I don't know too much about her, but wan't it the board that chooses the CEOs and the board that sets the wages and the level of the severence pakage? Yeah maybe she sucked, maybe she wasnt the right person for the job, but is it her fault that she was offered the job?
Carly didn't prove to be any great shakes while she was with Lucent prior to being hired at HP. Yes, it is the board of directors that sets executive compensation, not the shareholders or employees. Your last question is the most pertinent. The board of directors of a typical large American corporation is made up of CEOs of other companies.
She is in the network of moneyed people from the right schools with the right parents. You might want to watch the newspapers - there are many American CEOs who are making millions for ruining companies. A few of the more blatant are even going to jail. Is it her fault for ruining the HP culture and alienating employees in the pusuit of a bonus? Is it her fault for leading HP into a no-profit competition with commodity PC makers? Is it her fault for being an aristocrat in a country that is not supposed to have a ruling class and for ruining the livlihoods of thousands of productive workers in order to abscond with millions? I'd say yes, but I guess it's a matter of opinion.
Me, when I decided to use Linux. I elected to use a form of computing whereby I could take charge, make suggestions (which is all I'm doing) and, frankly, what are you doing but the same as I, except advocating stand-still?
Who put you in charge of restricting choices by other Linux users? You, because you decided to use it? I don't think so. If other users didn't want choices, we'd all be running Red Hat. I'm not advocating standing still, I'm advocating the ongoing experimentation that is resulting in the evolution of Linux. You seem to want to restrain it and shape it in the Windows one-size-fits-all mold.
What if I don't like the fact that there is no unified way of doing things?
Build a Grand Unified Package Manager that is so wonderful that everyone will be scrambling to use it, and let them make the choice.
The long and short of it is that the only disadvantage you've put forward so far is that you wouldn't be able to choose something else, which is no reason not to improve what we have.
I won't be able to choose something else? What about the millions of Linux users worldwide that are using "something else"? You still haven't given a credible qualification that makes you suitable to decide what everyone should use.
We can deal with choice later
Um, sure. Let's do away with choice now and revisit it later after the proponents of other approaches have been silenced. No doubt you have a centralized five-year plan for Linux as well.
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So now you have 15,000 less people to lead/manage but you still have the same number of executives and managers. That seems to create a very top heavy structure and those tend to fall over both in the management world and the engineering world.
In our brave, new world, the only thing that is important is management. The rest are just disposable widgets. It's like a corporate version of Alice in Wonderland.
Are these workers entitled to those jobs? They took those jobs knowing fully well what the rules of the game were - that the shareholders and management can fire them if they think that is in the interest of the corporation.
Why should employees who did a good job suffer for the incompetence of management which was hired much later than most of the employees? How should employees who hired on in the 80s know that Fiorina would be hired as CEO and wreck the company twenty years later? Shareholders don't fire anybody - management does that.
Was it in the interest of the corporation that the directors hired Fiorina for millions? Was it in HP's interest to buy out her worthless Lucent stock options for millions more? Did it really benefit the corporation to pay her more millions to go away rather than just firing her? You seem to have a strange concept of what is in the interest of a corporation.
Do you consider perhaps that management fucked up by creating a bloated personnel heavy organization? Big companies grow out of control during good times by hiring tons and tons of people they may not really NEED. When times get tough expendible employees are just as fair game as other belt tightening measures IMO.
Did you consider that HP management screwed up big time by buying Compaq, which was in a race to the bottom with Dell? And nobody ever figured out what Carly meant when she said she was turning HP into an "internet" company, whatever that might mean, but hey, it was the tail of the dot.bomb era. She took HP into a very low-margin business that had nothing to do with the company's strengths. The only reason HP has too many employees is because recent HP management lost a lot of HP customers. Carly got millions to walk away. What will the employees get?
Carly is enjoying her multi-million dollar severance package, complete with outplacement counseling and a company-paid secretary. Somebody has to pay for it, and I'm sure the displaced employees will be happy to do it.
Remember a "packaging system" consists of a way of wrapping up the source code/binary files and also a "package manager." Source code on its own provides nothing of the sort, and doesn't even have the metadata necessary to create one.
That may be your definition. AFAIAC, a tarball that can be uncompressed, compiled, linked, and installed is a perfectly workable packaging system. A lot of developers use it, and it has the neat advantage of being widely compatible.
The fact that firefox is better than IE has not yet led to widespread adoption of it, and you're relying in the major distros all a) swallowing any pride and b) completely overhauling the way their system is maintained and installed, while one distribution gets none of the hassle.
That's a pretty poor example. How widespread is Firefox usage among Linux users? Pretty broad since it's becoming the default browser even for distros using KDE. Since you're the one preaching consolidation, explain how the same pride-swallowing and imbalance of change isn't going to have to happen in your grand plan.
Likewise saying those who cannot install from source should switch.
I doubt there are many Linux users who cannot install from source, and what I said was that those who cannot follow the instructions for the tools they are using should not switch from Windows to Linux.
Consolidation still brings the advantages mentioned, gets rid of most confusion, provides a warm fuzzy GUI to cradle the confused...
What advantages? Since when is restricting choice an "advantage"? That's like going to a buffet where there is only one dish. Sure, I don't have to make a decision about what to eat, but what if I don't particularly like what's offered? Who is qualified to decide which distros should be terminated or which package manager should be used by all? You? Why? Who put you in charge?
The only problem with source-based package management is (take it from a former long-time Gentoo user) the fact that it takes so long to compile any non-trivial applications. Also, obviously not every package follows the standard./configure;make;make install installation method.
Agreed, but typically this a fallback method for installing software. I get my buttons pushed whenever these Linux incompatibility/consolidation discussions come up and the immediate focus is on the mythical Universal Linux Package Installer. In order for that to work, we would need to have a single Linux distro, and I don't like that idea.
All in all, no matter whether you consider standard "make" installation or a system like Portage, it just doesn't measure up to binary.
You can't install a single binary on all Linux systems unless you restrict Linux to the LCD Intel boxes.
The funny thing is, both Ubuntu and SUSE can be easily setup to run the "other" desktop (or ANY of the smaller ones). Why are so many people hung up on what is set as the default?
It seems to me that when I checked out Ubuntu a few months ago, you actually had to install Kubuntu to get a working KDE desktop. But, in the larger view, I agree - most distros allow multiple desktops.
All distro's are the same when you strip them of their branding.
That I can't agree with. There are many and obvious differences between distros, and that's a good thing. If there weren't a reason for the differences, we'd all be running Red Hat.
This is not a packaging system. There is no consolidated repository for source "packages," there is no way of externally mapping dependencies or handling them automatically. There is no hard-and-fast way of installing them that works for every source package, and above all, it's time consuming and potentially confusing for a first-time user.
Apparently, you mean it's not an easy packaging system, which would only be true in some cases. I've installed a lot of software with nothing more than./configure;make;make install with no dependency problems. Confusion is the natural state for most computer users, and new Linux users should be guided toward a GUI-friendly distro like Mandrake or Mandlicorice or whatever it's called these days. The fact that we have different distros with different package installers is a clear sign that there is no consensus on the best method. Obviously, if one method becomes superior, most distros will adopt it. Until then, let the competition continue.
I'm certainly no Linux elitist - I'm just a regular user - but anyone who is unable to read the instructions and use the installation tools offered in a distro should probably switch to a different distro or stick with Windows. Not all drivers are comfortable with a manual trasmission, but that doesn't mean all cars should be required to have automatic transmissions.
It's completely possible for there to be standards and competition -- witness Firefox and Safari, for instance.
You are the one arguing there are too many competing technologies, not me. To make it more relevant, let's use Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, and IE as examples.
Wouldn't it suck if every site on the internet only worked with one browser or another? Oh, yeah -- that happened! Aren't you glad its (mostly) over now?
And if it weren't for the all the competing technologies, there never would have been a push for compliance, and the internet would still be 100% IE broken. Now, you have a choice, so don't complain about it.
Exactly that's why I can choose the network protocol to reach Slashdot, right? Oh, has to be TCP/IP you say? Where is my choice?!
What does a protocol have to do with having multiple distros? Are you saying there should be only one distro? Users should have no choice other than whatever you dictate? I welcome our cricket-chirping overlord.
I think there are too many distros, but moreover, I think there are too many competing technologies: QT vs. GTK, dpkg vs. rpm vs. ebuild vs. tgz, etc. If we could work out some good standards -- that everybody followed -- we could have all the distros anyone wanted and it wouldn't be a problem.
Yes of course. We get rid of all the competing technologies, and we wind up with . . . one distro. Then we could call it Windows! Either you're for choice or against it - don't quibble.
Linux could definitely benefit from *some* consolidation.
Every distro out there is an experiment in what works and what doesn't. The variety also makes Linux a difficult target for malware. That's why I don't support the LSB. If some people have a great enough itch to roll another distro, I say go for it. Look at it as insurance against inbreeding and the brain-damaged OS that could be the result - I'm not mentioning any names.
But since then, I've successfully modified Javascript in webpages...so wait, maybe I are a programmer now!
Absolutely. In order to acknowledge your acceptance into the Programmers Hall of Fame, we require $45 and the original UPC from your Intel-Inside, Microsoft Windows machine. Expect your certificate within 8 to 10 weeks. Congratulations!
Of all the bumper stickers I have ever seen, the one on my truck annoys the most people.
It simply says "If you didn't serve, don't vote"
I am tired of these namby pamby arm chair quarterbacks talking tough but scared to put on a uniform
The thing that strikes me most about that comment is that it was posted by an Anonymous Coward. Anyway, when I was in the service, we had a lifer buck sergeant who must have been forty (seemed ancient at the time). Somehow, he had managed to get three stripes, but no matter how many times he tried (every year, IIRC), he could not pass the advancement test (which is pretty much a spell-your-name and tie-your-shoes thing). I contrast that with the women who worked in defense contractor factories during WWII and many people who just weren't of the proper age during recent conflicts, and I don't see the relevance of military service to selecting our so-called leadership or the local school board.
If anyone really wants to see the biggest waste of time at work, they need look no further than the nearest manager's office. These are people with nothing to do, so they think up more jobs for the people who are already busy working.
We have this one cretin manager (but I repeat myself) who came up with a great idea of how to make all the different projects into one big happy family: Each would use Tweedledum's specially prepared template to put together a presentation for all, and we would all be edified and live in harmony ever after. Should I mention this junior manager walks on his knees immediately behind his manager with his lips locked firmly on what occupies the chair he covets? No? Then forget I mentioned it.
At a half-hour per presentation, that works out to about 20 hours of lost productivity for every worker who attends the presentations plus at least 8 man-hours lost for every project to put together a presentation. This is all done over a period of several months.
Half-way through the series, one gutsy project-lead notes that few people attend and asks who is benefiting from the wasted work? Tweedledum claims it is still a Good Management Idea (C, TM, Oxymoron), and the circus will continue because, wait for it . . . , "There is an expectation that it will be done." That's yet another great quote that will go into my inspirational management hall of fame. Just imagine the Charge of the Light Brigade done to that stirring invocation or generals at great battles refusing to retreat and save their forces because of it.
Instead of taking the names of the slackers attending the dog-and-pony shows, Tweedledum exhorts the project leads to encourage their teams to attend the shows. When one wag asks if there is a charge code, an exasperated Tweedledum says through permanently-puckered lips, "Charge it to your project! This is a benefit to your project!"
I constantly feel so inadequate because I'm just unable to understand the grand vision from managers who were previously fired from the local car dealer. Sorry for the rant - it was a long day in Management Fantasyland (and a bad day for the troops).
I'd argue that any piece of open-source software that is non-trivial, successful and serves a purpose that is of interest to companies *will* eventually attract funding, including developers paid for by companies, but that doesn't mean that open-source must have a commercial (paid) developer base to be successful. You have the direction reversed here: success leads to paid development, not vice versa.
I agree. Samba, reiserfs, and all the Ximian stuff seem to fit that model. Fleury says, "no one is going to work for free", but he didn't think it through. There are other forms of compensation besides money. FOSS developers often just work on whatever scratches an itch, whether it be inter-OS resource sharing, watching movies from a DVD, or the dislike of lock-in and taxation by certain software companies. There are all kinds of motivations other than money - Fleury should ask the relatives he sponged off of about that.
But notice: These people weren't SGI employees, they were users, participating in a SGI hardware newsgroup, and more vehemently hostile towards alternative OSes than any other sort of OS zealot than I've ever seen.
It took us a LONG time to convince our lead system engineer that Linux just might be an alternative to SGI and IRIX. After a couple of years of us solving problems using "test" Linux servers while SGI refused to address his help requests, our SE finally joined the Linux camp. Now, he acts like it was his idea. Go figure. People do convert from one religion to another, but don't ever confront them with their past beliefs if it was a painful conversion.
Only 50%? Disk has been a real problem for years - the price is way out of line for supported disks on all SGI systems. It's too bad. I liked SGI's systems, but about four years ago, it seems like they lost direction. They basically stopped development on IRIX, and wouldn't support new things like UDF or large files on certain file systems.
We saw the handwriting on the wall a couple of years ago and started moving to Linux. Now, we have only a few minis left to run the remaining IRIX-specific code, and those are on the way out. The cost savings using the Linux boxes are too big to be ignored. It's a shame because SGI contributed a lot to Linux, but when a company won't respond to trouble tickets or stay current with new developments, what's a customer supposed to do?
When we produce game disks where I work, disk space is very tight, so we know every 1 and 0 on that disk. There's no way Take-Two didn't know about it. And in the end, even if it was a mistake (which is really not possible), it's still Take-Two's responsibility.
If you're a game developer, then I'll defer to your expert opinion. In my line of work, it's not unusual to have "unreachable code". Sometimes a feature will be officially removed or turned off, but it costs less to close the entry points than to actually remove the code. Some managers also change their minds every time the wind shifts, so it's often a good idea not to remove such code.
My understanding is that the video game developers are required to submit footage from the game that is representative of the maximum level of offensive content the player is going to experience, and the ESRB rates the game based on submitted footage. If the developer doesn't disclose some content that is more offensive than what they submitted to the ESRB, it's their own fault.
From what I read, it seems the code in question was blocked off, and it takes a mod to unlock it. So the material submitted for examination would be what the normal player is going to see. It really depends on whether the game developer intended for the "mod" to be discovered and made public. There are a number of people out there disassembling game code for cheats and finding things game developers would prefer they didn't.
Well, there are 2 issues here: is moving jobs to lower-paying parts of the world immoral, and are knowledge work jobs here at risk?
If the management of a profitable company displaces workers in order to increase personal wealth, then I consider that unethical and immoral. If you go read something like the Computerworld executive surveys on offshoring, then it's quite obvious that knowledge workers' jobs are being exported to low-wage countries. So the answers are yes and yes.
For the first part, you've yet to present an argument that it's immoral. Sure, it's a potential betrayal of trust, if employees were made a false promise of lifetime employment, but that's a sperate issue.
I just did, and I did so before. If you don't consider betrayal of promises and trust immoral, I can't help that. Greed is considered immoral, so any decision made for that reason would be immoral. The feds made a huge mistake some years ago when they passed "reforms" that tried to link executive compensation to stock performance. The only result was to ensure that executives work to make stock prices volatile in a cycle that matches their options grants and vestings.
The fundamental point is that one guy in Europe lost his job, and probably won't miss any meals as a result, and another in India gained a job making 30 times what he could otherwise make - so much in fact that it will provide not just for his extended family, but for the families of several others as he has a new house built, hires staff to clean his house and take care of his children, and so on. In the big picture, I don't see the moral issue, and in fact it looks good to me.
So stealing from the middle class to give to another middle class in order to increase the wealth of corporate executives is ethical in your book, Robin Hood?
In the small picture, working for a company doesn't give you some moral right to continue doing so.
I didn't say it did. I'm saying some corporate raider shouldn't have the right to fire productive workers in order to line his/her pockets, which is what is currently happening.
I have no moral right to be paid more than anyone else of the same skill level to do a given job, no matter what I might have been paid in the past.
Your experience and hard-earned knowledge are worthless? Besides, I've said before it's not about salary, it's about jobs. Teachers in the US make more than teachers in India. Truck drivers in the US make more than truck drivers in India.
Aside from the moral argument, it's just you telling a manager at IBM what decision would be best for IBM. You can argue that management hurts the stockholders in order to pad their bonuses, but the stockholders have to approve the board, and the board has to approve the bonus plan, so it's not like the stockholders aren't involved.
Heh. That's like saying we all voted to go to war in Iraq. Stockholders have a yes/no vote on directors. If one is denied, another one just like him and the CEO will take his place. The real problem in our system is that we have an exclusive club of corporate directors and CEOs. They are a class unto themselves - an aristocracy. I'm not saying anything new - there have been books written about the situation. The Europeans don't have similar problems or insane management compensation.
In fact, there has been a near-revolution by stockholders against excessive executive compensation in recent years, and I've seen heads of companies get the axe more than once when they abused stockholders.
A revolution? Do tell. After Carly got finished screwing HP and its employees and demolishing what was once a good corporate culture, the board gave her $40 million, outplacement services, and a company-paid secretary to get rid of her. Darned right, those directors showed her! Julian Day got $12 million in severance after making K-Mart's stock worthless - the stockholders really won there. Gary Drook got million
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I don't know too much about her, but wan't it the board that chooses the CEOs and the board that sets the wages and the level of the severence pakage? Yeah maybe she sucked, maybe she wasnt the right person for the job, but is it her fault that she was offered the job?
Carly didn't prove to be any great shakes while she was with Lucent prior to being hired at HP. Yes, it is the board of directors that sets executive compensation, not the shareholders or employees. Your last question is the most pertinent. The board of directors of a typical large American corporation is made up of CEOs of other companies.
She is in the network of moneyed people from the right schools with the right parents. You might want to watch the newspapers - there are many American CEOs who are making millions for ruining companies. A few of the more blatant are even going to jail. Is it her fault for ruining the HP culture and alienating employees in the pusuit of a bonus? Is it her fault for leading HP into a no-profit competition with commodity PC makers? Is it her fault for being an aristocrat in a country that is not supposed to have a ruling class and for ruining the livlihoods of thousands of productive workers in order to abscond with millions? I'd say yes, but I guess it's a matter of opinion.
Who put you in charge?
Me, when I decided to use Linux. I elected to use a form of computing whereby I could take charge, make suggestions (which is all I'm doing) and, frankly, what are you doing but the same as I, except advocating stand-still?
Who put you in charge of restricting choices by other Linux users? You, because you decided to use it? I don't think so. If other users didn't want choices, we'd all be running Red Hat. I'm not advocating standing still, I'm advocating the ongoing experimentation that is resulting in the evolution of Linux. You seem to want to restrain it and shape it in the Windows one-size-fits-all mold.
What if I don't like the fact that there is no unified way of doing things?
Build a Grand Unified Package Manager that is so wonderful that everyone will be scrambling to use it, and let them make the choice.
The long and short of it is that the only disadvantage you've put forward so far is that you wouldn't be able to choose something else, which is no reason not to improve what we have.
I won't be able to choose something else? What about the millions of Linux users worldwide that are using "something else"? You still haven't given a credible qualification that makes you suitable to decide what everyone should use.
We can deal with choice later
Um, sure. Let's do away with choice now and revisit it later after the proponents of other approaches have been silenced. No doubt you have a centralized five-year plan for Linux as well.
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So now you have 15,000 less people to lead/manage but you still have the same number of executives and managers. That seems to create a very top heavy structure and those tend to fall over both in the management world and the engineering world.
In our brave, new world, the only thing that is important is management. The rest are just disposable widgets. It's like a corporate version of Alice in Wonderland.
Are these workers entitled to those jobs? They took those jobs knowing fully well what the rules of the game were - that the shareholders and management can fire them if they think that is in the interest of the corporation.
Why should employees who did a good job suffer for the incompetence of management which was hired much later than most of the employees? How should employees who hired on in the 80s know that Fiorina would be hired as CEO and wreck the company twenty years later? Shareholders don't fire anybody - management does that.
Was it in the interest of the corporation that the directors hired Fiorina for millions? Was it in HP's interest to buy out her worthless Lucent stock options for millions more? Did it really benefit the corporation to pay her more millions to go away rather than just firing her? You seem to have a strange concept of what is in the interest of a corporation.
Do you consider perhaps that management fucked up by creating a bloated personnel heavy organization? Big companies grow out of control during good times by hiring tons and tons of people they may not really NEED. When times get tough expendible employees are just as fair game as other belt tightening measures IMO.
Did you consider that HP management screwed up big time by buying Compaq, which was in a race to the bottom with Dell? And nobody ever figured out what Carly meant when she said she was turning HP into an "internet" company, whatever that might mean, but hey, it was the tail of the dot.bomb era. She took HP into a very low-margin business that had nothing to do with the company's strengths. The only reason HP has too many employees is because recent HP management lost a lot of HP customers. Carly got millions to walk away. What will the employees get?
I guess the market has spoken, where's Carly now?
Carly is enjoying her multi-million dollar severance package, complete with outplacement counseling and a company-paid secretary. Somebody has to pay for it, and I'm sure the displaced employees will be happy to do it.
Remember a "packaging system" consists of a way of wrapping up the source code/binary files and also a "package manager." Source code on its own provides nothing of the sort, and doesn't even have the metadata necessary to create one.
That may be your definition. AFAIAC, a tarball that can be uncompressed, compiled, linked, and installed is a perfectly workable packaging system. A lot of developers use it, and it has the neat advantage of being widely compatible.
The fact that firefox is better than IE has not yet led to widespread adoption of it, and you're relying in the major distros all a) swallowing any pride and b) completely overhauling the way their system is maintained and installed, while one distribution gets none of the hassle.
That's a pretty poor example. How widespread is Firefox usage among Linux users? Pretty broad since it's becoming the default browser even for distros using KDE. Since you're the one preaching consolidation, explain how the same pride-swallowing and imbalance of change isn't going to have to happen in your grand plan.
Likewise saying those who cannot install from source should switch.
I doubt there are many Linux users who cannot install from source, and what I said was that those who cannot follow the instructions for the tools they are using should not switch from Windows to Linux.
Consolidation still brings the advantages mentioned, gets rid of most confusion, provides a warm fuzzy GUI to cradle the confused ...
What advantages? Since when is restricting choice an "advantage"? That's like going to a buffet where there is only one dish. Sure, I don't have to make a decision about what to eat, but what if I don't particularly like what's offered? Who is qualified to decide which distros should be terminated or which package manager should be used by all? You? Why? Who put you in charge?
The only problem with source-based package management is (take it from a former long-time Gentoo user) the fact that it takes so long to compile any non-trivial applications. Also, obviously not every package follows the standard ./configure;make;make install installation method.
Agreed, but typically this a fallback method for installing software. I get my buttons pushed whenever these Linux incompatibility/consolidation discussions come up and the immediate focus is on the mythical Universal Linux Package Installer. In order for that to work, we would need to have a single Linux distro, and I don't like that idea.
All in all, no matter whether you consider standard "make" installation or a system like Portage, it just doesn't measure up to binary.
You can't install a single binary on all Linux systems unless you restrict Linux to the LCD Intel boxes.
The funny thing is, both Ubuntu and SUSE can be easily setup to run the "other" desktop (or ANY of the smaller ones). Why are so many people hung up on what is set as the default?
It seems to me that when I checked out Ubuntu a few months ago, you actually had to install Kubuntu to get a working KDE desktop. But, in the larger view, I agree - most distros allow multiple desktops.
All distro's are the same when you strip them of their branding.
That I can't agree with. There are many and obvious differences between distros, and that's a good thing. If there weren't a reason for the differences, we'd all be running Red Hat.
This is not a packaging system. There is no consolidated repository for source "packages," there is no way of externally mapping dependencies or handling them automatically. There is no hard-and-fast way of installing them that works for every source package, and above all, it's time consuming and potentially confusing for a first-time user.
Apparently, you mean it's not an easy packaging system, which would only be true in some cases. I've installed a lot of software with nothing more than ./configure;make;make install with no dependency problems. Confusion is the natural state for most computer users, and new Linux users should be guided toward a GUI-friendly distro like Mandrake or Mandlicorice or whatever it's called these days. The fact that we have different distros with different package installers is a clear sign that there is no consensus on the best method. Obviously, if one method becomes superior, most distros will adopt it. Until then, let the competition continue.
I'm certainly no Linux elitist - I'm just a regular user - but anyone who is unable to read the instructions and use the installation tools offered in a distro should probably switch to a different distro or stick with Windows. Not all drivers are comfortable with a manual trasmission, but that doesn't mean all cars should be required to have automatic transmissions.
It's completely possible for there to be standards and competition -- witness Firefox and Safari, for instance.
You are the one arguing there are too many competing technologies, not me. To make it more relevant, let's use Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, and IE as examples.
Wouldn't it suck if every site on the internet only worked with one browser or another? Oh, yeah -- that happened! Aren't you glad its (mostly) over now?
And if it weren't for the all the competing technologies, there never would have been a push for compliance, and the internet would still be 100% IE broken. Now, you have a choice, so don't complain about it.
Exactly that's why I can choose the network protocol to reach Slashdot, right? Oh, has to be TCP/IP you say? Where is my choice?!
What does a protocol have to do with having multiple distros? Are you saying there should be only one distro? Users should have no choice other than whatever you dictate? I welcome our cricket-chirping overlord.
But there are huge benefits to be gained in usability with a consolidated packaging system.
There is already a single consolidated packaging system with nearly perfect interoperability for Linux distros. It's called source code.
I think there are too many distros, but moreover, I think there are too many competing technologies: QT vs. GTK, dpkg vs. rpm vs. ebuild vs. tgz, etc. If we could work out some good standards -- that everybody followed -- we could have all the distros anyone wanted and it wouldn't be a problem.
Yes of course. We get rid of all the competing technologies, and we wind up with . . . one distro. Then we could call it Windows! Either you're for choice or against it - don't quibble.
Linux could definitely benefit from *some* consolidation.
Every distro out there is an experiment in what works and what doesn't. The variety also makes Linux a difficult target for malware. That's why I don't support the LSB. If some people have a great enough itch to roll another distro, I say go for it. Look at it as insurance against inbreeding and the brain-damaged OS that could be the result - I'm not mentioning any names.
But since then, I've successfully modified Javascript in webpages...so wait, maybe I are a programmer now!
Absolutely. In order to acknowledge your acceptance into the Programmers Hall of Fame, we require $45 and the original UPC from your Intel-Inside, Microsoft Windows machine. Expect your certificate within 8 to 10 weeks. Congratulations!
Of all the bumper stickers I have ever seen, the one on my truck annoys the most people. It simply says "If you didn't serve, don't vote" I am tired of these namby pamby arm chair quarterbacks talking tough but scared to put on a uniform
The thing that strikes me most about that comment is that it was posted by an Anonymous Coward. Anyway, when I was in the service, we had a lifer buck sergeant who must have been forty (seemed ancient at the time). Somehow, he had managed to get three stripes, but no matter how many times he tried (every year, IIRC), he could not pass the advancement test (which is pretty much a spell-your-name and tie-your-shoes thing). I contrast that with the women who worked in defense contractor factories during WWII and many people who just weren't of the proper age during recent conflicts, and I don't see the relevance of military service to selecting our so-called leadership or the local school board.
Don't listen to him! We must all work together to SAVE THE PLASTIC OWLS!
If anyone really wants to see the biggest waste of time at work, they need look no further than the nearest manager's office. These are people with nothing to do, so they think up more jobs for the people who are already busy working.
We have this one cretin manager (but I repeat myself) who came up with a great idea of how to make all the different projects into one big happy family: Each would use Tweedledum's specially prepared template to put together a presentation for all, and we would all be edified and live in harmony ever after. Should I mention this junior manager walks on his knees immediately behind his manager with his lips locked firmly on what occupies the chair he covets? No? Then forget I mentioned it.
At a half-hour per presentation, that works out to about 20 hours of lost productivity for every worker who attends the presentations plus at least 8 man-hours lost for every project to put together a presentation. This is all done over a period of several months.
Half-way through the series, one gutsy project-lead notes that few people attend and asks who is benefiting from the wasted work? Tweedledum claims it is still a Good Management Idea (C, TM, Oxymoron), and the circus will continue because, wait for it . . . , "There is an expectation that it will be done." That's yet another great quote that will go into my inspirational management hall of fame. Just imagine the Charge of the Light Brigade done to that stirring invocation or generals at great battles refusing to retreat and save their forces because of it.
Instead of taking the names of the slackers attending the dog-and-pony shows, Tweedledum exhorts the project leads to encourage their teams to attend the shows. When one wag asks if there is a charge code, an exasperated Tweedledum says through permanently-puckered lips, "Charge it to your project! This is a benefit to your project!"
I constantly feel so inadequate because I'm just unable to understand the grand vision from managers who were previously fired from the local car dealer. Sorry for the rant - it was a long day in Management Fantasyland (and a bad day for the troops).
I'd argue that any piece of open-source software that is non-trivial, successful and serves a purpose that is of interest to companies *will* eventually attract funding, including developers paid for by companies, but that doesn't mean that open-source must have a commercial (paid) developer base to be successful. You have the direction reversed here: success leads to paid development, not vice versa.
I agree. Samba, reiserfs, and all the Ximian stuff seem to fit that model. Fleury says, "no one is going to work for free", but he didn't think it through. There are other forms of compensation besides money. FOSS developers often just work on whatever scratches an itch, whether it be inter-OS resource sharing, watching movies from a DVD, or the dislike of lock-in and taxation by certain software companies. There are all kinds of motivations other than money - Fleury should ask the relatives he sponged off of about that.
But notice: These people weren't SGI employees, they were users, participating in a SGI hardware newsgroup, and more vehemently hostile towards alternative OSes than any other sort of OS zealot than I've ever seen.
It took us a LONG time to convince our lead system engineer that Linux just might be an alternative to SGI and IRIX. After a couple of years of us solving problems using "test" Linux servers while SGI refused to address his help requests, our SE finally joined the Linux camp. Now, he acts like it was his idea. Go figure. People do convert from one religion to another, but don't ever confront them with their past beliefs if it was a painful conversion.
Disk space was marked up like 50%...
Only 50%? Disk has been a real problem for years - the price is way out of line for supported disks on all SGI systems. It's too bad. I liked SGI's systems, but about four years ago, it seems like they lost direction. They basically stopped development on IRIX, and wouldn't support new things like UDF or large files on certain file systems.
We saw the handwriting on the wall a couple of years ago and started moving to Linux. Now, we have only a few minis left to run the remaining IRIX-specific code, and those are on the way out. The cost savings using the Linux boxes are too big to be ignored. It's a shame because SGI contributed a lot to Linux, but when a company won't respond to trouble tickets or stay current with new developments, what's a customer supposed to do?
When we produce game disks where I work, disk space is very tight, so we know every 1 and 0 on that disk. There's no way Take-Two didn't know about it. And in the end, even if it was a mistake (which is really not possible), it's still Take-Two's responsibility.
If you're a game developer, then I'll defer to your expert opinion. In my line of work, it's not unusual to have "unreachable code". Sometimes a feature will be officially removed or turned off, but it costs less to close the entry points than to actually remove the code. Some managers also change their minds every time the wind shifts, so it's often a good idea not to remove such code.
My understanding is that the video game developers are required to submit footage from the game that is representative of the maximum level of offensive content the player is going to experience, and the ESRB rates the game based on submitted footage. If the developer doesn't disclose some content that is more offensive than what they submitted to the ESRB, it's their own fault.
From what I read, it seems the code in question was blocked off, and it takes a mod to unlock it. So the material submitted for examination would be what the normal player is going to see. It really depends on whether the game developer intended for the "mod" to be discovered and made public. There are a number of people out there disassembling game code for cheats and finding things game developers would prefer they didn't.
Well, there are 2 issues here: is moving jobs to lower-paying parts of the world immoral, and are knowledge work jobs here at risk?
If the management of a profitable company displaces workers in order to increase personal wealth, then I consider that unethical and immoral. If you go read something like the Computerworld executive surveys on offshoring, then it's quite obvious that knowledge workers' jobs are being exported to low-wage countries. So the answers are yes and yes.
For the first part, you've yet to present an argument that it's immoral. Sure, it's a potential betrayal of trust, if employees were made a false promise of lifetime employment, but that's a sperate issue.
I just did, and I did so before. If you don't consider betrayal of promises and trust immoral, I can't help that. Greed is considered immoral, so any decision made for that reason would be immoral. The feds made a huge mistake some years ago when they passed "reforms" that tried to link executive compensation to stock performance. The only result was to ensure that executives work to make stock prices volatile in a cycle that matches their options grants and vestings.
The fundamental point is that one guy in Europe lost his job, and probably won't miss any meals as a result, and another in India gained a job making 30 times what he could otherwise make - so much in fact that it will provide not just for his extended family, but for the families of several others as he has a new house built, hires staff to clean his house and take care of his children, and so on. In the big picture, I don't see the moral issue, and in fact it looks good to me.
So stealing from the middle class to give to another middle class in order to increase the wealth of corporate executives is ethical in your book, Robin Hood?
In the small picture, working for a company doesn't give you some moral right to continue doing so.
I didn't say it did. I'm saying some corporate raider shouldn't have the right to fire productive workers in order to line his/her pockets, which is what is currently happening.
I have no moral right to be paid more than anyone else of the same skill level to do a given job, no matter what I might have been paid in the past.
Your experience and hard-earned knowledge are worthless? Besides, I've said before it's not about salary, it's about jobs. Teachers in the US make more than teachers in India. Truck drivers in the US make more than truck drivers in India.
Aside from the moral argument, it's just you telling a manager at IBM what decision would be best for IBM. You can argue that management hurts the stockholders in order to pad their bonuses, but the stockholders have to approve the board, and the board has to approve the bonus plan, so it's not like the stockholders aren't involved.
Heh. That's like saying we all voted to go to war in Iraq. Stockholders have a yes/no vote on directors. If one is denied, another one just like him and the CEO will take his place. The real problem in our system is that we have an exclusive club of corporate directors and CEOs. They are a class unto themselves - an aristocracy. I'm not saying anything new - there have been books written about the situation. The Europeans don't have similar problems or insane management compensation.
In fact, there has been a near-revolution by stockholders against excessive executive compensation in recent years, and I've seen heads of companies get the axe more than once when they abused stockholders.
A revolution? Do tell. After Carly got finished screwing HP and its employees and demolishing what was once a good corporate culture, the board gave her $40 million, outplacement services, and a company-paid secretary to get rid of her. Darned right, those directors showed her! Julian Day got $12 million in severance after making K-Mart's stock worthless - the stockholders really won there. Gary Drook got million