Thank you for those outstanding links... What is it about punk girls that makes them so, I don't know... incredibly appealing? Hot beyond hot? Just plain arresting?
The initial settlers of this country (USA) were the Puritans. They were thrown out of Europe for (can you guess?) telling people that sex was dirty, that all pleasurable things were sin (that includes hobbies, entertainment, everything that isn't actual WORK), that you have to think only of God or you're going to hell, etc. When people talk about the "Protestant Work Ethic" they're really mostly discussing the PURITAN work ethic, because the Puritans believed that only work was suitable as an activity. Well... Work and prayer.
So they got thrown out of Europe and they set up their little religious utopia (if you can call it that) here. They were fun people; just look at the Salem Witch Trials.
Fast forwarding, eventually this country became an actual nation and we started getting a lot of new people. The places where immigrants generally entered the country (big port cities like New York) tended to have a broader range of opinion and so were more liberal in their thinking. Rural areas outside the cities didn't turn over their populations very quickly, and the old religious ways stuck around.
So now, here you go. You've got a very liberal set of "blue" states, where everybody kinda digs sex and has a lot of fun, and a whole bunch of puritan, religious, red states where everyone seems to have some kind of fixation on sex as sin.
The religious wackos have won the election, and now they're trying to push their puritanical ideas down the rest of our throats. You'd think they'd learn; in the past five hundred years, NO ONE has EVER listened to them.
That war would be a very funny, very short war. On one side, you'd have a bunch of religious crazies who can barely turn a computer on. On the other, you have jolt-cola fuelled porn-hound hackers just itching to get back at the religious right for the Bush election.
If we could televise it, what a pay per view event that would be!!!
(Religious Right) "Sex is DIRTY! Y'all are a-goin to HELL and there ain't no blowjobs or vibrating whatchamacallits down there, nossir!"
(Everyone Else) "Shut the fuck up ya fuckin' puritans. We're getting laid over here."
(Religious Right) "Well I NEVER!"
(Everyone Else) "Yeah, we know -- probably never will, either. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."
(Religious right grumbles for many years).
Attempt #2:
(Religious Right) "And, so, you can see that sex leads to all sorts of social breakdown, and pretty soon the country is goin' to HELL in a handbasket."
(Everyone Else) "Uh... Yeah, right. Whatever. Things look pretty okay to me, dude. Why doncha relax, like waaaay over there, where we can't hear you anymore."
(Everyone Else) "Yeah, ok, I'm going to need you to go over there, alright? Mmm, yeah, that'd be great."
(Religious right is even more frustrated, and grumbles for years, until George Bush wins the election with their help. Now, they think, it's our chance!)
Attempt #3:
(Religious Right, in Congress surrounded by other religious wackos, whispering to each other) "Ok, gang, let's try the drug angle. Maybe they'll buy it."
(Religious Right) "And, so, sex is really a drug because you masturb... masturb... masturbate, and EROTOTOXINS are released into the brain! So, uh, porno isn't free speech, and we should lock down all this sex stuff.
(Congress, a few watts short of a bulb as usual) "OH MY GOODNESS!"
(Religious Right, delighted) "Yeah, you see? It's dangerous, it's like, um... CRACK! Yeah, crack, you touch yourself and you're HIGH! And we have to lock this down..."
(Congress talks among themselves for a minute, then returns) "Ah, if you don't mind our asking, does this mean you think, for example, sex with a pretty intern would be considered doing drugs?"
(Religious Right) "Yessiree, bob! Why, that's like shooting DOPE!"
(Congress) "I see, I think I get the picture. Well, you're right, something must be done! We're going to commission a study. Yessir, we're gonna study this thing until we get to the bottom of it, you betcha." (several congressmen giggle, one mutters "BOTTOM!" and falls off his chair).
(Religious Right) "Hang on a minute, here..."
(Congress) "Now, I know you're busy, these gentlemen will show you back to your car and we're going to get right to work studying this sex problem, we promise. In fact, I think we're going to be working overtime on it! Don't you worry your pretty little head about a thing."
(Religious Right, sputtering) "But wait! You don't understand!"
(Congress) "Good afternoon, dear. And, may I say that is a VERY flattering suit..."
Hmm... Yeah, I'd agree with that. Hard to find such a niche, though. I think I've got one, but I'm going open source with mine. I'm using Java, so if I'm careful I might be able to get it to run on everything.:)
Oh; I think I understand. Well, you're right there. I didn't get the GPL-P2P connection, either. I thought that particular argument was kind of bizarre.
I have kind of a weird, dual/schizo position on the whole "taking money from the mouths of programmers" thing. Here goes:
As individuals, I think we should use open source whenever possible because it makes more sense. Stallman's freedom argument is right on the money: it's about our individual freedom to use a tool we depend on. It's also about the programmer's freedom to insure that his work can't ever be taken away by some corporation with a patent portfolio.
On the other hand, open source makes it impossible for a small developer to really make any money off his work. He won't have the resources to offer support contracts. No one is really going to hire him to modify the software -- most software is perfectly useful as-is, and any desirable modifications will be done quickly by other open-source developers and re-released. If a small developer releases something proprietary (I wouldn't recommend it, but a person might try) he'll either get crushed by a corporation or an open-source version will be written and replace his in the market. So it's kind of rough. And it's not like there are any jobs left in the IT industry... Everything's getting outsourced. It's so sad, you know?
As a developer, I feel sorry for my fellow developers and for myself. I resisted open-source for a long time, wishing I could figure out a way to put out some software and become independent (no boss, no outsourcing worries)... But in the end, considering all the angles, I decided open-source was the best of all worlds, for developer and user alike.
So I'm pro-open source, but I'm strongly sympathetic to small proprietary developers, I feel for them deeply. The way I see it, we should use open source, but at the same time, we should show sympathy for the proprietary guys who've got it rough. It's not OUR fault, mind you, but that doesn't preclude sympathy...
Anyway, I think we're of similar mind on this issue... Fun conversation, though, eh?
I am absolutely all for GPL'ed software, primarily because it protects everyone's rights (including the developer's). And, I agree that the REAL open-source community believes developers should be able to earn a little money from their work, from support and etc. But the REAL open-source community is composed of other developers, who understand what it's like to try and write code.
My complaint is mostly against the non-contributing users who use open source only because it's free (as in beer). I hear a lot of people getting really nasty, acting like programmers are evil/bad because they want a few bucks for their work. It's wrong, especially coming typically from an end-user who doesn't supply patches, doesn't build anything himself, isn't anything more than an annoying baby bird with his mouth open, cawing at us "FEED ME! FEED ME!"
I agree with you completely about open source. I try to use open source as much as I can, and I'm trying to build something I hope people will find useful (I'm going to put it on SourceForge when I get it built). I want to contribute, and I will; but I still sympathize with the closed-source guys.
I'm getting off track; basically all I was annoyed about in the parent or grandparent post was that people always seem to take this cavalier "fuck the programmers" attitude, and it's kind of harsh. I think programmers deserve our sympathy, even if we choose open-source over their stuff. They've got it rough these days.
All I'm saying is, what's up with all the bitterness?
I think I agree with your commoditization argument. There really aren't that many areas left in which you can come out with something new; pretty much everything people need and use regularly has already been developed. Pretty tough to come up with something new, and the existing software is already almost perfect...
With people's needs basically already met, there's nothing left to buy. And, I (for instance) can get everything I need in a single 89.00 box of SuSE Linux, or a free download from Slackware.
Lone coders aren't dead by a long shot, but SELLING software probably is, unless you're selling distributions (or you're one of the proprietary companies, but they're going to have to change their business model sooner or later).
I don't think there's anything wrong with any of this, I think it's a natural progression. My only problem is with the meanness I seem to be seeing in people, the aggressive attitude towards anyone who tries to sell their work. It doesn't seem nice, you know? I think they deserve a little slack, God knows they've got it rough these days.
As far as lone coders go, here's what I think we're going to be doing: custom applications for ourselves, which people might find intriguing and want to acquire. Tiny little micro-communities in a specialized, weird application set. Just a thought.;)
I don't have a problem with their complaints; if they make the closed-source guys feel better, if they find their complaints comforting, where's the harm?
It won't stop me from using open-source, of course... Open source is better and so, it's in our best interest to use it. Anyone who doesn't use open source is limiting himself.
But on the other hand, I think we should show a little sympathy to the people who are having a hard time, and not act like their difficulties don't matter. It IS hard to compete with open source. It's rough. They deserve our sympathy, if not our business.
All I'm saying is, we shouldn't act as though the developers don't matter. We shouldn't use open source with a "fuck the proprietary developers" attitude; we should use it with a "we prefer it, but we have no hard feelings towards you guys" attitude.
A lot of users have a really nasty "fuck you, give us our free stuff" attitude, and it's rotten. If they want to use open source, there's nothing wrong with that, but they should drop the attitude and make it a coolheaded business decision.
See what I mean? It's just a nicer way of doing things. And, there's room for some proprietary guys in the mix. There's room for everything, really.
Ah, but you missed the point I was replying to. The parent poster had basically said that the fact that GPL software was available for free enabled people to use it to do THEIR jobs. The implication being, they need software to do their jobs, and they might not be able to have jobs if (gasp!) they had to pay for software. Which kind of implies that programmers are dicks for wanting to be able to buy groceries.
Basically, his argument was "Isn't it wonderful that the free GPL software lets the poor, poor user have tools, and foils the evil nasty developers trying to make the poor, poor users PAY?"
Again, I'm pro-GPL. But I'm very, very against this freeloading kind of thinking. Most users just want something for free, and although they can afford to pay for what they use, they just don't want to. And they have the nerve to get annoyed at us for wanting to be able to make a living.
Don't they ever think about this at all? Do they think they can stiff the guys who come mow their lawns? Or the grocer? If not, why is it ok to stiff the programmer who makes the tools they're using to make money???
This isn't about developers being attentive to the needs of their users, which is a separate issue entirely. This is about users being a bunch of cheap bastards, arrogant and nasty, and about the point of view that says that only what THEY want matters.
Let me preface this by saying that I will probably be releasing ALL my stuff GPL, because it keeps my software free for my use as well as everyone else's -- i.e. a suit can't come along and steal my stuff right out from under me. I see the GPL as something that protects developers from corporate villany.
BUT, there are no ifs, ans, or buts: it DOES make it a hell of a lot harder to charge money for software.
You seem to think the welfare of end users is more important than that of developers. Why, exactly? Why is Joe User more important than Joe Developer? If it wasn't for Joe Developer, Joe User wouldn't have software in the first place. What makes you think the user is the more important party here?
My reasons for GPL'ing my stuff are complicated, but they don't cloud my view of the challenges the open source community presents to programmers who DESERVE to earn a living.
Come on; charity begins at home, PROGRAMMER. Lose the "boo hoo, poor user" stuff. It's wrongheaded. We programmers are JUST as important as end users.
If it's ok for us to not make a living, it's okay for them too. Good for the goose, good for the gander.
Well... You might as well forget about SELLING it.
on
Is The Lone Coder Dead?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Not to be the wet blanket of this party, but...
A) Large companies, who hate small developers with an awe-inspiring passion, have patented everything under the sun, so even if your project is successful, you're going to get the shaft sooner or later;
B) If your project IS successful, someone's going to come along and yank it right out from under you. Maybe you'll be sued for patent infringement and sign your stuff over in the settlement, or maybe Microsoft will integrate a competing product with Windows, making you irrelevant, or maybe a college kid just as smart as you will come out with competing freeware -- you'll get hosed one way or the other;
C) Anyone who IS interested in your product is going to download it off a pirate site anyway. Think I'm kidding? I can't tell you how many times I've heard some doofus consultant laugh "But I never pay for software! Windows is free, man." I tell them that I religiously pay for everything, that it's a matter of professional courtesy -- and they almost cough up their livers laughing at me. THIS IS THE MARKET YOU'RE IN. You can't make money in it.
Given these basic facts, what should a programmer do? Here's MY position; I see two possibilities, which you can blend a bit if you like:
Possibility Number 1: You write open-source software, you GPL all your stuff, and you sign over the copyrights to the FSF, who have many, many lawyers. You might not make any money doing this, but you get to use your software without restrictions, forever. Also (tasty) you get to seriously annoy the suits who'd like to make money off your stuff. It's no longer possible for someone to take it from you.
Possibility Number 2: the hacker model: you keep all your cool stuff to yourself, and you trade it with your close friends for their cool stuff. You guys are now the only people with this cool stuff. It's like the force; you are different and have secret abilities that the herd isn't aware of. It's fun and interesting. You meet other groups of people with their own cool stuff and trade; thus you become the Ham Radio operators of the programming world.
The lone developer isn't going anywhere. He's just going back to the garage and hacker groups he came from.
1. Write books. You can't be sued for writing about how to do something. Freedom of speech protects you, and as a "copyright holder" the Machine will think you're one of its cogs. Must... Protect... COG!!!
2. Get a joe job doing IT for a public agency or college or whatever. Can't be sued for working with existing tools. Only people who produce and sell tools will be sued.
3. If you create software for your own internal use, no one can sue you for THAT, either. So, make software that does something interesting, and rent out your services DOING that something interesting without making it clear exactly how you're doing it ("Elves do it for us. Sign here"). You're not selling a thing anymore, just a service (in a better world, you'd be able to sell the something interesting and let everyone do it for themselves, but the dicks are in charge, so tough luck, world).
4. Be a consultant setting up bland, boring, same-old systems for boring, staid, large companies. You're just a technician! No patent infringement here.
Since large companies own most of the software market, and they're going to leverage their patents to prevent anyone new from trying to come in and make a buck...
Since releasing software in closed-source proprietary form isn't very neighborly, and lacking GPL protection a nasty, patent-owning company can take it right out from under you in a court case, even preventing you from using your own stuff...
Well...
Looks like it's pretty pointless to try and sell software. So much for THAT idea. Even if I release it open-source I could still get sued over the patent thing.
It occurs to me that I might go on the hacker model, in which I write whatever software I want, and only release it to my friends, who I trust. They, in turn, give me their cool stuff. And we, as a group, get stuff the rest of the world doesn't even know exists. It's like The Force, baby. Some have it. Most don't.
Alternately, I can write something and sign over the copyrights to the FSF, who have much better legal resources than I do. This is as good as keeping it under the rug, only it lets many people use it.
Then again, I could mix the two approaches. I could keep a version of my software with "special sauce" for myself and my friends, and let the FSF have a more vanilla version...
Looks like we're all heading underground, me hearties! W00T...
Already happening. I played a game (don't want to get sued, not gonna name it) about a year ago, which had wonderful level design and art, but which would crash to a blue screen (in Windows 2000!) with a cryptic error message on a random basis. I asked a friend of mine who used to do Visual C++ what he thought might be going on and he said they were probably coding to the older Windows API, doing Windows 98 stuff. Windows 2000 is based on NT, and some of the older games choke on it. But this game was supposed to be for Windows 2000. Pretty weird, right?
well, I nosed around on the web and it turns out the game design, artwork, and writing were all done in the USA. The game engine was specced out here and written by Romanian outsourcers.
And, since a gaming company has to attract top talent, are they going to be able to convince people to move to Nebraska instead of California? To work seven days a week and almost never see the outside of their sweatshop?
A similar thing happened to me. I was assigned as the lead programmer (actually, I ended up being the only programmer) on a fairly important project. The project manager promised the client we would produce everything by a specific drop-dead date, then spun his wheels for SIX MONTHS in user meetings, not wrapping up the spec until about a month or two before the drop-dead date. By the time he got done fooling around, I had a month to get it done.
I worked 16 hours a day, almost every single day, for about two and a half months, maybe almost three, to try and cut short the amount I'd be over deadline. Managers started attacking me for being so late. I was completely and totally burned out and sent the big boss an email telling him "I'll finish this project, but then I'm transferring out of here and I'm never coming back".
As an interesting side note, not only did I almost burn out and quit being a programmer over all this (I seriously considered going back to trade school and becoming a plumber), my health went down the tubes. I couldn't make real food (I only went home to sleep) so I ended up living off snack-machine garbage. I never was off work while a laundry was open, so I kept re-using clothes. I didn't shave enough, I felt like a wreck.
It was absolutely horrible.
The punchline is, the project manager lied to a bunch of people and then disappeared, never to be seen again. The project got handed off to a bunch of consultants (who took NINE MONTHS to finish it) because the big boss didn't want me to quit (actually, that was touching, he's a pretty cool guy). I got pushed into doing low-level maintenance work because people assume I'm not dependable, that I can't be a project lead anymore. I mean, my rep is blackened with this huge scorch mark because of this lousy, crummy project. My name is mud.
It isn't fair, but that's how things seem to work in America. At least I'm employed, I guess...
I know, bad form replying to myself, but I've been reading some of the specifics in the other posts in this thread and in comparision, my general description of the layout of a robust site seems kind of, well... Generic.
So, let me apologize for the lack of detail; I'm just a programmer, I don't know that much about individual hardware elements, model numbers, price points, things like that. I was just trying to describe what the overall layout ought to look like, for a robust, secure setup. It's what we use, FWIW.
Having said that, I'm learning quite a bit by reading some of the other responses. Very interesting!
Our sites obviously have to serve millions of people, so they have to be pretty robust. I can't tell you every detail because we're all pretty specialized and don't get to see everything ourselves, but from working with our database guys and network guys, I do have a pretty good 10,000 foot picture of how things work. Here's a general sense of what you'll have to do to really be robust:
1. Your database gets its own server, as powerful as you can afford. If you're a really big site, you're using Oracle, and really, a database cluster rather than a single server. IMPORTANT: Only the DBA can touch the production databases. Developers MUST submit requests to the DBA for any changes. Nobody should be touching a production database from their desktop, other than maybe being able to run queries to check data, and they use a separate, limited login for that. Changes are done by the DBA ONLY.
2. You put a firewall between the database server and your middleware server. The firewall is a dedicated device, and you're careful about the ports you leave open. Only the middleware server and DBA workstations on your intranet can touch the database.
3. Your middleware server(s) are as powerful as you can afford (this will be a theme here) and ONLY run middleware. This means, business rule processing. Everything that touches a database in any way MUST come through middleware -- no direct connections, ever. IMPORTANT: developers don't directly install middleware; network staff only.
4. A firewall (again, dedicated device) between the middleware server and the web server. Only the web server (and network staff workstations on your intranet) are allowed to touch the middleware server.
5. A set of web servers for your websites, as powerful as you can afford (hate to keep repeating this, but if you skimp you'll end up screwing yourself down the road). IMPORTANT: Developers should NEVER have access to production web servers; they should give their stuff to the networking staff when it's ready. Also, if you're doing FTP and such, put it on a separate server.
6. A firewall outside your web server, which only permits port 80 traffic and is twice as paranoid as your other firewalls. Log everything "funny".
In general, you'll have to hire some people: someone really good at security, to configure all your firewalls, someone good at setting up load-balancing to set up all three layers, someone to help you set up a good development environment...
One thing lots of people overlook: You'll want a "sandbox", i.e. a dedicated set of test database, middleware server, and web server that your developers can play with when working on their sites. You'll also want to set up a UAT (User Acceptance Test) environment similar to your sandbox, so projects can be moved to UAT for testing before being rolled out to production. You can't do UAT on a sandbox; sandboxes are constantly changing. You need a stable environment for UAT.
Anyway... Hope that helps, it's just advice, you know? Not all of it directly addresses high-volume sites, some of it is about site stability and security, but I think it all ties in together. If your site is being changed by developers, it won't be stable... And if you don't have a paranoid firewall setup, it won't be secure. A lot of webmasters would consider this layout to be (putting it politely) seriously paranoid, but hell, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. And, anyway, like I said, high volume does imply these other considerations...
Use Linux (or a *BSD) and CUPS to run your printers. Since you don't have to run any printer-company applications (because Linux has its own drivers for everything, all thoroughly vetted by the open source community), it is impossible for manufacturers to spy on you.
I'd include OS/X in that, but unfortunately, I'm using a Hewlett-Packard print manager on my iBook, which could possibly be spying on me right now. It's a bummer, but I paid 1800 bucks for this thing (the iBook, not the printer), and I don't want to quit using it until it dies of old age. Sigh...
In the meantime, I have a couple of old mil-spec laptops running Slackware that can take over when the iBook dies, so I guess that's pretty cool.
There's one more HUGE problem with it, which is this: watching video on a cell phone is going to drain the battery very, very quickly. People are going to find out their batteries are dying fast, mutter "Huh... Whaddaya know?" and stop watching TV on their cells.
Just like that, the technology will die. Some marketing flack will bemoan the "fact" that people just aren't ready for it yet, and there will be some hand-wringing.
Slashdot Mirror
What, are you nuts? If anything circumcision AIDS masturbation. Consider the following joke:
The government hires three experts, a Frenchman, an Italian, and a Polish guy, to figure out why the head is on the dick.
The Frenchman comes back after three weeks and announces "Ze head of ze dick is there for ze woman's pleasure!"
The Italian comes back after four weeks and says "the head of the dick is there for the woman's pleasure and also for the man's."
The polish guy comes back and says "It's there to keep your hand from slipping off."
My GOD, that was wonderful. I just sent the link to my folks, they're going to laugh their asses off.
Thanks! I had a rough day at work, but that one cheered me up.
Thank you for those outstanding links... What is it about punk girls that makes them so, I don't know... incredibly appealing? Hot beyond hot? Just plain arresting?
:)
Man, they sure have that special something.
"The chemicals released by human orgasm shouldn't be under-estimated in their addictive powers."
And, thank God for that! It keeps the chicks coming back!
No, it has nothing to do with public health.
The initial settlers of this country (USA) were the Puritans. They were thrown out of Europe for (can you guess?) telling people that sex was dirty, that all pleasurable things were sin (that includes hobbies, entertainment, everything that isn't actual WORK), that you have to think only of God or you're going to hell, etc. When people talk about the "Protestant Work Ethic" they're really mostly discussing the PURITAN work ethic, because the Puritans believed that only work was suitable as an activity. Well... Work and prayer.
So they got thrown out of Europe and they set up their little religious utopia (if you can call it that) here. They were fun people; just look at the Salem Witch Trials.
Fast forwarding, eventually this country became an actual nation and we started getting a lot of new people. The places where immigrants generally entered the country (big port cities like New York) tended to have a broader range of opinion and so were more liberal in their thinking. Rural areas outside the cities didn't turn over their populations very quickly, and the old religious ways stuck around.
So now, here you go. You've got a very liberal set of "blue" states, where everybody kinda digs sex and has a lot of fun, and a whole bunch of puritan, religious, red states where everyone seems to have some kind of fixation on sex as sin.
The religious wackos have won the election, and now they're trying to push their puritanical ideas down the rest of our throats. You'd think they'd learn; in the past five hundred years, NO ONE has EVER listened to them.
Bastards sure are determined...
One word: "Altavista"
Use their video search. Select the video formats you want to look for. Enter the right codewords, and boy, oh boy...
It's a Pornocopia!
That war would be a very funny, very short war. On one side, you'd have a bunch of religious crazies who can barely turn a computer on. On the other, you have jolt-cola fuelled porn-hound hackers just itching to get back at the religious right for the Bush election.
If we could televise it, what a pay per view event that would be!!!
Here's what's happening:
Attempt 1:
(Religious Right) "Sex is DIRTY! Y'all are a-goin to HELL and there ain't no blowjobs or vibrating whatchamacallits down there, nossir!"
(Everyone Else) "Shut the fuck up ya fuckin' puritans. We're getting laid over here."
(Religious Right) "Well I NEVER!"
(Everyone Else) "Yeah, we know -- probably never will, either. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."
(Religious right grumbles for many years).
Attempt #2:
(Religious Right) "And, so, you can see that sex leads to all sorts of social breakdown, and pretty soon the country is goin' to HELL in a handbasket."
(Everyone Else) "Uh... Yeah, right. Whatever. Things look pretty okay to me, dude. Why doncha relax, like waaaay over there, where we can't hear you anymore."
(Religious Right) "But... But... Society... Hell... Handbasket..."
(Everyone Else) "Yeah, ok, I'm going to need you to go over there, alright? Mmm, yeah, that'd be great."
(Religious right is even more frustrated, and grumbles for years, until George Bush wins the election with their help. Now, they think, it's our chance!)
Attempt #3:
(Religious Right, in Congress surrounded by other religious wackos, whispering to each other) "Ok, gang, let's try the drug angle. Maybe they'll buy it."
(Religious Right) "And, so, sex is really a drug because you masturb... masturb... masturbate, and EROTOTOXINS are released into the brain! So, uh, porno isn't free speech, and we should lock down all this sex stuff.
(Congress, a few watts short of a bulb as usual) "OH MY GOODNESS!"
(Religious Right, delighted) "Yeah, you see? It's dangerous, it's like, um... CRACK! Yeah, crack, you touch yourself and you're HIGH! And we have to lock this down..."
(Congress talks among themselves for a minute, then returns) "Ah, if you don't mind our asking, does this mean you think, for example, sex with a pretty intern would be considered doing drugs?"
(Religious Right) "Yessiree, bob! Why, that's like shooting DOPE!"
(Congress) "I see, I think I get the picture. Well, you're right, something must be done! We're going to commission a study. Yessir, we're gonna study this thing until we get to the bottom of it, you betcha." (several congressmen giggle, one mutters "BOTTOM!" and falls off his chair).
(Religious Right) "Hang on a minute, here..."
(Congress) "Now, I know you're busy, these gentlemen will show you back to your car and we're going to get right to work studying this sex problem, we promise. In fact, I think we're going to be working overtime on it! Don't you worry your pretty little head about a thing."
(Religious Right, sputtering) "But wait! You don't understand!"
(Congress) "Good afternoon, dear. And, may I say that is a VERY flattering suit..."
Hmm... Yeah, I'd agree with that. Hard to find such a niche, though. I think I've got one, but I'm going open source with mine. I'm using Java, so if I'm careful I might be able to get it to run on everything. :)
Oh; I think I understand. Well, you're right there. I didn't get the GPL-P2P connection, either. I thought that particular argument was kind of bizarre.
I have kind of a weird, dual/schizo position on the whole "taking money from the mouths of programmers" thing. Here goes:
As individuals, I think we should use open source whenever possible because it makes more sense. Stallman's freedom argument is right on the money: it's about our individual freedom to use a tool we depend on. It's also about the programmer's freedom to insure that his work can't ever be taken away by some corporation with a patent portfolio.
On the other hand, open source makes it impossible for a small developer to really make any money off his work. He won't have the resources to offer support contracts. No one is really going to hire him to modify the software -- most software is perfectly useful as-is, and any desirable modifications will be done quickly by other open-source developers and re-released. If a small developer releases something proprietary (I wouldn't recommend it, but a person might try) he'll either get crushed by a corporation or an open-source version will be written and replace his in the market. So it's kind of rough. And it's not like there are any jobs left in the IT industry... Everything's getting outsourced. It's so sad, you know?
As a developer, I feel sorry for my fellow developers and for myself. I resisted open-source for a long time, wishing I could figure out a way to put out some software and become independent (no boss, no outsourcing worries)... But in the end, considering all the angles, I decided open-source was the best of all worlds, for developer and user alike.
So I'm pro-open source, but I'm strongly sympathetic to small proprietary developers, I feel for them deeply. The way I see it, we should use open source, but at the same time, we should show sympathy for the proprietary guys who've got it rough. It's not OUR fault, mind you, but that doesn't preclude sympathy...
Anyway, I think we're of similar mind on this issue... Fun conversation, though, eh?
I think we've got a misunderstanding here.
I am absolutely all for GPL'ed software, primarily because it protects everyone's rights (including the developer's). And, I agree that the REAL open-source community believes developers should be able to earn a little money from their work, from support and etc. But the REAL open-source community is composed of other developers, who understand what it's like to try and write code.
My complaint is mostly against the non-contributing users who use open source only because it's free (as in beer). I hear a lot of people getting really nasty, acting like programmers are evil/bad because they want a few bucks for their work. It's wrong, especially coming typically from an end-user who doesn't supply patches, doesn't build anything himself, isn't anything more than an annoying baby bird with his mouth open, cawing at us "FEED ME! FEED ME!"
I agree with you completely about open source. I try to use open source as much as I can, and I'm trying to build something I hope people will find useful (I'm going to put it on SourceForge when I get it built). I want to contribute, and I will; but I still sympathize with the closed-source guys.
I'm getting off track; basically all I was annoyed about in the parent or grandparent post was that people always seem to take this cavalier "fuck the programmers" attitude, and it's kind of harsh. I think programmers deserve our sympathy, even if we choose open-source over their stuff. They've got it rough these days.
All I'm saying is, what's up with all the bitterness?
I think I agree with your commoditization argument. There really aren't that many areas left in which you can come out with something new; pretty much everything people need and use regularly has already been developed. Pretty tough to come up with something new, and the existing software is already almost perfect...
;)
With people's needs basically already met, there's nothing left to buy. And, I (for instance) can get everything I need in a single 89.00 box of SuSE Linux, or a free download from Slackware.
Lone coders aren't dead by a long shot, but SELLING software probably is, unless you're selling distributions (or you're one of the proprietary companies, but they're going to have to change their business model sooner or later).
I don't think there's anything wrong with any of this, I think it's a natural progression. My only problem is with the meanness I seem to be seeing in people, the aggressive attitude towards anyone who tries to sell their work. It doesn't seem nice, you know? I think they deserve a little slack, God knows they've got it rough these days.
As far as lone coders go, here's what I think we're going to be doing: custom applications for ourselves, which people might find intriguing and want to acquire. Tiny little micro-communities in a specialized, weird application set. Just a thought.
I don't have a problem with their complaints; if they make the closed-source guys feel better, if they find their complaints comforting, where's the harm?
It won't stop me from using open-source, of course... Open source is better and so, it's in our best interest to use it. Anyone who doesn't use open source is limiting himself.
But on the other hand, I think we should show a little sympathy to the people who are having a hard time, and not act like their difficulties don't matter. It IS hard to compete with open source. It's rough. They deserve our sympathy, if not our business.
All I'm saying is, we shouldn't act as though the developers don't matter. We shouldn't use open source with a "fuck the proprietary developers" attitude; we should use it with a "we prefer it, but we have no hard feelings towards you guys" attitude.
A lot of users have a really nasty "fuck you, give us our free stuff" attitude, and it's rotten. If they want to use open source, there's nothing wrong with that, but they should drop the attitude and make it a coolheaded business decision.
See what I mean? It's just a nicer way of doing things. And, there's room for some proprietary guys in the mix. There's room for everything, really.
Ah, but you missed the point I was replying to. The parent poster had basically said that the fact that GPL software was available for free enabled people to use it to do THEIR jobs. The implication being, they need software to do their jobs, and they might not be able to have jobs if (gasp!) they had to pay for software. Which kind of implies that programmers are dicks for wanting to be able to buy groceries.
Basically, his argument was "Isn't it wonderful that the free GPL software lets the poor, poor user have tools, and foils the evil nasty developers trying to make the poor, poor users PAY?"
Again, I'm pro-GPL. But I'm very, very against this freeloading kind of thinking. Most users just want something for free, and although they can afford to pay for what they use, they just don't want to. And they have the nerve to get annoyed at us for wanting to be able to make a living.
Don't they ever think about this at all? Do they think they can stiff the guys who come mow their lawns? Or the grocer? If not, why is it ok to stiff the programmer who makes the tools they're using to make money???
This isn't about developers being attentive to the needs of their users, which is a separate issue entirely. This is about users being a bunch of cheap bastards, arrogant and nasty, and about the point of view that says that only what THEY want matters.
Hold up for a second.
Let me preface this by saying that I will probably be releasing ALL my stuff GPL, because it keeps my software free for my use as well as everyone else's -- i.e. a suit can't come along and steal my stuff right out from under me. I see the GPL as something that protects developers from corporate villany.
BUT, there are no ifs, ans, or buts: it DOES make it a hell of a lot harder to charge money for software.
You seem to think the welfare of end users is more important than that of developers. Why, exactly? Why is Joe User more important than Joe Developer? If it wasn't for Joe Developer, Joe User wouldn't have software in the first place. What makes you think the user is the more important party here?
My reasons for GPL'ing my stuff are complicated, but they don't cloud my view of the challenges the open source community presents to programmers who DESERVE to earn a living.
Come on; charity begins at home, PROGRAMMER. Lose the "boo hoo, poor user" stuff. It's wrongheaded. We programmers are JUST as important as end users.
If it's ok for us to not make a living, it's okay for them too. Good for the goose, good for the gander.
Not to be the wet blanket of this party, but...
A) Large companies, who hate small developers with an awe-inspiring passion, have patented everything under the sun, so even if your project is successful, you're going to get the shaft sooner or later;
B) If your project IS successful, someone's going to come along and yank it right out from under you. Maybe you'll be sued for patent infringement and sign your stuff over in the settlement, or maybe Microsoft will integrate a competing product with Windows, making you irrelevant, or maybe a college kid just as smart as you will come out with competing freeware -- you'll get hosed one way or the other;
C) Anyone who IS interested in your product is going to download it off a pirate site anyway. Think I'm kidding? I can't tell you how many times I've heard some doofus consultant laugh "But I never pay for software! Windows is free, man." I tell them that I religiously pay for everything, that it's a matter of professional courtesy -- and they almost cough up their livers laughing at me. THIS IS THE MARKET YOU'RE IN. You can't make money in it.
Given these basic facts, what should a programmer do? Here's MY position; I see two possibilities, which you can blend a bit if you like:
Possibility Number 1: You write open-source software, you GPL all your stuff, and you sign over the copyrights to the FSF, who have many, many lawyers. You might not make any money doing this, but you get to use your software without restrictions, forever. Also (tasty) you get to seriously annoy the suits who'd like to make money off your stuff. It's no longer possible for someone to take it from you.
Possibility Number 2: the hacker model: you keep all your cool stuff to yourself, and you trade it with your close friends for their cool stuff. You guys are now the only people with this cool stuff. It's like the force; you are different and have secret abilities that the herd isn't aware of. It's fun and interesting. You meet other groups of people with their own cool stuff and trade; thus you become the Ham Radio operators of the programming world.
The lone developer isn't going anywhere. He's just going back to the garage and hacker groups he came from.
Perhaps -- just perhaps -- this is a Good Thing.
Options that come to mind:
1. Write books. You can't be sued for writing about how to do something. Freedom of speech protects you, and as a "copyright holder" the Machine will think you're one of its cogs. Must... Protect... COG!!!
2. Get a joe job doing IT for a public agency or college or whatever. Can't be sued for working with existing tools. Only people who produce and sell tools will be sued.
3. If you create software for your own internal use, no one can sue you for THAT, either. So, make software that does something interesting, and rent out your services DOING that something interesting without making it clear exactly how you're doing it ("Elves do it for us. Sign here"). You're not selling a thing anymore, just a service (in a better world, you'd be able to sell the something interesting and let everyone do it for themselves, but the dicks are in charge, so tough luck, world).
4. Be a consultant setting up bland, boring, same-old systems for boring, staid, large companies. You're just a technician! No patent infringement here.
Since large companies own most of the software market, and they're going to leverage their patents to prevent anyone new from trying to come in and make a buck...
Since releasing software in closed-source proprietary form isn't very neighborly, and lacking GPL protection a nasty, patent-owning company can take it right out from under you in a court case, even preventing you from using your own stuff...
Well...
Looks like it's pretty pointless to try and sell software. So much for THAT idea. Even if I release it open-source I could still get sued over the patent thing.
It occurs to me that I might go on the hacker model, in which I write whatever software I want, and only release it to my friends, who I trust. They, in turn, give me their cool stuff. And we, as a group, get stuff the rest of the world doesn't even know exists. It's like The Force, baby. Some have it. Most don't.
Alternately, I can write something and sign over the copyrights to the FSF, who have much better legal resources than I do. This is as good as keeping it under the rug, only it lets many people use it.
Then again, I could mix the two approaches. I could keep a version of my software with "special sauce" for myself and my friends, and let the FSF have a more vanilla version...
Looks like we're all heading underground, me hearties! W00T...
Already happening. I played a game (don't want to get sued, not gonna name it) about a year ago, which had wonderful level design and art, but which would crash to a blue screen (in Windows 2000!) with a cryptic error message on a random basis. I asked a friend of mine who used to do Visual C++ what he thought might be going on and he said they were probably coding to the older Windows API, doing Windows 98 stuff. Windows 2000 is based on NT, and some of the older games choke on it. But this game was supposed to be for Windows 2000. Pretty weird, right?
well, I nosed around on the web and it turns out the game design, artwork, and writing were all done in the USA. The game engine was specced out here and written by Romanian outsourcers.
Interesting, I thought.
And, since a gaming company has to attract top talent, are they going to be able to convince people to move to Nebraska instead of California? To work seven days a week and almost never see the outside of their sweatshop?
I'm betting that'd be a "NO".
A similar thing happened to me. I was assigned as the lead programmer (actually, I ended up being the only programmer) on a fairly important project. The project manager promised the client we would produce everything by a specific drop-dead date, then spun his wheels for SIX MONTHS in user meetings, not wrapping up the spec until about a month or two before the drop-dead date. By the time he got done fooling around, I had a month to get it done.
I worked 16 hours a day, almost every single day, for about two and a half months, maybe almost three, to try and cut short the amount I'd be over deadline. Managers started attacking me for being so late. I was completely and totally burned out and sent the big boss an email telling him "I'll finish this project, but then I'm transferring out of here and I'm never coming back".
As an interesting side note, not only did I almost burn out and quit being a programmer over all this (I seriously considered going back to trade school and becoming a plumber), my health went down the tubes. I couldn't make real food (I only went home to sleep) so I ended up living off snack-machine garbage. I never was off work while a laundry was open, so I kept re-using clothes. I didn't shave enough, I felt like a wreck.
It was absolutely horrible.
The punchline is, the project manager lied to a bunch of people and then disappeared, never to be seen again. The project got handed off to a bunch of consultants (who took NINE MONTHS to finish it) because the big boss didn't want me to quit (actually, that was touching, he's a pretty cool guy). I got pushed into doing low-level maintenance work because people assume I'm not dependable, that I can't be a project lead anymore. I mean, my rep is blackened with this huge scorch mark because of this lousy, crummy project. My name is mud.
It isn't fair, but that's how things seem to work in America. At least I'm employed, I guess...
I know, bad form replying to myself, but I've been reading some of the specifics in the other posts in this thread and in comparision, my general description of the layout of a robust site seems kind of, well... Generic.
So, let me apologize for the lack of detail; I'm just a programmer, I don't know that much about individual hardware elements, model numbers, price points, things like that. I was just trying to describe what the overall layout ought to look like, for a robust, secure setup. It's what we use, FWIW.
Having said that, I'm learning quite a bit by reading some of the other responses. Very interesting!
Our sites obviously have to serve millions of people, so they have to be pretty robust. I can't tell you every detail because we're all pretty specialized and don't get to see everything ourselves, but from working with our database guys and network guys, I do have a pretty good 10,000 foot picture of how things work. Here's a general sense of what you'll have to do to really be robust:
1. Your database gets its own server, as powerful as you can afford. If you're a really big site, you're using Oracle, and really, a database cluster rather than a single server. IMPORTANT: Only the DBA can touch the production databases. Developers MUST submit requests to the DBA for any changes. Nobody should be touching a production database from their desktop, other than maybe being able to run queries to check data, and they use a separate, limited login for that. Changes are done by the DBA ONLY.
2. You put a firewall between the database server and your middleware server. The firewall is a dedicated device, and you're careful about the ports you leave open. Only the middleware server and DBA workstations on your intranet can touch the database.
3. Your middleware server(s) are as powerful as you can afford (this will be a theme here) and ONLY run middleware. This means, business rule processing. Everything that touches a database in any way MUST come through middleware -- no direct connections, ever. IMPORTANT: developers don't directly install middleware; network staff only.
4. A firewall (again, dedicated device) between the middleware server and the web server. Only the web server (and network staff workstations on your intranet) are allowed to touch the middleware server.
5. A set of web servers for your websites, as powerful as you can afford (hate to keep repeating this, but if you skimp you'll end up screwing yourself down the road). IMPORTANT: Developers should NEVER have access to production web servers; they should give their stuff to the networking staff when it's ready. Also, if you're doing FTP and such, put it on a separate server.
6. A firewall outside your web server, which only permits port 80 traffic and is twice as paranoid as your other firewalls. Log everything "funny".
In general, you'll have to hire some people: someone really good at security, to configure all your firewalls, someone good at setting up load-balancing to set up all three layers, someone to help you set up a good development environment...
One thing lots of people overlook: You'll want a "sandbox", i.e. a dedicated set of test database, middleware server, and web server that your developers can play with when working on their sites. You'll also want to set up a UAT (User Acceptance Test) environment similar to your sandbox, so projects can be moved to UAT for testing before being rolled out to production. You can't do UAT on a sandbox; sandboxes are constantly changing. You need a stable environment for UAT.
Anyway... Hope that helps, it's just advice, you know? Not all of it directly addresses high-volume sites, some of it is about site stability and security, but I think it all ties in together. If your site is being changed by developers, it won't be stable... And if you don't have a paranoid firewall setup, it won't be secure. A lot of webmasters would consider this layout to be (putting it politely) seriously paranoid, but hell, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. And, anyway, like I said, high volume does imply these other considerations...
Good luck!
Use Linux (or a *BSD) and CUPS to run your printers. Since you don't have to run any printer-company applications (because Linux has its own drivers for everything, all thoroughly vetted by the open source community), it is impossible for manufacturers to spy on you.
I'd include OS/X in that, but unfortunately, I'm using a Hewlett-Packard print manager on my iBook, which could possibly be spying on me right now. It's a bummer, but I paid 1800 bucks for this thing (the iBook, not the printer), and I don't want to quit using it until it dies of old age. Sigh...
In the meantime, I have a couple of old mil-spec laptops running Slackware that can take over when the iBook dies, so I guess that's pretty cool.
There's one more HUGE problem with it, which is this: watching video on a cell phone is going to drain the battery very, very quickly. People are going to find out their batteries are dying fast, mutter "Huh... Whaddaya know?" and stop watching TV on their cells.
Just like that, the technology will die. Some marketing flack will bemoan the "fact" that people just aren't ready for it yet, and there will be some hand-wringing.
Then everyone will forget about it.