a book with that very same theme and I have not broken any copyright laws. What I cannot do is copy the book verbatim or distribute that as my own work.
I am under the impression that copyright laws do not prevent you from creating a work based on knowledge of another work.
As long as you do not use the original work verbatim. I can go and create a movie called Planet Wars with a lead character named Duke SlyStalker based on a very similiar theme as Star Wars. I can write a book with a theme just like LOTR with trolls, hobbits, elves, dwarfs, etc. I can paint my own version of very famous paintings. I can make music that sounds like other popular music.
I don't see what legal case MS would have against someone who viewed their source code and made an application that used that knowledge, again, as long as their is not a patent covering what you are re-creating. The only way I can see MS having a legal case is if you signed an NDA with MS.
*Note*: I am not a lawyer and I can be completely wrong about copyright laws.
Is it really illegal to download the source code to MS? It is protected by copyright law and I thought copyright laws only protected against distribution? I can go to a library and read any book I want. I can look at any piece of artwork I want. What I cannot do is to distribute those works without permission. The RIAA has not sued anyone for downloading music, only for UPLOADING music. I am not a lawyer, so I could be way off here. If I am correct, then there is nothing wrong with looking at the MS source code. You can even use non-patented stuff that you learn as long as it is a clean room implementation that is not based on the copyrighted code. Again, don't take this as advice, since I have no clue about copyright laws.
If the information is not meant to be public, then it should not be on a publicly addressable server.
Where I work we have a few servers that are addressable from the internet in a DMZ. Everthing else is untouchable, so the Opera trick doesn't work. The next block we have is that we use Netegrity for corporate wide single-sign-on. Every non-public webserver has a Netegrity client installed. To get any document, you need to first authenticate against the Netegrity policy server over SSL.
There is also the robots.txt file that google will honor, so there is no reason to block google's bots with your firewall.
Bottom line, is not to put sensitive information on a server that is addressable from the internet. Keep it all on your local network and force users to VPN in if they need to get to that information.
As a long time Gnome fan, I didn't care much for KDE. However, I just tried out KDE-3.2 under FC1 and it is very nice indeed. One thing I didn't see how to do is to open a link in a new tab without right-click => open in new tab. In Mozilla, you can middle click to open in a new tab. Is there anyway to do this in Konq? I wanted to see if I could do all my work in KDE for one or two weeks and see how productive I am compared to Gnome. Are thene any good sites on KDE tips? I also like the look of Gnome/GTK+ better, I think KDE is still a little too blocky and square. Is there anyway to soften KDE widgets, maybe round off the corners a little, etc?
Corporations are held responsible where a judge/jury finds that the corporation was somehow negligent. I agree that some of the cases are extreme and seem to be a malicious lawsuit. However, many of them have merit. For example, McDonald's knowingly sold coffee that was so hot that it could create third degree burns if it was in contact with the skin for 1 1/2 seconds! That to me is negligence. Sure, a person with common sense should KNOW THAT COFFFE IS HOT, however that still does not put some burden on McDonalds to have a warning label, a secure lid or sell the coffee a few degrees cooler.
I do agree that many of these types of lawsuit are becoming frivolous. However, it is the legal system that is responsible for it. It is lawyers after all, that take these types of cases to court in hopes that they can get 33% of that big settlement.
We need a few good, intelligent jury's and/or judges to throw some of these cases out. However, I do not think that corporations should never be held liable. A old friend of mine has severe third degree burn scars covering 100% of his back and shoulders from when he was a child. He was in the basement when a brand new water heater exploded from being poorly manufactured. This was complete negligence on the part of the manufacturer and he was rightly compensated for pain, suffering, rehab and permanent scars.
I believe companies need to be held accountable for their products/services when they fail. However, I don't in the slightest think that any company should try to enforce laws or stop criminal activity. I do think one exception can be made. If a products main function is meant for special activity and or to only be used by certain people, such as guns, explosives, etc. In this case I think it is OK to put in some "safety' measures such as a serial number, restricted purchasing or whatever other means may help prevent crimianl activity. Taking the steps HP did for consumer grade produts/services is just silly IMO.
Slashdot Mirror
I have never seen them for UNDER $1,200, although I see plenty in the $1,500 range
Intel has been saying they will release a Linux driver "anytime now". In the meantime, for $19.95, you can purchase Linuxant which uses the native MS Windows driver under Linux. It works great and supports your centrino.
From your post, it also sounds as if you didn't know how to use Linux. Linux is snap to admin/update/etc. Fedora uses yum or apt. I type one command and my system is updated. If I want I can use a gui app called synaptic to do it if I didn't feel like typing one small command line. Debian has had this power for many moons now. Dependency problems have been solved on Linux for quite sometime. Does Mac OS X update the majority of your applications for you or only Mac OS X? With Linux, one command updates my entire system.
Anacron is a periodic command scheduler. It executes commands at intervals specified in days. Unlike cron, it does not assume that the system is running continuously. It can therefore be used to control the execution of daily, weekly, and monthly jobs (or anything with a period of n days), on systems that do not run 24 hours a day. When installed and configured properly, Anacron will make sure that the commands are run at the specified intervals as closely as machine-uptime permits.
Photoshop 7 runs great under Linux with Crossover Office. Disney paid Codeweavers to get it running so their graphics artist could use it. There had to be some merit in Linux for Disney to go through that trouble when they could just run Photoshop under MS windows or Mac OS X. Oh, Dreamweaver MX also runs just fine under Crossover Office. Acrobat? There is a Linux versio of Acrobat reader. As for making PDF files, Linux has tons of ways to do that. Have you ever heard of any2pdf? You can also use Open Office 1.1 and export just about anything to a PDF file. Open Office 1.1 can also export your presentations to Flash.
I work at a fortune 500 company. The cost of software is nothing. Most IT companies make their money on the SUPPORT, not the software. MySQL sells a non-GPLed version for customers that want to make a proprietary application that is not covered by the GPL. Again, the money in IT is hardware and support. We run tons of enterprise class applications, the initial cost of the software is squat compared to the annual 24x7 support. Look at IBM. They are a massive IT company. Guess where they make tons of money? From their Global Services division. Selling enterprise support is where the money is, not selling the software. MS makes their tons of cash not by selling you a $99 dollar copy of MS XP Home, but from the corporate support contracts that they get.
There are plenty of other Open Source licenses out there if the GPL does not fit you. Though most of the other Open Source licenses give away full rights to the software such as BSD which would allow your software to be consumed into a proprietary closed source product. If the GPL does not fit your business model, then don't use it. It is that simple.
How in the world can you compare freedom of speech with some greedy corporations trying for perpetual copyrights? Again, copyright was setup to MOVE WORKS INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. If that is not the goal anymore, then it is not a copyright, and copyright should be done away with IMO for something else. Greedy corporations giving bribes to congress to continually extend copyrights is wrong IMO. It breaks the original purpose and agreement of copyright. Why should some greedy copyright holder have a right to get out of the copyright contract? If a person violates the copyright of a copyright holder, people start to screem, yet it is OK for the copyright holder to drop their end of the deal by giving money to congress critters to extend the terms of a copyright to practically be a perpetual copyright?
The _whole_ point of copyright is to move works into the public domain. A copyright is not some all powerful ownership that you have. Copyright was setup as an agreement between "The People" and the copyright holder, and after a _limited_ time, that work would be part of the public domain. Big businesses have been trying to destroy that part of the agreement by making large bribes^H^H^H^H donations to congress critters and they have managed to get copyrights extended well beyond the _limited_ time that our Founding Fathers had in mind.
Python is too slow. And Perl code can get ugly real fast IMO. Oh, and where in my post did I say that Open Source only runs on Linux? Don't read into things : )
The JVM does not compile everything to native code. It does it when it notices something being used often. That is why you can get annoying "stickyness" in some GUI apps as the code is being compiled to native code or a garbage collection takes place.
Sun has focused on server type applications for the JVM, and the GUI apps have suffered because of it. If Sun opened up Java, I can see a lot of people fixing this area of Java that does need work IMO.
I can't wait for 1.5 to be ready for production use. The shared VM will be nice, though that won't help any one applications memory foot print. A simple Swing app can easily suck up 200MB of memory. If you run multiple Java apps, you will notice some memory savings, though running just one Java app, the shared VM won't save any memory.
From my development with Java, I find Java to run a little faster under Linux then MS Windows, at least the apps I have developed have. I always run simple performance test on the Java apps I write, and have found them to always be slightly faster under Linux. Also, I find that the VM under MS Windows has a little smaller memory foot print then under Linux. For Solaris, I find the VM to be both slower then under Linux/Windows and having a larger memory foot print for the same task.
Java has the potential, Sun just needs to open it so Java can grow at a faster rate. Look at SWT compared to Swing. Swing has been around longer and has a little more functionality. However, SWT is faster, has a smaller memory foot print and just looks great IMO. I don't want a Swing based Java GUI to look the same on all platforms. I want my Java apps to look like a native app. I alos like the idea of gcj. I personally would rather write once and compile anywhere over compile once run anywhere. I think compiling on each platform would give the fastest performance and lowest memory foot-print.
I am a senior programmer not a lawyer. Where in my post did I say I was a lawyer? In fact, I said I could be way off base. So you and your wife can go chase an ambulance or something. I am sure there is someone who stubbed their toe that your wife can try to sue. Oh, and maybe your wife and you can take a few reading lessons to learn how to read a simple post. I guess this sentence in my post is hard for your lawyer wife to understand:
A foul mouth and poor reading comprehension, you landed a real keeper!
Mac OS X is way more then FreeBSD. You have all the proprietary stuff on top that makes Mac OS X. Supporting just FreeBSD will be useless to Mac OS X. .Net will need to be ported to Aqua to support all the graphical applications built on .Net. Supporting just FreeBSD on Mac OS X would be like just supporting the Linux kernel under GNU/Linux. It wouldn't be a very useful development platform IMO. Also, what level of support will MS have for FreeBSD? Will it just be a C# compiler? That wouldn't be very useful. Will they support the .Net framework on FreeBSD? That is what would be needed to make it useful. Supporting the full .NET framework would mean supporting XFree86 under FreeBSD, which would also inderectly be supporting it under Linux. I personally would not count on MS supporting the .NET platform on anything but MS Windows. The most you will get for any other OS from MS is the C# compiler. Again, IMO that is nothig to write home about. By only supporting a C# compiler, all the other OS platforms will have to create their own .Net compatible framework such as the MONO effort. Now let us contrast this with what Sun did with Java. They didn't make Java only for Solaris and flip-the-bird to the other OS platforms. Sun made the framework run well on all the platforms that they support. And IMO, Java runs better/faster under Linux and MS Windows then under Solaris. Though, that may be due to running on faster Intel/AMD processors over slower Sparc processors.
Also, I don't know where people get this idea that Linux users do not spend money. The fortune 500 I work at have spent a lot of money on Linux applications, like Oracle 9i and Oracle 9iAS, PeopleSoft, we have 24x7 support contracts with Red Hat, etc. I think the average Linux desktop user doesn't want to spend tons of money on normal day-to-day software. That is understandable to me. It costs far too much to get average desktop software for an MS Windows platform. Tons of MS Windows users just go and steal that software from p2p. I personally take the Linux approach and use freely available desktop software instead of stealing $1,000's of dollars of software. Go look at the average /. MS Windows using users desktop and I bet you will find tons of stolen software. Now compare that to the average /. GNU/Linux using users desktop and you will find zero stolen software.
In the end I hope you are right and Mono/.Net will be an alternative cross-platform development platform to bring competition to Java, which would be a good thing.
Your friend goes out and legally purchases a music CD, brings it home and pops it into his player. You knock on his door and enter his home and happen to hear the CD his is legally playing. Your saying that the SIAE can sue you for that? That is just insane!
As for Java. I used to agree about the ugly user interface. That is until I tried Eclipse. Eclipse uses SWT which is a GUI kit for Java that uses native libraries. So under MS Windows, your Java apps look and fell just like any other Win32 application. Under Linux SWT uses GTK+2 so they look and feel is like a native Linux application. I personally think SWT is very nice. Here are some screenshots of The Azureus BitTorrent client. This client is written in Java and looks and acts like a normal Win32 app instead of an ugly Java swing app. It looks and acts the same under Linux as well.
This is exactly what MS will do. How freaking naive can MS weeines be? MS is all about dominating a market. Big deal if C# the language is a standard. The platform is what matters and MS controls their .Net platform. People/Companies will code to that MS .Net platform and leave all other platforms out of the game.
If you want a cross-platform framework, use Java. If you want a cross-platform application, use wxWindows or QT
In the most recent Linux Magazie or Linux Journal (I don't recall which since I get both), I just read that many analysts are predicting that Linux will have at a minimum 45% of the server market share by 2007, only three years away. If Linux gets that kind of market share within 3 years, don't you think MS will continue to do whatever they can to continue to lock customers into their platform? Why do you think MS ported their C# compiler to FreeBSD over Linux?
Again, C# the language is open and you or anyone else can create a compiler. Big deal, you can now compile your first Hello World! C# applications. The commercial C# applications will be built on .Net and limited to MS Only.
Is there anyone out there that actaully thinks MS would develop a true cross-platform solution? Can their be a human that is that naive?
Also, where is the framework for those other platforms? Oh, thats right, there is none. So basically, this "cross-platform" .Net that MS has developed only runs under MS Windows. Big deal if you can get a C# complier. Without the framework, you don't have much, or you will be spending a long, long time to create the framework you need to run your application(s). If I download the free "cross-platoform" C# compiler from MS, will I be able to develop GUI apps under FreeBSD, Mac OS X or Linux? Opps, sorry, you need a copy of MS Windows to do that.
This is true MS style. They make something and call it "cross-platform" for PR purposes. The only way you can run most/all .Net applications is to run them under MS Windows. The fortune 500 company I am a Senior developer at have recently been looking at POS systesm. Linux, Java and .Net based ones to be exact. Guess what OS all the "cross-platform" .Net systems need? Thats rigth, MS Windows! Java is the only cross platform framework around. When Sun made a cross-platform framework (Java), they didn't only support thier OS and have the other OSes only be a PR stunt. Sun went and made Java truly cross-platform to give you CHOICE. Sure, Sun wants you to run Java on Solaris. But they do not try to leverage Java to sell Sun boxen. The enterprise Java apps we run can run under Solaris, Linux, AIX, HP-UX, MS Windows. That is true cross-platform.
Face it. MS will never put out something that is truly cross-platform. They want that sale for their OS. Too bad they were not split into two companies. One for OS and one for applications. Maybe then we could get some decent software from MS that doesn't lock you in to their platform.
The other thing is that MS would have to PROVE that you did see/use the source code. You can just say that you reverse engineered it.
Of course it is illegal to USE the source code. So if some wine guy goes and plops down a chunk of MS's source code into wine, then yes, that would be illegal. I am not sure if it would be illegal for some wine guy to look at the code and use some of that knowlege gained that is not under a patent in wine. Think about this. I can walk into a book store and read through a book. I can later write a book with that very same theme and I have not broken any copyright laws. What I cannot do is copy the book verbatim or distribute that as my own work.
I am under the impression that copyright laws do not prevent you from creating a work based on knowledge of another work. As long as you do not use the original work verbatim. I can go and create a movie called Planet Wars with a lead character named Duke SlyStalker based on a very similiar theme as Star Wars. I can write a book with a theme just like LOTR with trolls, hobbits, elves, dwarfs, etc. I can paint my own version of very famous paintings. I can make music that sounds like other popular music.
I don't see what legal case MS would have against someone who viewed their source code and made an application that used that knowledge, again, as long as their is not a patent covering what you are re-creating. The only way I can see MS having a legal case is if you signed an NDA with MS.
*Note*: I am not a lawyer and I can be completely wrong about copyright laws.
That 40GB is not just for the OS. It is for every piece of MS software. IE, MS Office, MS SQL Server, etc.
Is it really illegal to download the source code to MS? It is protected by copyright law and I thought copyright laws only protected against distribution? I can go to a library and read any book I want. I can look at any piece of artwork I want. What I cannot do is to distribute those works without permission. The RIAA has not sued anyone for downloading music, only for UPLOADING music. I am not a lawyer, so I could be way off here. If I am correct, then there is nothing wrong with looking at the MS source code. You can even use non-patented stuff that you learn as long as it is a clean room implementation that is not based on the copyrighted code. Again, don't take this as advice, since I have no clue about copyright laws.
Where I work we have a few servers that are addressable from the internet in a DMZ. Everthing else is untouchable, so the Opera trick doesn't work. The next block we have is that we use Netegrity for corporate wide single-sign-on. Every non-public webserver has a Netegrity client installed. To get any document, you need to first authenticate against the Netegrity policy server over SSL.
There is also the robots.txt file that google will honor, so there is no reason to block google's bots with your firewall.
Bottom line, is not to put sensitive information on a server that is addressable from the internet. Keep it all on your local network and force users to VPN in if they need to get to that information.
As a long time Gnome fan, I didn't care much for KDE. However, I just tried out KDE-3.2 under FC1 and it is very nice indeed. One thing I didn't see how to do is to open a link in a new tab without right-click => open in new tab. In Mozilla, you can middle click to open in a new tab. Is there anyway to do this in Konq? I wanted to see if I could do all my work in KDE for one or two weeks and see how productive I am compared to Gnome. Are thene any good sites on KDE tips? I also like the look of Gnome/GTK+ better, I think KDE is still a little too blocky and square. Is there anyway to soften KDE widgets, maybe round off the corners a little, etc?
I do agree that many of these types of lawsuit are becoming frivolous. However, it is the legal system that is responsible for it. It is lawyers after all, that take these types of cases to court in hopes that they can get 33% of that big settlement.
We need a few good, intelligent jury's and/or judges to throw some of these cases out. However, I do not think that corporations should never be held liable. A old friend of mine has severe third degree burn scars covering 100% of his back and shoulders from when he was a child. He was in the basement when a brand new water heater exploded from being poorly manufactured. This was complete negligence on the part of the manufacturer and he was rightly compensated for pain, suffering, rehab and permanent scars.
I believe companies need to be held accountable for their products/services when they fail. However, I don't in the slightest think that any company should try to enforce laws or stop criminal activity. I do think one exception can be made. If a products main function is meant for special activity and or to only be used by certain people, such as guns, explosives, etc. In this case I think it is OK to put in some "safety' measures such as a serial number, restricted purchasing or whatever other means may help prevent crimianl activity. Taking the steps HP did for consumer grade produts/services is just silly IMO.