Maybe I'm just a stinking commie hippy liberal but isn't it kind of sad that that's considered a bad thing?
Is this simply because it's software? Is it sad that I have to pay for a gallon of gas? Or food from the store? Should things simply be given to whomever needs it? I need a new TV--someone needs to make it for me free of charge.
Until you get rid of the basic human traits of laziness and greed, you will never live in a socialist Star Trek-like utopia. Sure Picard was cool, but not everyone gets to be a starship captain. You might get stuck with being the ship toilet cleaner.
You asked me how to do something I didn't say you should and I answered anyway. Of course it's very easy to kill of all of my little ideas, especially when you've decided beforehand you won't even consider going open source.
I won't consider open sourcing all my software when all anyone can come up with for a revenue source for me is vague ideas that aren't really well thought out and make no sense. So once again--find a way to may money by giving code away for free and I'll do it.
That's what you get when you remain vague about what your actual product is. If you'd tell me exactly what you sell, I might be able to be more specific. I might even tell you to forget about open sourcing altogether.
I have a better solution that works regardless of what product I sell. Charge people for the product.
The company I work for sells a few applications that I think I can vaguely name without too many people figuring it out. One of them is a application used by dentists for tracking patients, insurance claims, x-ray data, etc... Most other vendors in that area are well established companies that also provide hardware service like installing dental chairs, x-ray equipment, etc... So they can easily drop the price of their application and make up for it by increasing the price of their hardware.
If you would be truly interested, there are ideas to be explored here. T-shirts sound funny, but I'm sure Mozilla made a lot of money that way.
If I were to say that we have 100 customers, how would selling each one of them 100 t-shirts replace the thousands of dollars per year we currently get from software development?
Is Red Hat making money? Is Google? Is Slashdot? Mark Shuttleworth? Michael Widenius? Sun? Linus himself?
Every single one of the people you mentioned falls into one of the following categories:
a) They are independently wealthy through inheritance, good business sense, or selling software.
b) They have another product they sell (like Google Ads or Red Hat and their subscriptions) that prop up the loss of time and money on their software development
c) Their employer has a specific need and pays them to take care of it. When they have free time, they can work on open source stuff.
If they are, does that guarantee success for you too? Of course not.
Correct. I may charge too much or too little for my product. I may be horrible at marketing. Whatever. But we're at the end of your reply and I still haven't seen a decent idea or business model for making money by giving shit away for free. (Maybe I'll get lucky and someone will anonymously donate $250,000 to my paypal donate button. That'll keep me going for a few more years.)
But it isn't impossible either (again, depending on what you do). Also, having a closed source app isn't a guarantee for success either.
Agreed. But the success of the closed-source for-pay applications at my company enable me to have enough free time to design and build an open source app that I think will benefit people.
If this situation happens enough, eventually there will be open source software for nearly everything. At that point, the business model might shift to every company having their own developer just to assist in maintaining/fixing open source software that they use. Like if you were Google and used Linux servers everywhere, you might hire half the kernel devs since their software is saving you significant money. (Hundreds of thousands of 'free' Linux machines while paying a handful of kernel devs $150k/year is small compared to those same machines having to run a $120 copy of Windows...)
The same argument has been made over and over by writers and musicians, and yet there are some of those out there that make money while giving away their work.
When was the last time you went to a the software equivalent of a rock concert? Every shell out $150 to get front-row seats to watch Linus write a patch for the kernel?
How do writers who give away their material make money? If they aren't making money on selling books, do they have day jobs pumping gas?
Some options to make money are to sell support, advice, custumization, books, t-shirts, talks or (most probably) get hired for something new as you've proven to be a competent programmer.
I'm skeptical of selling support. Has Red Hat turned a profit yet? I haven't checked in years. Is that money only coming from support contracts? Or is it from selling software as a service too? I haven't run RHEL servers in years, but when I did I never considered buying support. 99% of the time I could get assistance from the community and didn't need RH.
Same goes for advice.
Do you really think Microsoft (let alone the small business I work for) has enough customers who want t-shirts to be able to support their current infrastructure, staff, etc...? It would take quite a few t-shirt sales to cover the cost of 10 full-time workers, their health care, our building, the electricity, their computers...
Who is going to pay to hear me talk? I have nothing interesting to say. I write code for a living. I barely even want to hear Linus talk...or even Gates. About the longest IT talk I've listened to in the last year was Linus giving a Google Talk about git. I listened for about 15 minutes and closed it.
The last one is a bit recursive. You want me to program for free so people see that I am a good developer so I can get hired at a better job...for what? To program for free? For an even better job? Somewhere they money's got to come in to pay the average $35k/year. That's over 2,300 t-shirts... It's much easier to sell a packages piece of software (a packaged piece of my time, knowledge, and ideas) for $1,000 35 times.
What's best depends on you, your skills, what you want and, of course, your product.
That's where most people end up in this discussion. So far there's been no concrete way to support a business presented here. Just a few ideas and it gets left up to "What's best depends on you". I'll keep doing what's been proven to work. Sell the software. To be blunt, it's about dependency.
Someone either needs my software or will save time/money with my software. So they need me. And I need them to pay $x before I give them something that will save time/money.
If it's open source, they no longer need me, and I no longer have a bargaining chip for getting $x...;)
I want to stress again that I don't say you SHOULD do this or that it would be a good idea in your particular case.
I agree that it should be up to the company to decide if they release their software for free or not. I personally love the open source model. I hope when I finish my initial work on the IT Solution Provider app that I'll get a few good developers contributing code and ideas to the project--because their contributions will help my company because we will use that same app...
'Only' is the key word here, I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. As you point out, there are lots of good, valid reasons for developing closed source software, but hiding your source can't be the only basis for your income.
By the way, if I built a Gulfstream replica and sold it, I probably would get sued.
Maybe I'm missing something, but if the source to my application is *not* hidden, anyone can do what I do with zero effort. If the plans to a Gulfstream are available, someone still has to purchase materials, pay for assembly workers, healthcare for the workers, etc... 'Compiling' a jet costs lost of money. Compiling software costs almost zero.
Care to tell me how I can make money by spending months developing a program and then giving it away for free? I'm all ears. I love programming and I would do it for free if I could still keep a roof over my head....now if I only won the lottery...
Not fighting with vendors about their crappy support for their half-assed software running on a poorly designed OS?
If mathematicians patented and held secret every theorem and proof where would you be today?
Don't expect me to pour time, money, and skills into creating something only to give it away. And if you think what I've done is half-assed with and I provide crappy support--build something better and provide awesome support. I'll go bankrupt.
This sounds a bit like saying that if Ford had to give away his plans to build a Ford, we'd still all be driving a horse and carriage.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm saying what if Ford couldn't profit from selling their car because they couldn't patent or protect their ideas/designs...and they decided simply not to even build a car?
I'm talking about not having the incentive to even build a product, because someone requires you to give your hard work away.
I'll concede that Ford is a bad example though. If Ford makes a car and makes the plans available to everyone, big deal. You still have to buy the metal, equipment, assembly line, workers, etc...just to build the damn thing.
If I give you a copy of Windows, Office, the Linux Kernel, or a program I wrote--you just have to hit compile and wait for a few minutes/hours.
I like Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc... and their model. Free software, pay for support.
Funny thing is, that as an IT guy I support a lot of companies. I've never paid the for support for any of the free products...because I know how to use them, fix most issues, etc... That's what would happen if I released my app. I *might* get a few support contracts out of the deal, but most IT companies would just install my app and figure it out themselves.
That's your problem. Some businesses go bust. Its called creative destruction and is essential to free market capitalism. Find another job or become unemployed.
How exactly would I be any worse off if "Bill had decided to pump gas instead"?
I'll go pump gas and you can live without it.
Can we know exactly what this software is so we can decide how terrible this threat is. I tried Googlong for your name and all I could find are open source and Ubuntu related stuff: i.e. your biggest impact on the world is through free software.
My name isn't on the products.;)
It's under the name of the company I work for.
A programmer who claims he can only earn money by keeping the source closed is like a plumber who only wants to fix your sink when nobody's home and the door is locked.
I think your analogy is a bit off.
It's more like a plumber that will only fix your sink if he isn't required to sit down and give you all the education, tools, and skills so you can go out and immediately start being a plumber yourself.
Although I sympathize with your desire to keep your business running, I think that there should be more to it than just the black box you're selling your customers right now. I'm not saying that everything should be open source (I don't know how that would work out), just that your arguments sound a bit RIAA-like: locking everything down is better, because it forces people to keep buying from us.
I think RIAA-like would be locking up the data entered by the customer, then charging them every time they want to make a copy...
Anyways--I am selling customers a finished product that was made through the long hours, years of education, and great ideas of developers. If I give them the source, anyone can immediately take the culmination of time, effort and ideas and duplicate it for as many people as they want.
With non-computer stuff, you're safe. You wouldn't be able to go out and buy a Gulfstream jet and start making no-cost-copies for all your friends. You can't go buy a Honda, and have it up on The Pirate Bay in 30 seconds. Imagine if you could? If Honda was only guaranteed a few sales before their car was 'torrented', do you think they would continue making cars?
Open source is great. I'm writing an open source product for 'IT Solution Providers' right now that will be going up against a well-established $25,000 software package that manages trouble tickets, SLA's, scheduling, etc...
The only reason I can write that product is because I have a *job* that keeps me well fed and a roof over my precious development machine at home. Because of that, I can spend a few free hours every weekend writing this package. But I couldn't have done it without closed-source, paid projects supporting me.
if everything is open source, we don't have to worry about people "stealing" things - it becomes easy for everyone to see if everyone else is using or taking their code, and particularly inspired developers will add to the code.
Spoken like someone who doesn't develop software for a living.
My company (among other things) develops software. The sale of that software pays for our homes, electricity, computers, and the ability to continue developing programs that people need.
Now if someone wants to pay my car payment, house payment, electricity bill, buy a few new computers, etc...then sure--I'll develop and release software for free.
But as long as I need to feed my family, I need to continue earning money. If I can't do that by developing software, I'll go pump gas and you can live without it.
If Microsoft couldn't make money from their software, and Bill had decided to pump gas instead, where would you be today?
Would linux be where it is today?
How about the iPhone?
No, because I'd expect the server to have some sort of data storage, which could still get corrupted. Perhaps a major flaw was discovered in the server software itself. The problem is obviously something big, that simply looking elsewhere won't fix.
I think you're still missing his point.
Take Ubuntu for example. It doesn't require activation servers, or license keys. But if for some reason they *did* decide to build that into an open source product, it would be very easy to:
a) take it out
b) dig through the code and write your own activation server
c) run your own activation server
d) tweak Ubuntu to look at your local activation server
e) tweak your firewall rules to redirect activation to your local server
f) switch to another distro without paying for new licenses
Yes I agree and am using OOo right now since I switched to a Mac and have not copied my PC over into VMware.
But can you tell me why OOo (and even NeoOffice) are SLOW running on my spanking new MacBook Pro?
I'm seriously considering buying the native MS Office. Not sure if that would be better than using the windows version I already have in VMware though.
I'm sure this will get me a troll mod, but...: Java is a huge, bloated framework. Everything I run in Java is slow from applications like OpenOffice and Azureus to web applets like HP and Netgear's switch config garbage.
The only thing slightly worse than Java is the.NET framework.
I'm sure someone will point out that Java allow you to write an app and run it pretty much anywhere--but Python seems to do the same thing, and run faster. (.NET does the same thing where variables of 'anywhere' == 'Windows platforms')
No. But then I'm not unhappy with my occasional use of OpenOffice to read MS Office docs that people send me. Just playing devil's advocate.
...although I've never heard of anyone having trouble opening documents typed in vim...
Luckily open office writes to an open, patent unencumbered format. So if you dislike the UI- find a fork with a better one. Or a completely different program.
What did I do today? Well, I didn't like the ribbon bar in the new OpenOffice, so I forked the project. I spend a few grand on new servers and I'll probably spend the better part of next week setting up mailing lists, web servers, build and test machines, etc...wait...what do you mean I'm fired?!?
No vendor lock in.
It's still vendor lock in if there's no competing product that reads their open formats. I'm also too busy/retarded/cheap to create my own.
I know a LOT of people still using MS Office 2003. Some people dislike the Ribbon System with '07's version. Some people are too cheap to upgrade when the old copy still "works".
That's why there's OpenOffice. An experience that brings you back to the good 'ol days of Office 2003 for free. Actually, it may even bring you back to the days of Office '97.
At least until the next version comes out. Then you have the ribbon too. God, I hope it can be disabled.
Show it to distro developers and repository maintainers, people who do security work, etc.
Probably a good idea.
I would e-mail it to the security teams for Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc... and tell them they have 6 months to play around/fix the issues and then they code is coming out.
Nothing would help/motivate open source security like an open source trojan.
...hmm...that's actually not a bad idea. An open source virus. Virus writers can try new and interesting things, and security people can download, run, and figure out how to patch against them. It's like a battle of wits without a Sicilian or death being on the line...
Go buy the cheapest 1U Hacom box here
It's even cheaper if you get the box bare-bones and get the memory, CF card, etc... from newegg.
Then go load pfSense on the flash card and turn it on.
The setup is easy and you get more of a commercial-grade firewall than a home firewall. It'll handle gigabit speed easily.
PC's running Windows 7 with optimized BIOS set-up boot quickly but really, who cold boots a PC much anymore? I usually put mine in hibernation and it 'wakes' within about 10 seconds tops.
That pesky 'patch tuesday' keeps requiring me to reboot my employer's windows boxes every few weeks...
You should be able to use your netbook like you use your smartphone — a press of a button and you are "on."'
Maybe Phoenix shouldn't be bashing on Google in that comparison. I *wish* my Windows smart phone booted in 7 seconds. It's more like 30-45. It turns on, displays a retarded 8-second AT&T animated logo, continues booting slowly, pops up and asks for a password (but you have to wait 10-15 seconds before you can actually type because Windows is still loading), and then finally you're at your phone desktop....except none of the buttons work for another 10 seconds while even more crap loads.
Phoenix has bigger fish to bash over the head with a cluebat before they complain about Google and 7 seconds.
I come from a present where it's hard to convince people that greedy capitalist corporations are ruining everything good in the world, thank you for sharing the future with us. Maybe we can act now and change it.
Yeah--it's a bitch to convince people to stop spending money on things like computers, phones, internet service, cars, etc...
Never fear though, eventually we'll convert everyone. Why just yesterday I convinced 3 more people that companies that make money are evil. They immediately dropped everything, moved out to the brushfuck and started farming and digging a well so they don't have to trade money, goods, or services with those evil companies...
By the way, it takes a village to make a company profitable.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe I'm just a stinking commie hippy liberal but isn't it kind of sad that that's considered a bad thing?
Is this simply because it's software? Is it sad that I have to pay for a gallon of gas? Or food from the store? Should things simply be given to whomever needs it? I need a new TV--someone needs to make it for me free of charge.
Until you get rid of the basic human traits of laziness and greed, you will never live in a socialist Star Trek-like utopia. Sure Picard was cool, but not everyone gets to be a starship captain. You might get stuck with being the ship toilet cleaner.
You asked me how to do something I didn't say you should and I answered anyway. Of course it's very easy to kill of all of my little ideas, especially when you've decided beforehand you won't even consider going open source.
I won't consider open sourcing all my software when all anyone can come up with for a revenue source for me is vague ideas that aren't really well thought out and make no sense. So once again--find a way to may money by giving code away for free and I'll do it.
That's what you get when you remain vague about what your actual product is. If you'd tell me exactly what you sell, I might be able to be more specific. I might even tell you to forget about open sourcing altogether.
I have a better solution that works regardless of what product I sell. Charge people for the product.
The company I work for sells a few applications that I think I can vaguely name without too many people figuring it out. One of them is a application used by dentists for tracking patients, insurance claims, x-ray data, etc... Most other vendors in that area are well established companies that also provide hardware service like installing dental chairs, x-ray equipment, etc... So they can easily drop the price of their application and make up for it by increasing the price of their hardware.
If you would be truly interested, there are ideas to be explored here. T-shirts sound funny, but I'm sure Mozilla made a lot of money that way.
If I were to say that we have 100 customers, how would selling each one of them 100 t-shirts replace the thousands of dollars per year we currently get from software development?
Is Red Hat making money? Is Google? Is Slashdot? Mark Shuttleworth? Michael Widenius? Sun? Linus himself?
Every single one of the people you mentioned falls into one of the following categories:
a) They are independently wealthy through inheritance, good business sense, or selling software.
b) They have another product they sell (like Google Ads or Red Hat and their subscriptions) that prop up the loss of time and money on their software development
c) Their employer has a specific need and pays them to take care of it. When they have free time, they can work on open source stuff.
If they are, does that guarantee success for you too? Of course not.
Correct. I may charge too much or too little for my product. I may be horrible at marketing. Whatever. But we're at the end of your reply and I still haven't seen a decent idea or business model for making money by giving shit away for free. (Maybe I'll get lucky and someone will anonymously donate $250,000 to my paypal donate button. That'll keep me going for a few more years.)
But it isn't impossible either (again, depending on what you do). Also, having a closed source app isn't a guarantee for success either.
Agreed. But the success of the closed-source for-pay applications at my company enable me to have enough free time to design and build an open source app that I think will benefit people.
If this situation happens enough, eventually there will be open source software for nearly everything. At that point, the business model might shift to every company having their own developer just to assist in maintaining/fixing open source software that they use. Like if you were Google and used Linux servers everywhere, you might hire half the kernel devs since their software is saving you significant money. (Hundreds of thousands of 'free' Linux machines while paying a handful of kernel devs $150k/year is small compared to those same machines having to run a $120 copy of Windows...)
The same argument has been made over and over by writers and musicians, and yet there are some of those out there that make money while giving away their work.
When was the last time you went to a the software equivalent of a rock concert? Every shell out $150 to get front-row seats to watch Linus write a patch for the kernel?
How do writers who give away their material make money? If they aren't making money on selling books, do they have day jobs pumping gas?
Some options to make money are to sell support, advice, custumization, books, t-shirts, talks or (most probably) get hired for something new as you've proven to be a competent programmer.
I'm skeptical of selling support. Has Red Hat turned a profit yet? I haven't checked in years. Is that money only coming from support contracts? Or is it from selling software as a service too? I haven't run RHEL servers in years, but when I did I never considered buying support. 99% of the time I could get assistance from the community and didn't need RH.
Same goes for advice.
Do you really think Microsoft (let alone the small business I work for) has enough customers who want t-shirts to be able to support their current infrastructure, staff, etc...? It would take quite a few t-shirt sales to cover the cost of 10 full-time workers, their health care, our building, the electricity, their computers...
Who is going to pay to hear me talk? I have nothing interesting to say. I write code for a living. I barely even want to hear Linus talk...or even Gates. About the longest IT talk I've listened to in the last year was Linus giving a Google Talk about git. I listened for about 15 minutes and closed it.
The last one is a bit recursive. You want me to program for free so people see that I am a good developer so I can get hired at a better job...for what? To program for free? For an even better job? Somewhere they money's got to come in to pay the average $35k/year. That's over 2,300 t-shirts... It's much easier to sell a packages piece of software (a packaged piece of my time, knowledge, and ideas) for $1,000 35 times.
What's best depends on you, your skills, what you want and, of course, your product.
That's where most people end up in this discussion. So far there's been no concrete way to support a business presented here. Just a few ideas and it gets left up to "What's best depends on you". I'll keep doing what's been proven to work. Sell the software. To be blunt, it's about dependency.
;)
Someone either needs my software or will save time/money with my software. So they need me. And I need them to pay $x before I give them something that will save time/money.
If it's open source, they no longer need me, and I no longer have a bargaining chip for getting $x...
I want to stress again that I don't say you SHOULD do this or that it would be a good idea in your particular case.
I agree that it should be up to the company to decide if they release their software for free or not. I personally love the open source model. I hope when I finish my initial work on the IT Solution Provider app that I'll get a few good developers contributing code and ideas to the project--because their contributions will help my company because we will use that same app...
'Only' is the key word here, I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. As you point out, there are lots of good, valid reasons for developing closed source software, but hiding your source can't be the only basis for your income.
By the way, if I built a Gulfstream replica and sold it, I probably would get sued.
Maybe I'm missing something, but if the source to my application is *not* hidden, anyone can do what I do with zero effort. If the plans to a Gulfstream are available, someone still has to purchase materials, pay for assembly workers, healthcare for the workers, etc... 'Compiling' a jet costs lost of money. Compiling software costs almost zero.
...now if I only won the lottery...
Care to tell me how I can make money by spending months developing a program and then giving it away for free? I'm all ears. I love programming and I would do it for free if I could still keep a roof over my head.
Not fighting with vendors about their crappy support for their half-assed software running on a poorly designed OS?
If mathematicians patented and held secret every theorem and proof where would you be today?
Don't expect me to pour time, money, and skills into creating something only to give it away. And if you think what I've done is half-assed with and I provide crappy support--build something better and provide awesome support. I'll go bankrupt.
This sounds a bit like saying that if Ford had to give away his plans to build a Ford, we'd still all be driving a horse and carriage.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm saying what if Ford couldn't profit from selling their car because they couldn't patent or protect their ideas/designs...and they decided simply not to even build a car?
I'm talking about not having the incentive to even build a product, because someone requires you to give your hard work away.
I'll concede that Ford is a bad example though. If Ford makes a car and makes the plans available to everyone, big deal. You still have to buy the metal, equipment, assembly line, workers, etc...just to build the damn thing.
If I give you a copy of Windows, Office, the Linux Kernel, or a program I wrote--you just have to hit compile and wait for a few minutes/hours.
I like Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc... and their model. Free software, pay for support.
Funny thing is, that as an IT guy I support a lot of companies. I've never paid the for support for any of the free products...because I know how to use them, fix most issues, etc... That's what would happen if I released my app. I *might* get a few support contracts out of the deal, but most IT companies would just install my app and figure it out themselves.
That's your problem. Some businesses go bust. Its called creative destruction and is essential to free market capitalism. Find another job or become unemployed.
How exactly would I be any worse off if "Bill had decided to pump gas instead"?
Can we know exactly what this software is so we can decide how terrible this threat is. I tried Googlong for your name and all I could find are open source and Ubuntu related stuff: i.e. your biggest impact on the world is through free software.
My name isn't on the products. ;)
It's under the name of the company I work for.
A programmer who claims he can only earn money by keeping the source closed is like a plumber who only wants to fix your sink when nobody's home and the door is locked.
I think your analogy is a bit off.
It's more like a plumber that will only fix your sink if he isn't required to sit down and give you all the education, tools, and skills so you can go out and immediately start being a plumber yourself.
Although I sympathize with your desire to keep your business running, I think that there should be more to it than just the black box you're selling your customers right now. I'm not saying that everything should be open source (I don't know how that would work out), just that your arguments sound a bit RIAA-like: locking everything down is better, because it forces people to keep buying from us.
I think RIAA-like would be locking up the data entered by the customer, then charging them every time they want to make a copy...
Anyways--I am selling customers a finished product that was made through the long hours, years of education, and great ideas of developers. If I give them the source, anyone can immediately take the culmination of time, effort and ideas and duplicate it for as many people as they want.
With non-computer stuff, you're safe. You wouldn't be able to go out and buy a Gulfstream jet and start making no-cost-copies for all your friends. You can't go buy a Honda, and have it up on The Pirate Bay in 30 seconds. Imagine if you could? If Honda was only guaranteed a few sales before their car was 'torrented', do you think they would continue making cars?
Open source is great. I'm writing an open source product for 'IT Solution Providers' right now that will be going up against a well-established $25,000 software package that manages trouble tickets, SLA's, scheduling, etc...
The only reason I can write that product is because I have a *job* that keeps me well fed and a roof over my precious development machine at home. Because of that, I can spend a few free hours every weekend writing this package. But I couldn't have done it without closed-source, paid projects supporting me.
if everything is open source, we don't have to worry about people "stealing" things - it becomes easy for everyone to see if everyone else is using or taking their code, and particularly inspired developers will add to the code.
Spoken like someone who doesn't develop software for a living.
My company (among other things) develops software. The sale of that software pays for our homes, electricity, computers, and the ability to continue developing programs that people need.
Now if someone wants to pay my car payment, house payment, electricity bill, buy a few new computers, etc...then sure--I'll develop and release software for free.
But as long as I need to feed my family, I need to continue earning money. If I can't do that by developing software, I'll go pump gas and you can live without it.
If Microsoft couldn't make money from their software, and Bill had decided to pump gas instead, where would you be today?
Would linux be where it is today?
How about the iPhone?
No, because I'd expect the server to have some sort of data storage, which could still get corrupted. Perhaps a major flaw was discovered in the server software itself. The problem is obviously something big, that simply looking elsewhere won't fix.
I think you're still missing his point.
Take Ubuntu for example. It doesn't require activation servers, or license keys. But if for some reason they *did* decide to build that into an open source product, it would be very easy to:
a) take it out
b) dig through the code and write your own activation server
c) run your own activation server
d) tweak Ubuntu to look at your local activation server
e) tweak your firewall rules to redirect activation to your local server
f) switch to another distro without paying for new licenses
Yes I agree and am using OOo right now since I switched to a Mac and have not copied my PC over into VMware.
But can you tell me why OOo (and even NeoOffice) are SLOW running on my spanking new MacBook Pro?
I'm seriously considering buying the native MS Office. Not sure if that would be better than using the windows version I already have in VMware though.
I'm sure this will get me a troll mod, but...: Java is a huge, bloated framework. Everything I run in Java is slow from applications like OpenOffice and Azureus to web applets like HP and Netgear's switch config garbage.
.NET framework.
The only thing slightly worse than Java is the
I'm sure someone will point out that Java allow you to write an app and run it pretty much anywhere--but Python seems to do the same thing, and run faster. (.NET does the same thing where variables of 'anywhere' == 'Windows platforms')
Have you tried Abiword?
No. But then I'm not unhappy with my occasional use of OpenOffice to read MS Office docs that people send me. Just playing devil's advocate.
...although I've never heard of anyone having trouble opening documents typed in vim...
Luckily open office writes to an open, patent unencumbered format. So if you dislike the UI- find a fork with a better one. Or a completely different program.
What did I do today? Well, I didn't like the ribbon bar in the new OpenOffice, so I forked the project. I spend a few grand on new servers and I'll probably spend the better part of next week setting up mailing lists, web servers, build and test machines, etc...wait...what do you mean I'm fired?!?
No vendor lock in.
It's still vendor lock in if there's no competing product that reads their open formats. I'm also too busy/retarded/cheap to create my own.
I know a LOT of people still using MS Office 2003. Some people dislike the Ribbon System with '07's version. Some people are too cheap to upgrade when the old copy still "works".
That's why there's OpenOffice. An experience that brings you back to the good 'ol days of Office 2003 for free. Actually, it may even bring you back to the days of Office '97.
At least until the next version comes out. Then you have the ribbon too. God, I hope it can be disabled.
In an unrelated story, the former lead scientist at CRU has been offered a research job with Big Tobacco.
Show it to distro developers and repository maintainers, people who do security work, etc.
Probably a good idea.
...hmm...that's actually not a bad idea. An open source virus. Virus writers can try new and interesting things, and security people can download, run, and figure out how to patch against them. It's like a battle of wits without a Sicilian or death being on the line...
I would e-mail it to the security teams for Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc... and tell them they have 6 months to play around/fix the issues and then they code is coming out.
Nothing would help/motivate open source security like an open source trojan.
Go buy the cheapest 1U Hacom box here
It's even cheaper if you get the box bare-bones and get the memory, CF card, etc... from newegg.
Then go load pfSense on the flash card and turn it on.
The setup is easy and you get more of a commercial-grade firewall than a home firewall. It'll handle gigabit speed easily.
7 Skytel [002380116] B ALPHA Frank.Heisler@ubsw.com|FW: Exchange IT Event - CANCELLED| -----Original Message----- From: Bucher, Gisela Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 2:54 PM To: DL-Perot-STAM-Permanent Cc: Subject: Exchange IT Event - CANCELLED
This confuses me greatly. On one hand I utterly despise the terrorists for what they did...but I really hate Exchange too...
PC's running Windows 7 with optimized BIOS set-up boot quickly but really, who cold boots a PC much anymore? I usually put mine in hibernation and it 'wakes' within about 10 seconds tops.
That pesky 'patch tuesday' keeps requiring me to reboot my employer's windows boxes every few weeks...
You should be able to use your netbook like you use your smartphone — a press of a button and you are "on."'
Maybe Phoenix shouldn't be bashing on Google in that comparison. I *wish* my Windows smart phone booted in 7 seconds. It's more like 30-45. It turns on, displays a retarded 8-second AT&T animated logo, continues booting slowly, pops up and asks for a password (but you have to wait 10-15 seconds before you can actually type because Windows is still loading), and then finally you're at your phone desktop. ...except none of the buttons work for another 10 seconds while even more crap loads.
Phoenix has bigger fish to bash over the head with a cluebat before they complain about Google and 7 seconds.
I come from a present where it's hard to convince people that greedy capitalist corporations are ruining everything good in the world, thank you for sharing the future with us. Maybe we can act now and change it.
Yeah--it's a bitch to convince people to stop spending money on things like computers, phones, internet service, cars, etc...
Never fear though, eventually we'll convert everyone. Why just yesterday I convinced 3 more people that companies that make money are evil. They immediately dropped everything, moved out to the brushfuck and started farming and digging a well so they don't have to trade money, goods, or services with those evil companies...
By the way, it takes a village to make a company profitable.
Time to market is more important than quality.
Yeah look at Ubuntu. Every 6 months on the dot no matter what the quality.
;)
And uuh...yeah...Look at Vista. Was that 6 or 7 years to market?
Your statement doesn't hold up.
Apligraf is a matrix of cow collagen, human fibroblasts and keratinocyte stem cells (from discarded circumcisions)
I expected them to follow that list up with 'and a few other things'.
Screw 'meat bandaid', call it 'hotdog bandaid' instead.
So now you know.
Sorry to make you type all that out, but I think you missed the joke.
I actually do know what viruses, malware, and adware are. I have friends who run Windows.
Who has the time to do a clean - professional-looking - edit of every episode of Law & Order?
I have no clue, but whoever he is, he used to upload them to The Pirate Bay weekly...