Seems like you're trying to suggest that unless there is competition in something then we shouldn't allow anyone to do it. Sounds kind absurd to me because it's a catch 22 situation. I'd be surprised if IBM don't sponsor any school activities and as for redhat; no-one gives a shit about redhat.
"Microsoft isn't evil per se, just hell-bent on warping the mind of children."
Assuming that it were true that an entire corporation would have such an ambition...I would imagine a couple of billion dollars spent on advertising during childrens TV programmes would be much more effective.
No-one mentioned MS so I guess you must be trolling for karma.
There's tens of thousands of companies that are NOT MS and some of which develop open source software **commercially** - all offer support in one form or another.
What's the matter, not had enough SCO 'news' today? Take a day off from being a wannabe MS basher.
So, then, support for commercial and free software is the same except with commercial software (that you have bought) you have one extra channel through which to complain.
Your perseverence with the last (which ought to be first) channel of support is up to you.
Complaining and demanding a refund (through your credit card company) are often enough to resolve most problems at least to your satisfaction.
If you complain to the authors of free software you have no leverage whatsoever. They can, and often do, just leave you alone to figure out the problem.
I can only speak from personal experience so I can say that my company gives refunds and I have experienced refunds from amazon.com, dabs.com and insight.com.
Tech support can be awful but it's a long way from being a FACT.
For example, in my company we have a helpdesk where we answer *everything* in an average of around 26hrs. We have forums where we, and other customers, answer problems incredibly quickly. We have an online bug database (similar in function to bugzilla) where customers can track their reported problems. We also go in the newsgroups etc.
Newsgroups suck because most consumers don't know what they are. Forums seem clumsy for most people new to computers and for these people our bug reporting system is nothing short of daunting.
The helpdesk has proved to be very popular. It has a wizard type interface, asks a few questions and then responds with some common solutions...with the last step to submit a question which is then answered by someone resembling a human.
If tech support is awful then it's univserally awful regardless of whether you pay for the software or the support. But, if you pay for it then you deserve to get the very best possible - I've always found complaining loudly to be most effective.
I totally agree that large coporates have emplyees that are less than pationate about the software (or your use of it). However, I've worked alongside a few tech support people in large and small organisations and most are only too pleased to help where they can. Higer up the food chain we'll find the cynics who care only about the bottom line results.
Most software companies do not have a monopoly, it's time to change the channel on that one. Most software companies are motivated to ensure that people can get their products working - it's either that or go out of business.
For really popular software there are newsgroups etc. and you may even find software where third party companies will provide you all the support you need.
Yes, as opposed to other (non-commercially produced I guess) software where the support is non-existent (you know where the source is, there's comments too, maybe).
You don't get a busy signal with other software because there is no one to call. Sure, there's forums and there's newsgroups, and of course there's mailing lists...but none of them *have* to help you resolve your problem.
At least with commercial software you can get your money back. What's that I hear you say, can't get your money back? Well, perhaps you should have bought on plastic instead of cash.
Perhaps with non-commercial software there is an army of tech support staff sitting quietly in the back room along with the army UI designers and the army of technical authors, LOL...all doing nothing, apparently.
Seek and we shall find; I conducted a survey or people using linux and I found 100% of them couldn't get samba to talk to a Win2K server. All of those that responded said "Tech support sucks. I was referred to a 'man' page, whatever the hell that is". Another disatisfied 'customer'.
Oh wait, non-commercial softare doesn't have 'customers' so no problem there. No customers, no problem - a software developers dream.
Pah! news for nerds. Every nerd knows tech support can't help all of the people all of the time. This is news if you live in a cave and bang rocks together to make fire.
The biggest cause of bugs, IMO, is complexity. We continually add more features to our software and this adds to the complexity. We quickly get to a point where the number of interactions of the inner workings far exceed our ability to visualise them...and then bugs creep in because we fail to realise some of the interactions.
Every keystroke can cause a bug and every line of code is a liability.
Whatever else can be said about it one thing is for sure; Bugs are mistakes, screwups, errors, ommisions, or general failures caused by one of the software developers/designers in the chain.
Failure to accept this is just admiting that it is OK to have bugs. And when you accept this you lose all hope of fixing the bugs.
(Bias note: I've written commercial/consumer software for a *long* time)
Every industry has an acceptable failure rate. That's a fact. Cars fail (both hardware and software - that's why the AA and RAC exist), planes fail, bridges fail. Hell even toasters fail and mobile phones fail.
The difference, if there is one, is that software vendors have a higher tolerance to failure.
I suspect this is because their customers (users) also have a high tolerance for product failure. Fix the customers so they complain more when things go bad and the vendors will have to fix their issues or risk losing their customers.
(note: I am a software developer working on consumer software. I'm happy to fix bugs;-) )
These case moding fools will find a use for any old scrap of crap lying around. Some people have more time than money and this is how they spend it.
I wonder though, where's the comparative results for other useless bits of household waste; paper (flat or scrunched up), toner cartridges, empty cans?
Of course bandwidth has a cost and sometimes it's just too much for a site to bear. A popular service can be punished by it's bandwidth costs. How many times do we see/hear of a site going down due to the/. effect...and probably a lot of them are due to bandwidth caps rather than fancy content delivery systems hogging CPU/drive.
Of course it's not a problem if they have a *real* revenue stream for their service as they should then be able to *pay* for their bandwidth needs.
Just no nonsence usiness by IBM, to paraphrase: 'You are wrong. We do not want you and we will not bow to you.' Gives them a lot of cred in my book, no matter how tedious SCO can be.
I don't want to rain on your parade but you do know that is IBM PR at work. There's almost certainly a team of IBM lawyers meeting with SCO lawyers to talk a way out of this mess 24hrs a day.
I mean, c'mon people! Wake up and smell the PR action going on here.
This isn't "IBM, defender of the free". This is "IBM, that's mine, that's mine, that's yours and now it's mine".
If you were IBM would you come out with press release saying "Oh shit, we're fucked. Whatawegonna dooooooo". Um, no.
I totally agree and I'm sure it will all come out in the wash.
I honestly doubt SCO (even imagine they) could get away with it thanks to the OSS community and the hordes of eyeballs blah blah on the code over the years. It wouldn't be difficult for someone with at least a couple of brain cells to see checkins and such to trace back the source - and because the people that do that job get paid hansomly for their time I'd volunteer!;-)
However, I was merely pointing out that comments in stolen code can be the downfall of the offending party - as has been my direct experience.
It's easy to say that the comments prove nothing when in fact they can offer the best evidence. Same for redunant or oddly named variables.
Whether SCO sole linux code or IBM polluted Linux with SCO code isn't for me to decide, nor do I have a valid opinion on it due to limited access to all of the materials.
I don't know where the docs are searching google reveals a lot of documents and discussion of the case - I remember the case being quite important at the time.
I also saw the transcripts and the evidence just after the case was finished. It was fairly clear cut from my POV. The comments were *so* damning. Much of the code you could forgive because there are only so many ways to do it, but the comments...no.
The lawyers did well out of it but the end result was crippling for both companies, finally they merged.
So, maybe SCO are looking for a buyout. It would make sense.
It only takes one unusual comment to be identical and the game is up.
The code now, or as submitted, is unimportant. The fact that the work derived from (else why would the original and seemingly unique comments be there) copyright material is enough.
I haven't seen the SCO code, nor do I care to. But, I have first hand seen a similar case that was won based on the comments in the code.
From the case; "It is the resemblances in inessentials, the small, redundant, even mistaken elements of the copyright work which carry the greatest weight. This is because they are the least likely to have been the result of independent design."
And; "Trivial items may well provide the most eloquent testimony"
And finally; "Both suites of programs contained the same spelling mistakes in the comment lines and the same redundant code. The judge did not accept the argument that this was due to programming style."
Every api seems to have from 9 to 35 arguments. Nobody knows what they are for... its a cut and paste job from MSDN, yet again... and then we get on to business processes.
That's a lie. Just because you can't figure it out doesn't make it fact.
Now, be honest. You tried to write code in Windows but you got scared. "Mummy, theres confusing APIs with ONE parameter and I can't read the docs because I'm a coder-wannabe that thinks that every API has at least 9 parameters! Waaaaaah!!!!". You didn't want to know what was going on.
I suggest you sit down and STFU as you are obviously a clueless consultant who blames the API for their lack of ability. Perhaps you should move into marketing instead.
"Plus if the author of such drivers happened to take a holiday to the US some day he would probably be arrested at the airport like some major terrorist"
Well, that would be a really simple IQ test to weed out all of the really dumb hackers. Natural selection in action!
Re:In a related study...
on
BSA IDC FUD
·
· Score: 1
Slashdot Mirror
If they couldn't stay in business selling their code how would they expect to stay in business giving it away for free?
Seems like you're trying to suggest that unless there is competition in something then we shouldn't allow anyone to do it. Sounds kind absurd to me because it's a catch 22 situation. I'd be surprised if IBM don't sponsor any school activities and as for redhat; no-one gives a shit about redhat.
"Microsoft isn't evil per se, just hell-bent on warping the mind of children."
Assuming that it were true that an entire corporation would have such an ambition...I would imagine a couple of billion dollars spent on advertising during childrens TV programmes would be much more effective.
...an iron eating microorganism poop?
... gotta be a coke surely?
Once it's finished it's meal what's it's favourite after dinner beverage
No-one mentioned MS so I guess you must be trolling for karma.
There's tens of thousands of companies that are NOT MS and some of which develop open source software **commercially** - all offer support in one form or another.
What's the matter, not had enough SCO 'news' today? Take a day off from being a wannabe MS basher.
So, then, support for commercial and free software is the same except with commercial software (that you have bought) you have one extra channel through which to complain.
Your perseverence with the last (which ought to be first) channel of support is up to you.
Complaining and demanding a refund (through your credit card company) are often enough to resolve most problems at least to your satisfaction.
If you complain to the authors of free software you have no leverage whatsoever. They can, and often do, just leave you alone to figure out the problem.
I can only speak from personal experience so I can say that my company gives refunds and I have experienced refunds from amazon.com, dabs.com and insight.com.
Tech support can be awful but it's a long way from being a FACT.
For example, in my company we have a helpdesk where we answer *everything* in an average of around 26hrs. We have forums where we, and other customers, answer problems incredibly quickly. We have an online bug database (similar in function to bugzilla) where customers can track their reported problems. We also go in the newsgroups etc.
Newsgroups suck because most consumers don't know what they are. Forums seem clumsy for most people new to computers and for these people our bug reporting system is nothing short of daunting.
The helpdesk has proved to be very popular. It has a wizard type interface, asks a few questions and then responds with some common solutions...with the last step to submit a question which is then answered by someone resembling a human.
If tech support is awful then it's univserally awful regardless of whether you pay for the software or the support. But, if you pay for it then you deserve to get the very best possible - I've always found complaining loudly to be most effective.
I totally agree that large coporates have emplyees that are less than pationate about the software (or your use of it). However, I've worked alongside a few tech support people in large and small organisations and most are only too pleased to help where they can. Higer up the food chain we'll find the cynics who care only about the bottom line results.
Most software companies do not have a monopoly, it's time to change the channel on that one. Most software companies are motivated to ensure that people can get their products working - it's either that or go out of business.
For really popular software there are newsgroups etc. and you may even find software where third party companies will provide you all the support you need.
So what's you point?
Yes, as opposed to other (non-commercially produced I guess) software where the support is non-existent (you know where the source is, there's comments too, maybe).
You don't get a busy signal with other software because there is no one to call. Sure, there's forums and there's newsgroups, and of course there's mailing lists...but none of them *have* to help you resolve your problem.
At least with commercial software you can get your money back. What's that I hear you say, can't get your money back? Well, perhaps you should have bought on plastic instead of cash.
Perhaps with non-commercial software there is an army of tech support staff sitting quietly in the back room along with the army UI designers and the army of technical authors, LOL...all doing nothing, apparently.
Seek and we shall find; I conducted a survey or people using linux and I found 100% of them couldn't get samba to talk to a Win2K server. All of those that responded said "Tech support sucks. I was referred to a 'man' page, whatever the hell that is". Another disatisfied 'customer'.
Oh wait, non-commercial softare doesn't have 'customers' so no problem there. No customers, no problem - a software developers dream.
Pah! news for nerds. Every nerd knows tech support can't help all of the people all of the time. This is news if you live in a cave and bang rocks together to make fire.
Happy troughing.
That is so funny. Guy promoting open source/free does so by stealing someone else's life.
/. only gets better and better.
LOL.
Adverts (which you then block) or government sponsorship...or become a charity.
The biggest cause of bugs, IMO, is complexity. We continually add more features to our software and this adds to the complexity. We quickly get to a point where the number of interactions of the inner workings far exceed our ability to visualise them...and then bugs creep in because we fail to realise some of the interactions.
Every keystroke can cause a bug and every line of code is a liability.
Whatever else can be said about it one thing is for sure; Bugs are mistakes, screwups, errors, ommisions, or general failures caused by one of the software developers/designers in the chain.
Failure to accept this is just admiting that it is OK to have bugs. And when you accept this you lose all hope of fixing the bugs.
(Bias note: I've written commercial/consumer software for a *long* time)
Every industry has an acceptable failure rate. That's a fact. Cars fail (both hardware and software - that's why the AA and RAC exist), planes fail, bridges fail. Hell even toasters fail and mobile phones fail.
;-) )
The difference, if there is one, is that software vendors have a higher tolerance to failure.
I suspect this is because their customers (users) also have a high tolerance for product failure. Fix the customers so they complain more when things go bad and the vendors will have to fix their issues or risk losing their customers.
(note: I am a software developer working on consumer software. I'm happy to fix bugs
XP has window shadows - menus *are* windows.
The shadow is activated by a window class style you use when registering the window type with RegisterWindow(Ex).
Also, it appears on system tooltips on XP but as I said it can be used on any window type you choose to register.
FWIW: Slow news day for sure.
These case moding fools will find a use for any old scrap of crap lying around. Some people have more time than money and this is how they spend it.
I wonder though, where's the comparative results for other useless bits of household waste; paper (flat or scrunched up), toner cartridges, empty cans?
Of course bandwidth has a cost and sometimes it's just too much for a site to bear. A popular service can be punished by it's bandwidth costs. How many times do we see/hear of a site going down due to the /. effect...and probably a lot of them are due to bandwidth caps rather than fancy content delivery systems hogging CPU/drive.
Of course it's not a problem if they have a *real* revenue stream for their service as they should then be able to *pay* for their bandwidth needs.
I just think it's a sign of the times.
"Today, more U.S. citizens use file-sharing software than voted for President Bush,"
So millions of people doing the wrong thing somehow makes it right. I don't think so.
...is someone working on the GUI full time and in a few years we might have something worth dual booting.
Yeah, yeah, blah, blah. This is a byline, this is not news.
In other news; Someone called Linus changed jobs, a cat died, and more pigeon feathers were found in the park.
I don't want to rain on your parade but you do know that is IBM PR at work. There's almost certainly a team of IBM lawyers meeting with SCO lawyers to talk a way out of this mess 24hrs a day.
I mean, c'mon people! Wake up and smell the PR action going on here.
This isn't "IBM, defender of the free". This is "IBM, that's mine, that's mine, that's yours and now it's mine".
If you were IBM would you come out with press release saying "Oh shit, we're fucked. Whatawegonna dooooooo". Um, no.
I totally agree and I'm sure it will all come out in the wash.
;-)
I honestly doubt SCO (even imagine they) could get away with it thanks to the OSS community and the hordes of eyeballs blah blah on the code over the years. It wouldn't be difficult for someone with at least a couple of brain cells to see checkins and such to trace back the source - and because the people that do that job get paid hansomly for their time I'd volunteer!
However, I was merely pointing out that comments in stolen code can be the downfall of the offending party - as has been my direct experience.
It's easy to say that the comments prove nothing when in fact they can offer the best evidence. Same for redunant or oddly named variables.
Whether SCO sole linux code or IBM polluted Linux with SCO code isn't for me to decide, nor do I have a valid opinion on it due to limited access to all of the materials.
I don't know where the docs are searching google reveals a lot of documents and discussion of the case - I remember the case being quite important at the time.
I also saw the transcripts and the evidence just after the case was finished. It was fairly clear cut from my POV. The comments were *so* damning. Much of the code you could forgive because there are only so many ways to do it, but the comments...no.
The lawyers did well out of it but the end result was crippling for both companies, finally they merged.
So, maybe SCO are looking for a buyout. It would make sense.
It only takes one unusual comment to be identical and the game is up.
The code now, or as submitted, is unimportant. The fact that the work derived from (else why would the original and seemingly unique comments be there) copyright material is enough.
I haven't seen the SCO code, nor do I care to. But, I have first hand seen a similar case that was won based on the comments in the code.
From the case; "It is the resemblances in inessentials, the small, redundant, even mistaken elements of the copyright work which carry the greatest weight. This is because they are the least likely to have been the result of independent design."
And; "Trivial items may well provide the most eloquent testimony"
And finally; "Both suites of programs
contained the same spelling mistakes in the comment lines and the same redundant code. The
judge did not accept the argument that this was due to programming style."
No, no, no. They come in formation. If they are out of formation then they don't work. Hence, they are information. Tada!
Sorry, I'll go...
Every api seems to have from 9 to 35 arguments. Nobody knows what they are for... its a cut and paste job from MSDN, yet again... and then we get on to business processes.
That's a lie. Just because you can't figure it out doesn't make it fact.
Now, be honest. You tried to write code in Windows but you got scared. "Mummy, theres confusing APIs with ONE parameter and I can't read the docs because I'm a coder-wannabe that thinks that every API has at least 9 parameters! Waaaaaah!!!!". You didn't want to know what was going on.
I suggest you sit down and STFU as you are obviously a clueless consultant who blames the API for their lack of ability. Perhaps you should move into marketing instead.
"Plus if the author of such drivers happened to take a holiday to the US some day he would probably be arrested at the airport like some major terrorist"
Well, that would be a really simple IQ test to weed out all of the really dumb hackers. Natural selection in action!
LOL, coffee on the screen again. Thanks.