I submitted an article detailing Novell's CEOs statements concerning this and other related future Novell strategies like 2 weeks ago. This is so old news:
2003-04-07 19:51:07 It's official: Netware is dying, going Linux (articles,os) (rejected)
A video game reviewer is just another critic. He or she holds no responsibility to abide by any philosophical rationalization of virtue in writing.
If someone is gullible enough to base their decision to purchase a video game solely on how Dan "Shoe" Hsu at EGM thought of it, then that's their right. Dan is entitiled to his opinion about the game and should not be expected to alter it in any way "just to be fair".
"While I can see that author Miro Samek has a directed target for his audience, I strongly feel that this book is a 'must read' for technical developers that wish to eliminate their chances at successfully mating within the next three to four days. In most cases, the knowledge gleaned from this book will also allow the reader to avoid sexual intercourse indefinately (excluding mating rituals that involve the transfer of monetary units first)."
I meant "waste" in respect to what they needed. The two clients that I am speaking of merely required a little database that could be accessed through a web interface (and future web based tools), the interface itself, a few custom scripts for internal stuff, and a file/print services. All business people ever hear about (until very recently) is MS solutions. And in this case, spending money on the MS OS and database software would have just been wasteful.
I always offer helpful information as a consultant, especially information that will prevent my employer from losing money (or stumbling into some other prediciment that is unhealthy for his or her business). Regardless of whether the job is going to take me one day or thirty, when I am in a consultant role I feel that it is my duty to actually consult, which involves the application of your desired knowledge and skills, as well as your input and advice (which is derived from your knowledge). I never just take the money and do whatever I am asked regardless of the consequences.
I hardly ever do consultant involving coding unless it's something simple, like creating a web based front end for database entry or something. But when I am providing these types of solutions I always suggest FOSS. Alot of small busineses get duped into thinking that they need to go with Win2k, IIS, and either Access or MS-SQL. I always suggest Linux, Apache, and MySQL - and not one of them (OK, there was only two, but still) decided to waste over $1,500-$4,500 on the MS bundle (If they choose SQL it adds quite a hefty chunk of change onto the total).
Printer manufacturers are starting to migrate towards a business model of making profit from the sale of consumables (ink, drum and toner cartridges, etc) instead of making profit by selling the units themselves and service contracts. In fact, a lot of manufacturers lose money in the sale of the units themselves in hopes of making long term consumable customers.
This trend is most evident in the market shift away from workgroup laser printers to high speed ink based printers that last far longer then laser units and don't have multiple parts that wear down (such as fusers and transfer drums). Ink printers have a purge unit, a print head, and an interpreter board. It is cheaper to avoid the costs of onsite service contracts and instead just ship out refurbished units. Both the consumaer and the manufacturer (and even the distributors) win.
This is blatant when it comes to the "home office". Ever cheaper bubblejets are available while the cost of ink remains the same. It is more practical to buy a new set of $45 ink tanks then it is to replace the printer - ink that costs Canon, HP or Epson $5 to manufacture.
Sun needs to start looking at implementing new techniques in regards to it's OS and hardware integration business. Everyone knows that Sun UNIX can perform admirably and is very powerful, but at the same time, IBM is showing that Linux can be substituted for UNIX in the low to mid-level range, and HP has proven that they can sell Linux servers in the absence of huge corporate support.
Many pointy hairs are also awakening to the fact that Linux is evolving way faster then any previous OS in history. This realization is forcing many of them to position themselves in order to benefit from Linux. They are starting by replacing all of their low to medium-level extremely expensive UNIX solutions with Linux implementations, and waiting for Linux to overtake UNIX on the top tier. This saves them tons "in the meantime" and prepares them for the eventual replacement of their high-end solutions. Sun has to know that this scenario is inevitable and play along. Pride will only get you but so far.
McNealy has been fighting Linux for far too long, calling it "just another tool". I got news for you, all OS's are tools. Only this tool here can save your ass a ton while doing everything that every other tool promises to do on the low and medium ends.
Right now, Linux is "it" - and it shows no signs of slowing up. Microsoft makes their money off desktops and their office suite. UNIX makes money off stability and power. Stability and power is what the open source developers aim to improve. UNIX beware - evolve or perish, because you're next..
Data: "Captain, I believe that I could alter our cosmotic arrays in order to tune it's radio signals, refract them off of the gas cloud using hyperspace signaling. This will allow us a more acute and reversed polarity view of the Romulan fleet ahead"
Picard: "Geordi, do we still have the power left to do this?"
Geordi: "I suppose it's possible.....I'll need to divert power from the shields and possibly redirect the conduits to decks 10 through 20, but yes, it can be done"
*10 seconds of silence pass while the rest of the officers shoot uneasy glances towards one another*
Picard: "Make it so. Number one, join me in the ready room...."
Despite my best efforts at randomly naming folders and subfolders, and randomly placing permissions on them, and then randomly naimg the files without any type of extension on them, my girlfriend is able to quickly locate and identify my porn - even though she barely knows how to operate a computer in general, let alone Linux. She is a natural at breaking encryption.
"You're a wireless network engineer and you work on the run...."
No I'm not, and I don't even want to get started down that path to fantasy. I'll just be depressed again when I open my eyes and realize that I'm still in this tiny office , with a job description that is nowhere near as exciting as "wireless network engineer".
I go through these bouts of depression too much as it is with my constant, recurring, and haunting "you are a porn star that will be filming a scene with Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez....." day dreams.
I support good open source companies by just buying their products, so I went out yesterday and picked up Redhat 9. Instead of doing a clean install I just used the upgrade option. It went without error and finished in about 10-15 minutes.
My first impression: it's pretty much the same as 8.0 from a desktop user's vantage point. The upgrade process did a good job at updating all of my out of date libraries and binaries. In the two hours I used the system, alot of rpm dependency problems that I was having were all gone. However, I must have checked the wrong box somewhere because my custom kernel got overwritten. No biggie really.
Conclusion: It is worth the money. I would reccomend 8.0 users to just download it and test it, unless you're like me and enjoy supporting Linux companies.
"driven by the desire to upgrade desktops to Windows XP, improve productivity, and optimize business processes....."
Yea, wasting hundreds of dollars per desktop is a real way to optimize business. Opening yourself up to more security flaws, locking yousrself into stricter licensing schemes, and forcing yourself to upgrade your hardware to deal with the bloat of the new OS are all real productivity and performance enhancers.
Repeat this process until someone in upper management gets hit with a clue stick, or your company has had to lay off half the IT staff just to upgrade to the amazing Windows 2003.NET server with integrated XP/PLUS! desktops and Office 10 for just under $500,000.
I didn't have a hard time getting up to speed on Linux, and it was my second OS (I had used Win95 for about 3-4 months before that - I don't count the Tandy I used as a kid). I have talked three or four personal friends into using Linux, and none of them had any problems using it either. Hell, one even learned how to recompile the kernel in like 2 days to get his NIC to work (granted he is a network engineer, but the Cisco IOS is damned different then bash). I have installed Linux on three or four small business networks, and the workers there never really had a problem learning. The only hardware I could never get to work was an old SMC ISA NIC.
My personal experience with Linux is vastly contradictory to the negative narratives offerred by many people on the web. I suppose that myself and those that I talked into using Linux were just remarkably lucky. Or maybe we just had common sense and knew how to RTFM.
Besides, this kind of story is lost on most Slashdot readers. Alot of us have been on the helpdesk and/or been LAN techs. We know that the average user doesn't learn how to use an OS, they learn howto use applications. I was a tech on a network that had Mac, Unix, Linux, and Windows users. All of them complained in equal amounts and had their share of problems. What else is new?
According to nmap, the government decided that it is best to use Solaris 8 to run the site. Hmmm...good choice I guess. I was really hoping that it would be BSD, but I guess it really is dead at 4.8. =)
Linux is open source. Linux is the most popular open source "project" there is. Therefore, thousands of developers are actively examining and working with it's source code daily (whether it be the kernel itself or the myriad of componenets that make Linux what it is). Many of these developers have also worked on various UNIX projects. None of these developers have ever stepped forward and pointed any fingers proclaiming that "this or that chunk of code was stolen from [insert UNIX project here]". In other words, you are telling these many thousands of highly skilled and experienced developers that they are basically too stupid to recognize famaliar code.
Are you the least bit worried that IBM will tap this considerable "witness base" and demolish your case?
It is amazing how passionate some people are about science (especially astronomy). It takes a brave and inquisitive person to take the time to not only develop such a vessel, but to also test it.
I earnestly wanted to share in this man's interest, but that "free underwear vouchers" ad in the right hand column got me......distracted. Figleaves.com baby.
Slashdot Mirror
2003-04-07 19:51:07 It's official: Netware is dying, going Linux (articles,os) (rejected)
Almost forgot, just for a second, that Microsoft is a marketing behemoth first and a software developer second.
If someone is gullible enough to base their decision to purchase a video game solely on how Dan "Shoe" Hsu at EGM thought of it, then that's their right. Dan is entitiled to his opinion about the game and should not be expected to alter it in any way "just to be fair".
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/225206
the original
Ok, I'll just come out and say it: ball sack mashed against the screen = a shockingly revolting image to be sent around the world.
"While I can see that author Miro Samek has a directed target for his audience, I strongly feel that this book is a 'must read' for technical developers that wish to eliminate their chances at successfully mating within the next three to four days. In most cases, the knowledge gleaned from this book will also allow the reader to avoid sexual intercourse indefinately (excluding mating rituals that involve the transfer of monetary units first)."
I meant "waste" in respect to what they needed. The two clients that I am speaking of merely required a little database that could be accessed through a web interface (and future web based tools), the interface itself, a few custom scripts for internal stuff, and a file/print services. All business people ever hear about (until very recently) is MS solutions. And in this case, spending money on the MS OS and database software would have just been wasteful.
I hardly ever do consultant involving coding unless it's something simple, like creating a web based front end for database entry or something. But when I am providing these types of solutions I always suggest FOSS. Alot of small busineses get duped into thinking that they need to go with Win2k, IIS, and either Access or MS-SQL. I always suggest Linux, Apache, and MySQL - and not one of them (OK, there was only two, but still) decided to waste over $1,500-$4,500 on the MS bundle (If they choose SQL it adds quite a hefty chunk of change onto the total).
This trend is most evident in the market shift away from workgroup laser printers to high speed ink based printers that last far longer then laser units and don't have multiple parts that wear down (such as fusers and transfer drums). Ink printers have a purge unit, a print head, and an interpreter board. It is cheaper to avoid the costs of onsite service contracts and instead just ship out refurbished units. Both the consumaer and the manufacturer (and even the distributors) win. This is blatant when it comes to the "home office". Ever cheaper bubblejets are available while the cost of ink remains the same. It is more practical to buy a new set of $45 ink tanks then it is to replace the printer - ink that costs Canon, HP or Epson $5 to manufacture.
Many pointy hairs are also awakening to the fact that Linux is evolving way faster then any previous OS in history. This realization is forcing many of them to position themselves in order to benefit from Linux. They are starting by replacing all of their low to medium-level extremely expensive UNIX solutions with Linux implementations, and waiting for Linux to overtake UNIX on the top tier. This saves them tons "in the meantime" and prepares them for the eventual replacement of their high-end solutions. Sun has to know that this scenario is inevitable and play along. Pride will only get you but so far.
McNealy has been fighting Linux for far too long, calling it "just another tool". I got news for you, all OS's are tools. Only this tool here can save your ass a ton while doing everything that every other tool promises to do on the low and medium ends.
Right now, Linux is "it" - and it shows no signs of slowing up. Microsoft makes their money off desktops and their office suite. UNIX makes money off stability and power. Stability and power is what the open source developers aim to improve. UNIX beware - evolve or perish, because you're next..
Picard: "Geordi, do we still have the power left to do this?"
Geordi: "I suppose it's possible.....I'll need to divert power from the shields and possibly redirect the conduits to decks 10 through 20, but yes, it can be done"
*10 seconds of silence pass while the rest of the officers shoot uneasy glances towards one another*
Picard: "Make it so. Number one, join me in the ready room...."
What everyone not involved in some form or fashion with technology calls us: "The IT guy"
"802.16a Wireless MAN", is that a new Marvel super hero?
Despite my best efforts at randomly naming folders and subfolders, and randomly placing permissions on them, and then randomly naimg the files without any type of extension on them, my girlfriend is able to quickly locate and identify my porn - even though she barely knows how to operate a computer in general, let alone Linux. She is a natural at breaking encryption.
No I'm not, and I don't even want to get started down that path to fantasy. I'll just be depressed again when I open my eyes and realize that I'm still in this tiny office , with a job description that is nowhere near as exciting as "wireless network engineer".
I go through these bouts of depression too much as it is with my constant, recurring, and haunting "you are a porn star that will be filming a scene with Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez....." day dreams.
My first impression: it's pretty much the same as 8.0 from a desktop user's vantage point. The upgrade process did a good job at updating all of my out of date libraries and binaries. In the two hours I used the system, alot of rpm dependency problems that I was having were all gone. However, I must have checked the wrong box somewhere because my custom kernel got overwritten. No biggie really.
Conclusion: It is worth the money. I would reccomend 8.0 users to just download it and test it, unless you're like me and enjoy supporting Linux companies.
Take the gold!!!
Come to think of it, I have been using both a usb keyboard and mouse since Mandrake 8.2 on Abit boards with varying chipsets (but usually VIA KT333).
You sure you was using your computer thingy right?
Yea, wasting hundreds of dollars per desktop is a real way to optimize business. Opening yourself up to more security flaws, locking yousrself into stricter licensing schemes, and forcing yourself to upgrade your hardware to deal with the bloat of the new OS are all real productivity and performance enhancers.
Repeat this process until someone in upper management gets hit with a clue stick, or your company has had to lay off half the IT staff just to upgrade to the amazing Windows 2003 .NET server with integrated XP/PLUS! desktops and Office 10 for just under $500,000.
*ducks*
My personal experience with Linux is vastly contradictory to the negative narratives offerred by many people on the web. I suppose that myself and those that I talked into using Linux were just remarkably lucky. Or maybe we just had common sense and knew how to RTFM.
Besides, this kind of story is lost on most Slashdot readers. Alot of us have been on the helpdesk and/or been LAN techs. We know that the average user doesn't learn how to use an OS, they learn howto use applications. I was a tech on a network that had Mac, Unix, Linux, and Windows users. All of them complained in equal amounts and had their share of problems. What else is new?
According to nmap, the government decided that it is best to use Solaris 8 to run the site. Hmmm...good choice I guess. I was really hoping that it would be BSD, but I guess it really is dead at 4.8. =)
Are you the least bit worried that IBM will tap this considerable "witness base" and demolish your case?
I earnestly wanted to share in this man's interest, but that "free underwear vouchers" ad in the right hand column got me......distracted. Figleaves.com baby.