Amen... I can't count the number of times I've had to reset my Yahoo! email back to the "classic" version from the Beta version. When will people learn that "improved" doesn't necessarily follow "new"?
Not exactly. With the source, the customer can cancel the support agreement with one support vendor, and get another. That isn't really possible with closed source software. In that case, the original developer is the only support option. The only other option is to switch systems.
Sorry. I don't buy this. (I was going to say "horsehockey", but figure that I'll keep this friendly).
Take Asterisk as an example. In and of itself, Asterisk is not a complete solution, but rather is part of a whole (you may still need management interfaces, IP phones/softphones, PSTN card drivers, etc.). An enterprise that purchases Digiums' Asterisk Business Edition, which is marketed as an open source solution, is actually getting a mix of open and closed source elements. And there is no guarantee from Digium that the source code available from Asterisk.org actually matches the Asterisk elements buried within the A.B.E.
So even if a customer wanted to take A.B.E. binaries, go back to Asterisk.org and modify one of the source code trees with their own extensions, recompile and figure out that it still works with all of the proprietary elements Digium originally bundled with the core Asterisk elements, there is no way that any other commercial company selling Asterisk-based solutions (such as Fonality, SwitchVox, OpenVoice, etc.) would support that now-custom version. Heck, they wouldn't even support A.B.E. itself out of the box because it isn't their own "product".
I have no issue with the open source model, or contributing code back, or even being able to obtain source and modify for my own reasons.
But I do have agita when companies that tout the "we are open source" as a competitive angle turn around and restrict their customers by eliminating or blocking the customers access to all this great "opens source model" value. Let them be up-front and say "We are based on open source elements, but you are licensing a commercial product".
I know that this is marketing tactics, but it always feels like bait-and-switch to me. "Buy my product because it is open and extensible and you can modify the code to suit your needs" is quickly followed by "but don't expect me to support you anymore and, by the way, you can't have the source for elements X, Y & Z because they are proprietary to me in the first place".
Apache and Linux are quickly becoming the exceptions, not the norm. Asterisk/Digium, MySQL, SugarCRM and many other "open source companies" have very "closed source" commercial practices.
--
You know, from up here on my soapbox, I can almost see your house....
I've been seriously studying the Open Source market for 4 years now, both from "how does my company consume and support open source projects that add value to our commercial offerings" as well as "how does my company compete against open source-based solutions that directly face off against our same commercial offerings". (It's a tough job, filled with contradictions...).
One of my biggest frustrations, and the point I've often made to customers, is that just because something is based on Open Source, it doesn't mean that they are getting the benefits of using an Open Source model.
Any commercial company, save perhaps a complete custom-development & integration shop, that provides any sort of standard support and maintenance services on a solution that has open source elements within, is going to want to limit their customers' ability to churn the software environment and negatively impact their ability to provide support. So, in the end, although the customer is entitled, by GPL, to a copy of the code, actually modifying and attempting to use the modified code becomes a violation of their support contract (and not their software license).
So, in the end, the customer may like Open Source, but ends up with as closed a solution as any proprietary coded system.
Heck, just take a look at the multitude of Asterisk-based VARs that are out there, including Digium, Fonality and SwitchVox (among others). Even Digium, who oversees the Asterisk.org community, provides proprietary elements in their Asterisk Business Edition, and in doing so completely restricts customers from updating the Asterisk core elements that are OSS based without violating Digiums' commercial licensing for ABE.
And yes, I know that Digium holds that they have the right, via copyrights, to release Asterisk under a proprietary [non-GPL] license model. My point applies equally to Fonality, SwitchVox and others -- no commercial vendor who wishes to make money on support can afford to have their customers randomly upgrading or enhancing the underlying code base upon which their support is based. At least not without incurring exorbitant costs, and passing those along to their customers.
--
All things being equal, if I still remembered how to program, I'd probably be writing open source applications. However, my paycheck doesn't come from an open source company (yet).
hmmm... the temptation to respond "I knew God, sir. I was friends with God. And let me tell you, sir... you are no God" is pretty darn high at this moment.
===========
All references to God, a deity or higher power, or any aspect of the so-called theory of evolution are not meant as an endorsement or denial of any particular religious belief, save Scientology. After all, I read L. Ron's other books and I didn't believe any of them either...
AMEN! I had the same experience with a different company, and when I called the 800 number their IVR system didn't even bother to indicate that you had called the right company - it just immediately went in to prompting me to enter my credit card number.
I must've hung up a dozen times before deciding to simply #, * and 0 my way through their menu system until it finally dumped me to a human being with whom I could ask a question (or two, or three...) before giving any personal information.
And the kicker is that they initially called me because they thought someone had applied for a card in my name... so I didn't even have a valid CC # to get through their stupid IVR system in the first place.
I left a message for their VP of customer service to suggest that they, perhaps, fix their stupid process and system...
Honestly Officer, it wasn't me.... it was him. He did it. Not me. Can I go home now?
Few people need sub milisecond accuracy of full NTP
I guess I was one of those. Back in 1990, I was designing SS7 control points (SCP's) for the Advanced Intelligent Network. Had to make sure two geographically diverse clusters of AIX systems were kept in sync, because SS7 requests could be routed to any server in either cluster (given the requirements of a five-9's uptime system), and any message that appeared older than 130 miliseconds from the start of the request chain was dropped, causing phone calls to be blocked.
It was hard enough convincing folks to abandon point to point X.25 links in favor of an IP network between the servers and their management systems, but when I suggested that we use a "freeware" program to keep all the systems in sync.... I think there are still some fingergrip marks on the arms of the chair that the director was sitting in. Of course, all that was missing was the smoke curling out from his ears like it does in the cartoons.
If Skype is truly P2P, how can they track Minutes of Use (as posted on their Home page http://www.skype.net/?
I've not read the analysis paper by Columbia University (referenced in one of the other comments, link not handy to me just now...), so I might have missed it. But I suspect that Skype is using its Global User Directory to track presentity for "in call/out of call" situations, and calculating time spent "in call" as MOU?
Does this mean that it two Skype users call one another, Skype is double-counting MOU?
Or is that MOU figure just SkypeOut traffic (which is billable and trackable...)?
I once saw a show where the challenge was to build a bridge (suspension or other type)completely out of spaghetti or other pasta's.
The winner was the design, using a set maximum amount of materials, that bore the heaviest weight before breaking.
Another possible option is to take a page from one of the MIT programs (I believe it is MIT...), and give each team a bag filled with basic objects (dowels, gears, wheels, rubber bands, cardboard, batteries, wire, small motors, string, a slinky, marshmallows, etc.) and challenge them to use the objects to solve a problem like opening a soda bottle.
The challenge with large scale projects is often one of cost - building a robot can be expensive...
Actually, I believe that the gateway between Microsofts' Live Communcations Server 2005 and the AIM & Y! networks is actually from IMlogic (www.imlogic.com)
Yahoo News has a release today from IMLogic directly speaking to this, and IMlogic (as well as Facetime and Akonix) have been active in this corporate "policy management for IM" space for a while.
What is really interesting is the comments by Microsoft that they will use SIP/SIMPLE to interface with AOL and Y!, but alluding to continuing to use a proprietary or closed interface to MSN. This would mean an AIM client on a corporate desktop still wouldn't be on par with an LCS client in terms of cross-connectivity. Does this mean that AOL and Yahoo! are giving up on owning desktop real-estate?
When AOL dropped their own Enterprise IM system, they announced plans to transition current AOL EIM customers to the IMlogic solution (even though their original product was based on Facetime technology under the covers!).
My Dad just signed up for this service, and when I was back home he showed me his brandy-new setup. First thing I did was ask "So... did they set up a network name or WEP for you?"
Short answer... of course not.
Comcast sent out a tech to install this stuff, but they never gave any indication to my dad that he was now hosting free internet access to the neighbors, et al. Warchalking, here we come!
but seriously... you'd think that Comcast would ensure that their techs left a secure configuration, with SSID/WEP or some other form of security enabled on a customer-specific basis, instead of just leaving the default "linksys" configuration (not to mention admin:admin password on the box itself).
Fixed that little issue quickly. If for no other reason that to avoid a panic phone call 3 months from now when my Dad finally reads an article about how folks can steal internet access through an unsecured WiFi gateway, and calls me in a panic that someone could be breaking into the home computer and stealing his high scores on solitaire and copies of the letter to Aunt Edna.
I think one of the ways to assess if you are being paid fairly is to determine if this is a job or a career for you. Intangibles that come with a career include advancement and growth opportunities - not just hard dollar salary
Admittedly, it is hard to eat on professional growth opportunities alone. But if you can swing enough speaking engagements at conferences, at least you get some free lunches...
One of my old bosses one said "When you make under $50K a year, it's a job; when you make up to $80K/yr, it becomes a career; when you make up to a $100K/yr, its a challenge, and when you make over $125K/yr it becomes a game of egos and politics."
And let's not forget those 40-minute "supersized" episodes as well as the few that are scheduled to run 61 minutes.
I first thought that they were doing the 40-minute episodes to keep folks from channel-flipping over into the middle of another channels 30-minute show, but then I also realized that they could likely cut product and advertising costs by only having to produce 3 shows in a 2-hour timeslot, instead of 4.
Parallel parking aside... I've started recently to wonder why they can't make a parking meter with a RFID reader so I could simply charge my EZpass for parking time. You could have the meter store the information, and the meter maids (meterpersons? meterpeople?) could simply download the records wirelessly instead of having to open up meters, collect change and count/roll the coins. Then I wouldn't have to scrounge for changes, or run back to feed the meter. And I'd probably pay more for the priviledge.
I'm sure someone could figure out how to crack the machines, but someone else could probably figure out how to work around that....
So.. like, is the 250K a signing bonus? Or do they get it in stock options?
Of course, the real question is... is it cheaper for MS to pay 250K to jail each person that writes a virus exploiting on of their security holes than it is to pay the developers to avoid creating them in the first place?
I asked my wife about this, as she worked for AT&T implementing their consumer web site. Her reaction to the questions "wouldn't this give AT&T advance notice that they have 3 months to establish a relationship with these *specific* individuals?" was "Ha! It would take the consumer group 6 months to find out that AT&T even had a Gov't solutions group, and at least 6 more months to figure out how to transfer the information"
So it looks like we are safe.. the right hand and left hands of AT&T probably don't realize they share the same body....
(of course, she loved the idea posted elsewhere here that encourages others to include the line of wb bug code into their own websites, and let AT&T track their stats along with DNCs...)
SAICs' non-military business view
on
Inside SAIC
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I worked for a compnay that was acquired by SAIC in the late 90's, and there was a lot of concern by some employees about working for "a military industrial complex" company.
So SAIC invited all employees to hear about the tremendous non-military stuff they did. One guy spoke at length about SAICs' position in health care research. At the end of his talk, an employee asked "so, exactly what kind of health case research are we talking about here?"
The red-faced reply from the SAIC guy: "Uhh... the effects of nuclear radiation on the human body".
Sigh.... so close and yet so far....
Is it me, or does this remind anyone else of the little green Don't Panic guy from the Hitchhiker trilogy? The one with the tongue hanging out, and the hands in a Fonzie-thumbs-up kinda position.
Now... that would be a cool mod to this... like a giant "bendeez" figure...
Slashdot Mirror
... Or very, very old and just planning his next reincarnation.
Oops. Did I just say that out loud?
sniff, sniff...
Sorry. I don't buy this. (I was going to say "horsehockey", but figure that I'll keep this friendly).
Take Asterisk as an example. In and of itself, Asterisk is not a complete solution, but rather is part of a whole (you may still need management interfaces, IP phones/softphones, PSTN card drivers, etc.). An enterprise that purchases Digiums' Asterisk Business Edition, which is marketed as an open source solution, is actually getting a mix of open and closed source elements. And there is no guarantee from Digium that the source code available from Asterisk.org actually matches the Asterisk elements buried within the A.B.E.
So even if a customer wanted to take A.B.E. binaries, go back to Asterisk.org and modify one of the source code trees with their own extensions, recompile and figure out that it still works with all of the proprietary elements Digium originally bundled with the core Asterisk elements, there is no way that any other commercial company selling Asterisk-based solutions (such as Fonality, SwitchVox, OpenVoice, etc.) would support that now-custom version. Heck, they wouldn't even support A.B.E. itself out of the box because it isn't their own "product".
I have no issue with the open source model, or contributing code back, or even being able to obtain source and modify for my own reasons.
But I do have agita when companies that tout the "we are open source" as a competitive angle turn around and restrict their customers by eliminating or blocking the customers access to all this great "opens source model" value. Let them be up-front and say "We are based on open source elements, but you are licensing a commercial product".
I know that this is marketing tactics, but it always feels like bait-and-switch to me. "Buy my product because it is open and extensible and you can modify the code to suit your needs" is quickly followed by "but don't expect me to support you anymore and, by the way, you can't have the source for elements X, Y & Z because they are proprietary to me in the first place".
Apache and Linux are quickly becoming the exceptions, not the norm. Asterisk/Digium, MySQL, SugarCRM and many other "open source companies" have very "closed source" commercial practices.
--
You know, from up here on my soapbox, I can almost see your house....
I've been seriously studying the Open Source market for 4 years now, both from "how does my company consume and support open source projects that add value to our commercial offerings" as well as "how does my company compete against open source-based solutions that directly face off against our same commercial offerings". (It's a tough job, filled with contradictions...).
One of my biggest frustrations, and the point I've often made to customers, is that just because something is based on Open Source, it doesn't mean that they are getting the benefits of using an Open Source model.
Any commercial company, save perhaps a complete custom-development & integration shop, that provides any sort of standard support and maintenance services on a solution that has open source elements within, is going to want to limit their customers' ability to churn the software environment and negatively impact their ability to provide support. So, in the end, although the customer is entitled, by GPL, to a copy of the code, actually modifying and attempting to use the modified code becomes a violation of their support contract (and not their software license).
So, in the end, the customer may like Open Source, but ends up with as closed a solution as any proprietary coded system.
Heck, just take a look at the multitude of Asterisk-based VARs that are out there, including Digium, Fonality and SwitchVox (among others). Even Digium, who oversees the Asterisk.org community, provides proprietary elements in their Asterisk Business Edition, and in doing so completely restricts customers from updating the Asterisk core elements that are OSS based without violating Digiums' commercial licensing for ABE.
And yes, I know that Digium holds that they have the right, via copyrights, to release Asterisk under a proprietary [non-GPL] license model. My point applies equally to Fonality, SwitchVox and others -- no commercial vendor who wishes to make money on support can afford to have their customers randomly upgrading or enhancing the underlying code base upon which their support is based. At least not without incurring exorbitant costs, and passing those along to their customers.
--
All things being equal, if I still remembered how to program, I'd probably be writing open source applications. However, my paycheck doesn't come from an open source company (yet).
[Obscure reference only for Sirius Stern fans. The rest of you folks just go back to your knitting...]
===========
All references to God, a deity or higher power, or any aspect of the so-called theory of evolution are not meant as an endorsement or denial of any particular religious belief, save Scientology. After all, I read L. Ron's other books and I didn't believe any of them either...
I must've hung up a dozen times before deciding to simply #, * and 0 my way through their menu system until it finally dumped me to a human being with whom I could ask a question (or two, or three...) before giving any personal information.
And the kicker is that they initially called me because they thought someone had applied for a card in my name... so I didn't even have a valid CC # to get through their stupid IVR system in the first place.
I left a message for their VP of customer service to suggest that they, perhaps, fix their stupid process and system...
Honestly Officer, it wasn't me.... it was him. He did it. Not me. Can I go home now?
Whoops... there it goes....
I guess I was one of those. Back in 1990, I was designing SS7 control points (SCP's) for the Advanced Intelligent Network. Had to make sure two geographically diverse clusters of AIX systems were kept in sync, because SS7 requests could be routed to any server in either cluster (given the requirements of a five-9's uptime system), and any message that appeared older than 130 miliseconds from the start of the request chain was dropped, causing phone calls to be blocked.
It was hard enough convincing folks to abandon point to point X.25 links in favor of an IP network between the servers and their management systems, but when I suggested that we use a "freeware" program to keep all the systems in sync.... I think there are still some fingergrip marks on the arms of the chair that the director was sitting in. Of course, all that was missing was the smoke curling out from his ears like it does in the cartoons.
If Skype is truly P2P, how can they track Minutes of Use (as posted on their Home page http://www.skype.net/?
I've not read the analysis paper by Columbia University (referenced in one of the other comments, link not handy to me just now...), so I might have missed it. But I suspect that Skype is using its Global User Directory to track presentity for "in call/out of call" situations, and calculating time spent "in call" as MOU?
Does this mean that it two Skype users call one another, Skype is double-counting MOU?
Or is that MOU figure just SkypeOut traffic (which is billable and trackable...)?
Anyone know the anwer? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
The winner was the design, using a set maximum amount of materials, that bore the heaviest weight before breaking.
Another possible option is to take a page from one of the MIT programs (I believe it is MIT...), and give each team a bag filled with basic objects (dowels, gears, wheels, rubber bands, cardboard, batteries, wire, small motors, string, a slinky, marshmallows, etc.) and challenge them to use the objects to solve a problem like opening a soda bottle.
The challenge with large scale projects is often one of cost - building a robot can be expensive...
Yahoo News has a release today from IMLogic directly speaking to this, and IMlogic (as well as Facetime and Akonix) have been active in this corporate "policy management for IM" space for a while.
What is really interesting is the comments by Microsoft that they will use SIP/SIMPLE to interface with AOL and Y!, but alluding to continuing to use a proprietary or closed interface to MSN. This would mean an AIM client on a corporate desktop still wouldn't be on par with an LCS client in terms of cross-connectivity. Does this mean that AOL and Yahoo! are giving up on owning desktop real-estate?
When AOL dropped their own Enterprise IM system, they announced plans to transition current AOL EIM customers to the IMlogic solution (even though their original product was based on Facetime technology under the covers!).
Short answer... of course not.
Comcast sent out a tech to install this stuff, but they never gave any indication to my dad that he was now hosting free internet access to the neighbors, et al. Warchalking, here we come!
but seriously... you'd think that Comcast would ensure that their techs left a secure configuration, with SSID/WEP or some other form of security enabled on a customer-specific basis, instead of just leaving the default "linksys" configuration (not to mention admin:admin password on the box itself).
Fixed that little issue quickly. If for no other reason that to avoid a panic phone call 3 months from now when my Dad finally reads an article about how folks can steal internet access through an unsecured WiFi gateway, and calls me in a panic that someone could be breaking into the home computer and stealing his high scores on solitaire and copies of the letter to Aunt Edna.
Sigh... the things we do for our parents. Grin.
Admittedly, it is hard to eat on professional growth opportunities alone. But if you can swing enough speaking engagements at conferences, at least you get some free lunches...
One of my old bosses one said "When you make under $50K a year, it's a job; when you make up to $80K/yr, it becomes a career; when you make up to a $100K/yr, its a challenge, and when you make over $125K/yr it becomes a game of egos and politics."
I first thought that they were doing the 40-minute episodes to keep folks from channel-flipping over into the middle of another channels 30-minute show, but then I also realized that they could likely cut product and advertising costs by only having to produce 3 shows in a 2-hour timeslot, instead of 4.
Those crafty bastards....
I'm sure someone could figure out how to crack the machines, but someone else could probably figure out how to work around that....
So.. like, is the 250K a signing bonus? Or do they get it in stock options? Of course, the real question is... is it cheaper for MS to pay 250K to jail each person that writes a virus exploiting on of their security holes than it is to pay the developers to avoid creating them in the first place?
I asked my wife about this, as she worked for AT&T implementing their consumer web site. Her reaction to the questions "wouldn't this give AT&T advance notice that they have 3 months to establish a relationship with these *specific* individuals?" was "Ha! It would take the consumer group 6 months to find out that AT&T even had a Gov't solutions group, and at least 6 more months to figure out how to transfer the information" So it looks like we are safe.. the right hand and left hands of AT&T probably don't realize they share the same body.... (of course, she loved the idea posted elsewhere here that encourages others to include the line of wb bug code into their own websites, and let AT&T track their stats along with DNCs...)
I worked for a compnay that was acquired by SAIC in the late 90's, and there was a lot of concern by some employees about working for "a military industrial complex" company. So SAIC invited all employees to hear about the tremendous non-military stuff they did. One guy spoke at length about SAICs' position in health care research. At the end of his talk, an employee asked "so, exactly what kind of health case research are we talking about here?" The red-faced reply from the SAIC guy: "Uhh... the effects of nuclear radiation on the human body". Sigh.... so close and yet so far....
Is it me, or does this remind anyone else of the little green Don't Panic guy from the Hitchhiker trilogy? The one with the tongue hanging out, and the hands in a Fonzie-thumbs-up kinda position. Now... that would be a cool mod to this... like a giant "bendeez" figure...