Once you put it out there, it's out there," said Mr. Smith, who lives in Lake Junaluska, N.C.
Duh
If I publish an article or a story, in any form, I can expect it to be copied. For instance, I publish someting in Popular Science, and I can expect it to go to every library in the nation. If it is anything good, or anything interesting, I can expect it to be copied from the magazine.
Now, if I publish an article on the web, it seems to make since that it will be copied, and archived. So maybe I can't go down to the library and do a search of relavent keywords, but anything published is still there somewhere, why should archiving on the net be any different?
The web is a PUBLISHING medium, in my opinion. This means that it is here to facilitate the distribution of your work. If you choose to publish on the web, you pretty much have to be aware that it will be copied in some way or another. Even many years ago, (like in 1995, when the web was much more innocent) the web was for publishing. Anything you want kept private, you should keep that way.
About e-mails getting passed around, that too is a common thing in the non-internet world. How many sixth graders have had their "Do you like me?" notes passed around by the object of their affections? I've seen people hang letters from their son or daughter on the fridge, for the world to see. If you want correspondence kept private, send it only to people you trust, and put a line in it, like "Please keep this between you and me.", or "This letter will self distruct in 7 seconds."
Assuming that this post doesn't get modded down to -1, I fully HOPE that someone can come along a do a search 10 years from now and find it.
"First thing to point out about free software is that it's very hard to ignore. Not about free as costless, but a lot of enterprises with money running on question of whether server is running, and what they're using is free software."
It is very interesting (to me anyway) that so much money is spent on making sure that free software works.
It tends to make it much more obvious how much better free (as in open source) software is, as compared to the competition. See, if it were just free, and companies used it, you could say, "Cheap companies!" However, the fact that companies sink a lot of money into a server running free software shows that there is a serious lack of competitive comercial packages for the job.
For instance, I know my company would rather pay $5,000 for a good comercial package, rather than go with a more complex free software, that requires someone who knows someting to run it.
Of course, the fact that there aren't a lot of good comercial server platforms is good for me. If there were, I would not have my job....
Yes, I agree. However, it is a different thing to actually implement. There hasn't been a lot of payroll or medical billing software written for the IBM Selectric.
See, that's what amazes me. These people are very smart, and quite good at what they do, yet they can't understand even the basics of computers under Windows.
Them: "Why did you erase my computer?"
Me: "Huh?"
Them: "Everything on my computer is gone."
Me: "Huh?"
Them: "Come look. My desktop is all different, and all of my documents are gone!"
Me: "Hmmmm... Has anyone else used your computer?"
Them: "Yeah, Joe did."
Me: "Did you log Joe out, and log back on?"
Them: *blank stare*
Me: "Okay, Click Start, and choose...."
Seriously, this is how my day goes. I really don't ever want to try and teach some people to use Linux, even with X.
"...I haven't completely abandoned the Linux community. My home server still runs Mandrake, and IPCop on my gateway/firewall. There is no way I'd ever put any form of Windows on my server, nor would I ever connect a Windows PC directly to the internet without a *NIX gateway in between. Microsoft has a history of poor security, so I protect myself the only way I know how; using Linux. I will continue to advocate the use of GNU/Linux in the server arena. This is where its strength lies at the moment."
I am the only IT at my company, and all of our workstations run XP. Why is this? Because,
1. The software we need runs well on them. 2. Our users (not extremely computer literate) have problems, at times, doing things in Windows. How could I ever expect them to run Linux?
I run various flavors of boxen, but only on our servers or at home. I do not believe that Linux can hang with the ease of use of Windows.
Sure, Linux might be a better all around OS, but if it adds training time and cost to our infrastructure, it comes out to be much less useful than letting our employees run Windows with almost no training.
My problem is, I did not pay for one user to use it. I paid to have a certain amount of bandwidth available. I didn't go to the cable company and say "I need a one-user cable connection please." I went to the cable company and asked them how much bandwidth I could get for what price. They told me, and I got it.
Now, they tell me that I can't use the bandwidth that I paid for how I want to, because it is a "one user model." I am not expected to use all of the bandwidth they sold me, and when I do they cry thief.
If cable companies want to sell their "one user model" then they should do just that, give a user a license to use their services. However, they are selling bandwidth. As long as they continue to sell it to me that way, I will continue to purchase it that way, and use it as I see fit.
Our company pays right around $1500.00 for a DS1 line. Now according to this we get "Unlimited Internet access at 1.536 Mbs to 12 Mbps," as long as we follow the AUP. That's what our contract says, and the only thing I can think that WiFi sharing would fall under is the Network Performance clause.
Now, if we were running a WiFi network off of my DS1 and providing our whole building with internet, but not going over our "Unlimited Internet access at 1.536 Mbs to 12 Mbps" amounts, would there be anything wrong with it? I can't see why, but I am sure that they would cut us off, especially if many of the other companies in my building started to use our service instead of their own. I can understand why they are upset, but I do not understand how they could argue that it was wrong of us to use the bandwidth we paid for.
Slashdot Mirror
Once you put it out there, it's out there," said Mr. Smith, who lives in Lake Junaluska, N.C.
Duh
If I publish an article or a story, in any form, I can expect it to be copied. For instance, I publish someting in Popular Science, and I can expect it to go to every library in the nation. If it is anything good, or anything interesting, I can expect it to be copied from the magazine.
Now, if I publish an article on the web, it seems to make since that it will be copied, and archived. So maybe I can't go down to the library and do a search of relavent keywords, but anything published is still there somewhere, why should archiving on the net be any different?
The web is a PUBLISHING medium, in my opinion. This means that it is here to facilitate the distribution of your work. If you choose to publish on the web, you pretty much have to be aware that it will be copied in some way or another. Even many years ago, (like in 1995, when the web was much more innocent) the web was for publishing. Anything you want kept private, you should keep that way.
About e-mails getting passed around, that too is a common thing in the non-internet world. How many sixth graders have had their "Do you like me?" notes passed around by the object of their affections? I've seen people hang letters from their son or daughter on the fridge, for the world to see. If you want correspondence kept private, send it only to people you trust, and put a line in it, like "Please keep this between you and me.", or "This letter will self distruct in 7 seconds."
Assuming that this post doesn't get modded down to -1, I fully HOPE that someone can come along a do a search 10 years from now and find it.
Yeah, management is always the worst at my job...
Them:"You're going to take the web server down for 5 mins? I need access to the internet during that time, though."
Me:"Well, this shouldn't disrupt that, seeing as how the web server is not the gateway."
Them:"Gateway? I thought all we have are Dells... either way, you are going to have to wait until close of business."
"First thing to point out about free software is that it's very hard to ignore. Not about free as costless, but a lot of enterprises with money running on question of whether server is running, and what they're using is free software."
It is very interesting (to me anyway) that so much money is spent on making sure that free software works.
It tends to make it much more obvious how much better free (as in open source) software is, as compared to the competition. See, if it were just free, and companies used it, you could say, "Cheap companies!" However, the fact that companies sink a lot of money into a server running free software shows that there is a serious lack of competitive comercial packages for the job.
For instance, I know my company would rather pay $5,000 for a good comercial package, rather than go with a more complex free software, that requires someone who knows someting to run it.
Of course, the fact that there aren't a lot of good comercial server platforms is good for me. If there were, I would not have my job....
Yes, I agree. However, it is a different thing to actually implement. There hasn't been a lot of payroll or medical billing software written for the IBM Selectric.
See, that's what amazes me. These people are very smart, and quite good at what they do, yet they can't understand even the basics of computers under Windows.
Them: "Why did you erase my computer?"
Me: "Huh?"
Them: "Everything on my computer is gone."
Me: "Huh?"
Them: "Come look. My desktop is all different, and all of my documents are gone!"
Me: "Hmmmm... Has anyone else used your computer?"
Them: "Yeah, Joe did."
Me: "Did you log Joe out, and log back on?"
Them: *blank stare*
Me: "Okay, Click Start, and choose...."
Seriously, this is how my day goes. I really don't ever want to try and teach some people to use Linux, even with X.
"...I haven't completely abandoned the Linux community. My home server still runs Mandrake, and IPCop on my gateway/firewall. There is no way I'd ever put any form of Windows on my server, nor would I ever connect a Windows PC directly to the internet without a *NIX gateway in between. Microsoft has a history of poor security, so I protect myself the only way I know how; using Linux. I will continue to advocate the use of GNU/Linux in the server arena. This is where its strength lies at the moment."
I am the only IT at my company, and all of our workstations run XP. Why is this? Because,
1. The software we need runs well on them.
2. Our users (not extremely computer literate) have problems, at times, doing things in Windows. How could I ever expect them to run Linux?
I run various flavors of boxen, but only on our servers or at home. I do not believe that Linux can hang with the ease of use of Windows.
Sure, Linux might be a better all around OS, but if it adds training time and cost to our infrastructure, it comes out to be much less useful than letting our employees run Windows with almost no training.
My problem is, I did not pay for one user to use it. I paid to have a certain amount of bandwidth available. I didn't go to the cable company and say "I need a one-user cable connection please." I went to the cable company and asked them how much bandwidth I could get for what price. They told me, and I got it.
Now, they tell me that I can't use the bandwidth that I paid for how I want to, because it is a "one user model." I am not expected to use all of the bandwidth they sold me, and when I do they cry thief.
If cable companies want to sell their "one user model" then they should do just that, give a user a license to use their services. However, they are selling bandwidth. As long as they continue to sell it to me that way, I will continue to purchase it that way, and use it as I see fit.
Our company pays right around $1500.00 for a DS1 line. Now according to this we get "Unlimited Internet access at 1.536 Mbs to 12 Mbps," as long as we follow the AUP. That's what our contract says, and the only thing I can think that WiFi sharing would fall under is the Network Performance clause.
Now, if we were running a WiFi network off of my DS1 and providing our whole building with internet, but not going over our "Unlimited Internet access at 1.536 Mbs to 12 Mbps" amounts, would there be anything wrong with it? I can't see why, but I am sure that they would cut us off, especially if many of the other companies in my building started to use our service instead of their own. I can understand why they are upset, but I do not understand how they could argue that it was wrong of us to use the bandwidth we paid for.
Hmmmm... maybe I should talk to my boss...