I was a sysadmin myself for several years... '96 to 2006. Not very satisfying, after a while. Mircrosoft is largely to blame for this. After Windows 2000 and Active Directory (Craptive Directory would be a better name), every CEO felt sysadmins are redundant, and even fools could administer Windows servers. The company hired MCSEs who hadn't a clue about real IT life.. and I was forced to quit in 2002.
With Exchange 5.5, Win2K3 server and Sharepoint, things became an unending nightmare for sysadmins... the ads and promotions are not related to reality, even slightly. Migrating Active Directory from Win2K to Win2K3 server was a nightmare, and the procedure ran for 100s of pages... smoke coming through the sysadmins ears just reading the bunch.
I just gave up that life eventually.... moved to my hometown last year... the pay is slightly less, but I'm very satisfied and content with this new job. No longer a sysadmin, I use my experience to build real systems - I've completed Helpdesk (real sophisticated one), Asset management (for PCs, software, Furniture and Office space) and Attendance management so far. Payroll, CRM and centralised identity management systems will follow. The whole lot is built around open Source systems from OneOrZero, vTiger, TimeTrex etc.
Life away from being a sysadmin is so much rewarding and fulfilling... no more sleepless nights wondering what new patch and auto update has in store for the network! That thankless, mundane, meaningless job - which really adds nothing to the company's bottom line - is best left to sysadmins.
Let's wait a while.. the officials will be hungry; soon as Microsoft makes a revised 'Fact-rich' campaign to fatten these officials, everything will be back to normal again!
I cannot imagine a billion Vista installations within a year.... Even on new PCs in India, the local hardware shop only offers PCs with 256MB RAM, 15" CRT monitor, DVD drives and pirated Windows 2000 - the software is installed gratis, there's no profits for the h/w dealer or Microsoft.
Even a recent crackdown against such dealers only brought negative publicity for Microsoft - as mentioned in the BusinessWeek article. With Vista's h/w requirements much more expensive (twice the h/w price for Win 2K) and numerous problems for home users with XP - (AutoUpdate, IE7 etc.); Win2K is the preferred OS for all concerned; and that is available only in pirated form.
Branded PC vendors used to make their hardware in such a way older Windows versions will not install - and they are shunned because of this practice. And so, while there may be a billion Windows PCs in a year from now, my guess is that atleast 75% of it will be pirated editions. Students buying laptops and home PCs form the single biggest chunk - and they seem to prefer the Eclipse IDE and XAMPP on Linux boxes for this. Even on Windows, these 2 are the most frequently used apps, besides the Firefox / Opera browser.
Since it is students who will drive future installation patterns, I guess the OS will lose relevance and fade away - while the browser (Firefox), IDE (Eclipse) and Programming setup (XAMPP) wars have already been fought and won by the Open Source folks. Only Firefox behaves a bit different on Windows and Linux - for the rest, students care very little what OS powers their PC. Linux wins because it needs lesser hardware, has more drivers, and is easy to install, backup and recover - allowing students to focus on their learning.
By 2008, I think hardly anyone will care what OS powers their PC.
The old SugarCRM license had an advertising requirement that required a large advertisement on every page. One of my old customers ended up not using SugarCRM because of this. Despite all the positive PR spin about Sugar CRM moving to GPL3 for the Open Source edition, it is not the restrictions on this version that is holding customers back. Their support for Outlook Express and Outlook is very flaky, despite their so-called alliance with Microsoft.
Also, the Open source edition is quite limited compared to the priced editions. The license terms on these priced editions are the culprits, and many of the clauses would make Microsoft look like an angel by comparison. There is even a stipulation that you cannot have both editions on the same network - go figure!
Changing licenses to GPL3 will not win back customers for Sugar - they need to change their reputation. As Microsoft is learning, that takes a very long time - and is very difficult.
Heh... actually, the spell-check-it dept. accounced they are absconscding, it seems they have abandondoned/. after spelling nazis attack them everyday!
Captialism is not the answer for all problems facing humanity. In fact, many of the most keenly felt problems afflicting humankind are a direct result of capitalism. People do not die for lack of capital, millions die every year for want of seeds (food).
if you can make money creating seeds that don't germinate then someone will. If it is made a capital offence to do so, that would be an effective deterrent.
Trying to regulate that away just isn't going to work, for example it might scare companies away from making genetically modified crops, and with our growing population (world wide) we desperately need more and better genetically modified crops.
Genetic modification is a very recent phenomenon, whereas humankind has been thriving with techniques that have thrived for millennia. Farmers in India have demonstrated much higher yields through practices like Organic Farming, and the use of Panchakavya (look it up on Google, if you will). Genetic modification is not the only answer to raising crop quality and quantity, it is also the most risk-prone in the long term, and unproven.
Instead of complaining take a page from the open source movement: make your own genetically modified crops and don't prevent them from reproducing, thus making them effectivelly free.
And I thought only Car Analogies were bad! To respond anyway, Genetic Modification and Closed Source propriatary software have things in common - they create scarcity where there is none, hinder progress and innovation, benefit fewer people, promote distrust and secrecy, cause headaches and crash often. None of these are desirable traits for all but a very smnall fraction of humanity.
I know, that's hard to do, but many people feel the same way about software (that it is too hard for anyone to do for free) and that didn't stop the open source movement.
Your analogy breaks down because of a phenomenon known as Cross Pollination. Waaaaitttt!!! I think you've hit on something. Cross Pollination between Open and Closed Software might produce highly undesirable consequences - so much so Mr. Stallman & co. had to create a new license to break the unholy Microsoft-Novell alliance.
Sterile organisms are used in legitimate science all the time, and for a lot of reasons. For example, fruit fly populations in some places are controlled by introducing large numbers of sterilized males; or in testing genetically modified crops, sterilized seeds have a much lower risk of being accidentally introduced into the wild.
I feel there are so many other techniques, that are even more effective in producing desired results you have stated above - without genetically inducing sterility.
In any case, Monsanto's modus operandi is to introduce a BT variety of a seed, and claim it generates 30% more yield than normal varieties. But the catch is that seeds cannot be re-used, and the claims of increased yield are often spurious. Worse, these genetic strains propogate through pollen, affecting crops which were raised traditionally.
We aren't talking about fruit-flies and pests, we are talking about cash crops, commercial crops and livelihoods - not only of this generation, but posterity.
70% of the Indian population is dependant on agriculture for their livelihood - it was closer to 80% a few decades ago. Monsanto has tied up with Indian companies, and it's business practices have driven several hundreds of farmers to debts and suicide. BT (Biologically Treated) cotton from Mahyco (if I remember right) has caused havoc in farmers' lives in several Indian states.
Monsanto specialises in technologies that make farmers dependant on these firms every year for seeds and patented techniques. Not only should such patents be outlawed; it should be made a crime to work against nature and create genetic modifications that prevent seeds from germinating.
The title section on the site says "Slashdot - Don't Fear the Penguins"; obviously meaning the Linux mascot, and implying the Free and Open Source Software philosophy. But almost every article that follows is full of fear, misinterpretation, sensationalism or plain untruths.... specially with respect to Linux and notable Open Source offerings.
In contrast, many articles contain positive spin about Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Oracle or other 'Closed Source' firms - who are very antithetical to the views and leanings of the founders of this site! Needless to say, these articles are 'spin' and again misrepresentations or wrong interpretations of the facts.
The very few articles that are even mildly critical of these Closed Source corporations are completely hijacked and taken-over by shills and fanboys; and even thoughtful, insightful comments get modded down - apparently the shills have taken over the moderation system as well.
****************
Coming to this article: Apparently the author has been involved with kernel development over a long time. That implies working with huge text files, and an intimate knowledge of hardware, and low level software. It is mysterious how such a knowledgable person should find it intimidating to use Linux on a desktop. There are millions of folks who have less than 1% technical know-how than this author - and who use Linux painlessly on the desktop, for several years.
The entire article is littered with FUD - there are numerous references to forum postings, and newbie reactions. If we judge the well-being of humankind based on the happenings in the Intensive Care Unit of a Hospital, we will think it amazing we even survived this long!
**********************
The author seems to be named Con Kolivas. Nice con job, but I guess he'd find any buyers for his views on this site. If Slashdot is sincere, that is.
From the referenced article:
why did Intel just invest $218.5 million in VMware? Does Craig Barrett have a death wish? Or maybe he knows something IDC doesn't? There has got to be a little head scratching going on over in Framingham just now. As I replied to an earlier thread on the Linux kernel being updated with 3 VMs, this sounds very fishy and intriguing. Virtualisation is simply a technique of emulating the hardware in software - memory, registers, interrupts, instruction sets etc. If VMs will only emulate standard instructions and functions, the the Intel processors will be useless as a platform for reliable DRM or Trustworthy Computing purposes, where the hardware mfr. controls the chip - not the customer or software developer. If the virtualisation vendor is also secretive and opaque about his software, that is ideal for Intel because they will now be able to re-implement the secretive features in the VM engines.
The obvious explanation for Barrett's investment (which will net Intel a measly 2.5% of VMware's shares after the forthcoming IPO) is that Intel believes virtualization will cause people to buy more, not less, hardware. True virtualisation will cause the opposite effect - people will buy less hardware. It is simply amazing that Windows 98 for instance, can deliver the same (and often better) end-user experience and functionality that Vista does, but with only 5% CPU MHz, RAM and Disk resources. And so virtualisation will allow 20 Windows 98 instances on hardware required for a single instance of Vista without degrading the user experience.
That can be a chilling thought to companies like Intel, Microsoft or Oracle. Also, the carefully woven concoluted DRM and TCPA architectures that consume gazillions of instructions and slow down performance to a crawl... will simply be impossible if the Virtualisation layer simply ignores these functions in the hardware. Which is why I felt it very strange for the Linux Kernel team to get involved in porting these VMs in order to allow Vista to run as a guest OS. It shouldn't have been a priority item for the kernel team at all, IMO.
Big difference. If it's the International Standards Organisation that's voting; it should not be subject to the machinations of the company that submits the standard under scrutiny.
According to the earlier article, V1 and INCITS were both extensions of the ISO evaluation process. Not just a US agency.
The internet is made of the very real people talking on it. What we communicate doesn't change a lot if we communicate it using voice or using the TCP protocol. Even a telephonic chat is much less effective than an in-person chat / presentation. You get to ask questions, and get meaningful responses then and there.... and everyone benefits.. even those who didn't bother to ask. A synchronised webcast with multiple attendees comes closest, but very cumbersome to setup.
We don't need to meet up in shopping malls to trade 1.44M discs. That may be true, but the advantage of a LUG is that your attention is focussed on that one topic - Linux, Open Source, Freedom to Tinker, News things happening, Meeting Real people... the last point being a very important factor.
People make presentations about their offerings, and offer Services for a fee; we get to talk about local and topical issues.. like the impact of Vista on the local IT and user companies; tips and tricks used by Sysadmins etc. etc. Emails, mailing lists etc. are a very poor substitute - if one doesn't already know a bit about a topic, say SOA or JBoss, an email cannot spark much interest.
A 30-minute presentation on how an entire hospital has been converted to Open Source products and technologies by the company that did it... makes an instant impact. Wednesday evening, I am attending a presentation on Open Source products and services, at the local CSI (computer Society of India) chapter.
As I remarked elsewhere, Linux (the kernel) is a very small aspect of LUGs and the FOSS world. Time to move off from LUGs.
Besides, trademark issues and politics by "vested interests" - namely, agents from proprietary s/w firms who poison these groups and get them dissolved.
It's now "foss.in" in India, and numerous JUGs (JBoss User Groups), PHP Programmers Group and even Ruby on Rails Groups have sprung up recently in cities like Pune.
Besides, it is questionable whether even Linus is interested in the ideals which made the Linux kernel successful - and I for one, welcome the declining use of this trademarked name in Free Software and Open Source forums.
That post got modded Interesting, but didn't get any replies, so I'm really not sure whether Linspire is alive in the corporate segment, which should be the segment that worries about patent suits... like SCO sued Daimler-Chryssler (?) and lost face.
I can't imagine a company like Linspire would inspire any confidence in knowledgable markets like in Asia... The manner in which they caved in during the Lindows trademark dispute with Microsoft was suspicious and intriguing as well.
At a guess, just how many customers does Linspire have, if any? A few hundreds? In which case, I think/. must simply ignore this deal and related news - it doesn't matter much.
Already slashdotted after the first comment, so... this is what the future web-desktop will be like huh?
Not if the server is within the intranet. Here's the text from the site:
What is Pyro?
Flickr Add-on
Exposé-alike
Window Picker
Pyro is a new kind of desktop environment for Linux built on Mozilla Firefox. Its goal is to enable true integration between the Web and modern desktop computing.
By merging the Web with the desktop, Pyro offers the first big step toward a new future for the Web and the applications built for it.
In Pyro, Web content is no longer confined to the browser's window. Instead, trusted Web sites and extensions are given access to the full range of interactivity and control enjoyed by native applications today.
Imagine... Rich Web pages running side-by-side with native applications Single programming environment for the whole desktop Desktop-wide mashups, killer Web integration Novel desktop effects
Pyro enables a desktop that tracks the latest in Web technology, and helps mold the future of the integrated Web. [edit] NEWS
From Ars Technica
July, 20 2007: Pyro project offers Firefox-based desktop environment on Ars Technica, by Ryan Paul. Pyro delivers Web apps to the Linux desktop on DesktopLinux.com.
Check out the slides!
July, 18 2007: Pyro Announced during GUADEC '07 Conference Keynote Speech. [edit] How does Pyro work?
Pyro works fundamentally by drawing your entire computer screen as a Web Page, all from within Firefox. Indeed, at the core Pyro is simply a window manager which renders Web content alongside existing native applications.
By leveraging the trusted Firefox Add-On system, all the capabilities of dynamic HTML, JavaScript, CSS, SVG, and Adobe Flash are available to enable incredible applications, extensions and themes.
Bringing all these Web technologies together with the newest generation of Linux display technology, called window compositing, allows Pyro to integrate native applications as an intrinsic part of the overall Web Desktop, seamlessly merging the two.
the apps include a very simple word processor and a spreadsheet that could work from a server hosted within the company intranet... this would be a very useful project indeed. Basic features would do - no need for all that fancy schmancy stuff.
The whole idea is to create a new FF version that does the things that Opera or K-Meleon do but still carries the branding of Firefox. I think it's the Firefox team that's completely missed the point. At my firm, we have several hundred PCs with 256MB RAM running Win2K and XP. We wanted to get rid of the buggy IE7 which go tinstalled as critical update on XP.
Firefox and Opera were evaluated - and the latter won. It appeared Firefox was not only 'compatible' with IE and rendered all IE-only pages, it was bloated and clumsy like IE as well. The development team seems to have gotten hijacked by a few misguided elements, probably under influence from Microsoft. Firefox on Windows behaves differently to Firefox on Linux - but Opera stays the same.
The only plus for Firefox is the numerous plug-ins, but what we like to see is pluck-outs that would ensure no memory leaks and lesser footprint. Until those things happen, Firefox will be a product that never reached it's potential.
The people who work on this stuff really wouldn't call themselves kernel developers, but ok, whatever. Associating any of the VM stuff with Linus is even more retarded.. what they do in their own modules is none of his fault or concern. I find the announcement about these VMs is from Linus himself. Besides, it is Linus who decides which components get into the main kernel tree, so he is answerable for any decisions made.
Anyway, some people want to run Vista in a VM on Linux. These VM solutions don't try to virtualize every nook and cranny of the x86 hardware. Vista uses the system level x86 hardware in a slightly different way to XP. As such, it takes some changes to make Vista work. If Vista has any idiosyncracies, it should be the job of the overpaid, bloated development team in Redmond to iron out the kinks and make it standards-compliant. Why should it be a concern of the Linux kernel development team? Besides, how did these developers gain access to quirky behaviour of Vista?
I think that after spending a number of years working in Cisco only networks, I'm constantly amazed at the generally poor compatibility and functionality of Cisco equipment. There's a very simple explanation. Cisco, Oracle and Microsoft are 3 big gorillas who make a business of selling closed-source complicated implementations that are supposed-to-be standards-compliant. Unfortunately they are not truly standards-compliant, besides being overly complicated and obfuscated. Hence such compatibility issues.
Notice we have no clue in this particular incident, of what exactly triggered this response from Cisco equipment. It is like a Service Pack from Microsoft - we only get vague details on what it fixes, not how it does it, why the original problem was caused, and who was actually responsible.
"The happy theme of today's kvm is the significant performance improvements, brought to you by a growing team of developers. I've clocked kbuild at within 25% of native. This release also introduces support for 32-bit Windows Vista. " I can't understand why the Linux kernel development team had 'Windows Vista support' as one of the items on their agenda at all. Virtualisation as I understand it, is basically an abstraction of the hardware that is performed in software. Should not all operating systems be designed to work with standard instruction sets, interrupts, registers and memory?
Why should it be the job of a particular kernel or it's VM component to satisfy specific requirements of a specific version of another kernel (the Vista kernel?). Besides, how exactly did these developers get access to the Vista kernel specs? Should it not be the other way round - i.e. for closed-source Vista to be compatible and optimised for the open-source Linux kernel?
That Linus chose the GPL as a matter of convenience was well known, his antipathy to the FSF is also well chronicled; but this aligning to the interests of specific closed-source kernels from Microsoft is a dangerous new development.
The corporate world is always miles behind. My company is just still malingering on 2K on a lot of boxes, just now getting to XP. Big companies are not known for leaping forward into new and unproven technologies, especially when most of the improvement is just user eye-candy. This is very true. Even huge corporates like Shell are just now migrating from Win NT 4.0 to Win2K on the servers; while the desktops are Win2K and XP - no Vista. And again, on the desktops IE7 has been banned and the old office apps that need the quirks and ActiveX of broken IE6 is still the only choice.
Moving to Vista will mean changing the entire infrastructure including the Office package, the browser, the server apps, the tools to manage and program the server apps etc. etc. Win2K to WinXP on the desktop wasn't any major hassle - some posters here saying people will eventually be forced to move to Vista like they adopted XP will be disappointed. And last but not the least, supporting Vista on the desktop is a nightmare for sysadmins; and leaves a hole in the IT hardware budget - so the beancounters will stick to XP for atleast 3 years from now.
If desktop apps are still not available for Vista by then, or they are flaky and expensive; large migrations to Web services hosted within Corporate intranets will be the in-thing. None of which will be based around Active Directory, Sharepoint or Office Applications, however - developers have abandoned these platforms after getting bitten by crazy problems with every new version of Windows Server, Desktop or Office.
Slashdot Mirror
for AIX on those mainframes! After all, AIX has more Unix IP than Linux, isn't it?
rm -rf /usr/staff/eldavojohn /usr/staff/eldavojohn
mkdir
Looks like you're a Unix sysadmin, and find things boring with Windows servers... point, click, clickety-click, click, mouse over, click.. and Reboot!
Very difficult to do things like the above with Windows.. unless you got Cygwin on all desktops.
I was a sysadmin myself for several years... '96 to 2006. Not very satisfying, after a while. Mircrosoft is largely to blame for this. After Windows 2000 and Active Directory (Craptive Directory would be a better name), every CEO felt sysadmins are redundant, and even fools could administer Windows servers. The company hired MCSEs who hadn't a clue about real IT life.. and I was forced to quit in 2002.
With Exchange 5.5, Win2K3 server and Sharepoint, things became an unending nightmare for sysadmins... the ads and promotions are not related to reality, even slightly. Migrating Active Directory from Win2K to Win2K3 server was a nightmare, and the procedure ran for 100s of pages... smoke coming through the sysadmins ears just reading the bunch.
I just gave up that life eventually.... moved to my hometown last year... the pay is slightly less, but I'm very satisfied and content with this new job. No longer a sysadmin, I use my experience to build real systems - I've completed Helpdesk (real sophisticated one), Asset management (for PCs, software, Furniture and Office space) and Attendance management so far. Payroll, CRM and centralised identity management systems will follow. The whole lot is built around open Source systems from OneOrZero, vTiger, TimeTrex etc.
Life away from being a sysadmin is so much rewarding and fulfilling... no more sleepless nights wondering what new patch and auto update has in store for the network! That thankless, mundane, meaningless job - which really adds nothing to the company's bottom line - is best left to sysadmins.
Let's wait a while.. the officials will be hungry; soon as Microsoft makes a revised 'Fact-rich' campaign to fatten these officials, everything will be back to normal again!
I cannot imagine a billion Vista installations within a year.... Even on new PCs in India, the local hardware shop only offers PCs with 256MB RAM, 15" CRT monitor, DVD drives and pirated Windows 2000 - the software is installed gratis, there's no profits for the h/w dealer or Microsoft.
Even a recent crackdown against such dealers only brought negative publicity for Microsoft - as mentioned in the BusinessWeek article. With Vista's h/w requirements much more expensive (twice the h/w price for Win 2K) and numerous problems for home users with XP - (AutoUpdate, IE7 etc.); Win2K is the preferred OS for all concerned; and that is available only in pirated form.
Branded PC vendors used to make their hardware in such a way older Windows versions will not install - and they are shunned because of this practice. And so, while there may be a billion Windows PCs in a year from now, my guess is that atleast 75% of it will be pirated editions. Students buying laptops and home PCs form the single biggest chunk - and they seem to prefer the Eclipse IDE and XAMPP on Linux boxes for this. Even on Windows, these 2 are the most frequently used apps, besides the Firefox / Opera browser.
Since it is students who will drive future installation patterns, I guess the OS will lose relevance and fade away - while the browser (Firefox), IDE (Eclipse) and Programming setup (XAMPP) wars have already been fought and won by the Open Source folks. Only Firefox behaves a bit different on Windows and Linux - for the rest, students care very little what OS powers their PC. Linux wins because it needs lesser hardware, has more drivers, and is easy to install, backup and recover - allowing students to focus on their learning.
By 2008, I think hardly anyone will care what OS powers their PC.
The old SugarCRM license had an advertising requirement that required a large advertisement on every page. One of my old customers ended up not using SugarCRM because of this. Despite all the positive PR spin about Sugar CRM moving to GPL3 for the Open Source edition, it is not the restrictions on this version that is holding customers back. Their support for Outlook Express and Outlook is very flaky, despite their so-called alliance with Microsoft.
Also, the Open source edition is quite limited compared to the priced editions. The license terms on these priced editions are the culprits, and many of the clauses would make Microsoft look like an angel by comparison. There is even a stipulation that you cannot have both editions on the same network - go figure!
Changing licenses to GPL3 will not win back customers for Sugar - they need to change their reputation. As Microsoft is learning, that takes a very long time - and is very difficult.
s/check-it-out dept./spell-check-it dept./
/. after spelling nazis attack them everyday!
Heh... actually, the spell-check-it dept. accounced they are absconscding, it seems they have abandondoned
Patents aside that's just how captialism works
Captialism is not the answer for all problems facing humanity. In fact, many of the most keenly felt problems afflicting humankind are a direct result of capitalism. People do not die for lack of capital, millions die every year for want of seeds (food).
if you can make money creating seeds that don't germinate then someone will.
If it is made a capital offence to do so, that would be an effective deterrent.
Trying to regulate that away just isn't going to work, for example it might scare companies away from making genetically modified crops, and with our growing population (world wide) we desperately need more and better genetically modified crops.
Genetic modification is a very recent phenomenon, whereas humankind has been thriving with techniques that have thrived for millennia. Farmers in India have demonstrated much higher yields through practices like Organic Farming, and the use of Panchakavya (look it up on Google, if you will). Genetic modification is not the only answer to raising crop quality and quantity, it is also the most risk-prone in the long term, and unproven.
Instead of complaining take a page from the open source movement: make your own genetically modified crops and don't prevent them from reproducing, thus making them effectivelly free.
And I thought only Car Analogies were bad! To respond anyway, Genetic Modification and Closed Source propriatary software have things in common - they create scarcity where there is none, hinder progress and innovation, benefit fewer people, promote distrust and secrecy, cause headaches and crash often. None of these are desirable traits for all but a very smnall fraction of humanity.
I know, that's hard to do, but many people feel the same way about software (that it is too hard for anyone to do for free) and that didn't stop the open source movement.
Your analogy breaks down because of a phenomenon known as Cross Pollination. Waaaaitttt!!! I think you've hit on something. Cross Pollination between Open and Closed Software might produce highly undesirable consequences - so much so Mr. Stallman & co. had to create a new license to break the unholy Microsoft-Novell alliance.
Sterile organisms are used in legitimate science all the time, and for a lot of reasons. For example, fruit fly populations in some places are controlled by introducing large numbers of sterilized males; or in testing genetically modified crops, sterilized seeds have a much lower risk of being accidentally introduced into the wild.
I feel there are so many other techniques, that are even more effective in producing desired results you have stated above - without genetically inducing sterility.
In any case, Monsanto's modus operandi is to introduce a BT variety of a seed, and claim it generates 30% more yield than normal varieties. But the catch is that seeds cannot be re-used, and the claims of increased yield are often spurious. Worse, these genetic strains propogate through pollen, affecting crops which were raised traditionally.
We aren't talking about fruit-flies and pests, we are talking about cash crops, commercial crops and livelihoods - not only of this generation, but posterity.
70% of the Indian population is dependant on agriculture for their livelihood - it was closer to 80% a few decades ago. Monsanto has tied up with Indian companies, and it's business practices have driven several hundreds of farmers to debts and suicide. BT (Biologically Treated) cotton from Mahyco (if I remember right) has caused havoc in farmers' lives in several Indian states.
Monsanto specialises in technologies that make farmers dependant on these firms every year for seeds and patented techniques. Not only should such patents be outlawed; it should be made a crime to work against nature and create genetic modifications that prevent seeds from germinating.
the title of the article is flamebait, of course people are going to respond to it.
:-)
And it's written by Con Kolivas!! Of course, people here detest Con Jobs and FUD
The title section on the site says "Slashdot - Don't Fear the Penguins"; obviously meaning the Linux mascot, and implying the Free and Open Source Software philosophy. But almost every article that follows is full of fear, misinterpretation, sensationalism or plain untruths.... specially with respect to Linux and notable Open Source offerings.
In contrast, many articles contain positive spin about Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Oracle or other 'Closed Source' firms - who are very antithetical to the views and leanings of the founders of this site! Needless to say, these articles are 'spin' and again misrepresentations or wrong interpretations of the facts.
The very few articles that are even mildly critical of these Closed Source corporations are completely hijacked and taken-over by shills and fanboys; and even thoughtful, insightful comments get modded down - apparently the shills have taken over the moderation system as well.
****************
Coming to this article: Apparently the author has been involved with kernel development over a long time. That implies working with huge text files, and an intimate knowledge of hardware, and low level software. It is mysterious how such a knowledgable person should find it intimidating to use Linux on a desktop. There are millions of folks who have less than 1% technical know-how than this author - and who use Linux painlessly on the desktop, for several years.
The entire article is littered with FUD - there are numerous references to forum postings, and newbie reactions. If we judge the well-being of humankind based on the happenings in the Intensive Care Unit of a Hospital, we will think it amazing we even survived this long!
**********************
The author seems to be named Con Kolivas. Nice con job, but I guess he'd find any buyers for his views on this site. If Slashdot is sincere, that is.
That can be a chilling thought to companies like Intel, Microsoft or Oracle. Also, the carefully woven concoluted DRM and TCPA architectures that consume gazillions of instructions and slow down performance to a crawl... will simply be impossible if the Virtualisation layer simply ignores these functions in the hardware. Which is why I felt it very strange for the Linux Kernel team to get involved in porting these VMs in order to allow Vista to run as a guest OS. It shouldn't have been a priority item for the kernel team at all, IMO.
Big difference. If it's the International Standards Organisation that's voting; it should not be subject to the machinations of the company that submits the standard under scrutiny.
According to the earlier article, V1 and INCITS were both extensions of the ISO evaluation process. Not just a US agency.
People make presentations about their offerings, and offer Services for a fee; we get to talk about local and topical issues.. like the impact of Vista on the local IT and user companies; tips and tricks used by Sysadmins etc. etc. Emails, mailing lists etc. are a very poor substitute - if one doesn't already know a bit about a topic, say SOA or JBoss, an email cannot spark much interest.
A 30-minute presentation on how an entire hospital has been converted to Open Source products and technologies by the company that did it... makes an instant impact. Wednesday evening, I am attending a presentation on Open Source products and services, at the local CSI (computer Society of India) chapter.
As I remarked elsewhere, Linux (the kernel) is a very small aspect of LUGs and the FOSS world. Time to move off from LUGs.
Besides, trademark issues and politics by "vested interests" - namely, agents from proprietary s/w firms who poison these groups and get them dissolved.
It's now "foss.in" in India, and numerous JUGs (JBoss User Groups), PHP Programmers Group and even Ruby on Rails Groups have sprung up recently in cities like Pune.
Besides, it is questionable whether even Linus is interested in the ideals which made the Linux kernel successful - and I for one, welcome the declining use of this trademarked name in Free Software and Open Source forums.
A week ago, there was this article which said Microsoft excludes GPL3 from the Linspire deal, and I wondered whether Linspire had any significant userbase in the US
/. must simply ignore this deal and related news - it doesn't matter much.
That post got modded Interesting, but didn't get any replies, so I'm really not sure whether Linspire is alive in the corporate segment, which should be the segment that worries about patent suits... like SCO sued Daimler-Chryssler (?) and lost face.
I can't imagine a company like Linspire would inspire any confidence in knowledgable markets like in Asia... The manner in which they caved in during the Lindows trademark dispute with Microsoft was suspicious and intriguing as well.
At a guess, just how many customers does Linspire have, if any? A few hundreds? In which case, I think
Not if the server is within the intranet. Here's the text from the site: What is Pyro?
Flickr Add-on
Exposé-alike
Window Picker
Pyro is a new kind of desktop environment for Linux built on Mozilla Firefox. Its goal is to enable true integration between the Web and modern desktop computing.
By merging the Web with the desktop, Pyro offers the first big step toward a new future for the Web and the applications built for it.
In Pyro, Web content is no longer confined to the browser's window. Instead, trusted Web sites and extensions are given access to the full range of interactivity and control enjoyed by native applications today.
Imagine...
Rich Web pages running side-by-side with native applications
Single programming environment for the whole desktop
Desktop-wide mashups, killer Web integration
Novel desktop effects
Pyro enables a desktop that tracks the latest in Web technology, and helps mold the future of the integrated Web.
[edit]
NEWS
From Ars Technica
July, 20 2007:
Pyro project offers Firefox-based desktop environment on Ars Technica, by Ryan Paul.
Pyro delivers Web apps to the Linux desktop on DesktopLinux.com.
Check out the slides!
July, 18 2007:
Pyro Announced during GUADEC '07 Conference Keynote Speech.
[edit]
How does Pyro work?
Pyro works fundamentally by drawing your entire computer screen as a Web Page, all from within Firefox. Indeed, at the core Pyro is simply a window manager which renders Web content alongside existing native applications.
By leveraging the trusted Firefox Add-On system, all the capabilities of dynamic HTML, JavaScript, CSS, SVG, and Adobe Flash are available to enable incredible applications, extensions and themes.
Bringing all these Web technologies together with the newest generation of Linux display technology, called window compositing, allows Pyro to integrate native applications as an intrinsic part of the overall Web Desktop, seamlessly merging the two.
the apps include a very simple word processor and a spreadsheet that could work from a server hosted within the company intranet... this would be a very useful project indeed. Basic features would do - no need for all that fancy schmancy stuff.
The whole idea is to create a new FF version that does the things that Opera or K-Meleon do but still carries the branding of Firefox. I think it's the Firefox team that's completely missed the point. At my firm, we have several hundred PCs with 256MB RAM running Win2K and XP. We wanted to get rid of the buggy IE7 which go tinstalled as critical update on XP.
Firefox and Opera were evaluated - and the latter won. It appeared Firefox was not only 'compatible' with IE and rendered all IE-only pages, it was bloated and clumsy like IE as well. The development team seems to have gotten hijacked by a few misguided elements, probably under influence from Microsoft. Firefox on Windows behaves differently to Firefox on Linux - but Opera stays the same.
The only plus for Firefox is the numerous plug-ins, but what we like to see is pluck-outs that would ensure no memory leaks and lesser footprint. Until those things happen, Firefox will be a product that never reached it's potential.
Notice we have no clue in this particular incident, of what exactly triggered this response from Cisco equipment. It is like a Service Pack from Microsoft - we only get vague details on what it fixes, not how it does it, why the original problem was caused, and who was actually responsible.
Why should it be the job of a particular kernel or it's VM component to satisfy specific requirements of a specific version of another kernel (the Vista kernel?). Besides, how exactly did these developers get access to the Vista kernel specs? Should it not be the other way round - i.e. for closed-source Vista to be compatible and optimised for the open-source Linux kernel?
That Linus chose the GPL as a matter of convenience was well known, his antipathy to the FSF is also well chronicled; but this aligning to the interests of specific closed-source kernels from Microsoft is a dangerous new development.
Moving to Vista will mean changing the entire infrastructure including the Office package, the browser, the server apps, the tools to manage and program the server apps etc. etc. Win2K to WinXP on the desktop wasn't any major hassle - some posters here saying people will eventually be forced to move to Vista like they adopted XP will be disappointed. And last but not the least, supporting Vista on the desktop is a nightmare for sysadmins; and leaves a hole in the IT hardware budget - so the beancounters will stick to XP for atleast 3 years from now.
If desktop apps are still not available for Vista by then, or they are flaky and expensive; large migrations to Web services hosted within Corporate intranets will be the in-thing. None of which will be based around Active Directory, Sharepoint or Office Applications, however - developers have abandoned these platforms after getting bitten by crazy problems with every new version of Windows Server, Desktop or Office.