REPORTER: Thank you, sir. First, quickly to the prime minister. Did you ask President Bush to secure a second U.N. resolution and to give the inspectors more time? And President Bush, the U.N. inspectors say Saddam's not complying; you say Saddam's not complying. Why wait a matter of weeks? Why hold up on the decision?
BUSH: First of all, you violated the two-question rule, as usual. He's had a bad habit of this. [laughs]
BUSH: "I'll start. Saddam Hussein is not disarming. He is a danger to the world. He must disarm. And that's why I have constantly said, and the prime minister has constantly said, this issue will come to a head in a matter of weeks, not months."
I think it's clear your interpretation of the President's words are incorrect. If it's intentional, I doubt you'll bother fixing it, but if it's an honest mistake you really should change it. Lying doesn't serve to advance anyone's agenda unless you count on your readers to be ignorant of the truth.
"Let me reinerate what I just said, this is a matter of weeks, not months." -G.W.Bush 1/31/03 on finding WMDs in Iraq
I hate to go OT on somebody's sig, but you're quoting the President completely out of context in an attempt to mislead a reader. Unless you have a transcript of the speech that says otherwise, Bush's quote was referring to the amount of time the U.S. would wait for Saddam to comply with U.N. resolution 1441, which required Saddam to disclose the whereabouts and disposition of all WMD's in Iraq. Your mischaracterization seems to imply that Bush said WMD's would be found in "weeks, not months" which is completely and totally different than what was said and intended, namely that the U.S. would wait "weeks, not months" for Saddam to come clean or there would be war. Did you purposefully misquote this in an attempt to mislead, or was it accidental?
Re:From sSomeone who pitches those PHB's...
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Yea because all of those PHB's are on IRC and here at Slashdot getting flamed everyday...
Don't be silly. Have you stopped to consider whether PHB's are calling VAR's for FOSS solutions in the first place? I've got news for you: they aren't, or at least they aren't in huge numbers. PHB's are conservative by nature, so if their current Windows setup works reasonably well, they're likely to stick with Microsoft. FOSS must be pitched externally, and that means consultants. I would've thought you'd known that.
Where's you proof of that? I've seen a lot of studies about TCO some garbage about accountablity but I've yet to see any material from Microsoft where they keep talking about Linux Zealots being memebers or some cult. Your just making things up to bolster your arguement.
I've sat in sales pitches put on by Microsoft where they compare themselves to Linux. I don't put any stock in what they say, but I'm in the minority. The PHB's eat it up when the MS rep talks about hackers loving Linux. They do everything they can to promote this image, and it seems like the zealots do everything they can to play into it as well. Perhaps you've never attended one of these Microsoft sales pitches before? BTW, I find your accusations of fabrication insulting, since you obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
The impact of "zealotry" has nowhere near the effect your talking about. Until you can show me otherwise I'll just call the whole Zealtory arguement FUD.
You're clearly not being rational about this, so I'm going to stop trying to engage you on this matter. However, I'd encourage you to check around for proof of what I say. If you're objective enough to look for these materials, you'll find them. I don't carry around URL's in my head, and I forgot to bookmark the last few articles on this subject. Try CNET, eWeek, or OSNews.com, since I frequent all of them.
Re:From sSomeone who pitches those PHB's...
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No. A PHB is going to be talking to some sales guy at Red Hat or maybe SuSE, not to a random Slashdotter.
No, a PHB is not going to call Red Hat, he's going to be pitched on FOSS by a consultant like myself. My experience has been that these consultants are, by and large, pretty slanted in the first place. They don't have solid TCO and ROI numbers, they just make stuff up to make Linux look good. Whether it actually fits the customer's needs is irrelevant, or so it seems. And these people have no sales stake in whether or not Red Hat or Windows is actually purchased (other than the implementation consulting), so their only motiviation is ideology.
Re:From sSomeone who pitches those PHB's...
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Although we certainly see plenty of that kind of Linux zealotry on/., I really doubt that's what's going on in the corporate IS world.
As a consultant for several Fortune 1000 companies, I'm going to disagree with you here. Many of these companies have had negative interactions with FOSS proponents. More frequently than not, the pitch degenerated into "but you should dump Microsoft because it's better for the world when one company isn't so dominant." This usually happened when the TCO studies showed little or no gain to be had with a Windows-to-Linux migration. The business types want ROI, not religion.
For every Linux (or BSD, or OS X) zealot, there are a hundred Windows zealots
I'm going to disagree with you again here. I've met about ten times as many Linux zealots as I have Windows ones. The Windows guys just don't treat their software like it's a religion, they treat it like a business tool. If there's something better out there, they'll consider it, weigh it, and even implement it if it makes financial sense. The Linux camp, on the other hand, acts like it's everyone's religious duty to Bring Down Microsoft(tm). And based on the articles and open letters being written by those within the FOSS community, I'm not alone in my perception.
Me? I use the tool that's best suited for the job. Sometimes that's Windows, sometimes it's Linux, sometimes it's Solaris. I think anyone who gets "attached" to their OS is seriously in need of counseling.
From sSomeone who pitches those PHB's...
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Could it be that many PHB's fear the penguin because of the illogical, emotionally-based arguments so many Linux zealots constantly use to push their agenda? I mean, many of the nutcases I've heard from speak of Linux like the coming of some New World Order, reminiscent of how Communists pitched their ideas back during the fifties. PHB's take one look at people like that and say "there's no way in hell I'm going to trust someone so emotionally involved in this to make a valid business decision."
There have been an increasing number of articles, posts, and so forth coming from notable people in the Linux community pointing out how the zealotry is really becoming a serious impediment to further Linux progress. In particular, they cite many Linux zealot's inability to take any sort of constructive criticism and their steadfast belief that the users should conform to the OS instead of the other way around. They say this is bad for Linux, and I think they're right on.
Microsoft is using this irrational zealot behavior to convince more PHB's that Linux is some kind of cult, not just an operating system. The more outspoken the zealots are, the more they hurt things.
No, what really happened is the Soviet Union launched this satellite and didn't give a hoot in hell about what would happen when time came for it to come down. Of course, the former Soviet Union didn't exactly have the best track record for environmental concerns in the first place.
The people who came up with the "storage" orbit idea didn't have that many options, but what they came up with was the best possible way to deal with a problem that someone else created. I just objected to the original post calling the idea "moronic" when it was clear the original post hadn't taken a millisecond to consider that there just were no other good options.
Actually, given the opportunity to come up with my own plan, I would have gathered a team of seasoned veterans (if there is a such thing) on the subject.
And who do you think came up with the current plans, the Union of Journeyman Janitors? The best people on the planet have analyzed the situation and they are executing the plan they devised. In short, what they came up with was not "moronic" as you initially stated. It is the best possible option given all the factors involved. Perhaps you won't be so quick to judge next time.
This suggestion fails for precisely the same reason the prior one failed, namely the added mass of launching the additional propulsion module, not to mention the expense of the module itself. This would very likely increase launch costs by a factor of five to ten. Not practical unless you want five to ten times less satellites in space, which would result in a decrease in available services worldwide. Or, if there was some mandate that this had to be done, expect the costs of such satellite-dependent services to rise dramatically.
In order to take advantage of such "tunnels" you have to first get out of the Earth's gravity well. This is no small feat and would require a pretty large booster rocket to accomplish. Launching such a booster with a satellite would drastically increase the weight of the launch package, meaning you'd need a larger rocket to launch it. Larger rockets are much more expensive. And in an age where lauch costs are on the order of US$10,000 per pound, lofting a 150-ton solid fuel booster rocket along with your satellite is a totally impractical idea.
While this is modded "Funny," your idea does deserve consideration. However, the problem with your idea is that it's impractical to power a very large satellite (the RORSAT is the size of a large bus with a huge radar set on one end) for any length of time on solar power alone. RTG's or full-up reactors are a must for this type of thing.
I install from packages whenever I can (assuming the package is up to date), but I roll my own when needed. Packages are just easier in most cases, not to mention faster.
Regardless of personal prefernce, though, we need to move towards more use of packages as opposed to compiling source. Compiling is something that scares the absolute hell out of nontechnical users. If you make it a more-or-less requirement in order to use Linux, you've just excluded those people. And don't think these people will somehow magically just want to learn to compile. They don't want to learn to compile, they want to do their jobs. Diddling with source code is neat, but most people get paid to perform job functions other than diddling with source code.
That's probably one of the most moronic things I've ever heard.
Since you're so quick to deem it moronic, perhaps you could enlighten us all by telling everyone what you would've done differently. After all, anyone can complain about a bad plan, but an intelligent person will complain and have a better plan ready to present.
Of course, whatever you elect to do must be practical (no "it should be launched into the Sun" or "the Shuttle should go up and retrieve it" plans) and cost-effective.
Now, given those limitations, please, tell everyone how much better your plan is, since I'm sure you have one. This isn't flamebait; I'm honestly challenging you to actually think about the problem instead of just criticizing it. Maybe you can come up with something that the best rocket scientists on the planet couldn't come up with.
If there was ever a need for a "+10 Funny As Hell" moderation point, this is it! I just about had a convulsion from laughing as I read this. My staff thought I'd had some sort of fit of madness or something, face turning red, tears streaming from eyes, and clutching my sides while I tried to breathe.
If you received a response akin to "fuck you" from any support call, whether it be real or implied, you should've escalated. Sooner or later you would've reached someone who is very interested in solving your problem.
I'll give a similar case in point. I recently went to a Cisco focus group study. One woman there recounted horror tales of dealing with her Cisco support rep. The person was rude, unhelpful, and generally made support worthless. At the end of the session, it was revealed to her that the national rep for Cisco was behind the one-way glass. He gave her his direct line and said that her issue would be escalated immediately to someone else, and that it would be resolved to her satisfaction. She was genuinely surprised, and I later found out that the person she had been dealing with was fired. He problem got solved, too -- for free. That's the kind of support I'm talking about.
It's been my experience that I get that kind of support from my vendors. If I don't, I escalate until I do. If it becomes habitual, I no longer buy from those vendors. Thus far, all of my interactions with Microsoft have been stellar. They work with me for hours, escalating as needed. They call me back a few days afterwards to make sure everything is done to my satisfaction before they close the case. They send me test patches if needed. They are very knowledgeable. Other than the price of the support contract, I have no complaints about them whatsoever. As usual, YMMV, but I've never personally met anyone who's had anything bad to say about them, and I get around a lot due to being a consultant.
When you're asking for a few million dollars to rework a portion of the company that generates several hundred million dollars, you can be damn sure the CEO, COO, CFO, and the board are interested. If you don't know that then you've probably never had to pitch a board for this kind of stuff. I have, and they most certainly do want to know what's going on. Perhaps not the nitty gritty details, but if you're going to use the words "open source" you better expect some questions, especially legal liability ones.
Really? I have been told by MS we don't support [that] being used with IIS so we won't help you even though you have a Platinum Fortune 50 contract with us. The small software company who's products are used by ebay's website among others, did help us.
Let me paraphrase this for a moment: you were running IIS with some non-Microsoft third party application. And something broke. So you called MS, and they told you "you're using this odd third part software that could be producing this bad interaction, so we won't support it."...and that's somehow magically Microsoft's fault? Have you stopped to consider for a moment that it could've been the fault of the third party app? Have you considered that MS might even have tested the module, found it to cause problems, and specifically decided not to support it for that reason?
Or did you just immediately decide it was all Microsoft's fault and decide to just stew about it?
My experience is that for-pay support is substantially WORSE than typical open source support.
As with all things, YMMV. While you say you've never had a 24 hour turnaround on a bug "that required a code fix," I can say the same thing. However, the qualifier is that I've never had a bug with Oracle, Microsoft, or Lotus that ever required a code fix at all. It's always been a config issue, or data corruption, or a bad interaction between some third-party software or module. And for me, it's always been resolved within 24 hours, usually in less than two hours. Admittedly, I don't call support that often (about twice a year on average) but that's because I choose my applications because they (a) do what I need them to do and (b) they work well together. Therefore, I have fewer problems overall.
When a CIO is attempting to pitch a radical restructuring of the company's logicstal system based on open-source software, you're damned right they talk about it. How the hell else do you expect FOSS to ever get any traction anywhere outside the server room? Advocacy groups? Don't be naive.
"Rabid zealotry" is in the eye of the beholder. What looks like frothing to you may look like intelligent advocacy to someone who isn't fearful of the message being delivered.
I will direct you to the "fuck off" reply post immediately below yours. A fine example of what rabid zealotry does to your cognitive decision making skills. While your post is thoughtful and well written, the other poster's comments have all the maturity of a tantrum-throwing five year old.
so someone who cares about something and wants to improve it versus someone who is emotionally unattached to what they do and use. take your pick, i'd prefer someone who cares about and enjoys what they work with.
Emotions and "feelings" should have nothing to do with making logical, factual business decisions. I don't want to buy software for my business because someone feels "emotionally attached" to it. That's absurd! Emotions cloud your ability to make impartial decisions.
So fuck off, use your Windows, AIX, cha-cha-cha, and leave us ALONE!
Thank you for making my point far more eloquently -- and finally -- than I could have. You have stated the perfect example of what's wrong with the Linux "movement."
By the way, I am using Linux (and Mozilla) to post this with, you rabid, frothing zealot.
1) Lack of formal support Yes but there's plenty of free and friendly support on forums, newsgroups and IRC channels. Not to mention 1000s and 1000s of user created documentation.
This is totally unacceptable to the business world, and you should know that by now. With a company, I have a phone number, a support contract, and a guarantee that someone will work with me to answer my question. With newsgroups and IRC channels, someone might answer my question but only if I'm willing to wait, surf a lot, or put up with a few hundred "what a st00pid newbie you are" responses that invariably get made.
2) Speed of change (not 'velocity') At least Linux patches improve the product. You have the choice of not applying them, where as, not applying windows patchs means opening yourself to zillions of worms.
Are you going to argue that Windows patches don't improve the product? I mean, really, they're not that bad. WinXP SP2 (which I'm running at work) adds some useful enhancements like pop-up blocking, a better firewall, and several other real, tangible improvements. Even though it's in beta it hasn't broken any of our apps, nor has it opened us to "zillions of worms." We've never had a worm invade our network due to good perimeter security and locked-down workstations and servers.
3) Lack of roadmap Yes, so one is not constrained. This creates co-operative competition. I.e. I use your code to make a better product. If I don't agree with your roadmap, I start a new fork. This makes open source software development far more successful than the closed source monolithic alternative.
Sorry, but businesses don't operate like this. Companies expect roadmaps, plans, and so forth because they have to plan for these things down the road. You apparently missed the point of the article writer, who pointed out that companies by and large dislike the chaotic environment of open source simply because it's chaotic. This "creative co-operation" mumbo jumbo doesn't wash in the board room.
4) Functional gaps They are changes. Not gaps. You have the choice with OpenSource. Not with, say, Windows. (Not trying to bash Windows;) ).
No, they are gaps. There are some things you cannot do with open source that you can do with proprietary software. Mostly its because of a lack of industry-standard software on the open source side of things. This is changing, though slowly. When we can run Photoshop and AutoCAD on Linux natively and have it supported by their respective software authors, then we can consider it. Until then, GIMP and whatever AutoCAD clone Linux has just won't cut it. Gaps.
5) Licensing caveats Read a typical Microsoft EULAs. See how many rights have you got. (Not trying to bash MS;);) )
Look at the current SCO furor. Right or wrong (I personally think Darl McBride is the antichrist), SCO's creating trouble for open source adopters. Linus himself recently commented that he considered intellectual property rights to be the single biggest threat to Linux over the next year. This kind of uncertainty doesn't sit well with businesses.
6) ISV endorsements. Independent Software Vendors: Who listens to them anyway?
Although this may have been intended as humorous, what you've revealed is how little of an understanding most Slashdotters have of how companies make decisions. Until the greasy-fingered, long-haird geeks of the world figure out how businesses work, they're not about to listen to you.
7) Rabid, frothing, pro-Linux zealots who consistently make fools of themselves by treating an operating system as if it were a religion. It makes it damnably difficult to pitch Linux solutions to corporate types when their perception is that it's written and run by hippies.
What? We need more CEO's that pay for licenses that they're not sure they need? CEO's that spend thousands, or millions, of dollars of company and shareholder money on pieces of paper that ultimately may be worthless? CEO's that will undoubtedly pass that cost on to their customers?
Yeah, we need more guys like this...like we all need another hole in the head.
This guy just jumped when SCO said "BOO!" and now he's saying he screwed up. His only redeeming quality is he's admitting he's spineless.
Slashdot Mirror
REPORTER: Thank you, sir. First, quickly to the prime minister. Did you ask President Bush to secure a second U.N. resolution and to give the inspectors more time? And President Bush, the U.N. inspectors say Saddam's not complying; you say Saddam's not complying. Why wait a matter of weeks? Why hold up on the decision?
BUSH: First of all, you violated the two-question rule, as usual. He's had a bad habit of this. [laughs]
BUSH: "I'll start. Saddam Hussein is not disarming. He is a danger to the world. He must disarm. And that's why I have constantly said, and the prime minister has constantly said, this issue will come to a head in a matter of weeks, not months."
I think it's clear your interpretation of the President's words are incorrect. If it's intentional, I doubt you'll bother fixing it, but if it's an honest mistake you really should change it. Lying doesn't serve to advance anyone's agenda unless you count on your readers to be ignorant of the truth.
"Let me reinerate what I just said, this is a matter of weeks, not months."
-G.W.Bush 1/31/03 on finding WMDs in Iraq
I hate to go OT on somebody's sig, but you're quoting the President completely out of context in an attempt to mislead a reader. Unless you have a transcript of the speech that says otherwise, Bush's quote was referring to the amount of time the U.S. would wait for Saddam to comply with U.N. resolution 1441, which required Saddam to disclose the whereabouts and disposition of all WMD's in Iraq. Your mischaracterization seems to imply that Bush said WMD's would be found in "weeks, not months" which is completely and totally different than what was said and intended, namely that the U.S. would wait "weeks, not months" for Saddam to come clean or there would be war. Did you purposefully misquote this in an attempt to mislead, or was it accidental?
Yea because all of those PHB's are on IRC and here at Slashdot getting flamed everyday...
Don't be silly. Have you stopped to consider whether PHB's are calling VAR's for FOSS solutions in the first place? I've got news for you: they aren't, or at least they aren't in huge numbers. PHB's are conservative by nature, so if their current Windows setup works reasonably well, they're likely to stick with Microsoft. FOSS must be pitched externally, and that means consultants. I would've thought you'd known that.
Where's you proof of that? I've seen a lot of studies about TCO some garbage about accountablity but I've yet to see any material from Microsoft where they keep talking about Linux Zealots being memebers or some cult. Your just making things up to bolster your arguement.
I've sat in sales pitches put on by Microsoft where they compare themselves to Linux. I don't put any stock in what they say, but I'm in the minority. The PHB's eat it up when the MS rep talks about hackers loving Linux. They do everything they can to promote this image, and it seems like the zealots do everything they can to play into it as well. Perhaps you've never attended one of these Microsoft sales pitches before? BTW, I find your accusations of fabrication insulting, since you obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
The impact of "zealotry" has nowhere near the effect your talking about. Until you can show me otherwise I'll just call the whole Zealtory arguement FUD.
You're clearly not being rational about this, so I'm going to stop trying to engage you on this matter. However, I'd encourage you to check around for proof of what I say. If you're objective enough to look for these materials, you'll find them. I don't carry around URL's in my head, and I forgot to bookmark the last few articles on this subject. Try CNET, eWeek, or OSNews.com, since I frequent all of them.
No. A PHB is going to be talking to some sales guy at Red Hat or maybe SuSE, not to a random Slashdotter.
No, a PHB is not going to call Red Hat, he's going to be pitched on FOSS by a consultant like myself. My experience has been that these consultants are, by and large, pretty slanted in the first place. They don't have solid TCO and ROI numbers, they just make stuff up to make Linux look good. Whether it actually fits the customer's needs is irrelevant, or so it seems. And these people have no sales stake in whether or not Red Hat or Windows is actually purchased (other than the implementation consulting), so their only motiviation is ideology.
Although we certainly see plenty of that kind of Linux zealotry on /., I really doubt that's what's going on in the corporate IS world.
As a consultant for several Fortune 1000 companies, I'm going to disagree with you here. Many of these companies have had negative interactions with FOSS proponents. More frequently than not, the pitch degenerated into "but you should dump Microsoft because it's better for the world when one company isn't so dominant." This usually happened when the TCO studies showed little or no gain to be had with a Windows-to-Linux migration. The business types want ROI, not religion.
For every Linux (or BSD, or OS X) zealot, there are a hundred Windows zealots
I'm going to disagree with you again here. I've met about ten times as many Linux zealots as I have Windows ones. The Windows guys just don't treat their software like it's a religion, they treat it like a business tool. If there's something better out there, they'll consider it, weigh it, and even implement it if it makes financial sense. The Linux camp, on the other hand, acts like it's everyone's religious duty to Bring Down Microsoft(tm). And based on the articles and open letters being written by those within the FOSS community, I'm not alone in my perception.
Me? I use the tool that's best suited for the job. Sometimes that's Windows, sometimes it's Linux, sometimes it's Solaris. I think anyone who gets "attached" to their OS is seriously in need of counseling.
Could it be that many PHB's fear the penguin because of the illogical, emotionally-based arguments so many Linux zealots constantly use to push their agenda? I mean, many of the nutcases I've heard from speak of Linux like the coming of some New World Order, reminiscent of how Communists pitched their ideas back during the fifties. PHB's take one look at people like that and say "there's no way in hell I'm going to trust someone so emotionally involved in this to make a valid business decision."
There have been an increasing number of articles, posts, and so forth coming from notable people in the Linux community pointing out how the zealotry is really becoming a serious impediment to further Linux progress. In particular, they cite many Linux zealot's inability to take any sort of constructive criticism and their steadfast belief that the users should conform to the OS instead of the other way around. They say this is bad for Linux, and I think they're right on.
Microsoft is using this irrational zealot behavior to convince more PHB's that Linux is some kind of cult, not just an operating system. The more outspoken the zealots are, the more they hurt things.
No, what really happened is the Soviet Union launched this satellite and didn't give a hoot in hell about what would happen when time came for it to come down. Of course, the former Soviet Union didn't exactly have the best track record for environmental concerns in the first place.
The people who came up with the "storage" orbit idea didn't have that many options, but what they came up with was the best possible way to deal with a problem that someone else created. I just objected to the original post calling the idea "moronic" when it was clear the original post hadn't taken a millisecond to consider that there just were no other good options.
Actually, given the opportunity to come up with my own plan, I would have gathered a team of seasoned veterans (if there is a such thing) on the subject.
And who do you think came up with the current plans, the Union of Journeyman Janitors? The best people on the planet have analyzed the situation and they are executing the plan they devised. In short, what they came up with was not "moronic" as you initially stated. It is the best possible option given all the factors involved. Perhaps you won't be so quick to judge next time.
This suggestion fails for precisely the same reason the prior one failed, namely the added mass of launching the additional propulsion module, not to mention the expense of the module itself. This would very likely increase launch costs by a factor of five to ten. Not practical unless you want five to ten times less satellites in space, which would result in a decrease in available services worldwide. Or, if there was some mandate that this had to be done, expect the costs of such satellite-dependent services to rise dramatically.
In order to take advantage of such "tunnels" you have to first get out of the Earth's gravity well. This is no small feat and would require a pretty large booster rocket to accomplish. Launching such a booster with a satellite would drastically increase the weight of the launch package, meaning you'd need a larger rocket to launch it. Larger rockets are much more expensive. And in an age where lauch costs are on the order of US$10,000 per pound, lofting a 150-ton solid fuel booster rocket along with your satellite is a totally impractical idea.
While this is modded "Funny," your idea does deserve consideration. However, the problem with your idea is that it's impractical to power a very large satellite (the RORSAT is the size of a large bus with a huge radar set on one end) for any length of time on solar power alone. RTG's or full-up reactors are a must for this type of thing.
So, good suggestion, but not practical.
I install from packages whenever I can (assuming the package is up to date), but I roll my own when needed. Packages are just easier in most cases, not to mention faster.
Regardless of personal prefernce, though, we need to move towards more use of packages as opposed to compiling source. Compiling is something that scares the absolute hell out of nontechnical users. If you make it a more-or-less requirement in order to use Linux, you've just excluded those people. And don't think these people will somehow magically just want to learn to compile. They don't want to learn to compile, they want to do their jobs. Diddling with source code is neat, but most people get paid to perform job functions other than diddling with source code.
That's probably one of the most moronic things I've ever heard.
Since you're so quick to deem it moronic, perhaps you could enlighten us all by telling everyone what you would've done differently. After all, anyone can complain about a bad plan, but an intelligent person will complain and have a better plan ready to present.
Of course, whatever you elect to do must be practical (no "it should be launched into the Sun" or "the Shuttle should go up and retrieve it" plans) and cost-effective.
Now, given those limitations, please, tell everyone how much better your plan is, since I'm sure you have one. This isn't flamebait; I'm honestly challenging you to actually think about the problem instead of just criticizing it. Maybe you can come up with something that the best rocket scientists on the planet couldn't come up with.
If there was ever a need for a "+10 Funny As Hell" moderation point, this is it! I just about had a convulsion from laughing as I read this. My staff thought I'd had some sort of fit of madness or something, face turning red, tears streaming from eyes, and clutching my sides while I tried to breathe.
If you received a response akin to "fuck you" from any support call, whether it be real or implied, you should've escalated. Sooner or later you would've reached someone who is very interested in solving your problem.
I'll give a similar case in point. I recently went to a Cisco focus group study. One woman there recounted horror tales of dealing with her Cisco support rep. The person was rude, unhelpful, and generally made support worthless. At the end of the session, it was revealed to her that the national rep for Cisco was behind the one-way glass. He gave her his direct line and said that her issue would be escalated immediately to someone else, and that it would be resolved to her satisfaction. She was genuinely surprised, and I later found out that the person she had been dealing with was fired. He problem got solved, too -- for free. That's the kind of support I'm talking about.
It's been my experience that I get that kind of support from my vendors. If I don't, I escalate until I do. If it becomes habitual, I no longer buy from those vendors. Thus far, all of my interactions with Microsoft have been stellar. They work with me for hours, escalating as needed. They call me back a few days afterwards to make sure everything is done to my satisfaction before they close the case. They send me test patches if needed. They are very knowledgeable. Other than the price of the support contract, I have no complaints about them whatsoever. As usual, YMMV, but I've never personally met anyone who's had anything bad to say about them, and I get around a lot due to being a consultant.
The CEO? Perhaps. The board of directors? No way.
When you're asking for a few million dollars to rework a portion of the company that generates several hundred million dollars, you can be damn sure the CEO, COO, CFO, and the board are interested. If you don't know that then you've probably never had to pitch a board for this kind of stuff. I have, and they most certainly do want to know what's going on. Perhaps not the nitty gritty details, but if you're going to use the words "open source" you better expect some questions, especially legal liability ones.
Really? I have been told by MS we don't support [that] being used with IIS so we won't help you even though you have a Platinum Fortune 50 contract with us. The small software company who's products are used by ebay's website among others, did help us.
...and that's somehow magically Microsoft's fault? Have you stopped to consider for a moment that it could've been the fault of the third party app? Have you considered that MS might even have tested the module, found it to cause problems, and specifically decided not to support it for that reason?
Let me paraphrase this for a moment: you were running IIS with some non-Microsoft third party application. And something broke. So you called MS, and they told you "you're using this odd third part software that could be producing this bad interaction, so we won't support it."
Or did you just immediately decide it was all Microsoft's fault and decide to just stew about it?
My experience is that for-pay support is substantially WORSE than typical open source support.
As with all things, YMMV. While you say you've never had a 24 hour turnaround on a bug "that required a code fix," I can say the same thing. However, the qualifier is that I've never had a bug with Oracle, Microsoft, or Lotus that ever required a code fix at all. It's always been a config issue, or data corruption, or a bad interaction between some third-party software or module. And for me, it's always been resolved within 24 hours, usually in less than two hours. Admittedly, I don't call support that often (about twice a year on average) but that's because I choose my applications because they (a) do what I need them to do and (b) they work well together. Therefore, I have fewer problems overall.
When a CIO is attempting to pitch a radical restructuring of the company's logicstal system based on open-source software, you're damned right they talk about it. How the hell else do you expect FOSS to ever get any traction anywhere outside the server room? Advocacy groups? Don't be naive.
"Rabid zealotry" is in the eye of the beholder. What looks like frothing to you may look like intelligent advocacy to someone who isn't fearful of the message being delivered.
I will direct you to the "fuck off" reply post immediately below yours. A fine example of what rabid zealotry does to your cognitive decision making skills. While your post is thoughtful and well written, the other poster's comments have all the maturity of a tantrum-throwing five year old.
so someone who cares about something and wants to improve it versus someone who is emotionally unattached to what they do and use. take your pick, i'd prefer someone who cares about and enjoys what they work with.
Emotions and "feelings" should have nothing to do with making logical, factual business decisions. I don't want to buy software for my business because someone feels "emotionally attached" to it. That's absurd! Emotions cloud your ability to make impartial decisions.
Linux is not a religion.
It's a hobby.
So fuck off, use your Windows, AIX, cha-cha-cha, and leave us ALONE!
Thank you for making my point far more eloquently -- and finally -- than I could have. You have stated the perfect example of what's wrong with the Linux "movement."
By the way, I am using Linux (and Mozilla) to post this with, you rabid, frothing zealot.
1) Lack of formal support
;) ).
;) ;) )
Yes but there's plenty of free and friendly support on forums, newsgroups and IRC channels. Not to mention 1000s and 1000s of user created documentation.
This is totally unacceptable to the business world, and you should know that by now. With a company, I have a phone number, a support contract, and a guarantee that someone will work with me to answer my question. With newsgroups and IRC channels, someone might answer my question but only if I'm willing to wait, surf a lot, or put up with a few hundred "what a st00pid newbie you are" responses that invariably get made.
2) Speed of change (not 'velocity')
At least Linux patches improve the product. You have the choice of not applying them, where as, not applying windows patchs means opening yourself to zillions of worms.
Are you going to argue that Windows patches don't improve the product? I mean, really, they're not that bad. WinXP SP2 (which I'm running at work) adds some useful enhancements like pop-up blocking, a better firewall, and several other real, tangible improvements. Even though it's in beta it hasn't broken any of our apps, nor has it opened us to "zillions of worms." We've never had a worm invade our network due to good perimeter security and locked-down workstations and servers.
3) Lack of roadmap
Yes, so one is not constrained. This creates co-operative competition. I.e. I use your code to make a better product. If I don't agree with your roadmap, I start a new fork. This makes open source software development far more successful than the closed source monolithic alternative.
Sorry, but businesses don't operate like this. Companies expect roadmaps, plans, and so forth because they have to plan for these things down the road. You apparently missed the point of the article writer, who pointed out that companies by and large dislike the chaotic environment of open source simply because it's chaotic. This "creative co-operation" mumbo jumbo doesn't wash in the board room.
4) Functional gaps
They are changes. Not gaps. You have the choice with OpenSource. Not with, say, Windows. (Not trying to bash Windows
No, they are gaps. There are some things you cannot do with open source that you can do with proprietary software. Mostly its because of a lack of industry-standard software on the open source side of things. This is changing, though slowly. When we can run Photoshop and AutoCAD on Linux natively and have it supported by their respective software authors, then we can consider it. Until then, GIMP and whatever AutoCAD clone Linux has just won't cut it. Gaps.
5) Licensing caveats
Read a typical Microsoft EULAs. See how many rights have you got. (Not trying to bash MS
Look at the current SCO furor. Right or wrong (I personally think Darl McBride is the antichrist), SCO's creating trouble for open source adopters. Linus himself recently commented that he considered intellectual property rights to be the single biggest threat to Linux over the next year. This kind of uncertainty doesn't sit well with businesses.
6) ISV endorsements. Independent Software Vendors: Who listens to them anyway?
Although this may have been intended as humorous, what you've revealed is how little of an understanding most Slashdotters have of how companies make decisions. Until the greasy-fingered, long-haird geeks of the world figure out how businesses work, they're not about to listen to you.
7) Rabid, frothing, pro-Linux zealots who consistently make fools of themselves by treating an operating system as if it were a religion. It makes it damnably difficult to pitch Linux solutions to corporate types when their perception is that it's written and run by hippies.
What? We need more CEO's that pay for licenses that they're not sure they need? CEO's that spend thousands, or millions, of dollars of company and shareholder money on pieces of paper that ultimately may be worthless? CEO's that will undoubtedly pass that cost on to their customers?
Yeah, we need more guys like this...like we all need another hole in the head.
This guy just jumped when SCO said "BOO!" and now he's saying he screwed up. His only redeeming quality is he's admitting he's spineless.