Who says that Microsoft and open source developers are enemies?
I don't think they're enemies at all. Many open source developers train themselves on the basics through open source projects and then become closed system developers (using Microsoft, Flash, Apple, Sony, etc. systems) when they realize they prefer getting paid for their work.
Scientists started investigating after a...shark was mysteriously born at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo in a tank that housed 3 female sharks...with no sign of a male parent."
Has anyone looked into the possibility that this infant shark is the Great White Jesus? (I'd hate to be the angel that messed up the avatar selection for the second coming.)
If you are No. 3 to No. 10, you look at open source as a way to get back to those serious RSEUs, because they are where you make money.
WTF - is Jack Welsh* a contributor to SlashDot now?
Anyway, if you're #3-10 in your industry, you're ranked there because of market share or total sales, not because of IT expenses or even profitability. Just cutting licensing costs may get you a pat on the back and a promotion, but in the infinitely more complex context of running a business and competing in the marketplace, it's really not that significant unless you already spend an inordinate** amount on IT.
* ICYDK, he's famous for a "if you're not #1 or #2 in your industry..." mantra while CEO of GE.
enterprise (end) users DON'T CARE @ open source
on
A Cynic Rips Open Source
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Enterprise (end) users don't care one way or the other about open source. All they want is something that is:
1) Reliable
2) Doesn't (ever?) change its user interface (in part, because they "develop" screenshot-based training materials too)
3) Etc.
It's only the enterprise I.T. technicians ("administrators") that care one way or the other, and then (in most cases because they're spending other people's money) because budget, deployment or licensing disputes are making their job more challenging that they feel it should be.
And this is surprising because? It should be no surprise that the same people churning out PR about "Web OS" vaporware (Mozilla) are financed by the company that would stand to gain the most with a "Web OS" (Google).
i.e. should Firefox's 1,000 to 2,000 developers and 80,000 evangelists have full knowledge of how revenue is spent
Hmmm...a couple hundred/thousand contributors in the dark and a $52M bullseye. I'm not a lawyer, but if I was I'd probably be busy trolling for anyone wanting to class-action -itize their favorite complaint.
This "article" reminds me of the old Dilbert strip where the pointy haired boss asks if something currently coded in "C" would be better in "B".
"The author isn't arguing that Linux needs to become a full blown web OS over night but instead, asking if the community should be considering 'Software as a Service'..."
"Software as a Service" is 100% a marketing term. Trust me, Mr. Newbie Author, the open source community has been thinking of avoiding desktop deployment for a long, long time - just ask the Apache team or anyone who's ever written a web app.
"Linux as a Web OS"? I'm not sure you know what Linux is if that's the best thing that came out of your head the last time you toked up.
We use Microsoft Word only for printing shipping labels.
Seriously? You know Macs have had programs for that for about, um, twenty-some years?
Code your own software and have it as a web service that you run from a beater server in the office...
Now you're scaring me. Let's say you're pretty good and you code the thing in just 30 business days. Let's also say your time is "only" worth $320/day. You're going to take that $10K investment in a critical system and stick it on a "beater"? If you go this route, please at least take backups like HOURLY and have a second server standing by when the beater craps out.
"I work...for a small computer services shop (4 employees including the owner). We're to a point in the growth of our business where we need a system for tracking work orders as they come in and out of the shop, specifically inventory used and time spent. I've played around with a number of issue-tracking and CRM suites, including Bugzilla, Eventum, SugarCRM and vTiger, but all seem like they lack one critical piece to handle the workload we have.
Dunno if you meant that as a slam, but if these products/projects don't have the features to handle a generic 5-person job shop, WTF can they handle?
Lord knows anyone who uses Linux or free and open source software is dedicated to spreading the gospel of St. Linus Torvalds and St. Richard Stallman.
Dunno about that. I happily USE open source stuff because it generally means I never have to PAY the poor souls who spent lifetimes developing all the free and open source software I use for fun and profit. I'm happy to see other people work for me for free, but I can't say I'd ever try it the other way around.
'A typical C64 game took nine months from start to finish,' laughs David Crane, the game's designer. 'Ghostbusters took six weeks!'
Anyone else read this as... "We sold this game at full price to marks who bought on brand name only and then laughed all the way to the bank. Thanks - suckas!"
(Long story short, I think the "license the movie tie-in and then release the cheapest game you possibly can" mentality is still out there and has never gone away.)
Highlights of the fairly biased piece include: a cheap shot..., blatantly equating copyright infringement with stealing, and an embarrassing failure (blah, blah, blah)...
I'm familiar with software engineering practices and computer science topics, but I have never started a project on my own. What are the appropriate first steps to starting a new open-source project?"
First: work on an existing OSS project. (Next, do it again.)
Second: after you've learned what you like and don't like about the experience, you'll know a little about what you want to emphasize and what you want to avoid in your own project.
Long story short, leadership in any area takes some practice, but it's easier to get started if you find a mentor or two along the way that have behavior, methods and attitude you can copy.
So far I'm hearing "commercial company hasn't written Linux drivers for their card". That's a legitimate complaint, but if the OSS community's reaction is to whine about it on cheesy blogs rather just hack the hardware...?
In these cases, nothing could be more valuable than a concise summary of all SQL statements and MySQL functions, in a form compact enough to be kept within reach on the desk or tacked up to the nearest wall space.
What - is the Internet broken?
I remember some of the more clueless people (e.g. English majors) pulled into IT in the late 90s resorting to primitive measures like this, but really, would anyone really do this in 2007?
Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens argued that: 'To user the desktop metaphor is dead. We don't believe that recreating a Windows paradigm...will do anything to advance the productivity in the life of users.'"
To clarify: I'm using a system whose hardware is several times larger than Vista's recommended specs (and without Aero) and Vista still runs many times (10x?) slower under the commercial VMWare (v5) that it does when I wipe the box and just install Vista. Other Windows OSs on the same box are quite snappy under commercial VMWare (v5).
I hope VMWare's fixed its Vista performance problems in this new version: running Vista as a virtual OS even under the commercial versions of VMWare was slower than dirt in the last cut.
Slashdot gets about one story a month that mentions Castlevania in some way or another, frequently just as an aside to the main subject, and that's "a string of press releases"?
Yes. In fact, if SlashDot is reliably posting something about Castlevania about once a month, that's a "well-timed and effective string of press releases". In the marketing world, you'd call it "sustaining awareness, if not interest in the 'Castlevania' brand name". (I'd ask you to look up AIDA but I doubt it would help.)
Here are the definitions of the words you had trouble understanding in my original post.
For months we'd had a string of press releases on SlashDot about Castlevania handheld games, revivals, "as a classic game", etc. (http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=castlevania) However, a movie announcement now, 20 years after the hum-hum Castlevania franchise first limped through a couple of sequels on the earliest Nintendo systems, is about as good as the timing was on Crocodile Dundee III (15 years or so after the 80's).
Slashdot Mirror
Has anyone looked into the possibility that this infant shark is the Great White Jesus? (I'd hate to be the angel that messed up the avatar selection for the second coming.)
Czar Putin, you sure that's a good idea?
"Next up, Channel One Exposes Number Two..."
WTF - is Jack Welsh* a contributor to SlashDot now?
Anyway, if you're #3-10 in your industry, you're ranked there because of market share or total sales, not because of IT expenses or even profitability. Just cutting licensing costs may get you a pat on the back and a promotion, but in the infinitely more complex context of running a business and competing in the marketplace, it's really not that significant unless you already spend an inordinate** amount on IT.
* ICYDK, he's famous for a "if you're not #1 or #2 in your industry..." mantra while CEO of GE.
** For any Yale grads out there: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/inordinately
Enterprise (end) users don't care one way or the other about open source. All they want is something that is:
1) Reliable
2) Doesn't (ever?) change its user interface (in part, because they "develop" screenshot-based training materials too)
3) Etc.
It's only the enterprise I.T. technicians ("administrators") that care one way or the other, and then (in most cases because they're spending other people's money) because budget, deployment or licensing disputes are making their job more challenging that they feel it should be.
Hmmm...a couple hundred/thousand contributors in the dark and a $52M bullseye. I'm not a lawyer, but if I was I'd probably be busy trolling for anyone wanting to class-action -itize their favorite complaint.
Screw Quake; I grew out of FPS before that even hit the market. In my day, user-created content was huge in Doom, Doom II and Warcraft II too.
Now she's a real estate agent...
http://www.tv.com/tracking/viewer.html?sls_id=735
"Software as a Service" is 100% a marketing term. Trust me, Mr. Newbie Author, the open source community has been thinking of avoiding desktop deployment for a long, long time - just ask the Apache team or anyone who's ever written a web app.
"Linux as a Web OS"? I'm not sure you know what Linux is if that's the best thing that came out of your head the last time you toked up.
Seriously? You know Macs have had programs for that for about, um, twenty-some years?
Now you're scaring me. Let's say you're pretty good and you code the thing in just 30 business days. Let's also say your time is "only" worth $320/day. You're going to take that $10K investment in a critical system and stick it on a "beater"? If you go this route, please at least take backups like HOURLY and have a second server standing by when the beater craps out.
Dunno about that. I happily USE open source stuff because it generally means I never have to PAY the poor souls who spent lifetimes developing all the free and open source software I use for fun and profit. I'm happy to see other people work for me for free, but I can't say I'd ever try it the other way around.
Anyone else read this as...
"We sold this game at full price to marks who bought on brand name only and then laughed all the way to the bank. Thanks - suckas!"
(Long story short, I think the "license the movie tie-in and then release the cheapest game you possibly can" mentality is still out there and has never gone away.)
So...you liked the article?
First: work on an existing OSS project. (Next, do it again.)
Second: after you've learned what you like and don't like about the experience, you'll know a little about what you want to emphasize and what you want to avoid in your own project.
Long story short, leadership in any area takes some practice, but it's easier to get started if you find a mentor or two along the way that have behavior, methods and attitude you can copy.
So far I'm hearing "commercial company hasn't written Linux drivers for their card". That's a legitimate complaint, but if the OSS community's reaction is to whine about it on cheesy blogs rather just hack the hardware...?
In Soviet Springfield the jokes see YOU coming.
What - is the Internet broken?
I remember some of the more clueless people (e.g. English majors) pulled into IT in the late 90s resorting to primitive measures like this, but really, would anyone really do this in 2007?
Quick - someone tell Apple that they're DOOMED!
Not very well...
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=234079&thr
To clarify: I'm using a system whose hardware is several times larger than Vista's recommended specs (and without Aero) and Vista still runs many times (10x?) slower under the commercial VMWare (v5) that it does when I wipe the box and just install Vista. Other Windows OSs on the same box are quite snappy under commercial VMWare (v5).
I'm hoping VMWare version 6 fixes this.
I hope VMWare's fixed its Vista performance problems in this new version: running Vista as a virtual OS even under the commercial versions of VMWare was slower than dirt in the last cut.
It's been a long time since Sun's public relations department has had more SlashDot "articles" than Google's public relations department.
Yes. In fact, if SlashDot is reliably posting something about Castlevania about once a month, that's a "well-timed and effective string of press releases". In the marketing world, you'd call it "sustaining awareness, if not interest in the 'Castlevania' brand name". (I'd ask you to look up AIDA but I doubt it would help.)
Here are the definitions of the words you had trouble understanding in my original post.
Franchise:
http://www.investorwords.com/2078/franchise.html
See how this applies to the movie?
Press Release:
http://www.1stworldlibrary.org/Glossary.html#p
See how this applies to the regular SlashDot postings?
Feel free to ask if you need more help with your cognitive processes...
Put a bullet in this franchise - please.
For months we'd had a string of press releases on SlashDot about Castlevania handheld games, revivals, "as a classic game", etc. (http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=castlevania) However, a movie announcement now, 20 years after the hum-hum Castlevania franchise first limped through a couple of sequels on the earliest Nintendo systems, is about as good as the timing was on Crocodile Dundee III (15 years or so after the 80's).