However, his offer was declined because the project was looking for a 100% open source solution. The laptops will now be running on Red Hat Linux on AMD chips.
Sometimes it's tough to stick to your principles. However, in the long run it is always better not to compromise on your beliefs.
You raise some excellent points, especially about them flailing about for revenue. All I can say is that their service sucks. That is why they lost me as a customer. If they want revenue, they should offer quality service. I mean, this is not a new concept.
The Romney administration wants documents stored in a particular format that would allow the records to be read by a variety of software packages -- except Microsoft Office. The state Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committee is holding a hearing Monday on the proposed document storage standards after blind and other visually impaired state workers raised concerns.
Except that the original concern was raised that MS Office was the *only* way to access most of the documents. There is nothing stopping MS from implementing perfect support for the OpenDocument format. There are many things stopping competitors from implementing perfect MS Office compatibility. Come to think of it, even MS can't (or won't) truly implement perfect MS Office compatibility between the various versions.
Right...that should convince the South Korean government (and the rest of the world) that they're not an abusive monopoly.
I don't care what the rest of the world thinks. I would just like to see them do the same throughout the rest of the world. Start threatening to take Windows out of the various world markets and see the wonders it does for OSS alternatives. At the very least people will begin to prepare migration plans and so on.
The "2. ???" that he really needs to fill in is how to answer the big dogs when they say, "What's in it for me?" Given that he effectively wants to destroy all known document interchange formats (getting rid of Word and Adobe basically represents all documents), he will need a good answer. Companies don't do anything unless they believe it will increase their bottom line. He will need to show them how going this route will do just that. If he can't, then his idea will likely be doomed to obscurity.
As a result of the early release, Episode III only managed to earn $380 million at the box office.
Nice editorializing there. Yeah, the movie made a boatload of money. That does not change the fact that the people who screened the movie violated the agreement under which they received the screener copies.
Personally, I don't think that the US Attorney should be involved in what amounts to a contract violation. This should really be a civil matter, but it is still wrong.
Is the solution a master password, with all of the potential problems that represents, or biometrics, or are we stuck with post-it notes and a call to the help desk?
There is also a GNOME or GTK tool that is similar, but I didn't like the features nearly as well. This thing will store your passwords in an AES encrypted file protected with (I believe) an arbitrary length passphrase (mine is about 100 characters). I believe that it similar to the password safe (or something like that) that comes with Mac OS X, but it has been a long time since I even had a look at it.
Please be sure and qualify your statement properly. It should read: works on everywhere where Java is.
Java is not platform independent. It is a platform as much as Linux, *BSD, Solaris, Irix, Windows, vxWorks and others are platforms. It just happens that Java has been designed to run on other platforms.
Lexmark discounts certain cartridges with the understanding that the user will return the spent cartridges to Lexmark. Lexmark recycles the cartridges and sells them again. Lexmark got their panties in a bunch because another company was taking their prebated cartridges and recycling them, causing Lexmark to lose money. Lexmark isn't being quite as evil as they are made out to be, in this case.
Lexmark should take a lesson from the auto parts industry. If I have the water pump on my car die and want to replace it myslef, my choices are:
Pay "full" price
Pay "full" price and get a "rebate" on return of the faulty part (which the shop rebuilds or sells whosale to remanufacturer)
Pay "discounted" price and turn in faulty part at time of sale
Surprisingly enough there is no option called "Pay discounted price and take it on faith the customer will later return the faulty part." People are lazy/stingy. If there is no monetary incentive to actually do something, they won't.
Most computer science students concentrate on small-computer technology, such as Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating systems, or the popular alternatives Unix and Linux. Few have been trained on zOS, the operating system that runs IBM Corp.'s massive mainframes.
Comp Sci students are not (or should not be) training to be system administrators. That is a vocational program. That would be like complaining that electrical engineers are no longer taught how to manufacture and assemble vacuum tubes. Serisouly, why complain that students are not being taught long obsolete technology?
Not only that, but the point of a college education (and sadly this is rarely the case) to imbue the students with the skills to think critically, reason effectively and adapt/synthesize information to deal with new challenges. If they walk into a job that requires mainframe skills, they should be able to pick them up as they go. That is, if they have received a quality college education. Other than that, they should be looking to hire DeVry or ITT graduates that have been trained in the vocation of mainframe operations/maintenance/programming/whatever.
The first article is a good one at which to point someone who has never heard of Open Source. My only beef is that the explanation of "What is Open Source" sounds more like a description of "What is the GPL/LGPL." Don't get me wrong, I like the GPL and release all of my work under it when possible, but there are plenty more licenses.
I also think that while OSS has some shortcomings, the way he paints them in third article is a bit bleak. Ha talks about the lack of a gentle learning curve or how they may not be as complete as their commercial conterparts. However, he completely overlooks those applications that have equalled or surpassed their commercial counterparts (like Apache, OpenOffice, Mozilla, and so on). Besides, most new users would be more likely to use OSS applications that have large active communitities (i.e., available support from other users), rather than the less well known.
Tough call - DRM is coming (Or is already here), one way or another, and is better to work on creating something done right, or to object to it on moral grounds?
If you can't beat 'em, and you can't join 'em, you might as well head them off at the pass.
Other banned words include games, medals, gold, silver, bronze, 2012, sponsor, summer
I guess a jewelry store owner would be forbidden from advertising: "Come and see our great selection of gold and silver on sale this starting this summer. No payments until 2012."
Disclaimer: I used to work there (but not on that product), and I still think that company is really cool.
No offense, but their marketing department needs to pull their heads out:
ExchangeIt! is the only groupware product on the market to simultaneously and transparently support the following clients: Microsoft® Outlook®, secure browser-based access over the Internet, and Ximian® Evolution(TM)*.
I highly doubt that in all the world, there is not another groupware solution that doesn't support at least those clients.
Other than that, it is at least worth a look from anyone serious about a non-Exchange solution
It may be a good idea to check out OpenGroupware.org. IIRC, it integrates with Outlook and they are also heavily working on OpenOffice.org and Mozilla integration. This is awesome if you want to transition your backend first. Once you get the back office off of Exchange, you can move the front office to OOo and Mozilla, followed by a switch out of the OS from Windows to Linux or BSD.
Acting for user group Linux Australia Inc, he asks recipients to sign statements saying their use of the word is subject to the group's licence agreement, which has fees of $A200 to $A5000 under a successful trademark application.
I think that is a but underhanded. Even in the US, isn't Linus' policy that people can pretty much use the Linux name as long as they are decent about it? I forget where I read it, but I seem to recall that he could go after lots of commercial entities (Red Hat, Progeny, and so on) but chooses not to?
What does this Austrailian hope to gain? Really, they may gain a few thousand or hundred thousand dollars, but I imagine that this will not exactly engender "good will" from the "victims."
But at least with the Air Force (my employer), that's the way it is, they have standardized on Microsoft, there is nothing anyone can do about it, so it doesn't make any sense to concern myself with browser nutral apps. We use IE. That's it. So, I develop apps based on using the non-standard MS technology, to do anything else would be silly.
I also get extremely annoyed at this. Especially since some sites are designed to be used from outside. There is not much you can say if an organization decides to develop an intranet site that is IE-only, since they can control the apps on the intranet. But a site that is esigned to be used by users from personal or non-USAF machines is another story.
The best thing I can do is advise you to read AFI 33-129. The best parts are:
5.2.2.2. Public DOD Web sites will not require or encourage users to choose any specific
browser software (DOD 5500.7-R). Additionally, official DOD public Web sites will not use
graphics or logos depicting companies or products and should only use text or hyperlinks to
the software site when absolutely needed to support the organization or its mission.
6. Page Layout and Maintenance. Organizations must ensure Web pages are professionally presented,
current, accurate, factual, related to the organizational mission, and follow the guidance and policy as
described in paragraph 5.1. Use images appropriate to the content; do not use images indiscriminately. Do
not display hyperlinks to incomplete paths or use the phrase "under construction"; additionally, do not
introduce information or services until they are ready. Announce new or substantially changed informa-
tion on the home page. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Standard 2001, IEEE Rec-
ommended Practice for Internet - Web Site Engineering, Web Site Management, and Web Site Life Cycle,
2002, define recommended practices for (WWW) page engineering for Intranet and Extranet environ-
ments, based on World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and related industry guidelines. Web Page Main-
tainers will ensure the data in their area of responsibility is date/time stamped to reflect the most current
information. At a minimum, base and organization (e.g., wing, group, squadron, special staff agencies,
etc.) Web pages must comply with Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) 4.0 specifications and contain
information described below:
I know that HTML 4.0 is getting old, but the instruction was originally drafted a couple of years ago. I have found that emailing webmasters of USAF sites with a link to the W3 validator output for their page(s) and copying in the text of 33-129 is enough to get their attention.
If they still choose to do nothing, report it to the parent organization's Inspector General. If still nothing, go higher. I rather like that it is at least stated in a regulation that all web site developers and maintainers are supposed to read and follow (though many don't). That at least gets you taken seriously and not though of as some sort of idiot just trying to cause trouble.
as it accepts that a court might not agree that the reverse-engineering is legal.
Real makes a competing product. They want to be able to interoperate with the songs sold on iTunes. This should be an open and shut case. I cringe to think what sort of legal wrangling will go on.
I know that Real is no great champion, but we should support them if there is a possibility it will help to preserve what little bit of fair use we still have left.
Keep in mind that most successful ventures in space (and all the major ones) were driven by a space race with heavy military overtones. Such motivation worked once and will work again.
Not just that, but it would certainly help breath new life into the NASA. Let's face it, NASA is currently being crushed by its own beauracracy.
It may not be long range space missions to Mars and such, but it will certainly help move space flight from where it currently is at the edge of the envelope. The same thing happened with aviation in WWI and WWII. The US and other military powers invested hevily in making aircraft more common place and exploring the variety of roles in which they could be employed. This made aviation safer, more commonplace and in general made the public more aware of it. If the same happens to space flight, only good can come of it.
how to select an inkjet printer without falling prey to many of the common marketing gimmicks.
Buy a color laser printer. Here is why:
Many prints for low cost (mine was ~US$400 and has 7k page black toner and 5k page color toner for each of C, Y, and M).
If all you want is a printer (i.e., not multi-function do everything device). Laser is the best way to go. I bought my Samsung CLP-550N from NewEgg (I am not affiliated with either Samsung or NewEgg) and have been exceptionally happy. There were cheaper versions, but here is why I got the one I did:
Samsung has a real Linux installer and Linux support for pretty much all of their printers (though, in my case I did not use it, see below).
The 550N came with a built in ethernet card
It speaks PS level 3 (this is why I did not need their installer, as it speeks native PS).
It has a builtin duplexer
the CPU is 266 MHz and it has 128 MB of RAM
It is exceptionally quiet
Setting it up with CUPS took about 15 seconds. Much easier that when my father visited and needed to print something from Windows (Windows wanted the install CD for drivers, which he had not brought with him, so we had to hunt down drivers on the net).
Seriously, just the built in duplexer and laser alone would be a deal at US$400. The builtin ethernet and extra CPU and RAM were basically a bonus. Not only that, but the quality is better than that of other inkjets I have seen.
THe only down side: you need to purchase special laser quality photopaper. Inkjet photo paper can melt when it hits the the 180 degrees C drum (or so I am told).
I have a small team of Linux developers that are looking for some work of this nature.
What's funny is that I have personally offered to a few Win32 shareware/freeware developers to port their apps to Linux or to a cross-platform toolkit (wxWidgets is my choice), FOR FREE! The responses were all either absent (i.e., no response), or they were not interested.
extend Copyright protections to 70 years after the author's death
Today in class, the professor handed out some copies that came out of IEEE Computer from January 1982. Under current copyright law, the copyrights on those articles will not expire until well after I do. But to what end?
Really, how commercially valuable is a 23 year old article about parallel computing? It makes me shake my head. If you can't extract the majority of the commercial benefit of your creation in the first couple of decades, I don't think you deserve the ability to even get a copyright.
Even then, it is not possible to be completely anonymous. It is always possible to match things like print head patterns, fingerprints, typewriter head impressions, and so on. Like anything else security-related, there are only varying degrees.
Slashdot Mirror
However, his offer was declined because the project was looking for a 100% open source solution. The laptops will now be running on Red Hat Linux on AMD chips.
Sometimes it's tough to stick to your principles. However, in the long run it is always better not to compromise on your beliefs.
Seems to me The Oklahoma city bomber wasn't arabic...
Seems to me that 40% of the world's land area is covered by desert
You raise some excellent points, especially about them flailing about for revenue. All I can say is that their service sucks. That is why they lost me as a customer. If they want revenue, they should offer quality service. I mean, this is not a new concept.
The Romney administration wants documents stored in a particular format that would allow the records to be read by a variety of software packages -- except Microsoft Office. The state Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committee is holding a hearing Monday on the proposed document storage standards after blind and other visually impaired state workers raised concerns.
Except that the original concern was raised that MS Office was the *only* way to access most of the documents. There is nothing stopping MS from implementing perfect support for the OpenDocument format. There are many things stopping competitors from implementing perfect MS Office compatibility. Come to think of it, even MS can't (or won't) truly implement perfect MS Office compatibility between the various versions.
Right...that should convince the South Korean government (and the rest of the world) that they're not an abusive monopoly.
I don't care what the rest of the world thinks. I would just like to see them do the same throughout the rest of the world. Start threatening to take Windows out of the various world markets and see the wonders it does for OSS alternatives. At the very least people will begin to prepare migration plans and so on.
The "2. ???" that he really needs to fill in is how to answer the big dogs when they say, "What's in it for me?" Given that he effectively wants to destroy all known document interchange formats (getting rid of Word and Adobe basically represents all documents), he will need a good answer. Companies don't do anything unless they believe it will increase their bottom line. He will need to show them how going this route will do just that. If he can't, then his idea will likely be doomed to obscurity.
As a result of the early release, Episode III only managed to earn $380 million at the box office.
Nice editorializing there. Yeah, the movie made a boatload of money. That does not change the fact that the people who screened the movie violated the agreement under which they received the screener copies.
Personally, I don't think that the US Attorney should be involved in what amounts to a contract violation. This should really be a civil matter, but it is still wrong.
Is the solution a master password, with all of the potential problems that represents, or biometrics, or are we stuck with post-it notes and a call to the help desk?
Just use the right tool: MyPasswordSafe
There is also a GNOME or GTK tool that is similar, but I didn't like the features nearly as well. This thing will store your passwords in an AES encrypted file protected with (I believe) an arbitrary length passphrase (mine is about 100 characters). I believe that it similar to the password safe (or something like that) that comes with Mac OS X, but it has been a long time since I even had a look at it.
works on everywhere.
Please be sure and qualify your statement properly. It should read: works on everywhere where Java is.
Java is not platform independent. It is a platform as much as Linux, *BSD, Solaris, Irix, Windows, vxWorks and others are platforms. It just happens that Java has been designed to run on other platforms.
Lexmark discounts certain cartridges with the understanding that the user will return the spent cartridges to Lexmark. Lexmark recycles the cartridges and sells them again. Lexmark got their panties in a bunch because another company was taking their prebated cartridges and recycling them, causing Lexmark to lose money. Lexmark isn't being quite as evil as they are made out to be, in this case.
Lexmark should take a lesson from the auto parts industry. If I have the water pump on my car die and want to replace it myslef, my choices are:
Surprisingly enough there is no option called "Pay discounted price and take it on faith the customer will later return the faulty part." People are lazy/stingy. If there is no monetary incentive to actually do something, they won't.
Most computer science students concentrate on small-computer technology, such as Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating systems, or the popular alternatives Unix and Linux. Few have been trained on zOS, the operating system that runs IBM Corp.'s massive mainframes.
Comp Sci students are not (or should not be) training to be system administrators. That is a vocational program. That would be like complaining that electrical engineers are no longer taught how to manufacture and assemble vacuum tubes. Serisouly, why complain that students are not being taught long obsolete technology?
Not only that, but the point of a college education (and sadly this is rarely the case) to imbue the students with the skills to think critically, reason effectively and adapt/synthesize information to deal with new challenges. If they walk into a job that requires mainframe skills, they should be able to pick them up as they go. That is, if they have received a quality college education. Other than that, they should be looking to hire DeVry or ITT graduates that have been trained in the vocation of mainframe operations/maintenance/programming/whatever.
The first article is a good one at which to point someone who has never heard of Open Source. My only beef is that the explanation of "What is Open Source" sounds more like a description of "What is the GPL/LGPL." Don't get me wrong, I like the GPL and release all of my work under it when possible, but there are plenty more licenses.
I also think that while OSS has some shortcomings, the way he paints them in third article is a bit bleak. Ha talks about the lack of a gentle learning curve or how they may not be as complete as their commercial conterparts. However, he completely overlooks those applications that have equalled or surpassed their commercial counterparts (like Apache, OpenOffice, Mozilla, and so on). Besides, most new users would be more likely to use OSS applications that have large active communitities (i.e., available support from other users), rather than the less well known.
Tough call - DRM is coming (Or is already here), one way or another, and is better to work on creating something done right, or to object to it on moral grounds?
If you can't beat 'em, and you can't join 'em, you might as well head them off at the pass.
No kidding.
Other banned words include games, medals, gold, silver, bronze, 2012, sponsor, summer
I guess a jewelry store owner would be forbidden from advertising: "Come and see our great selection of gold and silver on sale this starting this summer. No payments until 2012."
This is positively ridiculous.
ExchangeIt is another option.
Disclaimer: I used to work there (but not on that product), and I still think that company is really cool.
No offense, but their marketing department needs to pull their heads out:
I highly doubt that in all the world, there is not another groupware solution that doesn't support at least those clients.
Other than that, it is at least worth a look from anyone serious about a non-Exchange solution
It may be a good idea to check out OpenGroupware.org. IIRC, it integrates with Outlook and they are also heavily working on OpenOffice.org and Mozilla integration. This is awesome if you want to transition your backend first. Once you get the back office off of Exchange, you can move the front office to OOo and Mozilla, followed by a switch out of the OS from Windows to Linux or BSD.
Acting for user group Linux Australia Inc, he asks recipients to sign statements saying their use of the word is subject to the group's licence agreement, which has fees of $A200 to $A5000 under a successful trademark application.
I think that is a but underhanded. Even in the US, isn't Linus' policy that people can pretty much use the Linux name as long as they are decent about it? I forget where I read it, but I seem to recall that he could go after lots of commercial entities (Red Hat, Progeny, and so on) but chooses not to?
What does this Austrailian hope to gain? Really, they may gain a few thousand or hundred thousand dollars, but I imagine that this will not exactly engender "good will" from the "victims."
But at least with the Air Force (my employer), that's the way it is, they have standardized on Microsoft, there is nothing anyone can do about it, so it doesn't make any sense to concern myself with browser nutral apps. We use IE. That's it. So, I develop apps based on using the non-standard MS technology, to do anything else would be silly.
I also get extremely annoyed at this. Especially since some sites are designed to be used from outside. There is not much you can say if an organization decides to develop an intranet site that is IE-only, since they can control the apps on the intranet. But a site that is esigned to be used by users from personal or non-USAF machines is another story.
The best thing I can do is advise you to read AFI 33-129. The best parts are:
I know that HTML 4.0 is getting old, but the instruction was originally drafted a couple of years ago. I have found that emailing webmasters of USAF sites with a link to the W3 validator output for their page(s) and copying in the text of 33-129 is enough to get their attention.
If they still choose to do nothing, report it to the parent organization's Inspector General. If still nothing, go higher. I rather like that it is at least stated in a regulation that all web site developers and maintainers are supposed to read and follow (though many don't). That at least gets you taken seriously and not though of as some sort of idiot just trying to cause trouble.
as it accepts that a court might not agree that the reverse-engineering is legal.
Real makes a competing product. They want to be able to interoperate with the songs sold on iTunes. This should be an open and shut case. I cringe to think what sort of legal wrangling will go on.
I know that Real is no great champion, but we should support them if there is a possibility it will help to preserve what little bit of fair use we still have left.
They want to decry the GPL and OSS in general as communist, bad for business and so on. Then they want to turn around and benefit from it.
Are we surprised by this?
Keep in mind that most successful ventures in space (and all the major ones) were driven by a space race with heavy military overtones. Such motivation worked once and will work again.
Not just that, but it would certainly help breath new life into the NASA. Let's face it, NASA is currently being crushed by its own beauracracy.
It may not be long range space missions to Mars and such, but it will certainly help move space flight from where it currently is at the edge of the envelope. The same thing happened with aviation in WWI and WWII. The US and other military powers invested hevily in making aircraft more common place and exploring the variety of roles in which they could be employed. This made aviation safer, more commonplace and in general made the public more aware of it. If the same happens to space flight, only good can come of it.
how to select an inkjet printer without falling prey to many of the common marketing gimmicks.
Buy a color laser printer. Here is why:
Many prints for low cost (mine was ~US$400 and has 7k page black toner and 5k page color toner for each of C, Y, and M).
If all you want is a printer (i.e., not multi-function do everything device). Laser is the best way to go. I bought my Samsung CLP-550N from NewEgg (I am not affiliated with either Samsung or NewEgg) and have been exceptionally happy. There were cheaper versions, but here is why I got the one I did:
Seriously, just the built in duplexer and laser alone would be a deal at US$400. The builtin ethernet and extra CPU and RAM were basically a bonus. Not only that, but the quality is better than that of other inkjets I have seen.
THe only down side: you need to purchase special laser quality photopaper. Inkjet photo paper can melt when it hits the the 180 degrees C drum (or so I am told).
I have a small team of Linux developers that are looking for some work of this nature.
What's funny is that I have personally offered to a few Win32 shareware/freeware developers to port their apps to Linux or to a cross-platform toolkit (wxWidgets is my choice), FOR FREE! The responses were all either absent (i.e., no response), or they were not interested.
Completely weird.
extend Copyright protections to 70 years after the author's death
Today in class, the professor handed out some copies that came out of IEEE Computer from January 1982. Under current copyright law, the copyrights on those articles will not expire until well after I do. But to what end?
Really, how commercially valuable is a 23 year old article about parallel computing? It makes me shake my head. If you can't extract the majority of the commercial benefit of your creation in the first couple of decades, I don't think you deserve the ability to even get a copyright.
The first two things that come to mind:
Even then, it is not possible to be completely anonymous. It is always possible to match things like print head patterns, fingerprints, typewriter head impressions, and so on. Like anything else security-related, there are only varying degrees.