I think it depends on the context. Yes there are still mastadons wandering out there with bureaucratic 5 year plans. However, they are getting fewer and fewer as time goes on.
My concern is how do you develop knowledge assets. I suspect that the big winners in the future of knowledge intensive industries will be companies that can keep and develop people resources.
I seriously wonder whether "quarterly companies" can do that in the intensifying multi media financial fantasy malestrom they are all caught up in. In the world of shareholder dominance only one thing counts - the quote on the stock ticker.
I completely agree. I should have been more clear that my comments were about knowledge intensive industries. Metal bending, etc. will always require big (and getting bigger) capital.
Many of the posters to date are wringing their hands about whether the linux community should be focused on destroying Microsoft and whether this is a good or baaad thing.
Tim's point is that Microsoft (and the world) is shifting to a new battle field.
The protocols that Web sites provide on top of the internet protocols are becoming just as important as the internet protocols themselves. Many of these are business to business types of interactions but they are still key.
Let me give you one small example. In my publishing business we have to provide electronic catalog information to all the online booksellers. Our webmaster is having conversations with barnes&noble.com, amazon.com, borders.com, and all the independent bookstores who want this same kind of information, and they all have slightly different formats. Now, Allen Noren, the webmaster, is trying to get all the vendors to agree on a standard. But if they don't agree, whose format do you think he's going to implement first?
Realistically some of this will be handled by various XML standards groups (where M$ is very active) and will be relatively open in the sense that no one will want to give their competitors an advantage. However, will they be open to community input? Will the comunity be relevant in this world?
In some cases the community will care less. However, there will be others that will be critical and the comunity better be awake.
It's over for corporate dominance, they blew it all inthe downsizings. It's all about stockholder dominance now.
I think Sterling has hit the nail on this one. This is something I have been thinking about on and off for years now - essentially ever since the beginning of "stockholder value" and downsizing.
At the end of the day I think the only way companies that focus on intellectual property (private or community) can thrive is by being private. That is, no publically traded stock, no shareholder lawsuits, no terror of screwing up quarterly results. This is the only way they can take the "long view" required to build people (and their loyalty).
Many of these companies could wind up providing services to publically traded lottery tickets - much like caterers for a big party. I think Sterling is right about corporate entities not lasting 10 years in the current environment. Think of a publically traded company becoming like a burning man event.
A good for instance of this is Alan Cox becoming a consultant (private company) to a publically traded company Red Hat (multi media finacial fantasy event).
I may be waaay off on this but this karma thing may have a lot of power. Face it, people are concious of any type of status and a high karma at slashdot may well be a strong inducement for people to start being constructive. You could even egg this on by posting a page showing the top 50 like a lot of arcade games.
That said, I would also like to suggest an experiment giving moderators either unlimited points or unlimited points to some threshold of karma. The meta moderation will allow the jerks to hang themselves big time and the heros to stand out.
This has go to be one of the lamest lies I have seen in a while:
If a natural disaster destroyed the building in which it were kept,
Of course! And just to make sure that there is adequate "natural disaster" protection what better place to keep this valuable asset protected from Redmond sliding into the ocean than Fort Mead Maryland.:D!!!
What a PATHETIC answer!
Then again maybe they have seen the writing on the wall and the whole MicroSmurf campus will be swallowed whole. But everyone can rest easy because NSAKEY will be safe!:D !!!!!!
Yeah right. Compared to the total market out there mebbe.001% (probably too high).
Yes you are right. Steve gets to rape a few more of his customers and live to see another day. He wins another little atrocity but totally looses the war.
Steve Jobs is the Slobodan Milosevic of the PC business. It's horribly tragic considering his brilliance.
Heh, many moons ago the educational institute I attended had an IBM mainframe which was one of the last of those beasties to have a huge amount of flashing lights on it's console. It was seriously alleged that a favorite past time on the Sunday night shift was to turn the lights off, get stoned and watch the lights fantastic...:)
At the end of the day the question has to be what Red Had can do with it's new found wealth to further the growth of its market place - linux.
This is a strategic issue. It really boils down to what technologies there are out there that could be released as open source that would strategically move open source and linux forward.
Borland might be such a candidate. They have some very good technology and over $70 mil in the bank but are basically languishing. Buying them out as a wholly owned subsidiary with open source products could revitalize an otherwise underappreciated asset base.
The intriguing thing about this approach is the power of open source, particularly GPL. With this world class technology cross fertilizing other open source projects you could have a huge multiplier effect in a couple of years.
The key here is what can Red Hat do that can move the entire community forward. When open source thrives so will Red Hat.
I agree that EROS has a very interesting design. There are a number of things that I would look at tweaking, but the core concepts are elegant enough that I think it should be given a hard look by OS architects.
Another interesting, although still experimental, approach for making Linux more secure is the LOMAC project.
Has anyone done recent benchmarks comparison between Postgres and MySql. The reason I ask is because the Postgres people look like they are doing a lot of good optimization work recently. MySql will undoubtedly still be faster but it would be interesting to see if the gap is being closed.
"When you're on this end of things, Slashdot's so-called 'decline into media-whoring pablum' seems more a product of its tough crowd quotient rather than any particular interview or story."
How true, ohhhhh how true...
"That won't protect my bare ass should MTV come calling with a legality spanking, but at least I maintained some dignity by not publicly airing their dirty laundry."
:D !! (I couldn't resist - very sly...)
"If anyone needs to an example of how cracking is a bad idea and will eventually just cause you to hurt yourself, follow this link [no link was provided -ed.]and set your threshold low."
CRUEL!! VERY CRUEL! How can I break it to you Roblimo but the link he is refering to is the comments link following the article. (heheheheee..)
Raising Slashdotting to a new level!
on
911 Calls Linux
·
· Score: 1
With all this talk of independent journalism I can see Slashdotting reaching a new level. Every time a story gets posted some poor smuck will have his local exchange crashed by thousands of callers making sure that Taco, et al. got their facts right.
All while watching their poor server being vaporised:D !!
I agree totally with the idea that Qt should be under gpl. It is just getting too strategic for Linux (like it or not). I wonder though about the chemistry, given some of the history between KDE and Gnome.
Maybe it would be better if Mandrake bought them out. They now have money and will go public "as soon as possible". This might also set the stage for more support to help KDE and Gnome interoperate better.
I think that this article raises some interesting ideas. I am not too sure if I agree with all them but I do have to say that I have been thinking quite a bit myself about where Red Had could use it's clout to aquire technology and re-release it under the gpl/lgpl, etc.
I really do agree with Zedlewski's point that buying out another open source outfit would not accomplish anything worthwile.
So the question becomes one of where does Linux and open source get the most bang for the buck? Does SCO own anything that is really worthwhile? Who does??
One idea that tickles my fancy is buying out Imprise/Borland. They are one of the last great independent software tool vendors out there and having delphi under gpl would be just plain cool. They also have some interesting database technology.
So what do people think? What other outfits should Red Hat look at??
Slashdot Mirror
I think it depends on the context. Yes there are still mastadons wandering out there with bureaucratic 5 year plans. However, they are getting fewer and fewer as time goes on.
My concern is how do you develop knowledge assets. I suspect that the big winners in the future of knowledge intensive industries will be companies that can keep and develop people resources.
I seriously wonder whether "quarterly companies" can do that in the intensifying multi media financial fantasy malestrom they are all caught up in. In the world of shareholder dominance only one thing counts - the quote on the stock ticker.
I completely agree. I should have been more clear that my comments were about knowledge intensive industries. Metal bending, etc. will always require big (and getting bigger) capital.
Many of the posters to date are wringing their hands about whether the linux community should be focused on destroying Microsoft and whether this is a good or baaad thing.
Tim's point is that Microsoft (and the world) is shifting to a new battle field.
The protocols that Web sites provide on top of the internet protocols are becoming just as important as the internet protocols themselves. Many of these are business to business types of interactions but they are still key.
Let me give you one small example. In my publishing business we have to provide electronic catalog information to all the online booksellers. Our webmaster is having conversations with barnes&noble.com, amazon.com, borders.com, and all the independent bookstores who want this same kind of information, and they all have slightly different formats. Now, Allen Noren, the webmaster, is trying to get all the vendors to agree on a standard. But if they don't agree, whose format do you think he's going to implement first?
Realistically some of this will be handled by various XML standards groups (where M$ is very active) and will be relatively open in the sense that no one will want to give their competitors an advantage. However, will they be open to community input? Will the comunity be relevant in this world?
In some cases the community will care less. However, there will be others that will be critical and the comunity better be awake.
It's over for corporate dominance, they blew it all inthe downsizings. It's all about stockholder dominance now.
I think Sterling has hit the nail on this one. This is something I have been thinking about on and off for years now - essentially ever since the beginning of "stockholder value" and downsizing.
At the end of the day I think the only way companies that focus on intellectual property (private or community) can thrive is by being private. That is, no publically traded stock, no shareholder lawsuits, no terror of screwing up quarterly results. This is the only way they can take the "long view" required to build people (and their loyalty).
Many of these companies could wind up providing services to publically traded lottery tickets - much like caterers for a big party. I think Sterling is right about corporate entities not lasting 10 years in the current environment. Think of a publically traded company becoming like a burning man event.
A good for instance of this is Alan Cox becoming a consultant (private company) to a publically traded company Red Hat (multi media finacial fantasy event).
Somebody moderate this UP. I vote for both. Clueless idiots.
I may be waaay off on this but this karma thing may have a lot of power. Face it, people are concious of any type of status and a high karma at slashdot may well be a strong inducement for people to start being constructive. You could even egg this on by posting a page showing the top 50 like a lot of arcade games.
That said, I would also like to suggest an experiment giving moderators either unlimited points or unlimited points to some threshold of karma. The meta moderation will allow the jerks to hang themselves big time and the heros to stand out.
Of course! And just to make sure that there is adequate "natural disaster" protection what better place to keep this valuable asset protected from Redmond sliding into the ocean than Fort Mead Maryland.
What a PATHETIC answer!
Then again maybe they have seen the writing on the wall and the whole MicroSmurf campus will be swallowed whole. But everyone can rest easy because NSAKEY will be safe!
Yeah right. Compared to the total market out there mebbe .001% (probably too high).
Yes you are right. Steve gets to rape a few more of his customers and live to see another day. He wins another little atrocity but totally looses the war.
Steve Jobs is the Slobodan Milosevic of the PC business. It's horribly tragic considering his brilliance.
Unfortunately MS has so richly deserved severe bashing on sooo many occasions that they have lost their right to appeal...
Heh, many moons ago the educational institute I attended had an IBM mainframe which was one of the last of those beasties to have a huge amount of flashing lights on it's console. It was seriously alleged that a favorite past time on the Sunday night shift was to turn the lights off, get stoned and watch the lights fantastic... :)
At the end of the day the question has to be what Red Had can do with it's new found wealth to further the growth of its market place - linux.
This is a strategic issue. It really boils down to what technologies there are out there that could be released as open source that would strategically move open source and linux forward.
Borland might be such a candidate. They have some very good technology and over $70 mil in the bank but are basically languishing. Buying them out as a wholly owned subsidiary with open source products could revitalize an otherwise underappreciated asset base.
The intriguing thing about this approach is the power of open source, particularly GPL. With this world class technology cross fertilizing other open source projects you could have a huge multiplier effect in a couple of years.
The key here is what can Red Hat do that can move the entire community forward. When open source thrives so will Red Hat.
I agree that EROS has a very interesting design. There are a number of things that I would look at tweaking, but the core concepts are elegant enough that I think it should be given a hard look by OS architects.
Another interesting, although still experimental, approach for making Linux more secure is the LOMAC project.
Has anyone done recent benchmarks comparison between Postgres and MySql. The reason I ask is because the Postgres people look like they are doing a lot of good optimization work recently. MySql will undoubtedly still be faster but it would be interesting to see if the gap is being closed.
Maybe it was the shock of getting a word doc... :)
He obviously gives as good as he gets!!
"When you're on this end of things, Slashdot's so-called 'decline into media-whoring pablum' seems more a product of its tough crowd quotient rather than any particular interview or story."
How true, ohhhhh how true...
"That won't protect my bare ass should MTV come calling with a legality spanking, but at least I maintained some dignity by not publicly airing their dirty laundry."
:D !! (I couldn't resist - very sly...)
"If anyone needs to an example of how cracking is a bad idea and will eventually just cause you to hurt yourself, follow this link [no link was provided -ed.]and set your threshold low."
CRUEL!! VERY CRUEL! How can I break it to you Roblimo but the link he is refering to is the comments link following the article. (heheheheee..)
With all this talk of independent journalism I can see Slashdotting reaching a new level. Every time a story gets posted some poor smuck will have his local exchange crashed by thousands of callers making sure that Taco, et al. got their facts right.
:D !!
All while watching their poor server being vaporised
WOW! I done all forgot about VISIBROKER... Yes, a gpl/lgpl'd VISIBROKER would be a Good Thing (tm)! Not to mention their good compilers, etc.
I agree totally with the idea that Qt should be under gpl. It is just getting too strategic for Linux (like it or not). I wonder though about the chemistry, given some of the history between KDE and Gnome.
Maybe it would be better if Mandrake bought them out. They now have money and will go public "as soon as possible". This might also set the stage for more support to help KDE and Gnome interoperate better.
I think that this article raises some interesting ideas. I am not too sure if I agree with all them but I do have to say that I have been thinking quite a bit myself about where Red Had could use it's clout to aquire technology and re-release it under the gpl/lgpl, etc.
I really do agree with Zedlewski's point that buying out another open source outfit would not accomplish anything worthwile.
So the question becomes one of where does Linux and open source get the most bang for the buck? Does SCO own anything that is really worthwhile? Who does??
One idea that tickles my fancy is buying out Imprise/Borland. They are one of the last great independent software tool vendors out there and having delphi under gpl would be just plain cool. They also have some interesting database technology.
So what do people think? What other outfits should Red Hat look at??