Because their official client was actually the Windows client running under Cedega from Transgaming which is built off of wine.
As a linux user who does play games I can tell you the reason I don't play EVE Online is because they announced a linux client and before buying the game I read up on it and discovered they actually didn't release a linux client and instead were working with Transgaming to get the Windows client working on linux. Its called bait and switch, no thanks, I purchased ID Software's Quake Wars instead as it actually does have a native linux client. Its no where near the same genre and it would have been interesting to play EVE Online, but oh well.
that mother would defeat the most earnest efforts of the NSA
At which point the NSA turns it over to the CIA who have devised a powerful tool for data extraction, waterboarding. Fortunately for you the technique will be outlawed tomorrow.
I see lots of questions about the energy usage of the home in the article and the return on investment.
There are links to the previous articles which explain the level of power consumption and there is enough data to make a rough estimate of the ROI.
They have a computer lab running in the house along with some substantial home entertainment hardware and both of the homeowners work from the house so the energy consumption does not drop off when they go to work. Even with a lab I have to admit the power consumption is rather high but he doesn't go into detail as to the equipment in the computer lab.
For the ROI he provides enough detail to estimate an annual power bill savings of $3,800. And after rebates the system he installed set him back $38,000. Assuming no maintenance costs and 15% cost of capital the ROI for the first year is around 9%, the second year 16%, the third year 23%, and it goes up from there. The simple payback is 10 years.
I'm always amazed at the high cost of a solar power system, it was around $50k before rebates. However, looking at the panels he had installed they appear to have the equivalent of 72 six inch silicon wafers, he installed 27 panels, so the cost per silicon wafer is around $25. That's pretty cheap considering the cost to produce a six inch silicon wafer with a simple semiconductor device is well over $100 per wafer. Which leads me to believe the driving factor for the cost of solar power installations is the pathetic efficiency with which they convert solar energy to electricity. The panels he installed are only 18% efficient. Sounds like we need some advances here.
It's not dumping if the competition (Linux) is free.
Actually it has less to do with prices and more to do with the intentions. Perhaps it would have been better to call it "predatory pricing" as the objective of the dumping is to drive competitors out of the market so a monopoly can be established at which point the remaining monopoly gouges customers and provides a sub par product.
The fact that you can acquire and implement linux for virtually no cost does not change the fact that Microsoft is using predatory practices to perpetuate a monopoly position.
The thing is their products are agile in price since they have high fixed costs and low marginal costs.
Actually Microsoft's software products are agile in price because they have gross margins which are only possible with a monopoly position that they maintain through illegal business tactics.
From their most recent Quarterly SEC filing the client business (Vista, XP) gross margin is 95%, server and tools (Windows Server, SQL Server, CALs) gross margin is 83%, office (MS Office) gross margin is 96%.
I have no idea what the fixed and marginal costs are as they do not break them out but the cost of revenue is minimal as one would expect for a software company with the market size.
And comparing an Airline business to Microsoft is a poor comparison as the cost of reproducing an airline flight is very different from the cost of reproducing a copy of a software application. You could compare Microsoft's business model to recorded music and movies.
Far from being unfair this is actually socially ideal.
Not in a monopoly controlled market, see the margins, customers are gouged.
I also question broad statements like " Windows is not really competitive and schools that switch save tens of millions of dollars."
Think about it, what does a school district with technically capable IT staff pay in gross margins to implement linux versus Windows?
I do not understand this business model. Free software and selling support.
A common and often repeated predicament but it is something every software vendor had better be trying to understand whether they intend to join the ranks of FOSS based vendors or if they intend to compete using the old tried and true closed source model.
The primary developer would have to subsidize their development costs with the services
As is the case with both closed and open source software development. The difference between closed and open source development is that the closed source vendor incurs all the costs to license the libraries and tools needed for development of closed source software and the salaries for the development, testing, marketing, etc. where as the open source vendor shares many of those costs with others in the development community.
I think the difficulty many people run into with the application of a business model on an open source product is they assume they will maintain the original organizational structure they used for their closed source model with an open source model, in which case you are correct, the business will fail. The solution is to discover how you can fit your business within the open source community so there is an equitable relationship. Even this is not much different from the closed source model, all the vendors licensing their software to enable another company to develop a software product are trying to maximize their profits at the secondary developer's expense. If the licensing expenses for the closed source libraries and tools you use are too high then your business venture will not be viable.
Obviously some businesses will want expert support for critical products, but that is very niche.
This is a false statement. Both closed and open source based businesses are making hundreds of millions from the service side of the software business. Read the details in the SEC statements for companies like Red Hat, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, etc. and you will find the service market is massive. Most businesses benefit from added productivity enabled by IT infrastructure and one way or another have expenses necessary to place and maintain that infrastructure. Whether its the small business that buys a PC preloaded with Microsoft Windows and Office that comes with a minimal amount of support and they rely on their own time or a local PC shop or the larger corporations that subscribe to the Red Hat support network so they receive orderly updates to their linux operating systems and all the associated software.
Honestly all one has to do is look at the profit margins for a company like Microsoft and you realize the development costs of the software are not so amazingly high that a move to the service side is going to kill the company, but I suppose it could result in fewer Lear jets and Porsche 959s for the CEOs.
Our biggest worry isn't necessarily that we don't know how to customize, but rather that we won't have the resources to maintain customized code going forward; it's quite simple to update Rails as it matures versus the alternative.
Since you are benefiting from the open source nature of ruby on rails shouldn't you simply provide your customizations back to the ruby on rails project so they can be maintained as part of the the framework or start an open source project separate from ruby on rails where the community can assist in maintaining it?
You miss the point - delivering the Internet to conumers is only profitable for a company if they are a near-monopoly. Having a couple of customers here, a couple there doesn't work - there are labor-intensive resources that are tied to geography. Like fixing wires when they break.
Wow, you pulled all that out of the AC's post? You can definitely read more between the lines than I can.
Anyhow, the facts disagree with your belief that a monopoly is required to be profitable. I'm not surprised by this as you are among the majority who have either lost faith in free market and competition or never believed in it in the first place.
In reviewing the latest 10Q SEC filing for Comcast and AT&T, two opponents of net neutrality who arguably are engaged in a competitive market for broadband internet, they are making a tidy profit on their internet operations.
Comcast had an operating income of $1.7 billion after expenses, depreciation and amortization on revenue of $8 billion for their cable segment for the last 3 months.
AT&T had an operating income of $2.7 billion after expenses, depreciation and amortization on revenue of $17 billion for their wireline segment for the last 3 months.
And so the battle goes on and on. Each side offering better numbers (speeds, etc.) and lower prices - utterly unsustainable prices that make no sense but designed to capture market share. Once the competition is eliminated prices can return to that which actually pays for the service, but not until.
Welcome to the free market where ROI includes risk. It is sustainable and works for many other industries. Take a close look at electronics manufacturers, probably the most cut throat competitive industry around. Electronics manufacturers compete, some win some fail, the market continues and consumers get awesome products at great prices. When competitors lower their prices below sustainable levels in an attempt to gain market share and drive competitors out of business they are breaking the law, very much like breaking the law when competitors scheme to fix prices or use other illegal tactics to build or maintain monopoly positions so they can gouge consumers.
Another side effect of this is the consumer isn't paying for access
See the SEC reports, consumers are paying, providers are profiting. Reality trumps theory.
especially when you can get a DSL connection for $14.95 a month
That would be awesome!:) Unfortunately you picked the minimum data point for broadband access with nothing to explain exactly what you get for $14.95, the truth is that average broadband access rates are $53.06/month in the United States.
Think people are comfortable with the idea that the current ISPs are running at a loss and just hanging on with the hope of driving everyone else out?
Please, read some of the financial statements for the corporations who are fighting net neutrality and who want to tax other companies who profit by providing valuable services over the network the ISP is already profiting from.
The $200 billion that the telecoms got in the 1990s to wire America was squandered, and very little was actually done with it (arguably kept prices for existing services at the same level instead of having them go up, but not more than that).
Actually, looking at historical rates before and after the 1996 telecom act show that local telecom rates increased at the same rate as the CPI, long distance telecom rates started to increase but remained at very competitive rates for consumers, and the local cable rates continued their rocketing out of control increases well above the CPI.
There are two messages that can be derived from the trends. 1) Creating a competitive market as was done with long distance telecom results in huge benefits to consumers, both individuals and businesses. 2) When a market has little to no competition they will at the very least increase their rates on average with the CPI or if they can get away with it they will gouge the consumer for every penny they can get.
The two sad outcomes of the telecom plans of the 1990s is that we never received the nation wide broadband that was envisioned by the government and the broadband that has been provided does not meet the peer to peer asymmetrical data transmit rates as envisioned by the government.
For all the justified complaints about the governments poor job of meddling in business the telecom industry is one area where there was a powerful vision and direction provided by the government that was quashed by corporations who are more interested in that rates trend for cable companies than they are about building a technologically advanced telecom infrastructure that provides economic benefit to many instead of a few.
(you seem to be a confused AC, here I fixed your comment for you)
The internet is like a night market in a third world country. It sprang from a government funded project and, contrary to short sighted corporations, individuals discovered and utilized the value in it. You'll be damned if you try to regulate it. You guys all bitch about the new corporate kid on the block who is making huge profits providing value customers want and the loss of your birth-right to over charge for sub par services on a monopolistic network governed by price fixing schemes. For the last 8 years. But guess what, the net is still neutral and individuals are still finding value in the internet all the while paying you for the service you market to connect them to the businesses and other individuals that provide that value. Just let it be and go with the flow. The net is to nebulous and decentralized to be regulated. You'll still be able to rake in reasonable profits as long as you maintain a marketable service offering for years to come. When a new content provider starts up and makes a profit by delivering the content over the network for which you've already been paid to provide, don't worry - the free market is always there to supply you with your investment ROI fix, that is if you still remember what investment is.
A Google search for text messaging lawsuit will provide a good understanding of the "economics" behind the pricing of text messaging in the cell phone market. It has little to do with supply, demand, competition or free market.
Cell phone carriers have been ripping people off with gadgety features backed by over priced crappy service for years, but all the consumer does is parrot the marketing spiel for the plan they purchased and the latest gee whizz factor while ignoring the true economics that show the level of rip off for cell phone service.
As long as you have a large number of customers using false reasoning to justify and defend their over rated and over priced contractual service plans the carriers will continue their scams.
I was trying to solve a somewhat similar problem and while I'm not sure if there is going to be an easy drop in solution I think you can assemble what you need using a combination of a Samba file server to store the documents and either a custom monitoring daemon on the file server that uses the inotify API or setup the auditd rules and put together some scripts to transform the audit log files into a report you can use.
For what I needed I ended up writing a simple bash script that runs continuously in the background and uses inotifywait to monitor a directory. It sounds like you need something more granular so I suspect the auditd solution would be more of what you need.
The weak point of the system, and for any document sharing system, is what happens after a user copies a document to their local machine. As others have stated solutions like DRM are bogus, the only way to absolutely control information is to not allow access in the first place.
I believe your first statement is the correct answer and should be applied to every business model and industry. Many people have become so accustomed to the guaranteed profits and market stability provided by monopolies and false supply vs demand markets that it is now assumed that it is the only feasible business method. And when confronted with a competitive threat the correct response alludes many businesses as they've never believed in or experienced the true nature of free markets and competition.
On the other hand, I question how applicable your analogies of manufacturing and services productivity improvements brought about by mechanization are to software development. The root cause of the problems many software vendors are experiencing today simply comes down to the fact that they have based their business model on a false supply vs demand market where they create a scarcity of supply by locking up the reproduction of the end product through patents, copyrights, and licensing.
The initial investment in the production of the software may be high but subsequent copies of that work are very close to zero, and that is what these companies are fighting against because a near zero manufacturing cost and control of the supply make it possible to charge insanely high prices for the product and achieve outrageous profit margins.
Open source software development has not necessarily increased the efficiency or productivity of software development per se (I suppose code reuse could be a productivity increaser), but what it has done is spread the cost of producing the initial software product to other businesses, users, and developers.
I believe you also have the answer to the posters qualms, if the open source community is doing the software development work for his business why is he fighting against them? For the developer the work is still there, it is just a question of who employs the developer, for the business they need to closely review their business model and determine how they need to change it to take advantage of the open source community that is assisting them in developing the software.
To sum up: - OSS is bringing significant competition to the software market, businesses need to adapt or pack up. - OSS virtually eliminates the possibility of high profit margins in a false supply/demand market. - OSS spreads the cost of development across a community of businesses, developers and users. - OSS brings the true cost of software reproductions to the end user, which is near zero. - OSS based businesses need to use the model to their advantage, closed source businesses need to provide value above and beyond OSS competition if they want to maintain profit margins, mixed OSS/Closed Source businesses are doomed in my opinion.
I am actually prohibited from using GPL software at work
Considering the proliferation of GPLed software in everything from Televisions to Routers and Switches I'd say your employer should just close up shop now because they will not be able to avoid the "risk" and still do business.
We're running a web-based service on a razor-thin margin
And thankfully there are a multitude of open source licensed packages on which you can base your business, however as an end user and not a software distributor there is no reason to avoid GPL licensed software. Stop believing the FUD as you are greatly limiting the pool of software at your disposal.
The better question for Red Hat might be "How many developers can continue to work for free in the present economic climate?
A better question would start with some research to understand who the Fedora developers are and who pays them if they are paid. Basing a question on the same tired falsehood that open source developers are unpaid geeks living in their parent's basements is rather tired and dated.
If the linux kernel contributions are any clue only 15% of contributors are unpaid. And I'm sure they have their reasons for contributing which go beyond simply making a buck. linuxkerneldevelopment
60" 1080p TV PS3 Local ATSC via a standard antenna in the attic
Anyone who doesn't see a difference between HD content and an up converted DVD either has a small or low resolution display or really need to have their eyes checked.
I didn't buy into BR right away, I only recently picked up a PS3, but I've been using an HDTV for the past 5 years. Even comparing an HD ATSC signal to an up converted DVD is no comparison. In fact, one of the greatest benefits of HDTV that is poorly publicized is the OTA digital signal that is free of snow, ghosting, etc. which made satellite and cable such a necessity for a quality picture. All the local networks have a huge opportunity here to compete against satellite and cable via rabbit ears but they seem to be too dumb to realize it.
I have a fair number of DVDs but I've been holding off on any new DVDs for over a year now because with my OTA ATSC experience I knew what was in store when switching from DVD to BR, so I've been waiting until the BR discs come down in price and I had a player. Now that I have a player I picked up my first three BR movies at $15 each, which is pretty much what I was paying for DVDs.
I haven't purchased any digital downloads but I am using UPnP on the PS3 and MediaTomb on a 1.5TB linux file server to provide various mpeg videos and a large digital photo collection over GbE. Its actually nice to peruse the menus and click on a video rather than thumb through a disc collection.
I read TFA and found it interesting that for some titles BR held a substantial portion of the sales in BD vs DVD. There is obviously a lot going on here and predicting the demise of BR seems very premature. Its likely a combination of hardware prices, confused consumers, limited content, and possibly DRM although that may be rolled up in confused consumers rather than actual fears surrounding the ability to play the media they purchased.
If the economic meltdown ends anytime soon perhaps the transition to all digital TV will result in new equipment and content sales and people will begin to realize that there is a huge difference in the quality of the presentation with the new digital formats.
Atheists require faith to believe that there is no God, and nothing else outside their perceived world. In reality, this viewpoint requires more faith than any religion, because all religions offer "proof" that they are true.
Care to share that proof? Atheists do not have faith in the belief there is no god, they are skeptics and to date not one individual or organized group of faithful followers of any god have provided a single shred of proof which is compelling evidence of the existence of a god.
Oh, and a couple of important points for the faithful to keep in mind...
Unless you subscribe to every theological rendition that has ever come to be or currently exists, guess what, you are an atheist yourself. Do you believe in Zeus, Apollo, all of the many Hindu gods, etc. ad infinitum? If you deny the existence of these gods then you to are an atheist.:P
And a heads up, not believing in some magical being does not automatically mean believing in only what you perceive. For the most part atheists have no problem with science and things that cannot be perceived but can be tested. Example, you cannot perceive an electron, but you sure can test the properties of electrons and other atomic particles once you've developed the technology necessary to measure those properties. Can't say the same for some magical being dreamed up in your head. Then again there are studies of electromagnetic fields and how they can be used to induce a religious experience.
Of course the people who just leave P2P applications running non-stop are a bit of a pain.
Perhaps the problem is that there are to few internet users who leave their P2P applications running non-stop.
Seriously, the problem telecoms and ISPs are complaining about is users using the bandwidth they purchased and has nothing to do with P2P.
In fact, if a greater number of people were leaving P2P applications running there would be a higher probability that the packet you need is available from a peer that is fewer hops away. The result would be less traffic leaving the ISP network and impacting the Internet as a whole.
Of course this assumes the P2P application is coded in a way that it can prioritize peers on the same network or geographically closer to one another. I don't know if this is currently implemented in any P2P applications but if not it could be.
And if telecoms and ISPs have so much issue with P2P then perhaps they should invest in setting up automated P2P clients of their own that watch Internet P2P traffic and dynamically join in so they can eventually seed on their network and reduce traffic leaving their network.
Whether we keep using P2P or not the bandwidth usage is going to keep increasing, be it peer to peer sharing of media files or the telecoms getting what they really want which is control of the file sharing and content so they can add one more charge to your bill.
the developers had never thought to sanitize their data
Oh it goes well beyond sanitizing input data, why were they not utilizing the least privilige principle in their application design? Allowing an unauthenticated user to use a database user with full privileges to the database tables when only selects are required on specific tables is asking for trouble.
In most cases I suspect the developers are, well, just lazy. When presented with a ready made least privilege PHP application design the response by multiple developers was "I can just recover the website from a database backup, least privilege is not necessary", I kid you not.
Hmm, and who was the winner in this race they ran?
Based on IBM's income statement they are fast approaching $100 billion in annual revenue. To put this into perspective Exxon Mobile, that company that has made the news by making record profits for any company ever by gouging consumers, is a $116 billion in revenue corporation.
And how can it be they are an 'also ran' and yet they are continually on the leading edge of many technologicalbreakthroughs.
What you call the average user (which I would call the completely clueless user) will never buy a computer with Linux pre-installed, including an Eee PC.
You may not want to read the ZD Net article which mentions the demographics of the linux eeePC users in Taiwan, your AC head may just explode.
"Retailers and contract manufacturers in Taiwan say that novice PC users there, like students and housewives, tend to buy the Linux version of the Eee PC701, while geeks go for Windows XP."
And these non-average users who you suspect are pirates buying the linux boxes to I assume install a pirated copy of Windows, that is a stretch. The non-average user is going to buy the parts and build the box themselves as its cheaper and you end up with better hardware.
After years of people having to pay a Microsoft tax when they are going to buy a computer on which they will run linux its hilarious seeing people post about how the linux boxes will end up running Windows. What a hoot.:)
If the customers are anything like the Windows customers they'll be running linux until the box is dead.
If they are an out of the ordinary customer who does their own OS installs then it wouldn't make much sense to buy a box with linux pre-installed when you can buy boxes with no OS, or to save even more purchase the parts themselves and build the box.
I'm sure some of them will end up running Windows but its more likely that it will be due to a want or need to go back to Windows apps rather than going through the trouble to get a cheaper box.
From what I've seen of vendors that sell Windows and linux boxes there isn't much of a cost benefit to buy the linux box over a Windows box, in fact its not uncommon for the Windows box to often times cost less than a similarly equipped linux box. Its never been fully explained why by the vendors selling the boxes, but its been speculated that they are subsidized by the proprietary software vendors.
If it does turn out they are being purchased on the cheap and a pirated copy of Windows is installed, oh well, I guess its pay back for me and everyone else who has purchased multiple laptops over the years and being forced to pay a Microsoft tax even though the laptops would be used to run linux.
Capitalism's main problem is that it doesn't distribute wealth equitably
Bingo!!!
However I still question whether the problem is Capitalism itself or simply the people who have gamed the system and basically turned Capitalism back into Feudalism.
I agree with many of the concerns that Gates expresses in the article but I absolutely disagree with his assessment of the situation and the solution. Case in point, perhaps I don't know enough about this RED program started by Bono which is saving the world but from what I read of the article corporations are using marketing to sell products to by pulling heart strings and then giving a portion of the profit margin to a charity. Why don't they just give donations to charities outright like their customers have been doing for ages? What is the added value to the charities of creating a marketing ploy?
But back to Capitalism. The solution is not Creative Capitalism, the solution is to adopt real Capitalism and punish those who destroy the Free Market in which Capitalism works. Many of the countries that are suffering with poor standards of living actually have marketable resources which could be used to build an economy, however, through corruption the wealth of the nations are radically uneven in their distribution.
And sadly Gates fails to recognize the symptoms in the United States economy for what they are. The GINI coefficient for the United States has been continually trending in the direction of inequality similar to many countries where the average citizen is incapable of participating in a Capitalist Economy as anything other than a laborer to be exploited.
The solution to the worlds ills is not more goofy marketing and selling of crap products that nobody needs. The first step in the solution is to stop the outrageous corruption and exploitation that destroys economies, communities, and living standards. A secondly we need to seriously listen to experts in sociology and economics, not a monopolist who wants to put his corporate label on everyones contribution to the solution.
Slashdot Mirror
Because their official client was actually the Windows client running under Cedega from Transgaming which is built off of wine.
As a linux user who does play games I can tell you the reason I don't play EVE Online is because they announced a linux client and before buying the game I read up on it and discovered they actually didn't release a linux client and instead were working with Transgaming to get the Windows client working on linux. Its called bait and switch, no thanks, I purchased ID Software's Quake Wars instead as it actually does have a native linux client. Its no where near the same genre and it would have been interesting to play EVE Online, but oh well.
At which point the NSA turns it over to the CIA who have devised a powerful tool for data extraction, waterboarding. Fortunately for you the technique will be outlawed tomorrow.
I see lots of questions about the energy usage of the home in the article and the return on investment.
There are links to the previous articles which explain the level of power consumption and there is enough data to make a rough estimate of the ROI.
They have a computer lab running in the house along with some substantial home entertainment hardware and both of the homeowners work from the house so the energy consumption does not drop off when they go to work. Even with a lab I have to admit the power consumption is rather high but he doesn't go into detail as to the equipment in the computer lab.
For the ROI he provides enough detail to estimate an annual power bill savings of $3,800. And after rebates the system he installed set him back $38,000. Assuming no maintenance costs and 15% cost of capital the ROI for the first year is around 9%, the second year 16%, the third year 23%, and it goes up from there. The simple payback is 10 years.
I'm always amazed at the high cost of a solar power system, it was around $50k before rebates. However, looking at the panels he had installed they appear to have the equivalent of 72 six inch silicon wafers, he installed 27 panels, so the cost per silicon wafer is around $25. That's pretty cheap considering the cost to produce a six inch silicon wafer with a simple semiconductor device is well over $100 per wafer. Which leads me to believe the driving factor for the cost of solar power installations is the pathetic efficiency with which they convert solar energy to electricity. The panels he installed are only 18% efficient. Sounds like we need some advances here.
Actually it has less to do with prices and more to do with the intentions. Perhaps it would have been better to call it "predatory pricing" as the objective of the dumping is to drive competitors out of the market so a monopoly can be established at which point the remaining monopoly gouges customers and provides a sub par product.
The fact that you can acquire and implement linux for virtually no cost does not change the fact that Microsoft is using predatory practices to perpetuate a monopoly position.
Actually Microsoft's software products are agile in price because they have gross margins which are only possible with a monopoly position that they maintain through illegal business tactics.
From their most recent Quarterly SEC filing the client business (Vista, XP) gross margin is 95%, server and tools (Windows Server, SQL Server, CALs) gross margin is 83%, office (MS Office) gross margin is 96%.
I have no idea what the fixed and marginal costs are as they do not break them out but the cost of revenue is minimal as one would expect for a software company with the market size.
And comparing an Airline business to Microsoft is a poor comparison as the cost of reproducing an airline flight is very different from the cost of reproducing a copy of a software application. You could compare Microsoft's business model to recorded music and movies.
Not in a monopoly controlled market, see the margins, customers are gouged.
Think about it, what does a school district with technically capable IT staff pay in gross margins to implement linux versus Windows?
A common and often repeated predicament but it is something every software vendor had better be trying to understand whether they intend to join the ranks of FOSS based vendors or if they intend to compete using the old tried and true closed source model.
As is the case with both closed and open source software development. The difference between closed and open source development is that the closed source vendor incurs all the costs to license the libraries and tools needed for development of closed source software and the salaries for the development, testing, marketing, etc. where as the open source vendor shares many of those costs with others in the development community.
I think the difficulty many people run into with the application of a business model on an open source product is they assume they will maintain the original organizational structure they used for their closed source model with an open source model, in which case you are correct, the business will fail. The solution is to discover how you can fit your business within the open source community so there is an equitable relationship. Even this is not much different from the closed source model, all the vendors licensing their software to enable another company to develop a software product are trying to maximize their profits at the secondary developer's expense. If the licensing expenses for the closed source libraries and tools you use are too high then your business venture will not be viable.
This is a false statement. Both closed and open source based businesses are making hundreds of millions from the service side of the software business. Read the details in the SEC statements for companies like Red Hat, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, etc. and you will find the service market is massive. Most businesses benefit from added productivity enabled by IT infrastructure and one way or another have expenses necessary to place and maintain that infrastructure. Whether its the small business that buys a PC preloaded with Microsoft Windows and Office that comes with a minimal amount of support and they rely on their own time or a local PC shop or the larger corporations that subscribe to the Red Hat support network so they receive orderly updates to their linux operating systems and all the associated software.
Honestly all one has to do is look at the profit margins for a company like Microsoft and you realize the development costs of the software are not so amazingly high that a move to the service side is going to kill the company, but I suppose it could result in fewer Lear jets and Porsche 959s for the CEOs.
Since you are benefiting from the open source nature of ruby on rails shouldn't you simply provide your customizations back to the ruby on rails project so they can be maintained as part of the the framework or start an open source project separate from ruby on rails where the community can assist in maintaining it?
Wow, you pulled all that out of the AC's post? You can definitely read more between the lines than I can.
Anyhow, the facts disagree with your belief that a monopoly is required to be profitable. I'm not surprised by this as you are among the majority who have either lost faith in free market and competition or never believed in it in the first place.
In reviewing the latest 10Q SEC filing for Comcast and AT&T, two opponents of net neutrality who arguably are engaged in a competitive market for broadband internet, they are making a tidy profit on their internet operations.
Comcast had an operating income of $1.7 billion after expenses, depreciation and amortization on revenue of $8 billion for their cable segment for the last 3 months.
AT&T had an operating income of $2.7 billion after expenses, depreciation and amortization on revenue of $17 billion for their wireline segment for the last 3 months.
Welcome to the free market where ROI includes risk. It is sustainable and works for many other industries. Take a close look at electronics manufacturers, probably the most cut throat competitive industry around. Electronics manufacturers compete, some win some fail, the market continues and consumers get awesome products at great prices. When competitors lower their prices below sustainable levels in an attempt to gain market share and drive competitors out of business they are breaking the law, very much like breaking the law when competitors scheme to fix prices or use other illegal tactics to build or maintain monopoly positions so they can gouge consumers.
See the SEC reports, consumers are paying, providers are profiting. Reality trumps theory.
That would be awesome! :) Unfortunately you picked the minimum data point for broadband access with nothing to explain exactly what you get for $14.95, the truth is that average broadband access rates are $53.06/month in the United States.
Please, read some of the financial statements for the corporations who are fighting net neutrality and who want to tax other companies who profit by providing valuable services over the network the ISP is already profiting from.
Actually, looking at historical rates before and after the 1996 telecom act show that local telecom rates increased at the same rate as the CPI, long distance telecom rates started to increase but remained at very competitive rates for consumers, and the local cable rates continued their rocketing out of control increases well above the CPI.
There are two messages that can be derived from the trends. 1) Creating a competitive market as was done with long distance telecom results in huge benefits to consumers, both individuals and businesses. 2) When a market has little to no competition they will at the very least increase their rates on average with the CPI or if they can get away with it they will gouge the consumer for every penny they can get.
The two sad outcomes of the telecom plans of the 1990s is that we never received the nation wide broadband that was envisioned by the government and the broadband that has been provided does not meet the peer to peer asymmetrical data transmit rates as envisioned by the government.
For all the justified complaints about the governments poor job of meddling in business the telecom industry is one area where there was a powerful vision and direction provided by the government that was quashed by corporations who are more interested in that rates trend for cable companies than they are about building a technologically advanced telecom infrastructure that provides economic benefit to many instead of a few.
(you seem to be a confused AC, here I fixed your comment for you)
The internet is like a night market in a third world country. It sprang from a government funded project and, contrary to short sighted corporations, individuals discovered and utilized the value in it. You'll be damned if you try to regulate it. You guys all bitch about the new corporate kid on the block who is making huge profits providing value customers want and the loss of your birth-right to over charge for sub par services on a monopolistic network governed by price fixing schemes. For the last 8 years. But guess what, the net is still neutral and individuals are still finding value in the internet all the while paying you for the service you market to connect them to the businesses and other individuals that provide that value. Just let it be and go with the flow. The net is to nebulous and decentralized to be regulated. You'll still be able to rake in reasonable profits as long as you maintain a marketable service offering for years to come. When a new content provider starts up and makes a profit by delivering the content over the network for which you've already been paid to provide, don't worry - the free market is always there to supply you with your investment ROI fix, that is if you still remember what investment is.
A Google search for text messaging lawsuit will provide a good understanding of the "economics" behind the pricing of text messaging in the cell phone market. It has little to do with supply, demand, competition or free market.
Cell phone carriers have been ripping people off with gadgety features backed by over priced crappy service for years, but all the consumer does is parrot the marketing spiel for the plan they purchased and the latest gee whizz factor while ignoring the true economics that show the level of rip off for cell phone service.
As long as you have a large number of customers using false reasoning to justify and defend their over rated and over priced contractual service plans the carriers will continue their scams.
I was trying to solve a somewhat similar problem and while I'm not sure if there is going to be an easy drop in solution I think you can assemble what you need using a combination of a Samba file server to store the documents and either a custom monitoring daemon on the file server that uses the inotify API or setup the auditd rules and put together some scripts to transform the audit log files into a report you can use.
For what I needed I ended up writing a simple bash script that runs continuously in the background and uses inotifywait to monitor a directory. It sounds like you need something more granular so I suspect the auditd solution would be more of what you need.
The weak point of the system, and for any document sharing system, is what happens after a user copies a document to their local machine. As others have stated solutions like DRM are bogus, the only way to absolutely control information is to not allow access in the first place.
"Now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives. But remember, as my plastic surgeon always said: if you gotta go, go with a smile." -- Joker
Ain't fiction fun Lucius.
I believe your first statement is the correct answer and should be applied to every business model and industry. Many people have become so accustomed to the guaranteed profits and market stability provided by monopolies and false supply vs demand markets that it is now assumed that it is the only feasible business method. And when confronted with a competitive threat the correct response alludes many businesses as they've never believed in or experienced the true nature of free markets and competition.
On the other hand, I question how applicable your analogies of manufacturing and services productivity improvements brought about by mechanization are to software development. The root cause of the problems many software vendors are experiencing today simply comes down to the fact that they have based their business model on a false supply vs demand market where they create a scarcity of supply by locking up the reproduction of the end product through patents, copyrights, and licensing.
The initial investment in the production of the software may be high but subsequent copies of that work are very close to zero, and that is what these companies are fighting against because a near zero manufacturing cost and control of the supply make it possible to charge insanely high prices for the product and achieve outrageous profit margins.
Open source software development has not necessarily increased the efficiency or productivity of software development per se (I suppose code reuse could be a productivity increaser), but what it has done is spread the cost of producing the initial software product to other businesses, users, and developers.
I believe you also have the answer to the posters qualms, if the open source community is doing the software development work for his business why is he fighting against them? For the developer the work is still there, it is just a question of who employs the developer, for the business they need to closely review their business model and determine how they need to change it to take advantage of the open source community that is assisting them in developing the software.
To sum up:
- OSS is bringing significant competition to the software market, businesses need to adapt or pack up.
- OSS virtually eliminates the possibility of high profit margins in a false supply/demand market.
- OSS spreads the cost of development across a community of businesses, developers and users.
- OSS brings the true cost of software reproductions to the end user, which is near zero.
- OSS based businesses need to use the model to their advantage, closed source businesses need to provide value above and beyond OSS competition if they want to maintain profit margins, mixed OSS/Closed Source businesses are doomed in my opinion.
Considering the proliferation of GPLed software in everything from Televisions to Routers and Switches I'd say your employer should just close up shop now because they will not be able to avoid the "risk" and still do business.
And thankfully there are a multitude of open source licensed packages on which you can base your business, however as an end user and not a software distributor there is no reason to avoid GPL licensed software. Stop believing the FUD as you are greatly limiting the pool of software at your disposal.
A better question would start with some research to understand who the Fedora developers are and who pays them if they are paid. Basing a question on the same tired falsehood that open source developers are unpaid geeks living in their parent's basements is rather tired and dated.
If the linux kernel contributions are any clue only 15% of contributors are unpaid. And I'm sure they have their reasons for contributing which go beyond simply making a buck.
linuxkerneldevelopment
I used siege to run load tests on a server with the MVCbench PHP test framework.
60" 1080p TV
PS3
Local ATSC via a standard antenna in the attic
Anyone who doesn't see a difference between HD content and an up converted DVD either has a small or low resolution display or really need to have their eyes checked.
I didn't buy into BR right away, I only recently picked up a PS3, but I've been using an HDTV for the past 5 years. Even comparing an HD ATSC signal to an up converted DVD is no comparison. In fact, one of the greatest benefits of HDTV that is poorly publicized is the OTA digital signal that is free of snow, ghosting, etc. which made satellite and cable such a necessity for a quality picture. All the local networks have a huge opportunity here to compete against satellite and cable via rabbit ears but they seem to be too dumb to realize it.
I have a fair number of DVDs but I've been holding off on any new DVDs for over a year now because with my OTA ATSC experience I knew what was in store when switching from DVD to BR, so I've been waiting until the BR discs come down in price and I had a player. Now that I have a player I picked up my first three BR movies at $15 each, which is pretty much what I was paying for DVDs.
I haven't purchased any digital downloads but I am using UPnP on the PS3 and MediaTomb on a 1.5TB linux file server to provide various mpeg videos and a large digital photo collection over GbE. Its actually nice to peruse the menus and click on a video rather than thumb through a disc collection.
I read TFA and found it interesting that for some titles BR held a substantial portion of the sales in BD vs DVD. There is obviously a lot going on here and predicting the demise of BR seems very premature. Its likely a combination of hardware prices, confused consumers, limited content, and possibly DRM although that may be rolled up in confused consumers rather than actual fears surrounding the ability to play the media they purchased.
If the economic meltdown ends anytime soon perhaps the transition to all digital TV will result in new equipment and content sales and people will begin to realize that there is a huge difference in the quality of the presentation with the new digital formats.
And in case you want to implement least privilege in your PHP application but still provide access to high level database users...
;)
phpgirder
A shameless plug
Care to share that proof? Atheists do not have faith in the belief there is no god, they are skeptics and to date not one individual or organized group of faithful followers of any god have provided a single shred of proof which is compelling evidence of the existence of a god.
:P
Oh, and a couple of important points for the faithful to keep in mind...
Unless you subscribe to every theological rendition that has ever come to be or currently exists, guess what, you are an atheist yourself. Do you believe in Zeus, Apollo, all of the many Hindu gods, etc. ad infinitum? If you deny the existence of these gods then you to are an atheist.
And a heads up, not believing in some magical being does not automatically mean believing in only what you perceive. For the most part atheists have no problem with science and things that cannot be perceived but can be tested. Example, you cannot perceive an electron, but you sure can test the properties of electrons and other atomic particles once you've developed the technology necessary to measure those properties. Can't say the same for some magical being dreamed up in your head. Then again there are studies of electromagnetic fields and how they can be used to induce a religious experience.
Perhaps the problem is that there are to few internet users who leave their P2P applications running non-stop.
Seriously, the problem telecoms and ISPs are complaining about is users using the bandwidth they purchased and has nothing to do with P2P.
In fact, if a greater number of people were leaving P2P applications running there would be a higher probability that the packet you need is available from a peer that is fewer hops away. The result would be less traffic leaving the ISP network and impacting the Internet as a whole.
Of course this assumes the P2P application is coded in a way that it can prioritize peers on the same network or geographically closer to one another. I don't know if this is currently implemented in any P2P applications but if not it could be.
And if telecoms and ISPs have so much issue with P2P then perhaps they should invest in setting up automated P2P clients of their own that watch Internet P2P traffic and dynamically join in so they can eventually seed on their network and reduce traffic leaving their network.
Whether we keep using P2P or not the bandwidth usage is going to keep increasing, be it peer to peer sharing of media files or the telecoms getting what they really want which is control of the file sharing and content so they can add one more charge to your bill.
burnin
Oh it goes well beyond sanitizing input data, why were they not utilizing the least privilige principle in their application design? Allowing an unauthenticated user to use a database user with full privileges to the database tables when only selects are required on specific tables is asking for trouble.
In most cases I suspect the developers are, well, just lazy. When presented with a ready made least privilege PHP application design the response by multiple developers was "I can just recover the website from a database backup, least privilege is not necessary", I kid you not.
burnin
Hmm, and who was the winner in this race they ran?
Based on IBM's income statement they are fast approaching $100 billion in annual revenue. To put this into perspective Exxon Mobile, that company that has made the news by making record profits for any company ever by gouging consumers, is a $116 billion in revenue corporation.
And how can it be they are an 'also ran' and yet they are continually on the leading edge of many technological breakthroughs.
You may not want to read the ZD Net article which mentions the demographics of the linux eeePC users in Taiwan, your AC head may just explode.
"Retailers and contract manufacturers in Taiwan say that novice PC users there, like students and housewives, tend to buy the Linux version of the Eee PC701, while geeks go for Windows XP."
And these non-average users who you suspect are pirates buying the linux boxes to I assume install a pirated copy of Windows, that is a stretch. The non-average user is going to buy the parts and build the box themselves as its cheaper and you end up with better hardware.
After years of people having to pay a Microsoft tax when they are going to buy a computer on which they will run linux its hilarious seeing people post about how the linux boxes will end up running Windows. What a hoot. :)
If the customers are anything like the Windows customers they'll be running linux until the box is dead.
If they are an out of the ordinary customer who does their own OS installs then it wouldn't make much sense to buy a box with linux pre-installed when you can buy boxes with no OS, or to save even more purchase the parts themselves and build the box.
I'm sure some of them will end up running Windows but its more likely that it will be due to a want or need to go back to Windows apps rather than going through the trouble to get a cheaper box.
From what I've seen of vendors that sell Windows and linux boxes there isn't much of a cost benefit to buy the linux box over a Windows box, in fact its not uncommon for the Windows box to often times cost less than a similarly equipped linux box. Its never been fully explained why by the vendors selling the boxes, but its been speculated that they are subsidized by the proprietary software vendors.
If it does turn out they are being purchased on the cheap and a pirated copy of Windows is installed, oh well, I guess its pay back for me and everyone else who has purchased multiple laptops over the years and being forced to pay a Microsoft tax even though the laptops would be used to run linux.
Bingo!!!
However I still question whether the problem is Capitalism itself or simply the people who have gamed the system and basically turned Capitalism back into Feudalism.
I agree with many of the concerns that Gates expresses in the article but I absolutely disagree with his assessment of the situation and the solution. Case in point, perhaps I don't know enough about this RED program started by Bono which is saving the world but from what I read of the article corporations are using marketing to sell products to by pulling heart strings and then giving a portion of the profit margin to a charity. Why don't they just give donations to charities outright like their customers have been doing for ages? What is the added value to the charities of creating a marketing ploy?
But back to Capitalism. The solution is not Creative Capitalism, the solution is to adopt real Capitalism and punish those who destroy the Free Market in which Capitalism works. Many of the countries that are suffering with poor standards of living actually have marketable resources which could be used to build an economy, however, through corruption the wealth of the nations are radically uneven in their distribution.
And sadly Gates fails to recognize the symptoms in the United States economy for what they are. The GINI coefficient for the United States has been continually trending in the direction of inequality similar to many countries where the average citizen is incapable of participating in a Capitalist Economy as anything other than a laborer to be exploited.
The solution to the worlds ills is not more goofy marketing and selling of crap products that nobody needs. The first step in the solution is to stop the outrageous corruption and exploitation that destroys economies, communities, and living standards. A secondly we need to seriously listen to experts in sociology and economics, not a monopolist who wants to put his corporate label on everyones contribution to the solution.