I've worked for the Brazillian government as a consultant for the last few years. A couple quick things:
1) Inside the govenment itself 'mandates' like these are mostly ignored, or not even known about, partly because of 'jeitinho' - wiggle room for everything built into the culture.
2) However, about half the developers already run linux on the desktop - most of them are Java developers.
3) Big Solaris boxes run the majority of applications, and there are still a lot of mainframes that just haven't been migrated yet. I think its a question of Intel, rather than Linux or even Microsoft. You will however see plenty of Linux servers running firewalls, Tomcat, OpenLDAP and the like.
4) That all being said, the general feeling is that Software Livre here is definetly gaining momentum. That and Creative Commons. This is all highlighted every June at the excellent international Software Livre conference in Porto Alegre. Good government and international speakers every year.
5) As an expatriot North American who had worked in the USA as developer for some fortune 100 companies, I can safely say that at least here in Brazil most developers are consultants, and on average are much better that anything I seen in States - perhaps due to that good jobs here are hard to come by.
In a word, taxes. Anything imported has a %60 surcharge. And astonishingly only about %30 of the population has formal work - ie, the rest are street vendors and such and don't really pay taxes. Any cash street business for sure doesn't pay taxes.
Still that only mostly applies to the do it yourself crowd assembling boxes. There are indeed more established places to buy computers - laptops for instance.
I'm in brazil and although google spelling verified the last spelling, my native português speaking buddy says its 'puxa saco' - and indeed that's a correct translation of "Micro$oft Shill" .
Too bad about the book, I'm in the market. I've used OpenLDAP for the last 1 1/2 years as a programmer and administrator. I struggled alot and google only helped so far. What I would like to see is an OpenLDAP book that:
1) Has a good explanation of how to implement InetOrgPerson, including userCertificate;binary and digital certificates.
2) Explains ACL's in depth, particular to OpenLDAP.
3) Cover some of the schemas, such as java.schema for storing serialized java objects like Strings and HashMaps. I never did get a Java X509CertStore to work.
4) Tuning and performance.
5) How to migrate a DB with a basic USER table to OpenLDAP, and the advantages/disadvantages for doing so.
Here's a translation of what Sérgio Amadeu said in the brazillian media:
In the defense of open source, Amadeu did not spare Microsoft from his criticism, whom he accused of performing the "practice of trafficing" for offering the operating system Windows to some governments and mayors for installation in their digital inclusion programs. "This is a trojan horse, using the critical masses to guarantee the continuing imprisonment of the country."
Most programming is boring - its the same thing done for the 1000th time. Most programmers don't deserve to make a lot of money, because what they do isn't that hard - such as writing a servlet to produce html. Furthermore, even for programmers that do difficult things, they do it for so long it is not difficult for them. The challenge is gone.
What is interesting, at least for me, is doing new things. I started doing C programming with serial ports. Then did embedded systems. Then moved to java and RMI. Then did SQL and stored procedures. Then did threads.
And now? I do this XML encryption and digital certificates for web services. I moved to a new country - brazil - which also is new and challenging.
My point is that if I was still doing C with serial ports, I might hate my job too. Lots of people do the same thing for the same company, irrelevant of carrers, for years just because human nature is scared of change. And talk to any of those people and they'll likely say they hate their jobs, but are scared to leave. That's not bad, just normal.
The editor of linux today once upon a time admitted to faking comments by posting anonymously, including slandering Alan Cox. See Alan's comment in the thread.
I've ignored these guys since.
iksrazal
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it
is the illusion of
knowledge."
Stephen Hawking
"Exactly. If it's so great in India, why do so many Indians try and come to the USA? "
Because the grass is greener on the other side? Adventure? Easier to score chicks by being foreign? Something new, like mountains, beaches or climate?
"Maybe it's because of the fact that, despite all of our problems (and we do have a lot), the USA is still one of the best places in the world to live."
Nah, its about currency exchange. That and the universities like MIT. At leasr as an ex-patriot, thats what I see.
I have never been to india, so I can't comment on it except to say that the timezone difference is important. Its now 2:00 PM here in Sao Paulo, 10:30 PM in Kolkata, and noon in NYC.
I can however say I've had great luck in Brazil. I moved here after the market imploded in 2001. The java market is hot, most places I've worked at let me use linux, and culturally its very kool. The currency is 3 Reals to 1 dollar, so its competively priced on the market.
As far as work visas, they are almost impossible to get, as it is most everywhere. I was able to find work under the table though, and then eventually got married and automatically became legal.
I'm very happy - no regrets whatsoever. In fact, seemed like a good time to leave the states - I haven't been back since.
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."
Stephen Hawking
Since sco is arguably on a suicide mission, perhaps they are trying to drag everyone down with them. Maybe the ms money dried up and they want to burn that bridge too.
Any other possible motives for a planned leak?
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."
Stephen Hawking
"Right now, there aren't very many open source Java apps (comparitively speaking). "
Apache Jakarta has very many open source projects - such as tomcat - which is widely popular. Same with Eclipse which is now part of the Rational toolset. Plus some really cool ones too like Axis, the james email server, and xml security.
I would love to see java open sourced. But I tend to believe that the people don't use java because it is not, wouldn't use it even if it were.
And credit must be given to the JCP. Some really good things have come out of it.
Nice city for sure. Traffic is rough sometimes though. Lots of clubs and restaurants. I'm suprised so many people on slashdot know SP - I almost never see gringos living here. If any paulistas are interested they can reach me at iksrazal@yahoo.com for beers and such.
"KDE has no LGPL strategy. KDE uses the Qt library by TrollTech, and TrollTech allows use of Qt either a) for GPL projects, or b) if you pay TrollTech."
Semantically correct.
"UserLinux will use GNOME because GNOME is LGPL licensed; so if someone wants to write good business software and sell it, they won't need to pay any money to anyone... in other words, the barriers to entry into the business software marketplace for UserLinux will be lower."
KDE has half the user base, many of whom care. The point is enterprise means applications such as websphere and oracle. And that requires users. No kde users makes it that much more difficult. An oracle or websphere license goes for around the same price as a qt license.
Now if the motive is to have lgpl enteprise apps, go for it and we'll see in 5 years. I'd like it to happen, but have my doubts.
"yet userlinux will charge money to include it."
"Actually, no. Bruce Perens's consulting business, which charges money for consulting, will be doing a consulting job for a customer. The job the customer has requested is help with setting up UserLinux with KDE."
That required a lot of semantic juggling. The person responible for the kde exclusion decision, due to the qt profit motive, now has a profit motive for including KDE. Which proves even more the neccesity to include kde. The basic point I think is true. Still I say, WTF?
"The customer was free to install KDE themselves, to hire Bruce Perens, to hire someone else, or to ignore KDE and use something else."
Or ignore userlinux and use a distro that already has kde - I would think it'd be a lot cheaper for those already inveted in kde as many are by now.
"Good luck basing a desktop distro off of something whose stable version is typically 1 1/2 years behind."
"Ummmm, I'm not sure I understand. UL will be based upon Debian. If you already believe that it will fail then why bring up any other points?"
It doen't nessecarily have to fail, but corel already tried the same thing, with xandros continuing. History tends to repeat itself. I simply stated that having debian as a base is an old base, which you choose not to address. Desktop users like the latest, and debian isn't that.
"You forget that ul is an enterprise distro - its locked down."
"I don't see this written anywhere. In fact, I see specific references that contradict this. Bruce is hoping that a "cottage industry" will spring up that will write apps and do support for UL. That is not possible if it is "locked down" as you claim."
I've worked at eds, qwest and ibm to see first hand what locked down means. And an enterprise distro is targeted at exactly at those types of places. They don't want users making updates, which is my point about how having debian as a base wouldn't typically mean just apt-get in kde.
Third party apps take years, and ul is alienating half. The odds are long.
"Think I'll promote a distro that choosen to ignore me? That's what red hat did, and I won't make that same mistake."
"As strange as it may sound, this is not about you."
If you want a distro without users, of course not.
Its developers and consultants who influence purchase orders. And if you accept that you don't want the help of people reading slashdot - the only ones who have even heard of ul - god bless.
"The "stuck in the Windows world" comment was about your seeming inability to understand that it is possible for vendors to customize software for corporate clients."
You're ideas are only good if you can convince other people about their merit, otherwise its engineering masturbation. From what I seen, corporate clients want it to work out of the box, exactly the same for thousands of users. And until ul gets oracle and websphere to run on it supported, which requires users, that's a lot of customization indeed. That's harder still with pissed off kde users - of which half are in the meeting selling the next distro.
"Now, the problem I see is that you and so many others are under the impression that if someone isn't doing the work for you and for free, that they're somehow limiting your choices."
That's pretty far off. The freedom is there to design whatever you want, but that doen't mean I have to use it. Xandros, lindows, connectiva, mandrake, slackware etc all have idealists around with their own niche market. Which is fine for ul too, if they prefer to only be a niche player. Anything else requires a broad appeal, and instead ul chooses to divide rather than unite.
As for distros, my own choice at the moment is suse - they haven't had free downloads in years. Nicely engineered though, with a wide kde user base, and plenty off enterprise support.
Still, you have great idealism. If you ever make it to sao paulo, brazil it'd be a great conversation over beers.
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."
Stephen Hawking
"You've been stuck in the Windows world for too long."
I've been exclusivley linux at home and usually at work too since '96.
"#2. UL will be based upon Debian."
Good luck basing a desktop distro off of something whose stable version is typically 1 1/2 years behind. Debian is excellent and I may depend on it someday, but I have doubts stable is current enough for the linux desktop market.
"#3. Because UL is based upon Debian, it will be very easy to add KDE packages."
You forget that ul is an enterprise distro - its locked down. Try trainiing secretaries how to use apt-get. And compatability problems between debian and ul? I'd rather not find out.
"#4. Some companies will want to pay for support to get what they want."
Exactly. When I recommend distros to clients, I choose suse. (Still using kde at least for the mid term, and perhaps forever due to european market).
Think I'll promote a distro that choosen to ignore me? That's what red hat did, and I won't make that same mistake.
There's probably not much animosity towards perens. Probably not much market for userlinux either. Xandros, lindows, conectiva and slackware all have their niche markets, some of those even healthy. And probably by alienating half of the linux community by the kde issue, fences are being built.
This all may mean limited success for userlinux but probably doen't diminish his past achievments much.
At least now I don't have to read about the controversy any more.
That all said, as a kde user since 1999 and frequent gnome lurker, I simply don't see a compelling reason to switch. KDE users are probably still a majority ya know. Most of europe uses KDE and here in brasil its a sizeable majority of those I work with. Popularity does effect markets if you care to have one.
Slashdot Mirror
1) Inside the govenment itself 'mandates' like these are mostly ignored, or not even known about, partly because of 'jeitinho' - wiggle room for everything built into the culture.
2) However, about half the developers already run linux on the desktop - most of them are Java developers.
3) Big Solaris boxes run the majority of applications, and there are still a lot of mainframes that just haven't been migrated yet. I think its a question of Intel, rather than Linux or even Microsoft. You will however see plenty of Linux servers running firewalls, Tomcat, OpenLDAP and the like.
4) That all being said, the general feeling is that Software Livre here is definetly gaining momentum. That and Creative Commons. This is all highlighted every June at the excellent international Software Livre conference in Porto Alegre. Good government and international speakers every year.
5) As an expatriot North American who had worked in the USA as developer for some fortune 100 companies, I can safely say that at least here in Brazil most developers are consultants, and on average are much better that anything I seen in States - perhaps due to that good jobs here are hard to come by.
iksrazal
Still that only mostly applies to the do it yourself crowd assembling boxes. There are indeed more established places to buy computers - laptops for instance.
Yet almost no one can afford broad band (banda larga) and if they can its only 128kbps or maybe 256kbps.
I think 15 hours a month is fine for a start - the goal is education and you have to start somewhere.
I'm in brazil and although google spelling verified the last spelling, my native português speaking buddy says its 'puxa saco' - and indeed that's a correct translation of "Micro$oft Shill" .
"Micro$oft Shill" in português? I would say "Puxo-saco" - which is roughly brown-noser ... you get the idea.
1) Has a good explanation of how to implement InetOrgPerson, including userCertificate;binary and digital certificates.
2) Explains ACL's in depth, particular to OpenLDAP.
3) Cover some of the schemas, such as java.schema for storing serialized java objects like Strings and HashMaps. I never did get a Java X509CertStore to work.
4) Tuning and performance.
5) How to migrate a DB with a basic USER table to OpenLDAP, and the advantages/disadvantages for doing so.
6) Explain SSL and kerbosos authentication.
I'd buy a book that explained half of that.
iksrazal
In the defense of open source, Amadeu did not spare Microsoft from his criticism, whom he accused of performing the "practice of trafficing" for offering the operating system Windows to some governments and mayors for installation in their digital inclusion programs. "This is a trojan horse, using the critical masses to guarantee the continuing imprisonment of the country."
iksrazal
What is interesting, at least for me, is doing new things. I started doing C programming with serial ports. Then did embedded systems. Then moved to java and RMI. Then did SQL and stored procedures. Then did threads.
And now? I do this XML encryption and digital certificates for web services. I moved to a new country - brazil - which also is new and challenging.
My point is that if I was still doing C with serial ports, I might hate my job too. Lots of people do the same thing for the same company, irrelevant of carrers, for years just because human nature is scared of change. And talk to any of those people and they'll likely say they hate their jobs, but are scared to leave. That's not bad, just normal.
iksrazal
That's almost 3 Reals to buy one dollar! When this weak dollar going to help us?
So any computer here costs us, in our currency terms, a whopping 3x as much!
Brits complaining about prices? Their currency valuation is something I can only dream about, and it'll probably be that way for ever.
I've ignored these guys since.
iksrazal
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." Stephen Hawking
In a shell, try updatedb, then run locate myprogram.
"Making a shortcut would be even worse."
In konqueror, drag and drop to desktop.
"I have no idea where anything installs to, nor the best way to uninstall things. "
To uninstall an rpm based package, something like this would uninstall kde:
rpm -e `rpm -qa |egrep ^kde`
HTH iksrazal
Because the grass is greener on the other side? Adventure? Easier to score chicks by being foreign? Something new, like mountains, beaches or climate?
"Maybe it's because of the fact that, despite all of our problems (and we do have a lot), the USA is still one of the best places in the world to live."
Nah, its about currency exchange. That and the universities like MIT. At leasr as an ex-patriot, thats what I see.
iksrazal
I can however say I've had great luck in Brazil. I moved here after the market imploded in 2001. The java market is hot, most places I've worked at let me use linux, and culturally its very kool. The currency is 3 Reals to 1 dollar, so its competively priced on the market.
As far as work visas, they are almost impossible to get, as it is most everywhere. I was able to find work under the table though, and then eventually got married and automatically became legal.
I'm very happy - no regrets whatsoever. In fact, seemed like a good time to leave the states - I haven't been back since.
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." Stephen Hawking
Any other possible motives for a planned leak?
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." Stephen Hawking
Apache Jakarta has very many open source projects - such as tomcat - which is widely popular. Same with Eclipse which is now part of the Rational toolset. Plus some really cool ones too like Axis, the james email server, and xml security.
I would love to see java open sourced. But I tend to believe that the people don't use java because it is not, wouldn't use it even if it were.
And credit must be given to the JCP. Some really good things have come out of it.
Nice city for sure. Traffic is rough sometimes though. Lots of clubs and restaurants. I'm suprised so many people on slashdot know SP - I almost never see gringos living here. If any paulistas are interested they can reach me at iksrazal@yahoo.com for beers and such.
Turn graphics off by hitting 'g' - no other browser I'm aware of can do it. See the annoying ads on this page? One key stoke and they're gone.
Plus open in background keeps the focus, unlike say mozilla. And mouse gestures feel more natural for me with opera.
As for going public - don't care, just like the browser.
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." Stephen Hawking
Semantically correct.
"UserLinux will use GNOME because GNOME is LGPL licensed; so if someone wants to write good business software and sell it, they won't need to pay any money to anyone... in other words, the barriers to entry into the business software marketplace for UserLinux will be lower."
KDE has half the user base, many of whom care. The point is enterprise means applications such as websphere and oracle. And that requires users. No kde users makes it that much more difficult. An oracle or websphere license goes for around the same price as a qt license.
Now if the motive is to have lgpl enteprise apps, go for it and we'll see in 5 years. I'd like it to happen, but have my doubts.
"yet userlinux will charge money to include it."
"Actually, no. Bruce Perens's consulting business, which charges money for consulting, will be doing a consulting job for a customer. The job the customer has requested is help with setting up UserLinux with KDE."
That required a lot of semantic juggling. The person responible for the kde exclusion decision, due to the qt profit motive, now has a profit motive for including KDE. Which proves even more the neccesity to include kde. The basic point I think is true. Still I say, WTF?
"The customer was free to install KDE themselves, to hire Bruce Perens, to hire someone else, or to ignore KDE and use something else."
Or ignore userlinux and use a distro that already has kde - I would think it'd be a lot cheaper for those already inveted in kde as many are by now.
iksrazal
"Good luck basing a desktop distro off of something whose stable version is typically 1 1/2 years behind."
"Ummmm, I'm not sure I understand. UL will be based upon Debian. If you already believe that it will fail then why bring up any other points?"
It doen't nessecarily have to fail, but corel already tried the same thing, with xandros continuing. History tends to repeat itself. I simply stated that having debian as a base is an old base, which you choose not to address. Desktop users like the latest, and debian isn't that.
"You forget that ul is an enterprise distro - its locked down."
"I don't see this written anywhere. In fact, I see specific references that contradict this. Bruce is hoping that a "cottage industry" will spring up that will write apps and do support for UL. That is not possible if it is "locked down" as you claim."
I've worked at eds, qwest and ibm to see first hand what locked down means. And an enterprise distro is targeted at exactly at those types of places. They don't want users making updates, which is my point about how having debian as a base wouldn't typically mean just apt-get in kde.
Third party apps take years, and ul is alienating half. The odds are long.
"Think I'll promote a distro that choosen to ignore me? That's what red hat did, and I won't make that same mistake."
"As strange as it may sound, this is not about you."
If you want a distro without users, of course not. Its developers and consultants who influence purchase orders. And if you accept that you don't want the help of people reading slashdot - the only ones who have even heard of ul - god bless.
"The "stuck in the Windows world" comment was about your seeming inability to understand that it is possible for vendors to customize software for corporate clients."
You're ideas are only good if you can convince other people about their merit, otherwise its engineering masturbation. From what I seen, corporate clients want it to work out of the box, exactly the same for thousands of users. And until ul gets oracle and websphere to run on it supported, which requires users, that's a lot of customization indeed. That's harder still with pissed off kde users - of which half are in the meeting selling the next distro.
"Now, the problem I see is that you and so many others are under the impression that if someone isn't doing the work for you and for free, that they're somehow limiting your choices."
That's pretty far off. The freedom is there to design whatever you want, but that doen't mean I have to use it. Xandros, lindows, connectiva, mandrake, slackware etc all have idealists around with their own niche market. Which is fine for ul too, if they prefer to only be a niche player. Anything else requires a broad appeal, and instead ul chooses to divide rather than unite.
As for distros, my own choice at the moment is suse - they haven't had free downloads in years. Nicely engineered though, with a wide kde user base, and plenty off enterprise support.
Still, you have great idealism. If you ever make it to sao paulo, brazil it'd be a great conversation over beers.
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." Stephen Hawking
iksrazal
I've been exclusivley linux at home and usually at work too since '96.
"#2. UL will be based upon Debian."
Good luck basing a desktop distro off of something whose stable version is typically 1 1/2 years behind. Debian is excellent and I may depend on it someday, but I have doubts stable is current enough for the linux desktop market.
"#3. Because UL is based upon Debian, it will be very easy to add KDE packages."
You forget that ul is an enterprise distro - its locked down. Try trainiing secretaries how to use apt-get. And compatability problems between debian and ul? I'd rather not find out.
"#4. Some companies will want to pay for support to get what they want."
Exactly. When I recommend distros to clients, I choose suse. (Still using kde at least for the mid term, and perhaps forever due to european market).
Think I'll promote a distro that choosen to ignore me? That's what red hat did, and I won't make that same mistake.
iksrazal
Suse has made clear they plan on staying with kde at least for the "mid term" . My guess they are more interested in mono then gnome.
This all may mean limited success for userlinux but probably doen't diminish his past achievments much.
Ignore KDE and I ignore userlinux, its that simple.
That all said, as a kde user since 1999 and frequent gnome lurker, I simply don't see a compelling reason to switch. KDE users are probably still a majority ya know. Most of europe uses KDE and here in brasil its a sizeable majority of those I work with. Popularity does effect markets if you care to have one.
Great move, I now care about userlinux.
This chapter is for Web Services Security using XML Encryption and XML digital signatures.
iksrazal