I'm sure the poster is hoping that this article enlightens the/. reader somehow. The fact is that probably 70% of/. patrons are MS hating liberals ("independent" & "moderate" == liberal). So this article is just more fuel for the flames and really does nothing else.
I guess it's pretty nifty how one article can be such a home-run with both Bush haters and MS haters at the same time!!
In case you hadn't noticed, even Bush-supporting conservatives are scratching their heads over this bizarre supreme court nomination.
One of the more interesting ideas in recent years has been the Sun Ray Station. Tying into the previous article, the idea is that each employee is given a secure SmartCard that contains both his secret login key as well as information on how to make the Ray Station connect with the server. The advantage this has over traditional thin clients is that the user is allowed to roam to any available computer and simply "plug in". As soon as the card is inserted, your desktop is brought up EXACTLY where you left it!
Call me paranoid, but...no thanks. I don't want to plug into "any available computer". Mostly because the previous guy using it may have picked his nose, sneezed on the keyboard, typed with greasy fingers after eating a slice of pizza, or failed to wash his hands after a particularly nasty bout of diarrhea.
With all due respect, that's completely unproven, and in my opinion, completely untrue.
The Apache web server, Mozilla/Firefox, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Python (the language)...the list goes on, and on and on. All of these are very successful projects and (gasp) none of them are licensed under the GPL.
How did this get modded down as troll? Are some people so deep in the GPL religion they can't tolerate other viewpoints? I state some facts and opinions and that's a troll?
Sheesh. Shame on the idiot mods who rated it a troll. Next time, try a rebuttal instead of a sledge hammer.
With all due respect, that's completely unproven, and in my opinion, completely untrue.
The Apache web server, Mozilla/Firefox, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Python (the language)...the list goes on, and on and on. All of these are very successful projects and (gasp) none of them are licensed under the GPL.
If you ask me, it'd be much easier to use Ctrl+C and then navigate where you want to go and use Ctrl+V. It's difficult to hold down the mouse button while violently jerking the mouse back and forth to get to the right window.
I couldn't agree more. And for those people who would like a "mouse only" solution, you should be able to right-click to pop-up the context menu and select Copy/Paste from there.
Microsoft taps both native-born talent and foreign talent, but Gates said he is frustrated that more U.S. students are not going into computer science.
This is the same Bill Gates that wants to completely eliminate H-1B quotas (that is, allow an unlimited number of foreign software developers in). This is the same Bill Gates that is constructing a huge, sprawling Microsoft Campus in India.
You want more students going into Computer Science, Bill? Then quit telling American students, through your actions, that there won't be any software development jobs left for them in America by the time they graduate!
He's just another F'ing "I want cheap labor at the expense of American workers" prick. Excuse my French.
This leads me to wonder: Is Linux/BSD part of the reason for the continuing rapid growth of the Internet?
The cost of alternatives like Windows Server is incredibly expensive, at least for smaller companies and individuals.
With the free availability of commercial strength operating systems like Linux and BSD, almost any small company or individual can have a solid presence on the Internet. Not to mention, web hosting providers can keep costs way down by using Linux/BSD.
Can you ease up on the Sun bashing articles, at least for a few weeks? It's already clear to your readers you have some kind of special hate for Sun. No need to keep beating a dead horse.
You are joking, right? Somebody will find a way of using all that space up, and more.
I'm not sure that's true. I disabled virtual memory on my Windows-based laptop with 1 GB of RAM, because the virtual memory implementation on Windows is just terrible.
It was like getting a new PC. All of a sudden, minimized applications restored instantly, instead of grinding the hard drive for 20 seconds first. And even though I do some reasonably heavy duty Java development with the machine, I've yet to exhaust physical RAM.
And if I do, so what? I'll just pop another 1 GB of RAM in. There will always be people who need virtual memory for certain applications, but more and more, virtual memory is becoming unnecessary for many applications due to generous amounts of physical RAM.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Sigh... This is a sad day in America...
All Your Property Are Belong To Wealthy Developers.
I use Mozilla and Firefox and regularly block ads, but I only block ads that prance, dance, blink, flash, bounce, jiggle, and otherwise annoy the crap out of me.
Those kinds of ads are not acceptable, because they're really distracting when you're trying to read and comprehend the real content of the web page.
I never bother to block normal ads, because they don't annoy me. Sometimes, they even look interesting, and I click on them.
Perhaps if advertisers would stop making obnoxious ads, there wouldn't be as much demand for ad blockers. But they've already shown themselves to have incredibly poor taste in ad design. Recall the living hell the web was before pop-up blockers became popular?
I suspect this is one of those areas where advertisers will just plain never get it, doing their best to make their ads stand out as much as possible...which is synonymous with making them obnoxious.
The column isn't wrong, it's just a waste of bandwidth.
You need to realize that a lot of people read Dvorak's column. People who aren't like you, and might easily fall for Microsoft's FUD campaign against BitTorrent.
It's a good thing this kind of information gets out to a wide audience. Sure, it's a waste of bandwidth for you, but you're probably not part of Dvorak's primary audience.
There are people as good as or better than you who'll do your job for less.
This is largely a myth. Take India, for example. They're scrambling to meet the demand for software developers. As a result, universities are graduating woefully bad software developers. Indian consulting firms are grossly exaggerating the qualifications of their employees. It's like the 1990s were in the U.S., except much, much worse.
Companies who buy into the offshoring hype deserve what they get, which is, more often than not, terrible results.
Speaking with my "user cap" firmly on my head, I prefer statically linked applications because they're much easier and more reliable from a user perspective.
...the tinkerer's desktop? Nope. They'll keep going with Linux just as they did before Linux could compare to either Windows or Mac (at least on the desktop side).
What would prevent OSX/86 from being a good tinkerer's desktop?
Wealthy business owners will always complain that labor isn't cheap enough or plentiful enough. This is just more of the same, and very predictable.
As almost anyone in the software development field can tell you, there is no shortage of software developers. There is, however, a shortage of companies willing to invest in their employees by properly training them. There is also a shortage of companies that advertise open positions with reasonable requirements.
Just hop on over to your favorite job site, and take a peek. "Candidate must have a BS in Computer Science, and 20 years of experience in the following technologies: C, C++, Java, C#, Python, Ruby, Perl, Fortran, SQL, Oracle, DB/2, SQL Server, Informix, stored procedures, COBOL, point-of-sale systems, grocery store management, garbage collection, be willing to travel frequently, and willing to divorce spouse if spouse demands too much time.
Companies can then use the excuse that nobody meets the required qualifications to show the need for more H-1B visas, or worse, offshore outsource the work.
Borland is now a rather small fish in a sea of much bigger fish. I think they still have a chance to shine, though I'm not sure their management is smart enough to see the opportunities around them.
Between IntelliJ's IDEA, Eclipse, and Sun's NetBeans, all that's left is scraps. I think Borland should realize this and start exiting the Java IDE market. It's saturated.
They still have a lot of good compiler technology up their sleeves. Borland should get into markets that aren't saturated, and at the same time, should try to leverage what they already have. I'm willing to bet writing a Perl compiler, Python compiler, and Ruby compiler would be pretty lucrative. (By compiler, I mean something that produces native executables.) I know a lot of Perl/Python/Ruby hackers that would love to take their "scripting language" to the "next level" by having access to compilers that would produce native executables on Windows, *nix, and MacOS X.
Ah well, just some random babbling... Borland can still make a bright future for itself, but not in markets like Java IDEs.
It sounds like this reverse-engineering issue is a smokescreen, a scapegoat for cutting off the "freeloaders" (those contributing to improving the product).
And in exchange for those "contributions", they got to use BitKeeper for free. I don't see how BitKeeper owes the users of the free version of BitKeeper anything. Users of free (as in beer) software know what they're getting, and it pretty much never comes with a clause that says, "...and we'll supply you with this free (as in beer) software forever."
So, he's in it for the money. Is anyone surprised?
Uh, that's usually the primary function of companies: To make money.
Wow, non-free software vendor decides to drop support for a piece of software leaving their loyal users out in the cold.
Users that don't pay for the product, and thus, don't help support the development of that product. In my opinion, that means BitKeeper doesn't owe those users anything. I wouldn't owe you a free lunch tomorrow, just because I supplied you with a free lunch today.
Having quickly read the RTFA, it looks like the motivation behind BitMover's hissy-fit was that a contractor of OSDL was working on reverse engineering BitKeeper's protocol
It sounds to me like BitKeeper was not only perfectly within their rights to stop supplying the free version, but even had justifiable motivation.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure the poster is hoping that this article enlightens the /. reader somehow. The fact is that probably 70% of /. patrons are MS hating liberals ("independent" & "moderate" == liberal). So this article is just more fuel for the flames and really does nothing else.
I guess it's pretty nifty how one article can be such a home-run with both Bush haters and MS haters at the same time!!
In case you hadn't noticed, even Bush-supporting conservatives are scratching their heads over this bizarre supreme court nomination.
How did the parent post get rated interesting?! The headline is just plain fact. The real flame is the parent post.
Mod this fool down.
One of the more interesting ideas in recent years has been the Sun Ray Station. Tying into the previous article, the idea is that each employee is given a secure SmartCard that contains both his secret login key as well as information on how to make the Ray Station connect with the server. The advantage this has over traditional thin clients is that the user is allowed to roam to any available computer and simply "plug in". As soon as the card is inserted, your desktop is brought up EXACTLY where you left it!
Call me paranoid, but...no thanks. I don't want to plug into "any available computer". Mostly because the previous guy using it may have picked his nose, sneezed on the keyboard, typed with greasy fingers after eating a slice of pizza, or failed to wash his hands after a particularly nasty bout of diarrhea.
No thanks, no thanks, no thanks...
With all due respect, that's completely unproven, and in my opinion, completely untrue.
The Apache web server, Mozilla/Firefox, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Python (the language)...the list goes on, and on and on. All of these are very successful projects and (gasp) none of them are licensed under the GPL.
How did this get modded down as troll? Are some people so deep in the GPL religion they can't tolerate other viewpoints? I state some facts and opinions and that's a troll?
Sheesh. Shame on the idiot mods who rated it a troll. Next time, try a rebuttal instead of a sledge hammer.
GPL is what got Linux this far
With all due respect, that's completely unproven, and in my opinion, completely untrue.
The Apache web server, Mozilla/Firefox, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Python (the language)...the list goes on, and on and on. All of these are very successful projects and (gasp) none of them are licensed under the GPL.
I'm exposed to an 802.11b network all day at work, and exposed to another 802.11b network all night at home.
Should I be worried? Does anyone know if being exposed to 2.4 GHz emissions might also be harmful?
If you ask me, it'd be much easier to use Ctrl+C and then navigate where you want to go and use Ctrl+V. It's difficult to hold down the mouse button while violently jerking the mouse back and forth to get to the right window.
I couldn't agree more. And for those people who would like a "mouse only" solution, you should be able to right-click to pop-up the context menu and select Copy/Paste from there.
From TFA:
Microsoft taps both native-born talent and foreign talent, but Gates said he is frustrated that more U.S. students are not going into computer science.
This is the same Bill Gates that wants to completely eliminate H-1B quotas (that is, allow an unlimited number of foreign software developers in). This is the same Bill Gates that is constructing a huge, sprawling Microsoft Campus in India.
You want more students going into Computer Science, Bill? Then quit telling American students, through your actions, that there won't be any software development jobs left for them in America by the time they graduate!
He's just another F'ing "I want cheap labor at the expense of American workers" prick. Excuse my French.
I just realized that it was almost criminal for me not to mention other free software which makes the Internet possible for a wider range of people:
Thanks are also due to Apache, Tomcat, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, MySQL, PostgreSQL, the list goes on...
This leads me to wonder: Is Linux/BSD part of the reason for the continuing rapid growth of the Internet?
The cost of alternatives like Windows Server is incredibly expensive, at least for smaller companies and individuals.
With the free availability of commercial strength operating systems like Linux and BSD, almost any small company or individual can have a solid presence on the Internet. Not to mention, web hosting providers can keep costs way down by using Linux/BSD.
This is truly an exciting time to live!
Dear Slashdot Editors,
Can you ease up on the Sun bashing articles, at least for a few weeks? It's already clear to your readers you have some kind of special hate for Sun. No need to keep beating a dead horse.Thank you,
A Slashdot Reader
You are joking, right? Somebody will find a way of using all that space up, and more.
I'm not sure that's true. I disabled virtual memory on my Windows-based laptop with 1 GB of RAM, because the virtual memory implementation on Windows is just terrible.
It was like getting a new PC. All of a sudden, minimized applications restored instantly, instead of grinding the hard drive for 20 seconds first. And even though I do some reasonably heavy duty Java development with the machine, I've yet to exhaust physical RAM.
And if I do, so what? I'll just pop another 1 GB of RAM in. There will always be people who need virtual memory for certain applications, but more and more, virtual memory is becoming unnecessary for many applications due to generous amounts of physical RAM.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Sigh... This is a sad day in America...
All Your Property Are Belong To Wealthy Developers.
:-(
I use Mozilla and Firefox and regularly block ads, but I only block ads that prance, dance, blink, flash, bounce, jiggle, and otherwise annoy the crap out of me.
Those kinds of ads are not acceptable, because they're really distracting when you're trying to read and comprehend the real content of the web page.
I never bother to block normal ads, because they don't annoy me. Sometimes, they even look interesting, and I click on them.
Perhaps if advertisers would stop making obnoxious ads, there wouldn't be as much demand for ad blockers. But they've already shown themselves to have incredibly poor taste in ad design. Recall the living hell the web was before pop-up blockers became popular?
I suspect this is one of those areas where advertisers will just plain never get it, doing their best to make their ads stand out as much as possible...which is synonymous with making them obnoxious.
You sound just like a little kid arguing with the neighbor kid over who's faster, Superman or The Flash.
Superman has more bandwidth, and The Flash has lower latency.
Duh....
The column isn't wrong, it's just a waste of bandwidth.
You need to realize that a lot of people read Dvorak's column. People who aren't like you, and might easily fall for Microsoft's FUD campaign against BitTorrent.
It's a good thing this kind of information gets out to a wide audience. Sure, it's a waste of bandwidth for you, but you're probably not part of Dvorak's primary audience.
There are people as good as or better than you who'll do your job for less.
This is largely a myth. Take India, for example. They're scrambling to meet the demand for software developers. As a result, universities are graduating woefully bad software developers. Indian consulting firms are grossly exaggerating the qualifications of their employees. It's like the 1990s were in the U.S., except much, much worse.
Companies who buy into the offshoring hype deserve what they get, which is, more often than not, terrible results.
Speaking with my "user cap" firmly on my head, I prefer statically linked applications because they're much easier and more reliable from a user perspective.
What would prevent OSX/86 from being a good tinkerer's desktop?
"...dedicated to cataloging and indexing the thousands of movies, music tracks, software programs and other files for download..."
Wow, way to troll, Wired "News".
Wealthy business owners will always complain that labor isn't cheap enough or plentiful enough. This is just more of the same, and very predictable.
As almost anyone in the software development field can tell you, there is no shortage of software developers. There is, however, a shortage of companies willing to invest in their employees by properly training them. There is also a shortage of companies that advertise open positions with reasonable requirements.
Just hop on over to your favorite job site, and take a peek. "Candidate must have a BS in Computer Science, and 20 years of experience in the following technologies: C, C++, Java, C#, Python, Ruby, Perl, Fortran, SQL, Oracle, DB/2, SQL Server, Informix, stored procedures, COBOL, point-of-sale systems, grocery store management, garbage collection, be willing to travel frequently, and willing to divorce spouse if spouse demands too much time.
Companies can then use the excuse that nobody meets the required qualifications to show the need for more H-1B visas, or worse, offshore outsource the work.
Borland is now a rather small fish in a sea of much bigger fish. I think they still have a chance to shine, though I'm not sure their management is smart enough to see the opportunities around them.
Between IntelliJ's IDEA, Eclipse, and Sun's NetBeans, all that's left is scraps. I think Borland should realize this and start exiting the Java IDE market. It's saturated.
They still have a lot of good compiler technology up their sleeves. Borland should get into markets that aren't saturated, and at the same time, should try to leverage what they already have. I'm willing to bet writing a Perl compiler, Python compiler, and Ruby compiler would be pretty lucrative. (By compiler, I mean something that produces native executables.) I know a lot of Perl/Python/Ruby hackers that would love to take their "scripting language" to the "next level" by having access to compilers that would produce native executables on Windows, *nix, and MacOS X.
Ah well, just some random babbling... Borland can still make a bright future for itself, but not in markets like Java IDEs.
Get 'em hooked on the gimmes, then ream 'em on the return.
Comparing free (as in beer) software to heroin is almost criminally inappropriate.
You might be able to get away with that kind of analogy when applied to a convicted monopolist, like Microsoft. But, BitKeeper? Give me a break.
It sounds like this reverse-engineering issue is a smokescreen, a scapegoat for cutting off the "freeloaders" (those contributing to improving the product).
And in exchange for those "contributions", they got to use BitKeeper for free. I don't see how BitKeeper owes the users of the free version of BitKeeper anything. Users of free (as in beer) software know what they're getting, and it pretty much never comes with a clause that says, "...and we'll supply you with this free (as in beer) software forever."
So, he's in it for the money. Is anyone surprised?
Uh, that's usually the primary function of companies: To make money.
Wow, non-free software vendor decides to drop support for a piece of software leaving their loyal users out in the cold.
Users that don't pay for the product, and thus, don't help support the development of that product. In my opinion, that means BitKeeper doesn't owe those users anything. I wouldn't owe you a free lunch tomorrow, just because I supplied you with a free lunch today.
Having quickly read the RTFA, it looks like the motivation behind BitMover's hissy-fit was that a contractor of OSDL was working on reverse engineering BitKeeper's protocol
It sounds to me like BitKeeper was not only perfectly within their rights to stop supplying the free version, but even had justifiable motivation.