Pun intended. There is a major catch to all of this disruptive technology that Cringley and everyone else seems to be forgetting. The catch, regulatory restrictions.
You see, in the phone business, there are countless regulations and restrictions at the federal, state and local government levels. These restrictions cover everything, 911 location requirements, reliability, coverage, who is authorized to offer service, taxes and a whole lot more.
At the moment, VoIP is excluded from much of this. But, with VoIP threatening the industry, the phone giants will be using their lobbying power to make the restrictions apply to VoIP as well.
An infrastructure such as Cringley describes is technically possible, theoretically. But, if it comes to pass, it will be controlled by today's phone giants.
Of course, for all this to happen and for us to have the reliability of landlines or even cellular service our cities would have to be so heavily blanketed by 802.11 devices that hot dogs would cook themselves once removed from their microwave shielded packaging. Eat it quickly Honey, before it gets too hot.
Large and successful restaurants rely heavily on IT. Many large restaurants and increasing numbers of smaller ones do have web sites. The sites give directions to their restaurants, menus and even the abillity to place orders for pickup and sometimes delivery. I'm not talking pizzas here, I'm referring to all sorts of restaurants including upscale seafood, French, Italian and many more.
But, even without websites, the large and successful restaurants still rely on IT. They use IT to manage their books and their staff. They also use it to manage their inventories, making sure that they have sufficient quantities of lettuce and steak at all times. They use IT to manage the ordering system and the billing system. They even use it to manage the crowds by way of table charting and remote paging systems.
Restaurants rely very heavily on IT and the successful ones would not be successful withou IT. Just have a look around when next you are at McDonald's. Try to imagine operating McDonald's corporation or even a single franchise without IT.
Sure there are some hold outs, mom and pop operations that do OK (well enough to support two people) without IT. But name a restaurant that can seat 400 people that doesn't rely on IT. Name a chain that doesn't rely on IT. I'm often amazed to see more and more small mom and pop restaurants that are using IT to automate various processes in their business. It is a strategic advantage for them because without it, they would go out of business.
Most of the analysts agree that enterprise PC maintenance runs at around $5000 per seat per annum. This includes software licensing, backend servers and software, and helpdesk support and general break/fix work.
I don't like the way the article is worded regarding Google Groups 2. I have no issue with Google starting another Groups service but, I am concerned with the concept of "replacing" the usenet archive.
The Usenet archive is tremendously useful and, I feel, should be protected at all costs. The thought of the Usenet archive being abandoned or terminated scares me quite a bit. I hope that my concerns are unfounded.
It's funny that everywhere I have seen someone make the move from Novell to Windows 2000/2003 they replace one Netware server with three Windows servers. And, they still have twice as many problems as they did before they switched. The solution is always the same, add more Windows boxes.
Mozilla is already so bloated and slow that the Mozilla group has been splitting out applications and rewriting the engine(Firebird/fox/foo). Yet as bloated as it is, it does not come close to having the feature set that a full desktop requires. Adding those features will only add to the bloat and further slow it down.
Additionally, there is the issue of stability. Not to knock Mozilla but, it isn't perfect. It's good but, not perfect. Speed is subjective but, I doubt that anyone would claim that Mozilla is afast. There are times that it crashes and there are times that it hogs the CPU and of course there is the question of whether it even does its job of rendering web pages as well as it should. Putting your desktop within such a framework is only asking for trouble.
I believe that it is better to have the Desktop Environment as a separate application that is specifically built for that task. One that is written in a language that is fast fast fast. Did I mention that the DE should be fast?
Finally, one must ask if there is a need (read market) for such a desktop environment. OEone has not exactly taken the world by storm, why? In fact I was suprised to hear that they were still alive. I'd bet that there are a lot more users of Blackbox or Xfce (completely ignoring KDE/Gnome) than OEone, why? If a desktop environment inside a browser is better or more desireable, why haven't more people switched? Even Windows simply integrates the browser into the OS, the browser is not the DE.
eDirectory and dirXML are definitely the way to go unless you plan to eliminate Novell form your network. As for the upgrade path to Active Directory? Microsoft's Active Directory has already decided that for you.
If you plan to continue using the same NT domains then you must upgrade your PDC to AD first. You will then be on Active Directory but, your BDCs will still work. You can then upgrade you BDCs at your leisure but, you shouldn't plan on taking a year to upgrade them either. There are issues that will arise over time that would be more easily handled if your BDCs were Active Directory DCs.
Luckily for you, Novell has seen the Linux light even if your employer or software vendors have not. I would recommend that you press your vendors for Linux versions of their applications and make lots of noise about switching to a vendor that does support Linux, even if it is only a bluff. Over time they too will start offering support for the Linux platform too. Novell, eDirectory and Linux. Now that's a nice network.
Most of the pictures are dated 2000. I suspect that in four years since those pictures, the project has made significant advances. However, those results and pictures are likely classified.
It comes with 5 CDs and a single DVD version. In other words it comes with ~3Gigs of software but, not your favorite app. Come on man. Be reasonable.
Try as they have, it is still not possible for them to include every program that is out there. You can still install you favorite program, it just doesn't ship with 9.1
Of course there is also the possibility that SuSE or its customers think that Inkscape sucks and is not worthy of inclusion. I can't answer that as I have never heard of Inkscape, prior to your post.
In case you hadn't noticed there are numerous desktop environments out there for Linux. Some/many of these DEs are nothing like Windows and have clearly stated that they will never implement Windows look and feel or features. The fact is that there are DEs that are very Windows like and there are many others that are not. Some of those are very unique and innovative.
Yet, we see a recurring theme of desktops that are Windows like. This is "market" driven. The fact is that the vast majority of PC users want a Windows like desktop. People are exercising their choice by choosing the desktop that they like best. Developers are not stupid, not always anyway. Many of them are simply acknowledging the demand for a particular type of desktop and are catering to that demand.
You have a far greater choice of desktops with Linux than with any other operating system. You can choose any one that you like. The fact that most people are choosing a Windows like desktop would suggest that either that is what they are most comfortable with or perhaps, Microsoft's years research and development have indeed provide a very good desktop design.
Open Source is supposed to be all about choice. What have you against people exercising thier choice?
You offer valid points but... I have yet to see a library where even the librarian could hear the question, determine where to look, find the book and provide the answer in a two minute period. It takes almost that long to walk from the card catalog/computer to the appropriate section where the book is. Detailed information may reside in a particular book but, you could waste a minute scanning the index and flipping pages to get to that information.
At the same time I have seen several librarians who could accurately answer some of these questions off the top of their heads. But, that doesn't allow me to search the library with the spped that Google offers me.
Maybe I don't know how to use a library, after using them for decades, but I have never found what I wanted in a library in under two minutes even when I knew what book I wanted and where that book was located in advance. To me the question 1 result of 20 seconds for the library is absurd.
Multiple redundant trackers and they are all dead! Nice. Even if the trackers weren't dead it would still be a pain to get the download started and keep it going.
I still can't get the Knoppix download from last night to start, although the tracker is up and fine.
Yes, I enabled the appropriate port forwarding! And what's up with that?!?!? I have to reconfigure my firewall to allow incomming connections to download? I would much prefer a couple of good old FTP mirrors to Bittorrent.
Bittorrent sucks ass!
Moderate all you want. I call it like I see it and I have infinite karma to burn!
Personally, I just try to keep my memory usage below the physical memory in my machine, but I guess that's not always possible..."
No it isn't possible. With today's RAM prices I almost always have more physical RAM than the system requires. But, due to aggressive VM swapping there are still hundreds of megs swapped out to disk when there is no need at all. This means that those applications, when their time does finally come, are slow because they must be retrieved from disk first. It's really annoying sometimes. Yet, even with excess RAM turning off swap is disasterous.
In business, if you aren't growing you are dieing. There have been exceptions throughout history but, the vast majority of shrinking businesses vaporize.
IBM's endorsement of Linux has added credibility and an illusion of support and accountability, although the reality is there is no 'center of gravity,' or central body, investing in the health and growth of noncommercial software or innovating in critical areas like engineering, manageability, compatibility and security."
I suspect that Novell, Red Hat and IBM have a strenuous argument against this bit of cheerleading.
It appears that the GNAA troll has re-defaced the page since last you reloaded.
I can't belive someone is so full of
You aren't familiar with the concept of vandals and grafiti "artists"? With most websites going to great effort to prevent unauthorized access and still being owned and defaced, I can't believe that people still subscribe to the Wiki concept. Without access control this type of thing is guaranteed. With access control it is far less likely but, still not ouy of the relm of possibility.
I'd like to be able to tell you but, they use a Wiki for the main page the article linked to and it presently is displaying some troll about the GNAA. The open Wiki concept is not a good idea unless you are running a blog.
This press release does not clearly state what Geronimo is or does. It also makes no effort to describe what MX4J, Jetty, OpenEJB and ActiveMQ are. It does however, use the word milestone six times so one would be tempted to assume that Geronimo is some form of high-tech highway mile marker.
It is especially important when releasing a new product or a product with a new name, that the press release clearly describes the product. From the press release I have no desire to click the Geronimo link to investigate further and instead chose to add another post that is likely useless. OSS projects really need to think about the dirty word "Marketing".
None have yet gone to trial because the first batch all settled out of court. That means that the file sharers all paid the RIAA.
If it keeps on going like this the RIAA will never go to court but, they will get even richer than they already are. It doesn't sound like they are being too stupid to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Pun intended. There is a major catch to all of this disruptive technology that Cringley and everyone else seems to be forgetting. The catch, regulatory restrictions.
You see, in the phone business, there are countless regulations and restrictions at the federal, state and local government levels. These restrictions cover everything, 911 location requirements, reliability, coverage, who is authorized to offer service, taxes and a whole lot more.
At the moment, VoIP is excluded from much of this. But, with VoIP threatening the industry, the phone giants will be using their lobbying power to make the restrictions apply to VoIP as well.
An infrastructure such as Cringley describes is technically possible, theoretically. But, if it comes to pass, it will be controlled by today's phone giants.
Of course, for all this to happen and for us to have the reliability of landlines or even cellular service our cities would have to be so heavily blanketed by 802.11 devices that hot dogs would cook themselves once removed from their microwave shielded packaging. Eat it quickly Honey, before it gets too hot.
Large and successful restaurants rely heavily on IT. Many large restaurants and increasing numbers of smaller ones do have web sites. The sites give directions to their restaurants, menus and even the abillity to place orders for pickup and sometimes delivery. I'm not talking pizzas here, I'm referring to all sorts of restaurants including upscale seafood, French, Italian and many more.
But, even without websites, the large and successful restaurants still rely on IT. They use IT to manage their books and their staff. They also use it to manage their inventories, making sure that they have sufficient quantities of lettuce and steak at all times. They use IT to manage the ordering system and the billing system. They even use it to manage the crowds by way of table charting and remote paging systems.
Restaurants rely very heavily on IT and the successful ones would not be successful withou IT. Just have a look around when next you are at McDonald's. Try to imagine operating McDonald's corporation or even a single franchise without IT.
Sure there are some hold outs, mom and pop operations that do OK (well enough to support two people) without IT. But name a restaurant that can seat 400 people that doesn't rely on IT. Name a chain that doesn't rely on IT. I'm often amazed to see more and more small mom and pop restaurants that are using IT to automate various processes in their business. It is a strategic advantage for them because without it, they would go out of business.
Most of the analysts agree that enterprise PC maintenance runs at around $5000 per seat per annum. This includes software licensing, backend servers and software, and helpdesk support and general break/fix work.
I don't like the way the article is worded regarding Google Groups 2. I have no issue with Google starting another Groups service but, I am concerned with the concept of "replacing" the usenet archive.
The Usenet archive is tremendously useful and, I feel, should be protected at all costs. The thought of the Usenet archive being abandoned or terminated scares me quite a bit. I hope that my concerns are unfounded.
It's funny that everywhere I have seen someone make the move from Novell to Windows 2000/2003 they replace one Netware server with three Windows servers. And, they still have twice as many problems as they did before they switched. The solution is always the same, add more Windows boxes.
Not for me thanks, I've had enough.
Mozilla is already so bloated and slow that the Mozilla group has been splitting out applications and rewriting the engine(Firebird/fox/foo). Yet as bloated as it is, it does not come close to having the feature set that a full desktop requires. Adding those features will only add to the bloat and further slow it down.
Additionally, there is the issue of stability. Not to knock Mozilla but, it isn't perfect. It's good but, not perfect. Speed is subjective but, I doubt that anyone would claim that Mozilla is afast. There are times that it crashes and there are times that it hogs the CPU and of course there is the question of whether it even does its job of rendering web pages as well as it should. Putting your desktop within such a framework is only asking for trouble.
I believe that it is better to have the Desktop Environment as a separate application that is specifically built for that task. One that is written in a language that is fast fast fast. Did I mention that the DE should be fast?
Finally, one must ask if there is a need (read market) for such a desktop environment. OEone has not exactly taken the world by storm, why? In fact I was suprised to hear that they were still alive. I'd bet that there are a lot more users of Blackbox or Xfce (completely ignoring KDE/Gnome) than OEone, why? If a desktop environment inside a browser is better or more desireable, why haven't more people switched? Even Windows simply integrates the browser into the OS, the browser is not the DE.
eDirectory and dirXML are definitely the way to go unless you plan to eliminate Novell form your network. As for the upgrade path to Active Directory? Microsoft's Active Directory has already decided that for you.
If you plan to continue using the same NT domains then you must upgrade your PDC to AD first. You will then be on Active Directory but, your BDCs will still work. You can then upgrade you BDCs at your leisure but, you shouldn't plan on taking a year to upgrade them either. There are issues that will arise over time that would be more easily handled if your BDCs were Active Directory DCs.
Luckily for you, Novell has seen the Linux light even if your employer or software vendors have not. I would recommend that you press your vendors for Linux versions of their applications and make lots of noise about switching to a vendor that does support Linux, even if it is only a bluff. Over time they too will start offering support for the Linux platform too. Novell, eDirectory and Linux. Now that's a nice network.
I'll put $100 on the bear.
This guy is about to get his butt kicked.
Most of the pictures are dated 2000. I suspect that in four years since those pictures, the project has made significant advances. However, those results and pictures are likely classified.
Oh, by the way: FIRE THE FEAKIN LASER!!!
It comes with 5 CDs and a single DVD version. In other words it comes with ~3Gigs of software but, not your favorite app. Come on man. Be reasonable.
Try as they have, it is still not possible for them to include every program that is out there. You can still install you favorite program, it just doesn't ship with 9.1
Of course there is also the possibility that SuSE or its customers think that Inkscape sucks and is not worthy of inclusion. I can't answer that as I have never heard of Inkscape, prior to your post.
Yes. Yast was GPLed some weeks ago and the source has been available on their site for eons.
In case you hadn't noticed there are numerous desktop environments out there for Linux. Some/many of these DEs are nothing like Windows and have clearly stated that they will never implement Windows look and feel or features. The fact is that there are DEs that are very Windows like and there are many others that are not. Some of those are very unique and innovative.
Yet, we see a recurring theme of desktops that are Windows like. This is "market" driven. The fact is that the vast majority of PC users want a Windows like desktop. People are exercising their choice by choosing the desktop that they like best. Developers are not stupid, not always anyway. Many of them are simply acknowledging the demand for a particular type of desktop and are catering to that demand.
You have a far greater choice of desktops with Linux than with any other operating system. You can choose any one that you like. The fact that most people are choosing a Windows like desktop would suggest that either that is what they are most comfortable with or perhaps, Microsoft's years research and development have indeed provide a very good desktop design.
Open Source is supposed to be all about choice. What have you against people exercising thier choice?
Netware is still virus/worm free after more than twelve years. Not even Linux can make such a claim, provided it had been around that long.
You offer valid points but... I have yet to see a library where even the librarian could hear the question, determine where to look, find the book and provide the answer in a two minute period. It takes almost that long to walk from the card catalog/computer to the appropriate section where the book is. Detailed information may reside in a particular book but, you could waste a minute scanning the index and flipping pages to get to that information.
At the same time I have seen several librarians who could accurately answer some of these questions off the top of their heads. But, that doesn't allow me to search the library with the spped that Google offers me.
Maybe I don't know how to use a library, after using them for decades, but I have never found what I wanted in a library in under two minutes even when I knew what book I wanted and where that book was located in advance. To me the question 1 result of 20 seconds for the library is absurd.
How does the "Library" provide sub two minute results? The article doesn't say.
My BS alarm just tripped and I can't seem to stop it.
Multiple redundant trackers and they are all dead! Nice. Even if the trackers weren't dead it would still be a pain to get the download started and keep it going.
I still can't get the Knoppix download from last night to start, although the tracker is up and fine.
Yes, I enabled the appropriate port forwarding! And what's up with that?!?!? I have to reconfigure my firewall to allow incomming connections to download? I would much prefer a couple of good old FTP mirrors to Bittorrent.
Bittorrent sucks ass!
Moderate all you want. I call it like I see it and I have infinite karma to burn!
Good choices are available.
Evolution
Kontact
Kontact Features
Personally, I just try to keep my memory usage below the physical memory in my machine, but I guess that's not always possible..."
No it isn't possible. With today's RAM prices I almost always have more physical RAM than the system requires. But, due to aggressive VM swapping there are still hundreds of megs swapped out to disk when there is no need at all. This means that those applications, when their time does finally come, are slow because they must be retrieved from disk first. It's really annoying sometimes. Yet, even with excess RAM turning off swap is disasterous.
In business, if you aren't growing you are dieing. There have been exceptions throughout history but, the vast majority of shrinking businesses vaporize.
I have no opinion either way on Sun, yet.
IBM's endorsement of Linux has added credibility and an illusion of support and accountability, although the reality is there is no 'center of gravity,' or central body, investing in the health and growth of noncommercial software or innovating in critical areas like engineering, manageability, compatibility and security."
I suspect that Novell, Red Hat and IBM have a strenuous argument against this bit of cheerleading.
It appears that the GNAA troll has re-defaced the page since last you reloaded.
I can't belive someone is so full of
You aren't familiar with the concept of vandals and grafiti "artists"? With most websites going to great effort to prevent unauthorized access and still being owned and defaced, I can't believe that people still subscribe to the Wiki concept. Without access control this type of thing is guaranteed. With access control it is far less likely but, still not ouy of the relm of possibility.
I'd like to be able to tell you but, they use a Wiki for the main page the article linked to and it presently is displaying some troll about the GNAA. The open Wiki concept is not a good idea unless you are running a blog.
This press release does not clearly state what Geronimo is or does. It also makes no effort to describe what MX4J, Jetty, OpenEJB and ActiveMQ are. It does however, use the word milestone six times so one would be tempted to assume that Geronimo is some form of high-tech highway mile marker.
It is especially important when releasing a new product or a product with a new name, that the press release clearly describes the product. From the press release I have no desire to click the Geronimo link to investigate further and instead chose to add another post that is likely useless. OSS projects really need to think about the dirty word "Marketing".
None have yet gone to trial because the first batch all settled out of court. That means that the file sharers all paid the RIAA.
If it keeps on going like this the RIAA will never go to court but, they will get even richer than they already are. It doesn't sound like they are being too stupid to me.