Dude. You get all that for linux for free too. This is a support contract for desktops in the corporate environment. Businesses can pay much more than this for MS support.
Here's the scoop. Time is money and in the corporate world, and the time to wade on the.net for answers costs the business money.
Excuse me? C# is not a standard language. The part MS published to the ECMA is only a fraction of the language. None of the GUI stuff works outside of windows. Most of the class library is closed and proprietary. As many have said, Java is a standard, not a product and anyone is free to re-implement the standard but they can only call it Java if they purchase access to the test suite to be certified.
As for your comment on Java not being cross-platform, that is not a flaw in the language or specification but rather the hostile attitude people on a certain platform (linux) have towards Java. If linux had an official version of the JVM, there would be no issues.
Have you used Java recently or is this insight of your based on here say on the net? I can write a Java app on the mac and have it work with little or no modification on windows or another unix platform with a Java JVM. I'm well aware of wx and QT.
QT strongly tied to X-windows and could hardly be considered a cross-platform solution. wxWindows also look out of place on other operating environments as it tries to imitate windows dialogs and widgets. No thanks. Java AWT, on the other hand, can support a number of GUI personalities including OS X, Windows classic, Motif and CDE.
One final note, those solutions you mentioned will not work on non-pc environments. I am not aware of wx supporting anything other than OSX, Mac OS 9, windows and linux. What about all of the PDA and Phone OSes? You PC centric people talking about cross-platform development make me laugh.
My bad. I meant branching. But branching can lead to forking where you have two incompatible branches of code with an older release having changes that have to be merged manually into later releases if the later releases touch the same area of code.
It is not a matter of guidelines but rather changing or misunderstood requirements collected during the analysis phase before the coding starts. Sometimes changes have to be made before the next release because of changes to third-party interfaces. I also have to deal with interfacing with government information systems for reporting (to the government) purposes which can change their interface without much notice.
There are also times when bugs are discovered after the QA cycle and the software has been deployed to production.
Kaffe/GNU ClassPath are nothing like java. They do not run on every platform supported by Java nor do they have all of the GUI functionality. I'm sorry, but having to install/configure additional compatibility libraries on each platform that is non-linux does not count.
Again, you are focusing on the hobbist desktop and completely ignoring, cellphones, pdas and set tops not to mention app servers (J2EE) and the general desktop environments.
To most people, Kaffe and GNU Classpath do not exist. Sorry to break it to you.
Why don't you stop being a sniveling anonymous coward and get an account already?
Do you understand that some open source products start out as in-house developed software? Do you also understand that a GPL'd project can be forked internally within a company and none of the changes have to be released back to the community if you only distribute it within your organization?
I was trying to point out that I work on software "in house" and our software is solely proprietary and even it can have issues with forking.
I do develop on windows and linux at work but have two macs at home. So, no I do not marvel at the "elegance" of windows. I curse at it every weekday.
How does BSD provide less freedom? Are we talking about freedom of the code again? I'll let you on a secret. People can have freedoms and rights. Objects and information do not have rights. People can own information and inanimate objects.
How do you expect Java to be open sourced without Sun's consent? It is the IP of Sun. Careful about calling people idiots when you make statements about Sun being forced to do something with their property.
Open sourcing Java under any license would be a mistake. Numerous forks of the code would occur completely destroying the "write once, run anywhere" nature of java.
Maybe you don't understand that not everyone runs either Linux or windows on their desktop (not to mention phones, set top boxes and PDAs).
As a programmer of in-house proprietary software, I'm painfully aware of forking issues. At times we have two developers working on two future versions and releasing patches to the version in production.:D
I was well aware of the tool palettes in the windows version (6) but you cannot float document windows outside of the MDI desktop. They should at least include an option to switch between MDI and SDI.
Yeah, the mac version does that but on the PC, it is an MDI inteface which does not work well on multiple monitors since you can only move the toolbars to a different monitor.
Are you serious? How much time does it take for sys admins to clean up the viruses, trojans and worms targeted at windows workstations and servers? Are you trying to tell me that in the last year, those macs have required as much support as windows machines? You have got to be kidding me.
Having to patch/reboot/patch/reboot machines cuts significantly into productive. If you are measuring TCO, you not only have to measure support costs but also costs of lost productivity. With all of that included, Wintel machines cost several times more per year.
Not all companies buy Dell. Remember the smoking Dell server story a while ago. Many companies buy IBM for reliability and support. You pay a bit more but your TCO is usually much lower.
We buy IBM where I work.
Just to add to this. The Apple machines are cheaper in a corporate environment if you calculate TCO. MS did a study and embarrassingly found that their Mac Business Unit had the lowest TCO of the company.
You know what? I'm tired of hearing this FUD. Go look at the Xserves, Xserve Raid array (certified for Windows 2003 Server, Novell and Linux Distros). Look at the new iBooks. They are not overpriced. The G5 workstations are not grossly over priced against other Dual Processor RISC stations. Comparing them with Single CPU (non-SMP capable) machines with crappy integrated GFX is not a fair comparison. If you want to compare, compare them against other MP capable machines like a dual XEON loaded with the same or comparable features as the G5's.
I do not want to use a cheap white box, eMachine or Dell for a corporate workstation or gfx workstation. Sheesh.
Umm... INAL but an exchange of money for goods always involve a contract between the buyer and seller. An agreement is reached to pay a fixed price for an item with an agreed upon terms of sale including return policies on said item.
When you buy shareware, you download the software for free but purchase the license separately.
Buying a piece of commercial software also involves purchase of the "license" when you buy the box. The same thing applies for CDs and music downloads. The terms of service are clearly displayed when you sign up for a music service.
You never buy a copy of a song or piece of software, only the license.
You are not purchasing the copyright (right to copy and distribute). A license (purchasing a copy) grants the owner only those rights bestowed by the license, nothing more.
If you don't like the license, don't buy it then.
First of all, I don't believe in software patents. Having said that, I do believe in copyright. In the country I live in (canada), the instant I create a work, it becomes copyright. I am free to bestow a license to others for the source and/or the binary but the copyright remains with me unless I specifically release my rights.
I don't see how having a copyright on a binary is possible but not the source. The binary is derived from the source and someone has to write the source in the first place. That author will retain copyright unless they willfully relinquish it. Providing source also reduces the value of the binary to virtually nothing.
Open source is no better than close source if it is licensed in such a way that only open source derivatives can be created. This can create a proprietary standard or format even though the source to generate that format/process is open source. FLAC is a prime example of this. It will never achieve wide acceptance/use because the author does not want commercial codec implementations and it is not an open published standard separate from the code.
Proprietary software is not the great evil. Proprietary interfaces/formats are and can exists with OSS as closed source.
We need both open source and open standards but open source should not be thrust upon anyone.
This has nothing to do with the DCMA and everything to do with copyright. If you are using a commercial codec without a licence, you are pirating software.
Let's say that you are just using a re-implementation of the codec. This is still analogous to stealing cable. Just because you wire your house from the street cable box does not mean you can view cable for free.
So in other-words, you did not give it away. To give away something usually implies relinquishing control. How is this different that MS offering IE as a "free" as in beer download? Or shared source? Both have strings attached. You don't give away a car and expect use it once in a while do you?
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the scoop. Time is money and in the corporate world, and the time to wade on the .net for answers costs the business money.
As for your comment on Java not being cross-platform, that is not a flaw in the language or specification but rather the hostile attitude people on a certain platform (linux) have towards Java. If linux had an official version of the JVM, there would be no issues. Have you used Java recently or is this insight of your based on here say on the net? I can write a Java app on the mac and have it work with little or no modification on windows or another unix platform with a Java JVM. I'm well aware of wx and QT.
QT strongly tied to X-windows and could hardly be considered a cross-platform solution. wxWindows also look out of place on other operating environments as it tries to imitate windows dialogs and widgets. No thanks. Java AWT, on the other hand, can support a number of GUI personalities including OS X, Windows classic, Motif and CDE.
One final note, those solutions you mentioned will not work on non-pc environments. I am not aware of wx supporting anything other than OSX, Mac OS 9, windows and linux. What about all of the PDA and Phone OSes? You PC centric people talking about cross-platform development make me laugh.
It is not a matter of guidelines but rather changing or misunderstood requirements collected during the analysis phase before the coding starts. Sometimes changes have to be made before the next release because of changes to third-party interfaces. I also have to deal with interfacing with government information systems for reporting (to the government) purposes which can change their interface without much notice.
There are also times when bugs are discovered after the QA cycle and the software has been deployed to production.
Something else? What would you suggest that runs on virtually all platforms? No, "just use linux" is not an answer. Linux is way too X86 centric.
Again, you are focusing on the hobbist desktop and completely ignoring, cellphones, pdas and set tops not to mention app servers (J2EE) and the general desktop environments.
To most people, Kaffe and GNU Classpath do not exist. Sorry to break it to you.
No, only anonymous cowards are inbred. Why do we allow anonymous cowards in the first place on /.?
Do you understand that some open source products start out as in-house developed software? Do you also understand that a GPL'd project can be forked internally within a company and none of the changes have to be released back to the community if you only distribute it within your organization?
I was trying to point out that I work on software "in house" and our software is solely proprietary and even it can have issues with forking.
I do develop on windows and linux at work but have two macs at home. So, no I do not marvel at the "elegance" of windows. I curse at it every weekday.
Please stop trolling an get an account already.
How does BSD provide less freedom? Are we talking about freedom of the code again? I'll let you on a secret. People can have freedoms and rights. Objects and information do not have rights. People can own information and inanimate objects.
How do you expect Java to be open sourced without Sun's consent? It is the IP of Sun. Careful about calling people idiots when you make statements about Sun being forced to do something with their property.
Open sourcing Java under any license would be a mistake. Numerous forks of the code would occur completely destroying the "write once, run anywhere" nature of java. Maybe you don't understand that not everyone runs either Linux or windows on their desktop (not to mention phones, set top boxes and PDAs). As a programmer of in-house proprietary software, I'm painfully aware of forking issues. At times we have two developers working on two future versions and releasing patches to the version in production. :D
For people working in enterprise environments compatibility is everything.
Instead of trying to pushing to open source everything, shouldn't we be pushing for more open standards and for proprietary software to adopt them?
GPL != Open Source. GPL is one of many Open Source licenses.
Proprietary software has it's place as long as it uses open standards and formats.
and that person would be RMS. Sorry GNU/RMS. :)
I was well aware of the tool palettes in the windows version (6) but you cannot float document windows outside of the MDI desktop. They should at least include an option to switch between MDI and SDI.
Thank goodness I have a mac. :)
Are you serious? How much time does it take for sys admins to clean up the viruses, trojans and worms targeted at windows workstations and servers? Are you trying to tell me that in the last year, those macs have required as much support as windows machines? You have got to be kidding me. Having to patch/reboot/patch/reboot machines cuts significantly into productive. If you are measuring TCO, you not only have to measure support costs but also costs of lost productivity. With all of that included, Wintel machines cost several times more per year.
Not all companies buy Dell. Remember the smoking Dell server story a while ago. Many companies buy IBM for reliability and support. You pay a bit more but your TCO is usually much lower. We buy IBM where I work.
Just to add to this. The Apple machines are cheaper in a corporate environment if you calculate TCO. MS did a study and embarrassingly found that their Mac Business Unit had the lowest TCO of the company.
You know what? I'm tired of hearing this FUD. Go look at the Xserves, Xserve Raid array (certified for Windows 2003 Server, Novell and Linux Distros). Look at the new iBooks. They are not overpriced. The G5 workstations are not grossly over priced against other Dual Processor RISC stations. Comparing them with Single CPU (non-SMP capable) machines with crappy integrated GFX is not a fair comparison. If you want to compare, compare them against other MP capable machines like a dual XEON loaded with the same or comparable features as the G5's. I do not want to use a cheap white box, eMachine or Dell for a corporate workstation or gfx workstation. Sheesh.
This is exactly how I feel. If you don't like the terms of service that come with a transaction, don't do it.
Umm... INAL but an exchange of money for goods always involve a contract between the buyer and seller. An agreement is reached to pay a fixed price for an item with an agreed upon terms of sale including return policies on said item. When you buy shareware, you download the software for free but purchase the license separately. Buying a piece of commercial software also involves purchase of the "license" when you buy the box. The same thing applies for CDs and music downloads. The terms of service are clearly displayed when you sign up for a music service. You never buy a copy of a song or piece of software, only the license.
You are not purchasing the copyright (right to copy and distribute). A license (purchasing a copy) grants the owner only those rights bestowed by the license, nothing more. If you don't like the license, don't buy it then.
First of all, I don't believe in software patents. Having said that, I do believe in copyright. In the country I live in (canada), the instant I create a work, it becomes copyright. I am free to bestow a license to others for the source and/or the binary but the copyright remains with me unless I specifically release my rights. I don't see how having a copyright on a binary is possible but not the source. The binary is derived from the source and someone has to write the source in the first place. That author will retain copyright unless they willfully relinquish it. Providing source also reduces the value of the binary to virtually nothing. Open source is no better than close source if it is licensed in such a way that only open source derivatives can be created. This can create a proprietary standard or format even though the source to generate that format/process is open source. FLAC is a prime example of this. It will never achieve wide acceptance/use because the author does not want commercial codec implementations and it is not an open published standard separate from the code. Proprietary software is not the great evil. Proprietary interfaces/formats are and can exists with OSS as closed source. We need both open source and open standards but open source should not be thrust upon anyone.
This has nothing to do with the DCMA and everything to do with copyright. If you are using a commercial codec without a licence, you are pirating software. Let's say that you are just using a re-implementation of the codec. This is still analogous to stealing cable. Just because you wire your house from the street cable box does not mean you can view cable for free.
You can run iTunes through MOL on any PPC box. That includes non-Apple boxes. Sorry, X86 linux users are out of luck.
You don't own the songs. You own a licence to the songs. Only the artist and their label own the songs.
So in other-words, you did not give it away. To give away something usually implies relinquishing control. How is this different that MS offering IE as a "free" as in beer download? Or shared source? Both have strings attached. You don't give away a car and expect use it once in a while do you?