Microsoft will eventually lose their OS and Office monopolies. They'll fight it tooth and nail, but it's inevitable. I'm not 100% sure what will eventually topple them, but Linux and OpenOffice are my bets. There's just too much momentum behind both. 5 years ago, Linux on a tech resume was rare. These days, I'd say 80% of tech resumes I see have that skill. Also, OO 2.0 is a quantum leap from OO 1.x in terms of reliability and speed. Mix in a strong anti-MS sentiment outside of the US, and increasing 3rd party app support, and you've got all the elements of a downfall in the making.
Also debugging more than a few lines of assembler code is a f-ing nightmare. The again, I've never gotten a kernel patch accepted, so, maybe I'm just skilled enough!;)
I suspect they'll go through something like IBM did in the 90s
Agreed, with a twist. IBM thought of itself as a hardware company, when the market decided they could do without IBM hardware and killed that cash cow, they reinvented into a services company. MS thinks of itself as a software, the market is learning they can do without MS software and will eventually kill that cash cow, so what will MS reinvent themselves as? It's gonna get really ugly for them before it gets better -but- that change is gonna happen, whether they like it or not.
There are operating systems that can protect against that threat. They're not mainstream in design, and neither Linux nor OS X is among them.
Examples? I'd really like to see scum-ware persistently infect a RAM based PuppyLinux runtime. On that note, users are going to download crap, it's what users do. However, the scum-ware author ***KNOWS*** the OS layout for Win/OS-X, there's little flexibility, they can be 99% certain when estimating the fs/lib layout that what they need is there. On Linux, that's a much trickier proposition. First, there are a many Linux distros, each with differing fs/lib layouts, nothing can be taken for granted. Second, there is no centralized binary only registry to hide in, it's much easier to find the malware attempting to hide in plain view in/etc/init.d. Lasty, because Linux distros ship with all the software users are likely to use on the media and user data is isolated in/home, odds are users will do fresh installs, destroying the malware, rather than upgrade. Of the Win/Lin/OSX trio, Linux is going to be by far the most resistent to recurring persistent infections because it's not a homogenous playground like Win or OSX. Now, to play devil's advocate, a nasty written in a common interpreted language, to eliminate lib/compilation dependencies, nestled in.kde/Auostart or.gnome/session-manual would be pretty tough for Joe Sixpack to detect.
For laptops, SuSE 10.1 is the most complete Linux distro hands down. If you have an ATI or nVidia chip, the Xgl desktop is simply an amazing piece of eye candy that puts anything you've seen on Windows to shame. On that note, if it's a small footprint and performance you're looking for, PuppyLinux 2.0 on 256M of DDR can't be beat but at the cost of looking a bit Win2K-ish. If you're a Linux newbie or want all the bells and whistles, go SuSE. If you want raw speed at the cost of some creature comforts and have played with Linux before, go Puppy.
Per minute that might be medium installation, large ISP installations are gauged in emails *per second*. If these shops had only had 75 emails per second (4500/min), the admins would be freaking out wondering what part of the system had gone down.
From personal experience, we *used* to buy Sun because they had top notch hardware (E450 being the glaring exception... POS) and top notch service. Solaris never factored into our equation. Like I've said repeatedly, kill that sick Solaris horse, it's time has come and gone, hanging on to it will only serve to sink the ship. The market wants Linux, in fact it's been a few YEARS since we looked at Solaris in our stack, at least in house. Sun needs to dump Solaris, and make a firm stand behind Linux. Sadly, I think that by open sourcing Solaris, they somehow think this will make it more competitive with Linux, hopefully the new CEO understands that the market doesn't want OpenSolaris, that stategy is about 7 years too late. I'd like to be able to source mid range x86 hardware from Sun. Their Fire X line is good, but it's tough to sell Sun and Linux on a project, unlike HP or IBM with Linux.
Re:Sun - Corporate mismanagement at its finest
on
Sun to Cut 5000 Jobs
·
· Score: 1
Here here... I'll second that! Now that McNealy is no longer running the show, maybe Schwartz will finally do things right. Reality is that Sun put a toe in the Linux waters, got scared, and ran away. Meanwhile, that gave the competition a chance to build up their Linux offerings and eat Sun's lunch. They might not have wanted to compete with their Sparc biz, but the competition sure didn't hesistate to it for them. They need to ditch the chip biz and the Solaris biz, and refocus on their strenghts, putting together rock solid hardware and backing it up with second to none service. I wouldn't say Sun is down and out yet, but if they don't stop fighting the commodity components / Linux trend, they are going to eventually follow in SGI's foot steps.
According to a 2001 Gallup poll on the origins of humans, they estimate that 72% of Americans believe in some form of creationism (as defined above). They also estimate that about 45% of Americans concurred with the statement that "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years."
Supporting link, link, and right from the horse's mouth link.
That's a great first step, I'll sneak a peek at it sometime. I'm interested in seeing what msh and a headless LH server provides. The last sticking points are getting rid of drive lettering by default (ie. not using drive map hack), getting rid of "The Registry" (tm), getting rid of hardware fingerprinting, and (cherry on top) tossing in a bundled command line based compiler (anti-trust blah blah). I think what I'm most curious about modifying the registry via a command line, seems like that would be the most un-fun. Could be done using a filesystem like sub-shell though since it's pretty much tree based.
Engineering and manufacturing currently are outsourced and offshored because the US dollar is trash.
This is incorrect, the reason it's outsourced is because the US dollar is artificially high. The US dollar is very slowly being replaced by the Euro as the first tier reserve currency. In combo, the US dollar is also the current world petro-currency. If / when the US dollar is replaced by the Euro as the world petro-currency, the US dollar will devalue much further than it's recent weakening and we'll see an end to outsourcing. The kicker is that as a HEAVILY import dependent country, and a country addicted to low interest rates, there's going to be one hell of a lowering of the standard of living to go with it.
He should have asked what pure *software/services* play has ever blah blah. Intel == hardware, IBM == consulting, Apple == hardware, Sun == hardware, Nvidia == hardware, Dell == hardware. MS has repeatedly said they're not interested in hardware, margins are too small for them. There's a long list of dead software companies who crawled into bed with the beast. The next casualty will be Symantec, and possibly McAfee. The sole successful one I can think of is Intuit, but I'd wager that eventually, their bell will toll as well.
Having lived a bit of everywhere, I'll second your point. There are some mini-silicon valleys, with Cambridge MA, Austin TX, and Raleigh-Durham VA being the most recognizable. However, it's not the same "feel" as on the mid-to-lower peninsula. In SV, you feel like you're in the epicenter of the business. It's EVERYWHERE. Not so in the other mini-SVs. Yeah, you can work in it, but you always fell like an SV outsider and odds are your neighbour doesn't work in tech. On that note, what I really enjoyed about living in SV was the weather, the people are really nice, the environment was exciting, -but- the f-ing traffic was terrible, it's more expensive than Europe, and there was an hour line up at any eatery better than a McDonalds. If you want night life beyond the local pub, you have to drive forever to get to SF and then hunt for one of the 10 parking spots in the entire city. If you show up at a SF club with $100 in your pocket, you're going home with $0 and a looming cheap booze hangover because covers typically run $30 and no-brand well drinks are $10 a pop before tip. Tack on CA income tax (~10%), the fact that you need to be in a 30% tax bracket to live there, insane housing costs, and some of the highest gas prices in the country, and you wind up with a 6 figure salary that gets you a middle of the pack lifestyle at best. If you want to live in Palo Alto, which is REALLY nice, on that money, you're looking at a shoebox apartment. Anyhow, to recap, SV, there's nothing like it -but- that 6 figure job will buy you nothing near the lifestyle you're imagining. Mini-SV, good lifestyle option, but you'll always feel like you're out of the loop.
You did notice that the first time that we attacked Iraq, they complaigned that much of their computer equipment quit working.
Tin hat stuff, if anything, it has all to do with the US bombing out the power grid and telecommunications grid, or, possibly,an EMP device. I'd be extremely surprised, beyond belief even, it there was a remote back door to shut down computers. For the box to be notified to stop working, it would need to get info from the net connection, either via polling or a direct inbound connection. If this functionality existed, it's virtually certain that it would have been picked up in a network log somewhere.
Actually, Verizon does have very limited 3G service right now, a half dozen cities at most. I don't know if they allow access to phones yet, but they do sell access cards for it. It's *supposed* to be nation wide by next year.
What these consoles failed to prove is that a higher price would provide a higher customer experience, a better gaming experience.
Actually, the NeoGeo was MILES ahead of the competition at the time (1992). By far, a superior console. However, nobody was willing to pony up the scratch to purchase one. I rented one with my roommate at the time, and we spent the entire weekend on it, SLEEPLESS, it was that good. However, there was no friggen way I was parting with that kind of money.
As for the PS3, I make a very good living but I'd get KILLED by my sig other, litterally, if I went and spent $600 on a game machine. She'll barely tolerate mid-$300s, but there's something psychological about the $500 price point that makes it a no go, I'd even say $400 is a hella significant barrier. Sony isn't stupid, they'll get the $$$ from the early adopters. But I predict that price can't stick and a big price drop will come through by Feb 1st to put it more in line with the XBox.
Ummm, please, explain how an enterprise software supplier and support orgnization like Novell is not the "best fit" for an enterprise software supplier and support organization like Oracle? Novell has a long history of enterprise level deals, exactly the kind of Linux that Oracle can push to board rooms. Sun's dreaming in techni-color if they think they won't get laughed at the instant they say "Ubuntu". Like it or not, the old school execs in power today know the name Novell. From personal experience, it sells VERY well at the board level.
That aside, I think Sun ***ONLY*** partnered with Ubuntu because Ubuntu isn't (yet) eating Sun's lunch like Red Hat and Novell are. I like Sun, seriously, they've done some great things. However, their current mgmt team really doesn't get "it". I almost never hear of new Sun deployments, certainly not in my org. Which is a crying shame because Sun had (and still does to a large extent) a fantastic reputation. They could easily get back into the game by toasting Solaris and putting some elbow grease into a Linux strategy. We've purchased 12 servers over the past year. About 5 years ago, those would all have been Sun boxes. Now, they're HP Opteron units with Linux on them. Why? Because HP has a committed strategy on a recognizable Linux distros. When I put up HP/Novell vs. Sun/Ubuntu in from of my execs, which do you seriously think they'll sign off on?
As a java programmer myself, I'd say that PART of the problem is that Java is "taught" as both an entry level language and an advanced language. The result is that programmers who shouldn't be programming wind up working in the domain. Let's face it, Java is a VERY forgiving language. You can get away with things in Java that would make a C programmer's head explode. If you've worked in C, you've learned to respect programming techniques. Sadly, Java-only progs who haven't worked in C are "typically" (not all) really sloppy careless programmers. It's the same cruft you see in VB programmers.
Why should he be tried in a country where the crime did not take place?
Be careful with that one. Remember that a lot of things you do on the internet might well be illegal outside the US. If you post an anti-communist comment on a server located in China, should you be tried in China or here in the good old USA? Personally, I think he needs to be tried in the jurisdiction he was physically located, if at all. Doesn't mean I agree with what he did, but I certainly wouldn't want to be shipped off to Russia if I happen to one day log into a government server there for whatever reason.
"... unless those FOSS projects are using that commie bastard cancerous GNU GPL license. Great, now you've gone and made me say GNU. ARGH! I said GNU again!"
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Microsoft will eventually lose their OS and Office monopolies. They'll fight it tooth and nail, but it's inevitable. I'm not 100% sure what will eventually topple them, but Linux and OpenOffice are my bets. There's just too much momentum behind both. 5 years ago, Linux on a tech resume was rare. These days, I'd say 80% of tech resumes I see have that skill. Also, OO 2.0 is a quantum leap from OO 1.x in terms of reliability and speed. Mix in a strong anti-MS sentiment outside of the US, and increasing 3rd party app support, and you've got all the elements of a downfall in the making.
To your defence, GAIM does rock the house. I tried Kopete for a while but came right back to GAIM specifically because they aren't so Trillian-esque.
Also debugging more than a few lines of assembler code is a f-ing nightmare. The again, I've never gotten a kernel patch accepted, so, maybe I'm just skilled enough! ;)
I suspect they'll go through something like IBM did in the 90s
Agreed, with a twist. IBM thought of itself as a hardware company, when the market decided they could do without IBM hardware and killed that cash cow, they reinvented into a services company. MS thinks of itself as a software, the market is learning they can do without MS software and will eventually kill that cash cow, so what will MS reinvent themselves as? It's gonna get really ugly for them before it gets better -but- that change is gonna happen, whether they like it or not.
linux:~/google-earth> ldd googleearth-bin
./libcomponent.so (0xb7f50000)
./libfusion.so (0xb7f4b000)
./libgeobase.so (0xb7cee000)
./libmath.so (0xb7ce0000)
./libwmsbase.so (0xb7c92000)
./libnet.so (0xb7c62000)
./libcollada.so (0xb79b7000)
./libbase.so (0xb793a000)
./libgoogleearth.so (0xb780e000) /usr/lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.8 (0xb76e8000) /usr/lib/libcurl.so.3 (0xb76b4000) /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0xb7691000) /usr/lib/libGLU.so.1 (0xb761a000) /usr/lib/libjpeg.so.62 (0xb75fb000) /usr/lib/libmng.so.1 (0xb758b000) /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 (0xb754c000) /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3 (0xb6e64000) /usr/lib/libqui.so.1 (0xb6e31000) /usr/lib/libssl.so.0.9.8 (0xb6df3000) /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 (0xb6d13000) /usr/lib/libtiff.so.3 (0xb6cc0000) /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0xb6cae000)
./libIGCore.so (0xb6bc1000)
./libIGGfx.so (0xb6b05000)
./libIGAttrs.so (0xb6aad000)
./libIGDisplay.so (0xb6a9b000)
./libIGGui.so (0xb6a5e000)
./libIGSg.so (0xb695d000)
./libIGCollision.so (0xb694f000)
./libIGMath.so (0xb690a000)
./libIGUtils.so (0xb68e7000)
./libIGOpt.so (0xb681a000)
./libIGExportCommon.so (0xb6799000)
./libcommon.so (0xb66f5000)
./librender.so (0xb665b000)
./libauth.so (0xb65bd000)
./libframework.so (0xb656c000) /lib/libm.so.6 (0xb6547000) /lib/libc.so.6 (0xb6427000) /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0xb6412000) /lib/libdl.so.2 (0xb640e000) /usr/lib/libidn.so.11 (0xb63de000) /usr/lib/fglrx/lib/libGL.so.1 (0xb633e000) /usr/lib/liblcms.so.1 (0x
linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000)
libcrypto.so.0.9.8 =>
libcurl.so.3 =>
libfreeimage.so.3 => not found
libgcc_s.so.1 =>
libGLU.so.1 =>
libjpeg.so.62 =>
libmng.so.1 =>
libpng12.so.0 =>
libqt-mt.so.3 =>
libqui.so.1 =>
libssl.so.0.9.8 =>
libstdc++.so.6 =>
libtiff.so.3 =>
libz.so.1 =>
libm.so.6 =>
libc.so.6 =>
libpthread.so.0 =>
libdl.so.2 =>
libidn.so.11 =>
libGL.so.1 =>
liblcms.so.1 =>
You trade off some ... eye candy
... assuming your vid card supports it (see Vista for details).
Try XGL out, you can actually trade UP in eye candy by moving to Linux
Now, seriously, how do I get this food I just spit while laughing out of my keyboard?
There are operating systems that can protect against that threat. They're not mainstream in design, and neither Linux nor OS X is among them.
/etc/init.d. Lasty, because Linux distros ship with all the software users are likely to use on the media and user data is isolated in /home, odds are users will do fresh installs, destroying the malware, rather than upgrade. Of the Win/Lin/OSX trio, Linux is going to be by far the most resistent to recurring persistent infections because it's not a homogenous playground like Win or OSX. Now, to play devil's advocate, a nasty written in a common interpreted language, to eliminate lib/compilation dependencies, nestled in .kde/Auostart or .gnome/session-manual would be pretty tough for Joe Sixpack to detect.
Examples? I'd really like to see scum-ware persistently infect a RAM based PuppyLinux runtime. On that note, users are going to download crap, it's what users do. However, the scum-ware author ***KNOWS*** the OS layout for Win/OS-X, there's little flexibility, they can be 99% certain when estimating the fs/lib layout that what they need is there. On Linux, that's a much trickier proposition. First, there are a many Linux distros, each with differing fs/lib layouts, nothing can be taken for granted. Second, there is no centralized binary only registry to hide in, it's much easier to find the malware attempting to hide in plain view in
For laptops, SuSE 10.1 is the most complete Linux distro hands down. If you have an ATI or nVidia chip, the Xgl desktop is simply an amazing piece of eye candy that puts anything you've seen on Windows to shame. On that note, if it's a small footprint and performance you're looking for, PuppyLinux 2.0 on 256M of DDR can't be beat but at the cost of looking a bit Win2K-ish. If you're a Linux newbie or want all the bells and whistles, go SuSE. If you want raw speed at the cost of some creature comforts and have played with Linux before, go Puppy.
Per minute that might be medium installation, large ISP installations are gauged in emails *per second*. If these shops had only had 75 emails per second (4500/min), the admins would be freaking out wondering what part of the system had gone down.
From personal experience, we *used* to buy Sun because they had top notch hardware (E450 being the glaring exception ... POS) and top notch service. Solaris never factored into our equation. Like I've said repeatedly, kill that sick Solaris horse, it's time has come and gone, hanging on to it will only serve to sink the ship. The market wants Linux, in fact it's been a few YEARS since we looked at Solaris in our stack, at least in house. Sun needs to dump Solaris, and make a firm stand behind Linux. Sadly, I think that by open sourcing Solaris, they somehow think this will make it more competitive with Linux, hopefully the new CEO understands that the market doesn't want OpenSolaris, that stategy is about 7 years too late. I'd like to be able to source mid range x86 hardware from Sun. Their Fire X line is good, but it's tough to sell Sun and Linux on a project, unlike HP or IBM with Linux.
Here here ... I'll second that! Now that McNealy is no longer running the show, maybe Schwartz will finally do things right. Reality is that Sun put a toe in the Linux waters, got scared, and ran away. Meanwhile, that gave the competition a chance to build up their Linux offerings and eat Sun's lunch. They might not have wanted to compete with their Sparc biz, but the competition sure didn't hesistate to it for them. They need to ditch the chip biz and the Solaris biz, and refocus on their strenghts, putting together rock solid hardware and backing it up with second to none service. I wouldn't say Sun is down and out yet, but if they don't stop fighting the commodity components / Linux trend, they are going to eventually follow in SGI's foot steps.
I sort of agree with you. I'd like Novell to put out something like an official SLICK which would be optimized for GUI-less implementations and built to run in the smallest footprint possible (ie. less than 50M). If it was included as an option in the stock SuSE, then wow. Now, as for spending 2-3 hours running rpm -ev / yast pulling packages from SLES to make it usable, somehting isn't right there. First off, you should have setup a test server to determine your needs. Once that's done, create an AutoYast install script (think RH KickStart) to do your production installs (eg. yast2 autoyast). Second, even if unneeded pacakges are installed, you can easily disable the cruft services you don't need in Yast->System->Services, I'd guess in under 5 minutes start to finish.
According to a 2001 Gallup poll on the origins of humans, they estimate that 72% of Americans believe in some form of creationism (as defined above). They also estimate that about 45% of Americans concurred with the statement that "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years."
Supporting link, link, and right from the horse's mouth link.
That's a great first step, I'll sneak a peek at it sometime. I'm interested in seeing what msh and a headless LH server provides. The last sticking points are getting rid of drive lettering by default (ie. not using drive map hack), getting rid of "The Registry" (tm), getting rid of hardware fingerprinting, and (cherry on top) tossing in a bundled command line based compiler (anti-trust blah blah). I think what I'm most curious about modifying the registry via a command line, seems like that would be the most un-fun. Could be done using a filesystem like sub-shell though since it's pretty much tree based.
Engineering and manufacturing currently are outsourced and offshored because the US dollar is trash.
This is incorrect, the reason it's outsourced is because the US dollar is artificially high. The US dollar is very slowly being replaced by the Euro as the first tier reserve currency. In combo, the US dollar is also the current world petro-currency. If / when the US dollar is replaced by the Euro as the world petro-currency, the US dollar will devalue much further than it's recent weakening and we'll see an end to outsourcing. The kicker is that as a HEAVILY import dependent country, and a country addicted to low interest rates, there's going to be one hell of a lowering of the standard of living to go with it.
He should have asked what pure *software/services* play has ever blah blah. Intel == hardware, IBM == consulting, Apple == hardware, Sun == hardware, Nvidia == hardware, Dell == hardware. MS has repeatedly said they're not interested in hardware, margins are too small for them. There's a long list of dead software companies who crawled into bed with the beast. The next casualty will be Symantec, and possibly McAfee. The sole successful one I can think of is Intuit, but I'd wager that eventually, their bell will toll as well.
Having lived a bit of everywhere, I'll second your point. There are some mini-silicon valleys, with Cambridge MA, Austin TX, and Raleigh-Durham VA being the most recognizable. However, it's not the same "feel" as on the mid-to-lower peninsula. In SV, you feel like you're in the epicenter of the business. It's EVERYWHERE. Not so in the other mini-SVs. Yeah, you can work in it, but you always fell like an SV outsider and odds are your neighbour doesn't work in tech. On that note, what I really enjoyed about living in SV was the weather, the people are really nice, the environment was exciting, -but- the f-ing traffic was terrible, it's more expensive than Europe, and there was an hour line up at any eatery better than a McDonalds. If you want night life beyond the local pub, you have to drive forever to get to SF and then hunt for one of the 10 parking spots in the entire city. If you show up at a SF club with $100 in your pocket, you're going home with $0 and a looming cheap booze hangover because covers typically run $30 and no-brand well drinks are $10 a pop before tip. Tack on CA income tax (~10%), the fact that you need to be in a 30% tax bracket to live there, insane housing costs, and some of the highest gas prices in the country, and you wind up with a 6 figure salary that gets you a middle of the pack lifestyle at best. If you want to live in Palo Alto, which is REALLY nice, on that money, you're looking at a shoebox apartment. Anyhow, to recap, SV, there's nothing like it -but- that 6 figure job will buy you nothing near the lifestyle you're imagining. Mini-SV, good lifestyle option, but you'll always feel like you're out of the loop.
You did notice that the first time that we attacked Iraq, they complaigned that much of their computer equipment quit working.
,an EMP device. I'd be extremely surprised, beyond belief even, it there was a remote back door to shut down computers. For the box to be notified to stop working, it would need to get info from the net connection, either via polling or a direct inbound connection. If this functionality existed, it's virtually certain that it would have been picked up in a network log somewhere.
Tin hat stuff, if anything, it has all to do with the US bombing out the power grid and telecommunications grid, or, possibly
Actually, Verizon does have very limited 3G service right now, a half dozen cities at most. I don't know if they allow access to phones yet, but they do sell access cards for it. It's *supposed* to be nation wide by next year.
What these consoles failed to prove is that a higher price would provide a higher customer experience, a better gaming experience.
Actually, the NeoGeo was MILES ahead of the competition at the time (1992). By far, a superior console. However, nobody was willing to pony up the scratch to purchase one. I rented one with my roommate at the time, and we spent the entire weekend on it, SLEEPLESS, it was that good. However, there was no friggen way I was parting with that kind of money.
As for the PS3, I make a very good living but I'd get KILLED by my sig other, litterally, if I went and spent $600 on a game machine. She'll barely tolerate mid-$300s, but there's something psychological about the $500 price point that makes it a no go, I'd even say $400 is a hella significant barrier. Sony isn't stupid, they'll get the $$$ from the early adopters. But I predict that price can't stick and a big price drop will come through by Feb 1st to put it more in line with the XBox.
Ummm, please, explain how an enterprise software supplier and support orgnization like Novell is not the "best fit" for an enterprise software supplier and support organization like Oracle? Novell has a long history of enterprise level deals, exactly the kind of Linux that Oracle can push to board rooms. Sun's dreaming in techni-color if they think they won't get laughed at the instant they say "Ubuntu". Like it or not, the old school execs in power today know the name Novell. From personal experience, it sells VERY well at the board level.
That aside, I think Sun ***ONLY*** partnered with Ubuntu because Ubuntu isn't (yet) eating Sun's lunch like Red Hat and Novell are. I like Sun, seriously, they've done some great things. However, their current mgmt team really doesn't get "it". I almost never hear of new Sun deployments, certainly not in my org. Which is a crying shame because Sun had (and still does to a large extent) a fantastic reputation. They could easily get back into the game by toasting Solaris and putting some elbow grease into a Linux strategy. We've purchased 12 servers over the past year. About 5 years ago, those would all have been Sun boxes. Now, they're HP Opteron units with Linux on them. Why? Because HP has a committed strategy on a recognizable Linux distros. When I put up HP/Novell vs. Sun/Ubuntu in from of my execs, which do you seriously think they'll sign off on?
As a java programmer myself, I'd say that PART of the problem is that Java is "taught" as both an entry level language and an advanced language. The result is that programmers who shouldn't be programming wind up working in the domain. Let's face it, Java is a VERY forgiving language. You can get away with things in Java that would make a C programmer's head explode. If you've worked in C, you've learned to respect programming techniques. Sadly, Java-only progs who haven't worked in C are "typically" (not all) really sloppy careless programmers. It's the same cruft you see in VB programmers.
Why should he be tried in a country where the crime did not take place?
Be careful with that one. Remember that a lot of things you do on the internet might well be illegal outside the US. If you post an anti-communist comment on a server located in China, should you be tried in China or here in the good old USA? Personally, I think he needs to be tried in the jurisdiction he was physically located, if at all. Doesn't mean I agree with what he did, but I certainly wouldn't want to be shipped off to Russia if I happen to one day log into a government server there for whatever reason.
The ending of that quote is missing, here it is:
"... unless those FOSS projects are using that commie bastard cancerous GNU GPL license. Great, now you've gone and made me say GNU. ARGH! I said GNU again!"
It's humor people!