I understand your point, but the government does not need to use Open Source to obtain file interchange capabilities. It simply needs to decide on a standard file format (that is fully published and disclosed, developed at tax-payer expense and freely available to everyone).
Once the file format has been chosen, then it will be up to the commercial software vendors and open source projects to compete on quality, features, ease-of-use, etc. Government should have as much a choice in software purchases as individuals....
As far as mandates go -- the Feds couldn't really mandate a file format for everyone -- only for government use. This is already achieveable, of course, using XML. All the Feds would have to do is come up with a DTD:-)
I never said IBM went to open source to "feel good" about it. Rather, they see open source as just _another_ means to an end: selling hardware and consulting services.
It was a good move for IBM, and a boost to open source as well -- but IBM is a far greater beneficiary of open source than a contributor (even though they have contributed quite a lot, too -- I wouldn't disparage their contributions).
Yes, we're talking about the government, but not about software they are DEVLEOPING, but USING. Just because the government licenses MS Office doesn't mean the rest of us (the taxpayers) get a free copy, too..
The basic model of the web was to give away information, services, valuable goods, etc. for free, to anyone who cared to take them. The costs were covered by massive amounts of venture capital, money earned from previous successful IPOs of (worthless) internet companies, and banner advertising.
Initially, things went well because the web was new and people were willing to throw money at anything that had a remote chance of becoming an established player. However, we've all seen that it didn't last very long -- and now, even the banner ads aren't generating enough revenue to cover web site expenses.
The only profitable models on the web right now are subscription-based services and commission-based services (i.e. E-bay). The model of getting something for nothing simply does not work (unless propped up in the short term by someone else's money).
The same thing has happened with open source software: you give it away for free, then try to make money with consulting services, support, etc. -- which are nothing more than the "banner ads" of open source. Is there any company that uses Open Source as their business model that makes money? I seriously doubt there ever will be... Maybe IBM could be shoehorned into this category, but in reality, they are simply using open source as a way to sell more hardware and consulting services -- things they would have sold anyway if open source didn't exist.
If individual programmers want to release their source code to the world, that's their choice. But to actively lobby ALL developers to release their code under the socialistic GPL license is just morally and absolutely wrong.
I think it would be much more productive if the community were to place their efforts in getting DATA FORMATS to be standardized and interoperable. That way, products would have to compete on features, instead of allowing a proprietary data format to lock in the users.
OpenSource cheapens the value of developers because it lets users become accustomed to getting something for nothing -- the exact same failed model of the dot-coms....
If you want to be idealistic, OpenSource is great. If you want to sell your code or your programming services, OpenSource does not put food on the table...
You are completely off-base.. Of course, if you really believed what you posted, and actually had the courage to stand behind your spewings, you wouldn't have posted as an AC -- emphasis on "Coward"....
The full name of the church is: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is where the "latter day saint" nickname comes from.
The nickname "mormon" comes from a book called The Book of Mormon that is used and accepted as scripture only by members of the church.
Neither nickname is offensive to members of the church, although "latter-day saints" (and sometimes reduced to just "saints") is more commonly used for members referring to themselves or other members.
"Mormon" is generally used by non-members of the church, primarily because they aren't familiar with the actual name (it is a tad long...). It is also sometimes used as a pejorative by non-members, although it is a rather strange pejorative because it isn't offensive to the recipients:)
So your experiment proves what? That it took an entire two months to find 60 GB of content that simply matched a keyword? How much of that content is actually useful to you? I seriously doubt that ALL of it is worthwhile....
Even at your rate, you'd need 3 years to find enough content to fill up a terabyte...
Would a faster internet connection help you? I doubt it. Would a terabyte hard drive help you? Only if you wanted to keep EVERYTHING you found, and didn't want to upgrade your storage for 3 entire years...
You have also left out part of the equation: filtering the content that you've downloaded. Where will you find the time to actually REVIEW that 60 GB of data to see if it is worth keeping, to see if it is really what you want, and to decide if it is worthwhile sharing with others? It will take a while - even for 60 GB.
How long will it take you to validate a whole terabyte???
The problem isn't storage, and it isn't bandwidth; it's finding/creating/consuming useful content...
Oh yeah -- that will be astounding all right... Who really wants to grab a terabyte over their dial-up connection? That would only take 11 years or so....
What about 512k DSL? Only 6 months to grab that terabyte... 1.5Mb cable modems? A mere 2 months!
The amount of storage that is CURRENTLY AVAILABLE already exceeds our capacity to retrieve it... Do you really think anyone who shares files is truly limited by storage, especially in these days when a 100 GB hard drive can be purchased for a few hundred bucks? No, of course not. They're limited by content -- i.e. finding enough content to actually fill up the space they've already got.
Start thinking about the terabyte storage when we have faster internet connections...
Get real! You simply cannot have "thousands" of emails that are of "great interest"!
I regularly go through my email archives and delete all of the cruft that has accumulated -- and without fail, the stuff I'm deleting is stuff that I *thought* would be important, but really wasn't (or at least, is no longer important after keeping it for a year)...
Not with the mbox/maildir formats... After all, who in their right mind REALLY needs to keep 10,000 emails? That's absurd.
Even if you received 20 emails a day (that were worth keeping -- and most email is definitely NOT worth keeping), to amass 10,000 emails in your little kingdom would take nearly two years! And realistically, how many emails really maintain their validity after 2 entire years???? I would venture very few...
The problem here is not technology, it's people and their lazy habits....
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I understand your point, but the government does not need to use Open Source to obtain file interchange capabilities. It simply needs to decide on a standard file format (that is fully published and disclosed, developed at tax-payer expense and freely available to everyone).
:-)
Once the file format has been chosen, then it will be up to the commercial software vendors and open source projects to compete on quality, features, ease-of-use, etc. Government should have as much a choice in software purchases as individuals....
As far as mandates go -- the Feds couldn't really mandate a file format for everyone -- only for government use. This is already achieveable, of course, using XML. All the Feds would have to do is come up with a DTD
What idiot just modded me down as a Troll?
My post is simply my honest opinion about open source. I'm a 18+ year veteran of software development. I have never been a troll....
I never said IBM went to open source to "feel good" about it. Rather, they see open source as just _another_ means to an end: selling hardware and consulting services.
It was a good move for IBM, and a boost to open source as well -- but IBM is a far greater beneficiary of open source than a contributor (even though they have contributed quite a lot, too -- I wouldn't disparage their contributions).
Yes, we're talking about the government, but not about software they are DEVLEOPING, but USING. Just because the government licenses MS Office doesn't mean the rest of us (the taxpayers) get a free copy, too..
To further elaborate:
The basic model of the web was to give away information, services, valuable goods, etc. for free, to anyone who cared to take them. The costs were covered by massive amounts of venture capital, money earned from previous successful IPOs of (worthless) internet companies, and banner advertising.
Initially, things went well because the web was new and people were willing to throw money at anything that had a remote chance of becoming an established player. However, we've all seen that it didn't last very long -- and now, even the banner ads aren't generating enough revenue to cover web site expenses.
The only profitable models on the web right now are subscription-based services and commission-based services (i.e. E-bay). The model of getting something for nothing simply does not work (unless propped up in the short term by someone else's money).
The same thing has happened with open source software: you give it away for free, then try to make money with consulting services, support, etc. -- which are nothing more than the "banner ads" of open source. Is there any company that uses Open Source as their business model that makes money? I seriously doubt there ever will be... Maybe IBM could be shoehorned into this category, but in reality, they are simply using open source as a way to sell more hardware and consulting services -- things they would have sold anyway if open source didn't exist.
If individual programmers want to release their source code to the world, that's their choice. But to actively lobby ALL developers to release their code under the socialistic GPL license is just morally and absolutely wrong.
I think it would be much more productive if the community were to place their efforts in getting DATA FORMATS to be standardized and interoperable. That way, products would have to compete on features, instead of allowing a proprietary data format to lock in the users.
OpenSource cheapens the value of developers because it lets users become accustomed to getting something for nothing -- the exact same failed model of the dot-coms....
If you want to be idealistic, OpenSource is great. If you want to sell your code or your programming services, OpenSource does not put food on the table...
You are completely off-base.. Of course, if you really believed what you posted, and actually had the courage to stand behind your spewings, you wouldn't have posted as an AC -- emphasis on "Coward"....
(Previous post was cut off)...
:)
They are both the same, and both are nicknames.
The full name of the church is: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is where the "latter day saint" nickname comes from.
The nickname "mormon" comes from a book called The Book of Mormon that is used and accepted as scripture only by members of the church.
Neither nickname is offensive to members of the church, although "latter-day saints" (and sometimes reduced to just "saints") is more commonly used for members referring to themselves or other members.
"Mormon" is generally used by non-members of the church, primarily because they aren't familiar with the actual name (it is a tad long...). It is also sometimes used as a pejorative by non-members, although it is a rather strange pejorative because it isn't offensive to the recipients
They are both the same, and both are nicknames.
The full name of the church is: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is where the "latter day saint" nickname comes from.
The nickname "mormon" comes from a book called The Book of Mormon that is used and accepted as scripture only by members of the church.
So your experiment proves what? That it took an entire two months to find 60 GB of content that simply matched a keyword? How much of that content is actually useful to you? I seriously doubt that ALL of it is worthwhile....
Even at your rate, you'd need 3 years to find enough content to fill up a terabyte...
Would a faster internet connection help you? I doubt it. Would a terabyte hard drive help you? Only if you wanted to keep EVERYTHING you found, and didn't want to upgrade your storage for 3 entire years...
You have also left out part of the equation: filtering the content that you've downloaded. Where will you find the time to actually REVIEW that 60 GB of data to see if it is worth keeping, to see if it is really what you want, and to decide if it is worthwhile sharing with others? It will take a while - even for 60 GB.
How long will it take you to validate a whole terabyte???
The problem isn't storage, and it isn't bandwidth; it's finding/creating/consuming useful content...
Oh yeah -- that will be astounding all right... Who really wants to grab a terabyte over their dial-up connection? That would only take 11 years or so.... What about 512k DSL? Only 6 months to grab that terabyte... 1.5Mb cable modems? A mere 2 months! The amount of storage that is CURRENTLY AVAILABLE already exceeds our capacity to retrieve it... Do you really think anyone who shares files is truly limited by storage, especially in these days when a 100 GB hard drive can be purchased for a few hundred bucks? No, of course not. They're limited by content -- i.e. finding enough content to actually fill up the space they've already got. Start thinking about the terabyte storage when we have faster internet connections...
Get real! You simply cannot have "thousands" of emails that are of "great interest"! I regularly go through my email archives and delete all of the cruft that has accumulated -- and without fail, the stuff I'm deleting is stuff that I *thought* would be important, but really wasn't (or at least, is no longer important after keeping it for a year)...
Not with the mbox/maildir formats... After all, who in their right mind REALLY needs to keep 10,000 emails? That's absurd. Even if you received 20 emails a day (that were worth keeping -- and most email is definitely NOT worth keeping), to amass 10,000 emails in your little kingdom would take nearly two years! And realistically, how many emails really maintain their validity after 2 entire years???? I would venture very few... The problem here is not technology, it's people and their lazy habits....