Oh man, has the original poster actually used Sunbird in a real business environment??
That software is definitely not a viable and mature product, and even the Mozilla product page agrees:
Check out the Sunbird project for a promising endeavor in this area.
Nobody who genuinely needs a full-featured, integrated calendar product would use or suggest using Sunbird.
The original poster has illustrated the biggest problem in the open source community, namely that assumption that everyone has the same needs, experience, and strengths that he does. I for one am happy that there are people in the world who are not engineers or computer science students, but are knowledge doctors, teachers, designers, managers, etc.
The fact is that some open source apps are the best in their respective niches (apache http server, firefox) and some are not yet on par with proprietary alternatives (Sunbird, GTKpod, and yes, Open Office.) We should all be encouraging and praising the continual refinements and improvements made by open source developers; we should NOT be chastising regular people when they choose a polished and full-featured proprietary app over a juvenile open source app.
I am all for improving free software, and I understand that often open source products suffer from licensing and support issues that are beyond the control of their developers.
However, I think the zealots will all realize something once they grow up, have kids, get a full-time job, start their own company, and/or go for a new degree:
YOUR TIME IS NOT FREE!
Yes, some people have hours to spend recompiling kernels, troubleshooting hardware, and hunting down obscure libraries, and their time may be cheap. But for real professional adults with real lives and outside responsibilities time is expensive.
I believe that open source can exist next to specialized proprietary applications (ala Wine/CrossOver Office.) I believe that open source developers can and must continue to improve their applications (and I am grateful to them for their work.) But I think the zealots are seriously paddingly in the wrong direction, and are the last people we should be listening to for a voice of reason.
And yeah, I know zealots, because I used to be one, and then I grew up and got a life. And yes, I know how difficult it is to maintain a strictly open source environment for common home use. I switched my parents computer over to Linux 3 years ago, and I spend a great deal of time (remotely and locally via a 2-hour drive) dealing with ongoing hardware and software issues for two middle age people who merely want to surf the Web, print photos, and burn their photo albums onto CDs.
The problem is that the sound and picture (think surround sound, high-def digital output) coming out of my ps2 is not nearly as nice as that coming out of my dvd player, and wastes my nice receiver and speakers.
The problem with multi-purpose devices is that they rarely do more than one thing well. Someone might use a multi-purpose device for a bedroom setup, but probably not for home theater.
You know, there ARE other desktops out there besides Windows and Mac OSX. I don't think its quite fair to say the KDE and Gnome developers are trying to copy Windows. I see a lot of (good) ideas taken from other window managers and desktops, such as multiple desktops, window listing, etc.
What people like in a desktop is subjective. I, for one, tend to use the mouse as little as possible and find most Mac desktops to be a bit mouse-intensive. Other people may work differently and never notice.
I do agree with you on your overall point however; OSS should be pursuing the best of the closed-source technologies. And I believe the serious projects are doing just that. Both Gnome and KDE are already prettier and more useable than Windows, and I would love to see them catch OSX in the eye-candy department.
Oh, and while we're at it, can I get fast user switching (OSX) and key-chain-binding (Waimea)?
George Bush told us about people like you! You must be a member of AlQueda.
Seriously though, that's not a bad idea. I'd also like to see legislation requiring all products and goods sold in the US to be produced under acceptable labor and environmental conditions (i.e. equal to those in the US.) Let corporations outsource all they like, but let's stop them from employing slave labor and mucking up the environment overseas.
This way, everybody wins - except the sleazy executives.
Unfortunately, the first politician to raise either your or my idea would be shot faster than Dick Cheney in Pakistan.
Obviously a great deal of research and thought went into this piece.
I haven't seen writing of this quality since Jon Katz penned his last dissertation on globalization.
"Year, right. And a large, high-tech/high-skill economy couldn't possibly suffer 10+ years of negative growth and deflation."
This has nothing whatsoever to do with free trade, nor offshoring. Japan's current woes are the result of a bubble economy bursting under the weight of many hundreds of billions in bad loans and the runaway deflation which followed.
My point is not that the US bears any strong resemblence to Japan, but rather that economic cycles and trends are impossible to precisely predict. Like the stock market, we know the economy will go up and down, usually within a certain range; however that in no way helps helps us predict the range or duration of the current trend.
I happen to believe that many politicians are wagering our future on a hypothesis that may not be true, and is certainly not proven. This hypothesis is basically that the US's status as a world economic and political power is invincible because the US is different from all previous world powers. This difference is said to be many things, including ingenuity, resolve, and determination. All of which, are incedently, quite unquantifiable, as well as being somewhat xenophobic.
The current views forging most Western economic policies came out of a Washington think tank in the 1960's. This group was responsible for laying the foundation of the World Bank and the IMF. Not surprisingly, many of their ideas where influenced strongly by the optimism and expansionism of the 1950's.
The fact is the we don't, and never will, have a free market in the US. What we have is a combination of market freedoms and government regulations. Corporations support regulation when it works in their favor, just as individuals do. The balancing act is to find the right combination to promote trade but prevent abuse. Free trade is part of this balancing act, and is also influence strongly by the interests of national security.
It is fundamental human nature to take advantage of other people, just as it is human nature to imagine that your country is destined to remain on top forever. The problem is that we Americans have had a high standard of life for several generations, one that is directly made possible by the poverty of many in other countries. The point of trade ought to be to improve the lives of all parties, not decrease our standard of living to match theirs. Again, this is a balancing act; but one that right now seems grossly tilted towards corporate greed and short-term interests.
Year, right. And a large, high-tech/high-skill economy couldn't possibly suffer 10+ years of negative growth and deflation.
Oh, wait...didn't that exact thing happen to Japan?
Yes, everything evens out in the end. Unfortunately, the cycle can take decades, if not centuries. And, do we really want to "even out" with the rest of the world??? The fact is that the rest of the world (on average) lives in abject poverty, with no real freedom or quality of life.
Oh, I see, you thought the US had a "free market", with "free trade"? Sorry, but free trade is synonomous with anarchy, and big corporations don't want anarchy. Big business in the US is like a dog that chases smaller dogs, then hides behind its owner when a rotweiler walks past. In truth, they just want a controllable market with selective government intervention.
US corporations rely on us taxpayers to supply them with (nearly) free infrastructure and security. They lobby "our" representatives to get tax breaks, government-granted monopolies, subsidies, and lucrative contracts (including oversees.) They use our government to force their will on other countries. We are their gravy train.
The current mythology of retraining/retooling is a pyramid scheme. The economics are bullshit, pushed by the very people who are making the money. The fact is that the American middle class is shrinking, the average quality of life has started to decline for the first time in 50 years, and despite having more education than ever, the average American salary is moving downwards. I've been out in the industry for 6 years and I have ten more years of student loans - how am I supposed to "retool" and what am I supposed to retool for?
Even if you believe the myth that architectural and conceptual jobs won't be outsourced in the next few years, the question remains:
How many of these positions can there ever really be? Enough to keep us all working, and most importantly, buying?
Microsoft will get a major buzz word, XML, in its product advertisements without actually using an open format. As technical people we may understand that one of the biggest reasons for using XML is to communicate data in a way that is universally accessible, but our PHBs don't know or care. And they're the ones who are ordering the copies of MS Office...
Hey, mods, why is this marked "offtopic". The discussion is about a Republican president pushing to spend more money on manned-space missions. Clinton did start this train, and the very same people attacking him are now applauding Bush. It's the same as Bush's Ireali-Palestinian involvement. When are people going to wake up and realize that a candidate's platform and record are what matter, not what he/she quips in a 30-second sound bite.
As far as manned space flight goes, wait and see what happens to this program if Bush is re-elected. Do you really think those same Republicans Congressmen that claim to be disciplined government spenders will write yet another big check for GB?
And what will more money accomplish? From what I read this is just "seed" money to get projects conceived, and then we'll be hit-up for the "real" money. Let's face it, manned-space flight is costly, dangerous, and primarily for show. Kind of like the Bush presidency...
Maybe if they didn't spend R&D time and money on useless features, their products would be more affordable.
Welcome to Slashdot, where even the editors don't RTFA...
Apparently timothy didn't make it to the second page, where it was clearly stated that the Central Bank made the software and gave it to graphic app developers as a black box.
Maybe someone should clue timothy into the fact that "editors" are supposed to edit, not editorialize.
Why not just be a medium sized company, making a few million dollars of profit every year with your core business?
Because corporate greed has made traditional business practices unpopular. The old model was to find a successful niche and make a reasonable profit year after year, decade after decade. Now companies must show growth every quarter (nevermind every year.) Is this a good long-term strategy...? We'll see.
I have an idea...why doesn't everyone stop basing their lives on the meta-physical belief systems of 1300, 2000, and 4000-year old goat-herder societies, and start using their brains. Then maybe we could be discussing IBM on the desktop, instead of having an uninformed debate about theology/mythology.
Unless you had a contract specifying termination conditions. I experienced a very similar situation, and after a lot of research and consultations, this is what I found:
Most employees, especially us techs, are "at-will" employees, which means that we can be fired for any reason, substantiated or not, as long as it is not descriminatory or in voliation of any federal law (such as firing someone for whistleblowing.) You could claim your ex-company violated a good-faith agreement with you, but this would take lots of time and money with a limited chance of success.
Unfortunately, that's just the way the legal system works in this country. You'd have a case if you slipped and fell on their front steps, but being thrown out on your ass after years of loyal service for bullshit reasons is just not profitable from most lawyers' prospective.
My advice to you is to view this as a chance to move on and find a better situation. And don't be too depressed, from what I've seen the job market is picking up, and outsourcing mission-critical or sensative tech jobs will probably not be a successfuly long-term trend.
...until India and Pakistan decide to pull out their nukes and destabilize each other.
Then we'll learn the disadvantages of sending crucial jobs to other countries.
Of course, like the Enron-type accounting scandals, it won't be the guilty parties that feel the pain, but rather the little guys were are out of work and trying to pick up the pieces. All the executives will be riding down on their golden parachutes.
Oh, and I also really like the way this fuckwad economist tries to divert blame away from the execs. How does she explain the 1000% rise in their average saleries over the last 10 years??? Cost of living...???
When the revolution comes, may the Ken Lays of the world and their voodoo-economic apologies will be the first against the wall.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're the one that's confused. I read the entire article, but was really responding to other comments (hence the 'RE:' in the subject line.
Thanks for being a dick though, anyway.
That software is definitely not a viable and mature product, and even the Mozilla product page agrees: Nobody who genuinely needs a full-featured, integrated calendar product would use or suggest using Sunbird.
The original poster has illustrated the biggest problem in the open source community, namely that assumption that everyone has the same needs, experience, and strengths that he does. I for one am happy that there are people in the world who are not engineers or computer science students, but are knowledge doctors, teachers, designers, managers, etc.
The fact is that some open source apps are the best in their respective niches (apache http server, firefox) and some are not yet on par with proprietary alternatives (Sunbird, GTKpod, and yes, Open Office.) We should all be encouraging and praising the continual refinements and improvements made by open source developers; we should NOT be chastising regular people when they choose a polished and full-featured proprietary app over a juvenile open source app.
I am all for improving free software, and I understand that often open source products suffer from licensing and support issues that are beyond the control of their developers.
However, I think the zealots will all realize something once they grow up, have kids, get a full-time job, start their own company, and/or go for a new degree:
YOUR TIME IS NOT FREE!
Yes, some people have hours to spend recompiling kernels, troubleshooting hardware, and hunting down obscure libraries, and their time may be cheap. But for real professional adults with real lives and outside responsibilities time is expensive.
I believe that open source can exist next to specialized proprietary applications (ala Wine/CrossOver Office.) I believe that open source developers can and must continue to improve their applications (and I am grateful to them for their work.) But I think the zealots are seriously paddingly in the wrong direction, and are the last people we should be listening to for a voice of reason.
And yeah, I know zealots, because I used to be one, and then I grew up and got a life. And yes, I know how difficult it is to maintain a strictly open source environment for common home use. I switched my parents computer over to Linux 3 years ago, and I spend a great deal of time (remotely and locally via a 2-hour drive) dealing with ongoing hardware and software issues for two middle age people who merely want to surf the Web, print photos, and burn their photo albums onto CDs.
The problem is that the sound and picture (think surround sound, high-def digital output) coming out of my ps2 is not nearly as nice as that coming out of my dvd player, and wastes my nice receiver and speakers.
The problem with multi-purpose devices is that they rarely do more than one thing well. Someone might use a multi-purpose device for a bedroom setup, but probably not for home theater.
You know, there ARE other desktops out there besides Windows and Mac OSX. I don't think its quite fair to say the KDE and Gnome developers are trying to copy Windows. I see a lot of (good) ideas taken from other window managers and desktops, such as multiple desktops, window listing, etc.
What people like in a desktop is subjective. I, for one, tend to use the mouse as little as possible and find most Mac desktops to be a bit mouse-intensive. Other people may work differently and never notice.
I do agree with you on your overall point however; OSS should be pursuing the best of the closed-source technologies. And I believe the serious projects are doing just that. Both Gnome and KDE are already prettier and more useable than Windows, and I would love to see them catch OSX in the eye-candy department.
Oh, and while we're at it, can I get fast user switching (OSX) and key-chain-binding (Waimea)?
George Bush told us about people like you! You must be a member of AlQueda.
Seriously though, that's not a bad idea. I'd also like to see legislation requiring all products and goods sold in the US to be produced under acceptable labor and environmental conditions (i.e. equal to those in the US.) Let corporations outsource all they like, but let's stop them from employing slave labor and mucking up the environment overseas.
This way, everybody wins - except the sleazy executives.
Unfortunately, the first politician to raise either your or my idea would be shot faster than Dick Cheney in Pakistan.
I haven't seen writing of this quality since Jon Katz penned his last dissertation on globalization.
I happen to believe that many politicians are wagering our future on a hypothesis that may not be true, and is certainly not proven. This hypothesis is basically that the US's status as a world economic and political power is invincible because the US is different from all previous world powers. This difference is said to be many things, including ingenuity, resolve, and determination. All of which, are incedently, quite unquantifiable, as well as being somewhat xenophobic.
The current views forging most Western economic policies came out of a Washington think tank in the 1960's. This group was responsible for laying the foundation of the World Bank and the IMF. Not surprisingly, many of their ideas where influenced strongly by the optimism and expansionism of the 1950's.
The fact is the we don't, and never will, have a free market in the US. What we have is a combination of market freedoms and government regulations. Corporations support regulation when it works in their favor, just as individuals do. The balancing act is to find the right combination to promote trade but prevent abuse. Free trade is part of this balancing act, and is also influence strongly by the interests of national security.
It is fundamental human nature to take advantage of other people, just as it is human nature to imagine that your country is destined to remain on top forever. The problem is that we Americans have had a high standard of life for several generations, one that is directly made possible by the poverty of many in other countries. The point of trade ought to be to improve the lives of all parties, not decrease our standard of living to match theirs. Again, this is a balancing act; but one that right now seems grossly tilted towards corporate greed and short-term interests.
Year, right. And a large, high-tech/high-skill economy couldn't possibly suffer 10+ years of negative growth and deflation.
Oh, wait...didn't that exact thing happen to Japan?
Yes, everything evens out in the end. Unfortunately, the cycle can take decades, if not centuries. And, do we really want to "even out" with the rest of the world??? The fact is that the rest of the world (on average) lives in abject poverty, with no real freedom or quality of life.
Free Trade...? Where???
Oh, I see, you thought the US had a "free market", with "free trade"? Sorry, but free trade is synonomous with anarchy, and big corporations don't want anarchy. Big business in the US is like a dog that chases smaller dogs, then hides behind its owner when a rotweiler walks past. In truth, they just want a controllable market with selective government intervention.
US corporations rely on us taxpayers to supply them with (nearly) free infrastructure and security. They lobby "our" representatives to get tax breaks, government-granted monopolies, subsidies, and lucrative contracts (including oversees.) They use our government to force their will on other countries. We are their gravy train.
The current mythology of retraining/retooling is a pyramid scheme. The economics are bullshit, pushed by the very people who are making the money. The fact is that the American middle class is shrinking, the average quality of life has started to decline for the first time in 50 years, and despite having more education than ever, the average American salary is moving downwards. I've been out in the industry for 6 years and I have ten more years of student loans - how am I supposed to "retool" and what am I supposed to retool for?
Even if you believe the myth that architectural and conceptual jobs won't be outsourced in the next few years, the question remains:
How many of these positions can there ever really be? Enough to keep us all working, and most importantly, buying?
Microsoft will get a major buzz word, XML, in its product advertisements without actually using an open format. As technical people we may understand that one of the biggest reasons for using XML is to communicate data in a way that is universally accessible, but our PHBs don't know or care. And they're the ones who are ordering the copies of MS Office...
Hey, mods, why is this marked "offtopic". The discussion is about a Republican president pushing to spend more money on manned-space missions. Clinton did start this train, and the very same people attacking him are now applauding Bush. It's the same as Bush's Ireali-Palestinian involvement. When are people going to wake up and realize that a candidate's platform and record are what matter, not what he/she quips in a 30-second sound bite.
As far as manned space flight goes, wait and see what happens to this program if Bush is re-elected. Do you really think those same Republicans Congressmen that claim to be disciplined government spenders will write yet another big check for GB?
And what will more money accomplish? From what I read this is just "seed" money to get projects conceived, and then we'll be hit-up for the "real" money. Let's face it, manned-space flight is costly, dangerous, and primarily for show. Kind of like the Bush presidency...
Apparently timothy didn't make it to the second page, where it was clearly stated that the Central Bank made the software and gave it to graphic app developers as a black box.
Maybe someone should clue timothy into the fact that "editors" are supposed to edit, not editorialize.
I'm not sure who I'd like to punch in the throat more - the Microsoft butterflies, or the guys with RIAA on their jackets...
I have an idea...why doesn't everyone stop basing their lives on the meta-physical belief systems of 1300, 2000, and 4000-year old goat-herder societies, and start using their brains. Then maybe we could be discussing IBM on the desktop, instead of having an uninformed debate about theology/mythology.
Funny, my sarcasm detector was off the scale!
You're a high school teacher and you think "virii" is a word???
Unless you had a contract specifying termination conditions. I experienced a very similar situation, and after a lot of research and consultations, this is what I found:
Most employees, especially us techs, are "at-will" employees, which means that we can be fired for any reason, substantiated or not, as long as it is not descriminatory or in voliation of any federal law (such as firing someone for whistleblowing.) You could claim your ex-company violated a good-faith agreement with you, but this would take lots of time and money with a limited chance of success.
Unfortunately, that's just the way the legal system works in this country. You'd have a case if you slipped and fell on their front steps, but being thrown out on your ass after years of loyal service for bullshit reasons is just not profitable from most lawyers' prospective.
My advice to you is to view this as a chance to move on and find a better situation. And don't be too depressed, from what I've seen the job market is picking up, and outsourcing mission-critical or sensative tech jobs will probably not be a successfuly long-term trend.
This reminds me of the only DUI case in US history whose records are sealed, as far as I know - Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick disaster.
Umm...are you forgetting this one?
A lot of politicians have had their records sealed.
Microsoft is blaming the person who found the bug, rather than themselves. Attacking the messenger seems to be their standard approach to security.
...Attack of the Clones sucked more!
...until India and Pakistan decide to pull out their nukes and destabilize each other.
Then we'll learn the disadvantages of sending crucial jobs to other countries.
Of course, like the Enron-type accounting scandals, it won't be the guilty parties that feel the pain, but rather the little guys were are out of work and trying to pick up the pieces. All the executives will be riding down on their golden parachutes.
Oh, and I also really like the way this fuckwad economist tries to divert blame away from the execs. How does she explain the 1000% rise in their average saleries over the last 10 years??? Cost of living...???
When the revolution comes, may the Ken Lays of the world and their voodoo-economic apologies will be the first against the wall.
their "project" is basically icecast with a netjuke front end? Very original!