It is the very nature of freedom that individuals and companies may not always act in ways that you or I consider fair, or even ethical. Freedom always comes with this price, whether it be the tradeoffs inherent in choosing individual freedoms over societies security from 'terrorism' or in the ways we distrubute products.
In this case, XYZ has unquestionably acted poorly, however they have not violated any laws, and ultimately succumbed to competitive pressures which, in the end resulted in a more popular product being embraced by the customers of QRS.
Such is the life cycle of all things, companies live and die, as do software projects.
One could just as easily argue that XYZ would contribute back to the project, creating a better product for all. The license by which code is distributed will not stop a company that is bound and determined to act improperly. Clearly your example is an extreme case based upon the actions of a certain company that we both know. But there are plenty of examples of companies with proprietary products that give back to their 'communities'. I appreciate the thought of your argument, however, I remain unswayed.
Finally, make no mistake, as a believer in an author's rights to decide the fate of their works, I fully support a decision to release code under the GPL, it is the invocation of the concept of 'freedom' made by this license that I take exception to, not the individual authors right to further their beliefs in the way that they license their own work.
"A thought or idea represented as 1s and 0s on a computer networked on the Internet. I'm assuming the transfer of that thought or idea into 1s and 0s has already been compensated for."
Aha! Now I see where you are taking this.
If the 1s and 0s represent a single, one-time expression of thought, for which the original author and related parties has already been fairly compensated, and for which the original author or other owner has no further intention of enhancing, perfecting or responding to feedback on, then I might see your point.
An example of this is the ROMs from some of my favorite games from the early 80's (yes I'm old). The copyright owners will not sell then, nor do they maintain them, yet I am not allowed to use them legally. I find this behavior quite unfair (I usually reserve 'ethics' for situations with greater human import).
On the other hand, I am currently employed by a software maker that engages in the business of selling licenses to its proprietary product line. In exchange for cash, our customers obtain software which performs the desired funtion, as well as fixes and certain point-enhancements, and personal service and support. each party is bound to certain obligations which each has mutually agreed to. This arrangement is completely ethical. Only if the arrangement is not mutual, for example, if one party is coerced or otherwise forced into agreement, would a discussion of 'ethics' even be appropriate.
Now if the 1s and 0s represent a formula for a life-saving drug owned by a pharmacuetical company which has already recouped its R&D costs plus a reasonable profit margin... Hmnn... There's some territory for the ethics discussion.
OK, I'll bite, but I swear, after this last one, I gotta go back to work!
Assuming there is such a thing as a limitless resource, it is NOT ethical to impose a limit on it to make a buck. This would explain why I am allowed to breath without charge.
However, I challenge you to provide examples of resources similar to air, that would be perceived as 'limitless'. Careful! One might suggest water, but what about the construction of mains and other infrastructure for delivering water? It is ethical for providers of such infrastructure to recoup their costs. If the entity is a commercial enterprise, a reasonalbe profit for their efforts is ethical as well.
Note, I do believe that various governemnt and provate entities abuse this philosophy and charge too much, but that is the topic of yet another thread.
This thread speaks to a deeper issue that I would love to see discussed in greater detail.
Specifically, it appears that many of the most vocal proponents of free-software have already made their money, and have acheived a certain amount of financial freedom. It is much easier to make simple black and white statements about freedom, software, or anything else, when you have been freed from the responsibily to provide for yourself and your family.
There are a large number of technical people who derrive income from entities that produce proprietary products. I count myself as one. Somehow, it just seems more important to me to feed my children than to subscribe to Stallman's world view. Does that make me evil?
Come on, we're talking software here, how exactly is this tied in with the greater good of humanity? If I discovered my company was murdering people, I'd quit and go to the authorities. But since they're not, I'll take my check please.
"The open source community is much better off gaining credibility and notoriety by making better software and being an inclusive place where developers and tinkerers hone their craft than by suggesting non-free software is immoral."
...And this can happen quite easily, as more developers and managers realize that open-source and free-software are not bound at the hip.
I think many would agree that open-source can be an extremely effective development methodology - I have benefitted both personally and professionally from it, on a 'binary' level, as well as from the freedom to interact with other developers, many more talented than myself, thus learning along the way.
But it is not the panacea for all software development, there continues to be a place for proprietary projects. I have to believe this for now, because in my reality, much of my income is derrived from such projects. The true benefit of the more visible products of open-source, Linux, as well as various web and application servers, database servers, and the myriad supporting libraries available, is the formation of a core platform. This platform has and will continue to become a standard upon which other purpose-specific applications may be developed. Having such a common, mature, and well-tested platform is an amazing accomplishment that speeds the development of everything built upon it, but these purpose-specific applications (business/accounting software, scientific packages, art/music packages, etc.) will, for the near term, continue to benefit from their commercial nature.
I also find a core hypocracy in the view of 'free-software' as delimited by the GPL. One that, for me at least, colors Stallman's whole movement as something of a religion. I refer specifically to the requirement that derrivative works must also be released under the GPL. While I personally, on a moral and ethical level, support contributing back any and all modifications to open-source works, is making it mandatory actually free as in freedom? Or is it merely an attempt to make software free as in beer?
To me, this aspect of the GPL is as if the US Constitution's first amendment was rewritten to establish freedom of religion, so long as the religion is Christian. It gives you wide-latitude, yet still constrains you to a 'sandbox' of known proportions.
The argument for this element of the GPL is that it maintains the freedom of the code, barring it from ever being 'closed' -- but this argument is false. Once released, code cannot be 'closed'. Sure it can be used by people or businesses that you don't like, and hidden from the view of those business' customers. But it cannot be magically erased from the brains of those that have seen it, nor can the rights of the original authors be magically erased somehow (at least under current copyright). Further, the continued use of BSD-licensed, Apache-licensed, and other similar licensed code in both open and closed projects shows that licenses granting 'absolute' freedom of use do work.
I can only conclude that the purpose of the GPL is to further an agenda to which I do not subscribe.
And so in my pesonal and professional life, I make a clean separation between open-source, which I firmly beleive is a proven and tested methodolgy and a genuine social phenomenon, and 'free-software', which for me can only be defined by the absoute freedom to do anything you want with the code, and not by the current definitions of the 'movement'.
First, do you have proof that OS X has significantly less 'substance' than Linux? Or is this just an opinion. Let's assume for a moment that I'm not just feeding a troll here.
Linux is a tool, OS X is a tool, some people prefer one, some another. If the number of people preferring OS X begins to outstrip those preferring Linux, then the Linux community has two choices:
It could pull a microsoft, wring its hands, and decry Apple as anti-choice and un-american, or...
It could stop bashing for just one second, examine what is being done that is good and innovative, evaluate why people are making the choices they are, and then compete, hopefully building a better Linux along the way.
First off, don't get me wrong, I actually agree with everything you've said, I would love to have this level of concentration available to me daily -- others have posted this sentiment, but every time I read it I find myself thinking, what would the average PHB think, and it goes something like this:
Question: Financial implications aside, what is the difference between a tech guy in my office who I can only communicate with peridodically, usually via email, and rarely ever see; And some coder working for an Indian mega-consultancy in a cube in Bangalore.
Answer: Not a damn thing...
Companies are groups of people working together for a common purpose, hell its why they're called a 'company'. For better or worse, they have eveolved into very social entities, with all the benefits and problems that entails.
One clear advantage the average local geek has over his outsourced counterpart is that he can be reachable, responsive, even friendly. I've played that card extensively over the last couple years, sure I get interrupted alot, but I've never been outsourced.
Respectfully, I believe there is no need for your server to have the same architecture as your clients.
I and several others here use PowerBooks running OS X in our development work, then stage and run the apps on a Redhat server, which we admin via ssh.
If your point was that existing PC owners wouldn't have to switch architectures for home use, that's fine -- but I agree with the original poster that its just plain irresponsible of Redhat to cede the desktop publicly to Microsoft - when there ARE alternatives.
In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up.
My thoughts exactly, I'm a bit disturbed by this push towards voice interfaces in the industry? Not that the technology isn't cool, and useful in some situations, but is it a practical way of interacting with your device in a public setting?
There are already rules that limit cell phone use in various public places (including the ferry on which I commute to work), precisely because it is damned annoying to hear people yacking all the time!
I know that if I'm at work trying to solve a particularly sticky problem - I'm not going to enjoy listening to the guy next door chatting with his workstation -- I'll probably throw something over the cube wall at him.
One poster mentioned using it to interact with your device in the car -- I suppose this is better than driving and typing, but its still distracted driving, and therefore dangerous. The one interesting case is if you're home alone, or in a place where there's no one else around who'll be disturbed. But that seems to really limit the usefulness of the technology.
Just a quick note to add that I too have Steve Krug's "Don't make me think" on my top shelf. This book is about sensible web design, but many of it's principles, including the concepts of "Usability Testing on 10 cents a Day" apply to any GUI design project.
As a side note, my whole career I've pretty much specialized in putting GUIs on things -- I haven't stopped laughing at some of the posts in this thread since I started reading it -- If the sum of slashdot posts is any indication, GUI design is really totally misunderstood by the average developer.
I've worked with three companies since about '96 -- both as employer and employee, and found them to be extremely diligent. Most recently I landed an extremely good full time position at an excellent salary doing work on an interesting project. The recruiter who placed me still checks in occasionally with me and others she's placed at this company.
I am certain their are incompetent, and sometimes even deceitful recruiters out there, just as there are bad people in any field, luckily I haven't been hooked by one.
In the boom times of the late nineties, recruiters were everyone's buddies, often landing job-switchers with plum assignments at higher salaries. In the bust, even the good ones have got a bad rap - not returning emails and calls, failing to respond to resumes and correspondence, etc.
But look, IT recruiting is affected as much by the current economic cycle as developers, sysadmins, projects managers, and the rest.
At least one of the good ones I've worked with has switched careers, as business dried up. Others still have to sift through hundreds of resumes, emails, calls, and match those to a dwindling number of opportunities. It's only marginally easier to get a recruiters attention than a prospective employers these days, so how about this:
Practice selling yourself like the valuable resource you are. Here are some things that worked for me:
Really think about your resume, don't just slap it together, and don't forget that formatting counts. Get some help from someone more experienced if you need to.
Don't just fire off blind emails - whether to employers or recruiters, tailor your email to the person/position of interest. Where possible, follow up with a snail-mail letter and hard-copy of your resume.
If a phone number is provided, wait a while for your email to get in, then follow up with a call - if you can a message system, leave your full name, the position of interest, and your phone number. Take time to express some genuine interest, even if just on the recording.
If you have experience, compile a portfolio, include a brief description of the projects you've worked on, what technologies were employed, and some personal touches like why they were of interest to you, or what provided motivation for particular design-choices. If you have screen-shots, even better, put 'em with the write-ups.
Place your portfolio, resume, and a skills summary on the web in an attractive format and include the URL in all your correspondence.
One more thing: Have trouble in social situations, expressing yourself to non-tech people, public-speaking? No matter, so do a lot of people, you're not alone. You can either change or expect that IT people with those skills may beat you out of opportunities. Take a public-speaking or debate course at a community college and practice. If you find yourself calling end-users 'lusers', think GUIs are for wimps, or get impatient with your grandma 'cause she can't ssh into your linux box, you need to pay close attention to what I've just said.
None of this will gurantee you'll always find honest, helpful recruiters, but at least you'll get their attention, if they're out there.
Statistics, and the lying liars who make them up
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The Bionic Office
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· Score: 1
Further confusing the analysis is the fact that Fog Creek does VB, the most hated language on/. Therefore, does that mean that Joel is drawing his super-elite developers from the pool at the bottom-of-the-barrel 88% ??
It doesn't matter that people are reluctant to use MACs -- I mean, really, as soon as they fire up any network enabled PC, they're gonna be using a MAC, it is, after all, part of how network adapters work isn't it? And I'm surprised you're talking about them this way, I mean it's pretty nerdy to even know what a Media Access Control address is, and you seem to discuss them with such authority.
Oh, wait a minute, were you talking about Macs, as in the 'Macintosh' computer manufactured by Apple?
Hey - not here to argue with your point, sure there's all kinds of people who read/. -- I for one think that's fine, it's grown far too big over the years to be a clique.
But I've seen this linux-centric nonsense far too many times over the years to just let it go anymore. This site is, was, and will probably remain "News for Nerds" -- just look at the topics on any given day: Space travel, physics, electronics, games, books, current events, political debate, legal issues, coverage of all computer platforms. WTF is linux-centric about all that?
Granted, it is easy to mistake the sites, and its readerships pro-free-software stance for "linux-centric-ness", but sorry, you don't have to subscribe to any particular philosophy (or OS) to get a huge amount of entertaining, and sometimes even useful info here.
Thing one: I've already been bitch-slapped for my poor choice of words on that comment, so before kicking a guy who's already clarified his position, perhaps you ought to read the whole thread.
Thing two: you have no idea what attitude I'm trying to put forth: As someone who switched from Windows to OS X 20 months ago, I am well aware that familiarity is not usability, in fact usability can and does win out over familiarity. I'm living proof.
However, down here in the real world, you can't just toss out a users years of learned behaviors for the sake of pursuing some academic vision of perfection. If we all had the attitude you put forth, the menus on our apps wouldn't all start with FILE - EDIT.
Although in fairness (to me), you've paraphrased away the meaning of what I was trying to say, which was originally:
"rank-and-file users don't want to learn a new, unfamiliar app to do a task they feel they already know how to do"
Perhaps my choice of words was poor, it was never my intention to suggest that users never want to learn anything new.
My statement needs correction, it should say that most users will not accept an alternative with dramatically different interfaces and levels of functionality, when they already feel they have the tools to perform the task.
It also occurs to me that 'rank-and-file' users are less likely equate finding alternative software packages with 'Freedom', the way you and I might. Frankly, I wouldn't imagine them caring much, as long as they get their task done.
Once again, this is fine, not everyone can be an expert, and there are usually many tools for any given task. Why do we as individuals, seem so intent on converting others to our beliefs? Whether it be religion, or choice of OS, the scenario plays out over and over.
I had to chisel the packets into stone tablets, then carry them one-by-one, back-and-forth, through fields of knee-deep snow on the back of an angry, flatulant ox.
Your point extends far beyond manufacturing packages. The "Gimp is as good as Photoshop" and similar rhetoric shows how far there is yet to go in the realm of apps.
In fact, I'd say that the recent offering from Redhat and others have taken dramatic steps in easing the issues that this article sees as so important. The desktop environment installed by default on these recent distributions is likely to seem very usable indeed to any reasonable person. In my opinion, the consistent GUI has arrived, sure more work needs to be done, but the framework is there.
The problem, as you've put so well, is that people become tied to the apps they use. What they use at work becomes what they want at home. It always seems to surprise the average geeks that rank-and-file users don't want to learn a new, unfamiliar app to do a task they feel they already know how to do, and as one who focuses on usability and GUI design, I say why should they?
Until that singular arrogance on the part of many Linux advocates (even some, dare I say, who read Slashdot) can be done away with, until more people are willing to scream "the emperor has no clothes!" Linux on consumer and (as you point out), many business desktops, is doomed to lag behind.
'cause I'm just itching to steal all the great GPL'd code I play with in my off-hours, pack it into closed source commercial products and sell, sell, sell!
Which, of course, would be 100% legal if there were no intellectual property laws.
Old Chinese proverb: "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."
While I agree that 'inside jobs' , which are more common of a crime, are less newsworthy, this still should concern all of us. The problem here is not that some jerk might buy a bunch of stuff with our credit cards - as you have said, we're mostly protected on all but $50 or so from that sort of crime, the real problem is identitiy theft.
If this database had sufficient information (and note it was mentioned they served credit bureaus) this is a real problem. Now the jerk is actually using my data to borrow money, make purchases, enter into contracts, etc.
The ultimate problem here is not the financial burden, since you would probably not have to pay for the fraudulent activity, but the horror of trying to reassemble your good credit with multiple agencies including credit bureaus, collectiona agencies, banks, etc. All of which are notoriously slow in correcting errors in their records.
The corollary to this is that I have known many exceptional programmers, possibly even brilliant ones. The types whose algorithms flowed unflawed from their fingertips, and whose knowledge of the systems and software involved were deeper than mine ever will be, but who could never possess the interpersonal skills and level of patience required to support an unsophisticated client base.
This career path is decidedly not for everyone.
Re:Drop-in replacement?
on
Opengroupware
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I've been looking for a spot to shout "The emperor has no clothes!" This post seemed appropriate in that I was able to view the site, and read the FAQ. And while I applaud this effort and wish it every success, this is NOT an Exchange Take-out... Yet.
Every place I've ever worked for the past 6 years has had an Exchange server, and at each company, the email and calendaring features were the most used. I am no fan of Exchange, or any MS product, but Exchange does provide a certain baseline of service, right out of the box, which take relatively little experience to get running (if we ignore security concerns in our example).
This product requires the installation and configuration of a separate email server, and client connectors for Outlook. Sounds like a bit of work to me, just to get the integrated email and calendar provided by Exchange. I know most mid-sized companies would love to get off the MS-license-treadmill, but they're not gonna trash their business or hire new staff to do it.
In my opinion, you've hit the nail on the head with your comment. If you want to take out Exchange, you have to provide everything in a single, nearly brain-dead install, as well as provide migration paths for ALL of the current Excange data, plus turn-key client support. What I've read of this project indicates that this is not the case. In sum, this may be a very handy groupware server, with capabilities beyond Exchanges, but it isn't yet the David that will remove Goliath!
Thanks for the hearty guffaw. And don't pay any attention to the negative posts by kiddies who've obviously not actually been employed in the 'real world'.
The scary part is, I once worked for a guy who sounded exactly like this! Except that he was serious and had no idea what an idiot he sounded like.
" It's a lot easier to sell 1000 copies of something for $50 (or even $500) than it is to sell a $50000 program."
Dude! You may be lucky enough to have figured a way to eek out a living this way, but it's the exception, not the norm. The companies you mentioned are huge, they spend more in a week trying to get their message to SOHO customers than you earn in a year!
When I read the quote above, I heard myself about three years ago. A guy came to me with a great idea for a $50 product. We spent about six months building it, put up a business around it, raised a little cash, got written up in Business Week, got a five star review from PC Magazine, and...
...Still couldn't sell enough to make a living. Out of business in two years. Now I make a tidy living in corporate America, writing code for a company whose products start at $50,000 a pop.
When I go out on my own again, that's the model I will follow. The low-end is owned by the big-boys with the big marketing budgets, if your ambition is to build a software business that generates life-altering wealth, not just a one-man consultancy (not that there's a single thing wrong with that), big-business is the only market that small companies can reach with any hope for sustaining themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
It is the very nature of freedom that individuals and companies may not always act in ways that you or I consider fair, or even ethical. Freedom always comes with this price, whether it be the tradeoffs inherent in choosing individual freedoms over societies security from 'terrorism' or in the ways we distrubute products.
In this case, XYZ has unquestionably acted poorly, however they have not violated any laws, and ultimately succumbed to competitive pressures which, in the end resulted in a more popular product being embraced by the customers of QRS.
Such is the life cycle of all things, companies live and die, as do software projects.
One could just as easily argue that XYZ would contribute back to the project, creating a better product for all. The license by which code is distributed will not stop a company that is bound and determined to act improperly. Clearly your example is an extreme case based upon the actions of a certain company that we both know. But there are plenty of examples of companies with proprietary products that give back to their 'communities'. I appreciate the thought of your argument, however, I remain unswayed.
Finally, make no mistake, as a believer in an author's rights to decide the fate of their works, I fully support a decision to release code under the GPL, it is the invocation of the concept of 'freedom' made by this license that I take exception to, not the individual authors right to further their beliefs in the way that they license their own work.
"A thought or idea represented as 1s and 0s on a computer networked on the Internet. I'm assuming the transfer of that thought or idea into 1s and 0s has already been compensated for."
Aha! Now I see where you are taking this.
If the 1s and 0s represent a single, one-time expression of thought, for which the original author and related parties has already been fairly compensated, and for which the original author or other owner has no further intention of enhancing, perfecting or responding to feedback on, then I might see your point.
An example of this is the ROMs from some of my favorite games from the early 80's (yes I'm old). The copyright owners will not sell then, nor do they maintain them, yet I am not allowed to use them legally. I find this behavior quite unfair (I usually reserve 'ethics' for situations with greater human import).
On the other hand, I am currently employed by a software maker that engages in the business of selling licenses to its proprietary product line. In exchange for cash, our customers obtain software which performs the desired funtion, as well as fixes and certain point-enhancements, and personal service and support. each party is bound to certain obligations which each has mutually agreed to. This arrangement is completely ethical. Only if the arrangement is not mutual, for example, if one party is coerced or otherwise forced into agreement, would a discussion of 'ethics' even be appropriate.
Now if the 1s and 0s represent a formula for a life-saving drug owned by a pharmacuetical company which has already recouped its R&D costs plus a reasonable profit margin... Hmnn... There's some territory for the ethics discussion.
OK, I'll bite, but I swear, after this last one, I gotta go back to work! Assuming there is such a thing as a limitless resource, it is NOT ethical to impose a limit on it to make a buck. This would explain why I am allowed to breath without charge. However, I challenge you to provide examples of resources similar to air, that would be perceived as 'limitless'. Careful! One might suggest water, but what about the construction of mains and other infrastructure for delivering water? It is ethical for providers of such infrastructure to recoup their costs. If the entity is a commercial enterprise, a reasonalbe profit for their efforts is ethical as well. Note, I do believe that various governemnt and provate entities abuse this philosophy and charge too much, but that is the topic of yet another thread.
This thread speaks to a deeper issue that I would love to see discussed in greater detail.
Specifically, it appears that many of the most vocal proponents of free-software have already made their money, and have acheived a certain amount of financial freedom. It is much easier to make simple black and white statements about freedom, software, or anything else, when you have been freed from the responsibily to provide for yourself and your family.
There are a large number of technical people who derrive income from entities that produce proprietary products. I count myself as one. Somehow, it just seems more important to me to feed my children than to subscribe to Stallman's world view. Does that make me evil?
Come on, we're talking software here, how exactly is this tied in with the greater good of humanity? If I discovered my company was murdering people, I'd quit and go to the authorities. But since they're not, I'll take my check please.
"The open source community is much better off gaining credibility and notoriety by making better software and being an inclusive place where developers and tinkerers hone their craft than by suggesting non-free software is immoral."
...And this can happen quite easily, as more developers and managers realize that open-source and free-software are not bound at the hip.
I think many would agree that open-source can be an extremely effective development methodology - I have benefitted both personally and professionally from it, on a 'binary' level, as well as from the freedom to interact with other developers, many more talented than myself, thus learning along the way.
But it is not the panacea for all software development, there continues to be a place for proprietary projects. I have to believe this for now, because in my reality, much of my income is derrived from such projects. The true benefit of the more visible products of open-source, Linux, as well as various web and application servers, database servers, and the myriad supporting libraries available, is the formation of a core platform. This platform has and will continue to become a standard upon which other purpose-specific applications may be developed. Having such a common, mature, and well-tested platform is an amazing accomplishment that speeds the development of everything built upon it, but these purpose-specific applications (business/accounting software, scientific packages, art/music packages, etc.) will, for the near term, continue to benefit from their commercial nature.
I also find a core hypocracy in the view of 'free-software' as delimited by the GPL. One that, for me at least, colors Stallman's whole movement as something of a religion. I refer specifically to the requirement that derrivative works must also be released under the GPL. While I personally, on a moral and ethical level, support contributing back any and all modifications to open-source works, is making it mandatory actually free as in freedom? Or is it merely an attempt to make software free as in beer?
To me, this aspect of the GPL is as if the US Constitution's first amendment was rewritten to establish freedom of religion, so long as the religion is Christian. It gives you wide-latitude, yet still constrains you to a 'sandbox' of known proportions.
The argument for this element of the GPL is that it maintains the freedom of the code, barring it from ever being 'closed' -- but this argument is false. Once released, code cannot be 'closed'. Sure it can be used by people or businesses that you don't like, and hidden from the view of those business' customers. But it cannot be magically erased from the brains of those that have seen it, nor can the rights of the original authors be magically erased somehow (at least under current copyright). Further, the continued use of BSD-licensed, Apache-licensed, and other similar licensed code in both open and closed projects shows that licenses granting 'absolute' freedom of use do work.
I can only conclude that the purpose of the GPL is to further an agenda to which I do not subscribe.
And so in my pesonal and professional life, I make a clean separation between open-source, which I firmly beleive is a proven and tested methodolgy and a genuine social phenomenon, and 'free-software', which for me can only be defined by the absoute freedom to do anything you want with the code, and not by the current definitions of the 'movement'.
Bad for Linux?
First, do you have proof that OS X has significantly less 'substance' than Linux? Or is this just an opinion. Let's assume for a moment that I'm not just feeding a troll here.
Linux is a tool, OS X is a tool, some people prefer one, some another. If the number of people preferring OS X begins to outstrip those preferring Linux, then the Linux community has two choices:
It could pull a microsoft, wring its hands, and decry Apple as anti-choice and un-american, or...
It could stop bashing for just one second, examine what is being done that is good and innovative, evaluate why people are making the choices they are, and then compete, hopefully building a better Linux along the way.
How on earth could this be bad for Linux?First off, don't get me wrong, I actually agree with everything you've said, I would love to have this level of concentration available to me daily -- others have posted this sentiment, but every time I read it I find myself thinking, what would the average PHB think, and it goes something like this:
Question:
Financial implications aside, what is the difference between a tech guy in my office who I can only communicate with peridodically, usually via email, and rarely ever see; And some coder working for an Indian mega-consultancy in a cube in Bangalore.
Answer:
Not a damn thing...
Companies are groups of people working together for a common purpose, hell its why they're called a 'company'. For better or worse, they have eveolved into very social entities, with all the benefits and problems that entails.
One clear advantage the average local geek has over his outsourced counterpart is that he can be reachable, responsive, even friendly. I've played that card extensively over the last couple years, sure I get interrupted alot, but I've never been outsourced.
Just food for thought, not meant as a flame.
Respectfully, I believe there is no need for your server to have the same architecture as your clients.
I and several others here use PowerBooks running OS X in our development work, then stage and run the apps on a Redhat server, which we admin via ssh.
If your point was that existing PC owners wouldn't have to switch architectures for home use, that's fine -- but I agree with the original poster that its just plain irresponsible of Redhat to cede the desktop publicly to Microsoft - when there ARE alternatives.
In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Martin Niemoller(1892-1984)
My thoughts exactly, I'm a bit disturbed by this push towards voice interfaces in the industry? Not that the technology isn't cool, and useful in some situations, but is it a practical way of interacting with your device in a public setting?
There are already rules that limit cell phone use in various public places (including the ferry on which I commute to work), precisely because it is damned annoying to hear people yacking all the time!
I know that if I'm at work trying to solve a particularly sticky problem - I'm not going to enjoy listening to the guy next door chatting with his workstation -- I'll probably throw something over the cube wall at him.
One poster mentioned using it to interact with your device in the car -- I suppose this is better than driving and typing, but its still distracted driving, and therefore dangerous. The one interesting case is if you're home alone, or in a place where there's no one else around who'll be disturbed. But that seems to really limit the usefulness of the technology.
Just a quick note to add that I too have Steve Krug's "Don't make me think" on my top shelf. This book is about sensible web design, but many of it's principles, including the concepts of "Usability Testing on 10 cents a Day" apply to any GUI design project.
As a side note, my whole career I've pretty much specialized in putting GUIs on things -- I haven't stopped laughing at some of the posts in this thread since I started reading it -- If the sum of slashdot posts is any indication, GUI design is really totally misunderstood by the average developer.
I've worked with three companies since about '96 -- both as employer and employee, and found them to be extremely diligent. Most recently I landed an extremely good full time position at an excellent salary doing work on an interesting project. The recruiter who placed me still checks in occasionally with me and others she's placed at this company.
I am certain their are incompetent, and sometimes even deceitful recruiters out there, just as there are bad people in any field, luckily I haven't been hooked by one.
In the boom times of the late nineties, recruiters were everyone's buddies, often landing job-switchers with plum assignments at higher salaries. In the bust, even the good ones have got a bad rap - not returning emails and calls, failing to respond to resumes and correspondence, etc.
But look, IT recruiting is affected as much by the current economic cycle as developers, sysadmins, projects managers, and the rest.
At least one of the good ones I've worked with has switched careers, as business dried up. Others still have to sift through hundreds of resumes, emails, calls, and match those to a dwindling number of opportunities. It's only marginally easier to get a recruiters attention than a prospective employers these days, so how about this:
Practice selling yourself like the valuable resource you are. Here are some things that worked for me:
One more thing: Have trouble in social situations, expressing yourself to non-tech people, public-speaking? No matter, so do a lot of people, you're not alone. You can either change or expect that IT people with those skills may beat you out of opportunities. Take a public-speaking or debate course at a community college and practice. If you find yourself calling end-users 'lusers', think GUIs are for wimps, or get impatient with your grandma 'cause she can't ssh into your linux box, you need to pay close attention to what I've just said.
None of this will gurantee you'll always find honest, helpful recruiters, but at least you'll get their attention, if they're out there.
Further confusing the analysis is the fact that Fog Creek does VB, the most hated language on /. Therefore, does that mean that Joel is drawing his super-elite developers from the pool at the bottom-of-the-barrel 88% ??
God, I'm confused....
It doesn't matter that people are reluctant to use MACs -- I mean, really, as soon as they fire up any network enabled PC, they're gonna be using a MAC, it is, after all, part of how network adapters work isn't it? And I'm surprised you're talking about them this way, I mean it's pretty nerdy to even know what a Media Access Control address is, and you seem to discuss them with such authority.
Oh, wait a minute, were you talking about Macs, as in the 'Macintosh' computer manufactured by Apple?
Hey - not here to argue with your point, sure there's all kinds of people who read /. -- I for one think that's fine, it's grown far too big over the years to be a clique.
But I've seen this linux-centric nonsense far too many times over the years to just let it go anymore. This site is, was, and will probably remain "News for Nerds" -- just look at the topics on any given day: Space travel, physics, electronics, games, books, current events, political debate, legal issues, coverage of all computer platforms. WTF is linux-centric about all that?
Granted, it is easy to mistake the sites, and its readerships pro-free-software stance for "linux-centric-ness", but sorry, you don't have to subscribe to any particular philosophy (or OS) to get a huge amount of entertaining, and sometimes even useful info here.
Thing one: I've already been bitch-slapped for my poor choice of words on that comment, so before kicking a guy who's already clarified his position, perhaps you ought to read the whole thread.
Thing two: you have no idea what attitude I'm trying to put forth: As someone who switched from Windows to OS X 20 months ago, I am well aware that familiarity is not usability, in fact usability can and does win out over familiarity. I'm living proof.
However, down here in the real world, you can't just toss out a users years of learned behaviors for the sake of pursuing some academic vision of perfection. If we all had the attitude you put forth, the menus on our apps wouldn't all start with FILE - EDIT.
touche'
Although in fairness (to me), you've paraphrased away the meaning of what I was trying to say, which was originally:
"rank-and-file users don't want to learn a new, unfamiliar app to do a task they feel they already know how to do"
Perhaps my choice of words was poor, it was never my intention to suggest that users never want to learn anything new.
My statement needs correction, it should say that most users will not accept an alternative with dramatically different interfaces and levels of functionality, when they already feel they have the tools to perform the task.
It also occurs to me that 'rank-and-file' users are less likely equate finding alternative software packages with 'Freedom', the way you and I might. Frankly, I wouldn't imagine them caring much, as long as they get their task done.
Once again, this is fine, not everyone can be an expert, and there are usually many tools for any given task. Why do we as individuals, seem so intent on converting others to our beliefs? Whether it be religion, or choice of OS, the scenario plays out over and over.
Nails! You had rusty nails?
I had to chisel the packets into stone tablets, then carry them one-by-one, back-and-forth, through fields of knee-deep snow on the back of an angry, flatulant ox.
No mod points today, or you'd be +1.
Your point extends far beyond manufacturing packages. The "Gimp is as good as Photoshop" and similar rhetoric shows how far there is yet to go in the realm of apps.
In fact, I'd say that the recent offering from Redhat and others have taken dramatic steps in easing the issues that this article sees as so important. The desktop environment installed by default on these recent distributions is likely to seem very usable indeed to any reasonable person. In my opinion, the consistent GUI has arrived, sure more work needs to be done, but the framework is there.
The problem, as you've put so well, is that people become tied to the apps they use. What they use at work becomes what they want at home. It always seems to surprise the average geeks that rank-and-file users don't want to learn a new, unfamiliar app to do a task they feel they already know how to do, and as one who focuses on usability and GUI design, I say why should they?
Until that singular arrogance on the part of many Linux advocates (even some, dare I say, who read Slashdot) can be done away with, until more people are willing to scream "the emperor has no clothes!" Linux on consumer and (as you point out), many business desktops, is doomed to lag behind.
'cause I'm just itching to steal all the great GPL'd code I play with in my off-hours, pack it into closed source commercial products and sell, sell, sell!
Which, of course, would be 100% legal if there were no intellectual property laws.
Old Chinese proverb: "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."
While I agree that 'inside jobs' , which are more common of a crime, are less newsworthy, this still should concern all of us. The problem here is not that some jerk might buy a bunch of stuff with our credit cards - as you have said, we're mostly protected on all but $50 or so from that sort of crime, the real problem is identitiy theft.
If this database had sufficient information (and note it was mentioned they served credit bureaus) this is a real problem. Now the jerk is actually using my data to borrow money, make purchases, enter into contracts, etc.
The ultimate problem here is not the financial burden, since you would probably not have to pay for the fraudulent activity, but the horror of trying to reassemble your good credit with multiple agencies including credit bureaus, collectiona agencies, banks, etc. All of which are notoriously slow in correcting errors in their records.
The corollary to this is that I have known many exceptional programmers, possibly even brilliant ones. The types whose algorithms flowed unflawed from their fingertips, and whose knowledge of the systems and software involved were deeper than mine ever will be, but who could never possess the interpersonal skills and level of patience required to support an unsophisticated client base.
This career path is decidedly not for everyone.
I've been looking for a spot to shout "The emperor has no clothes!" This post seemed appropriate in that I was able to view the site, and read the FAQ. And while I applaud this effort and wish it every success, this is NOT an Exchange Take-out... Yet.
Every place I've ever worked for the past 6 years has had an Exchange server, and at each company, the email and calendaring features were the most used. I am no fan of Exchange, or any MS product, but Exchange does provide a certain baseline of service, right out of the box, which take relatively little experience to get running (if we ignore security concerns in our example).
This product requires the installation and configuration of a separate email server, and client connectors for Outlook. Sounds like a bit of work to me, just to get the integrated email and calendar provided by Exchange. I know most mid-sized companies would love to get off the MS-license-treadmill, but they're not gonna trash their business or hire new staff to do it.
In my opinion, you've hit the nail on the head with your comment. If you want to take out Exchange, you have to provide everything in a single, nearly brain-dead install, as well as provide migration paths for ALL of the current Excange data, plus turn-key client support. What I've read of this project indicates that this is not the case. In sum, this may be a very handy groupware server, with capabilities beyond Exchanges, but it isn't yet the David that will remove Goliath!
Thanks for the hearty guffaw. And don't pay any attention to the negative posts by kiddies who've obviously not actually been employed in the 'real world'.
The scary part is, I once worked for a guy who sounded exactly like this! Except that he was serious and had no idea what an idiot he sounded like.
" It's a lot easier to sell 1000 copies of something for $50 (or even $500) than it is to sell a $50000 program."
Dude! You may be lucky enough to have figured a way to eek out a living this way, but it's the exception, not the norm. The companies you mentioned are huge, they spend more in a week trying to get their message to SOHO customers than you earn in a year!
When I read the quote above, I heard myself about three years ago. A guy came to me with a great idea for a $50 product. We spent about six months building it, put up a business around it, raised a little cash, got written up in Business Week, got a five star review from PC Magazine, and...
...Still couldn't sell enough to make a living. Out of business in two years. Now I make a tidy living in corporate America, writing code for a company whose products start at $50,000 a pop.
When I go out on my own again, that's the model I will follow. The low-end is owned by the big-boys with the big marketing budgets, if your ambition is to build a software business that generates life-altering wealth, not just a one-man consultancy (not that there's a single thing wrong with that), big-business is the only market that small companies can reach with any hope for sustaining themselves.