I just love the spin they are putting on this...
on
RIAA Sues 12-Year Old Girl
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· Score: 2, Interesting
First off, let me say... I do think the RIAA are a bunch of right bastards! That said, this article is a friggin joke, written with the intention of pulling at the heart strings.
First off... they wouldnt be sueing a 9 year old girl... they would be sueing her mother. Her mother got dupped into paying for the Kazaa service, her mother owned the service, and her mother is the childs legal guardian. The article should read "RIAA suing the mother of a 12 year old girl". Also, the article says "we" not "she"... if the mother listened to the music, and from the sounds of the article, she was active in downloading it... she is the guilty one.
"It's not like we were doing anything illegal," said Torres. "This is a 12-year-old girl, for crying out loud."
Ummmm... yes... it was like you were doing something illegal. Its called theft.
Like I said, im not pro- RIAA, I think there a pack of dinks... but I hate journalistic drivel like this. Who gives a shit that mommy is an honour student? That she was helping there son with homework when they got the notice... Its all designed to villify the RIAA and deflect that fact, that yes, this household was infact commiting a crime.
Really... do you have to frame the case in the way they did to vilify the RIAA? Is there not already enough hatred of them already?
Oh well, >shrug I hope the average reader is smart enough to see through the emotional fluff of this article, although somehow, I doubt it.
but MS is taking direct aim at its diminishing server market share with this.
If im not mistaken, Microsoft and Linux's adoption on the server side are both increasing. Its the pure unix systems of the world that are losing market share.
Yes, and I would agree with you... if... we didnt have calling forwarding disabled for exactly that reason. We realy cant be hacked... but still, you cant weaken the security... quite annoying.
I dont so much mind managing the dozen or so passwords I have to memorize... namingly because I get to pick them. What I cant get over is our damned voicemail system!!!
First off... the damned thing expires every 3 weeks, secondly, it remembers your last 10 or so entries and wont allow you to repeat them. Also, the damned thing does pattern recognition... Ironically, the most secure thing I have is my phone at work right now!;)
Its gotten so bad, probrably half the phones at work have their voicemail password sticky noted to the phone. Weakest link is always the user, eh?
Your right on that one... what school is, and what school should be are two completely different beasts.
I would prefer to see *better* education, but im not holding my breath. Im also a bit afraid of the disparancy between schools... I hate to see "tech" schools and normal schools, as it creates an unlevel playing field once you hit the post secondary level.
Then again... that exists everywhere anyways... I had always thought that university would be much better then high school was, but, in the end... sadly it seemed to pander to the stupid aswell, just in this case... they had a different definition of stupid.
Would be nice to see changes in this regard, but I highly doubt it. The whole education system needs to be blown up, and redesigned to make it work. Ironically, things like Microsoft becoming involved could be exactly the change that is needed. I tend to find a company like Microsoft, IBM, Ford, etc... would be better equipted to dictate what people should an should not learn... then a bunch of PC academics, as it is now. Although, it would scare me just how badly the bias would be... then again... its there now, its just the government gets it spin, instead of some corporation ( like the laughable version of history schools seem to like teaching... ).
My bad, I should have researched that example before posting... I had a wierd feeling about it while I was typing it. I thought Sony picked the rights up to it, after it was released in the asian markets... my mistake.
Actually, since I got a full 5.1 surround sound stereo... almost anything can scare me now... in the dark with surround sound cranked... yikes. Hell, the video game Silent Hill almost made me piss my pants twice...
That said... even with a nice home theatre setup, cranked and in total darkness... Blair witch wouldnt scare me... I would be too distracted thinking up new and more obscene ways to kill they annoying bitch in that movie!!!
a film that is being distributed over the Internet because independent films are being pushed out of the box office by blockbusters
I hate to burst your bubble, but Indy flicks have *never* done well at theatres. Hell... half the big chains of theatres are owned by the major production companies... ( like Cinema City, Cineplex Odeon, etc... ).
Also, if you read the site... the film took a whopping *12*!!! days to film... um... unless you have a damned good photographer, and a butt load of luck, you just cant film a quality picture in 12 days. This looks more like an attempt to sell a movie, with the production efforts less then a "made for TV" movie, ever the internet... yawn...
As a side note, I would actually argue that indy flicks are doing a bit better for cinema coverage...
Crouching Tiger
Blair Witch 1,2,3,42,etc...
Shine
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
I would say we are seeing more independant films in the theatres then ever... as to being mostly sequels... well... its summer blockbuster time... traditionally, we see the big budget sequels this time of year. Also, when you look at the fact Freddy Vs Jason was the highest grossing film for what, 3 weeks... you know how craptastic the competition is!!!
See, an environment like that would work for someone like you or I, as we ( I assume ) both have a natural affinity for computers. But, at a high school level, you have to cater to both those with an interest in a subject, and those without. Plus, the simple truth of the matter is, a great many people simply arent that bright. Our education system is design more to cater to the lowest common denominator, then to educate the truely intelligent. It seems that that task, is reserved for university/college.
Without a major overhaul of how the education system works... "shooting for the stars" just wont work. As it stands now, everyone is expected to have a high school education... thus, its an education system that everyone has to be able to work within. Too bad, that "everyone" includes a great many morons...;)
Odd, I was under the impression that in Longhorn the file system wasnt actually going to be SQL based... but would remain NTFS. I had thought that SQL or a SQLlike layer was going to run overtop, as an interface/organiser. In which case, it would run basically as a service/daemon...
Hey... I agree with you... but stop and think about this for a momment!
We are talking about the High School level!
High School doesnt develop Computer Scientests ( nor Windows Monkeys as you put it )... it provides a general education to allow you to get by, to give you an idea of what a certain position is like, and to provide a foundation for post secondary school.
So, as someone who also reviews resumes... im not going to be hiring people fresh out of high school anyways:). But at this level of education, I believe the skills I mentioned earlier are the right ones to teach. Setting a school circulum ( bad spelling i know... ) to 'aim low' is... well... pretty much a necessity. Besides, if a student shows an interest they should 'aim high' in their own time, and there own way. High school is far to generic an education to provide much else.
I would have loved to have even been taught C in Highschool CS... as I recall... we were taught Alice Pascal, but some guy who barely knew how to turn a computer on. Granted... in my school days, computers just werent as important as they are today.
To my understanding, the delay in Longhorn's release is a result of the TrustWorthy computing initive...
This, IMHO, is a good thing. The big difference between MS and Open Source on something like this... in Open Source land, you can often see progress from day one... no matter how unstable it is. With MS, you wont see anything until the whole product is done... Not saying one is better then the other, but...
Yes, from what I have read, that is true. MS plans to use SQL server 2k3 as the underlying technology for the file system for longhorn. What I just dont get though... if SQL is going to be used as the file system... then every Longhorn PC in a sense either needs to have SQL ( or MSDE ) or needs access to a SQL server which seems unlikely as you would bottleneck on the network speed.
What then happens to SQL as a MS product? If its built in to every OS, why then would anyone buy it. Ive seen MS build other peoples apps into their products, but never seen them do it to their own. Are they actually going to kill off a profit centre?
This I have to disagree with... some jobs sure... but I would say the majority of jobs, your skillset is...
1) Windows
2) C/C++ or Visual Basic or Java/C#
3) Web Programming ( php, asp,.net or Cold Fusion )
I would say that covers a good 80-90% of jobs on the market... and really... how hard is it ( from a programmers perspective... ) to switch between platforms? I mean really... I have taught myself a half dozen OS/s on the job to date, with almost zero effort. A programmer generally isnt a sysadmin!
Ditto for languages... except the aberation that is Visual Basic... what skills arent transferable these days? I mean, if you know C/C++ hands down, how hard is java going to be to learn?
Hmmmm... guess some dipshit moederator doesnt understand observational humour... Oh well... greatest strenth and weakness of slashdot I guess... everyone has a kick at the can... moronic or not...;)
I'll second what you say... in my limited experiences with IBM, I had basically the same experience. Ditto with the IBM Contractors you can hire to bring in house... the first line they send you will be relatively moronic out of school people, with a textbook ibm crash course before being dumped on your company.
Actual millage may vary, but that was my experience.
we have been hearing (as a major consulting firm) IBM people pushing the possibility of installing a Z/Linux VM setup at one of our biggest clients (financial)
Reading this sort of shocked me... in the past I worked for a major Canadian trust company ( hint hint ) and contracted to a different major Canadian bank, and both were in bed with IBM. In all honesty, im a bit shocked you have any say in the matter at all! From what I found of the IT departments at both banks... if IBM said it was right... it was right. Hell... I was hired to port a bunch of Visual Age C++ Framework ( forget the name now, but it was IBM's equivelant to MFC but on OS/2 and windows )to a Java compatible object model... so that eventually all their systems could be ported to java. If you remember a few years back ( perhaps 5 ) IBM was the biggest supporter of Java outside of Sun. Before that it was OS2, and for a while there I believe it was smalltalk ( before my time... ). Now, IBM has attached itself to Linux, and will consult all of their major customers to do this migration as well. Thing is... both the companies I worked with did what IBM said, almost blindly... hell, as far as I understand it, they are still porting away from OS/2 to this date... Poor bastards... im glad I left that world behind.
I guess the old adage is true... you never get fired for choosing IBM. You get a good look at the politics within a bank though... and you will see thats where most managers interests lay... self preservation... not doing whats right. Whats the Moral? Hmmm.... I suppose its just that, you should consider yourself lucky, that the financial institute you are work with even questions IBM's judgement
As to the VM solution itself, I have to admit, that particular technology I have had no direct experience with. However, unless you have the budget to have a complete server for backup ( as in standby, not as in storage... ) I dont like the concept in general. If you cant hot swap a server in place of the Z, you are playing with fire putting all your eggs in one basket. I dont care how many redunandcies are built in... you are still running multiple important tasks of one box. If you do have a hot swapable backup... obviously your budget is bigger then mine:). Personally I would stick with rack mounts... or, use a data center ( offsite ) if the opportunity presents itself.
Even in your company, I imagine that not all the software you use is custom industry-specific applications.
No, your right here... all the software we use is not industry specific, however that software tends to be off the shelf products. We use a commercial ERP package, and standard tools like Office and Catia/Pro-Engineer. However, for the stuff we have to develop in house, it tends to be always industry specific. Nature of the best I suppose. The generic stuff is already cheaper to buy or get OSS, then to design and support in-house. This is OSS's strength in my mind... generic software. But once thats all been developed, the company specific stuff tends not to be compatible with open source in general.
Another question is whether you are in a mature market. In your manufacturing job, it may be that the only way you can increase sales is at the expense of your competitors, but in some markets cutting costs might allow you to increase sales, even if your competitors are benefiting from the same cost reductions, because lowered prices increase the overall size of the market.
To a great degree this is true, we are in a mostly mature market. We either grow from taking business from our competitors, or from other industries with similar products. At least, our core product does. In alot of cases, their arent many non mature markets left... outside of software anyways. Even software is starting to get fairly saturated. As it stands, im in the auto industry... somewhere between Teir1 and Teir2 suppliers. X number of jobs go to bid, and X number are rewarded. The Tier1/2/3's basically duke it out over who gets the design win. I think alot of industry, especially manufacturing is like that. If it was a growth market, there would be a bit more flexiblity in the way we distinguish ourselves, if that makes sense. However, as it stands... any competitive edge, needs to be protected.
RedHat and IBM can only employee so many people...;-)
I think in the end, its often the individual developer(s) that gain the least from their work. At least in a monetary sense... if your doing it as an act of good will... bravo to you, you have my respect. If your doing it for commerical gain, I have trouble seeing how you wont end up rather bitter at other people making more of your work, then you!
But unless you patent the underlying business methods implemented in your software this isn't much of a competitive advantage in the first place.
Not to toot my own horn too loudly, or that of software developers everywhere... but you would be suprised at just how important a good IT infrastructure is to the bottom line. Now, add in a product that can be bought somewhere else ( aka, you have competitors... ) you take any edge you can have. Does software we right make or break the company? Arguably no... but let me give you an example of how it helps ( and, in this particular case, contributed to a multi million dollar design win ).
We have to compete directly against similiar manufacturers... each with their own design and manufacturing ability. Typical business process goes... Business Development people make initial contact, Design People prototype, Costing people estimate then quote, Customer yays/neighs/changes spec, repeat... then it goes to design, then finally manufacturing. Thats a fairly typical company I might add. Now... we have end to end systems, that are used to track progress throughout that pipeline. We have faster customer turn around because we can at a 20 foot view, identify where the process has stalled. As a result... we are faster and often more accurate in presenting a quote to a customer. I know, first had, we have recieved jobs based PURELY on this response level... hey, in alot of cases a gizmo's a gizmo's a gizmo. Its efficency, accuracy and public relations that sell your company. Now... would we ever want to give the software, that helps distinguish our company... away? I cant see a reason... other then... well... being nice.
I would certainly hope in your example that your senior managers have something better up their sleeve than your software, since it would be relatively easy for your competitors to hire developers that are as good as you are (or maybe they'd just hire you outright, after all, you have experience).
I hope they do too... our IT infrastructure is just one element of our company... I hope the other parts of our process work as efficently, from costing to manufacturing. That said... I highly doubt that those departments will be giving away their secrets either! As to competitors hiring me ( or anyone else ) your right... that is a risk we take. Hell... we lose engingeers all the time ( CAD / Design people mostly )... its a real problem in many industries. That said, the majority of people here signed a non-competitions agreement that prevents us from working for a direct competitor for one years time of dismisal. That said... those agreements are very often unenforcable. Brain drain is truly a real problem in almost every industry... especially when its a strong job market.
Looking at the spec's to this PC, it sounds like a typical corporate desktop box. The only thing I see out of the ordinary is it sells without windows. Whats the friggin point? Granted its nice to be able to purchase a PC without the MS tax, but frankly, you have been able to do that for years with WhiteBox's anyways. The type of company that would roll linux across the desktop seems to be the "roll your own" type company as it is. You would figure they would see the appeal in buying no-name pc aswells.
I would have a different view of this, if it shipped with support, and properly pre-configured... but nope.Neither HP nor Mandrake provides any free support for Linux. You can, however, purchase Mandrake email or telephone support as an option when you buy or from MandrakeSoft directly. I dont see a single advantage for a company that is going to buy a linux desktop to go with this PC. Perhaps im missing something here? But, if you are going to forgo support... why not save money, and cut HP out completely.
As to servers... well, this machine is powerful enough. At least at my work, we for space reasons will only buy rack mountables at this point in time anyways. I think thats pretty standard the world over... so that kinda ruins out using this machine for say... DNS.
As to the home user market... well... the article says it best.Since the d220 is aimed at business users instead of home users, I didn't think it important enough to comment on This machine isnt aimed at the home market... and you can buy alot more, for alot less.
Had HP offered support, I could see the value here... but in the end, its just a overpriced Windows PC, without windows... with a copy of Mandrake chucked in... YAWN!
Slashdot Mirror
First off, let me say... I do think the RIAA are a bunch of right bastards! That said, this article is a friggin joke, written with the intention of pulling at the heart strings.
First off... they wouldnt be sueing a 9 year old girl... they would be sueing her mother. Her mother got dupped into paying for the Kazaa service, her mother owned the service, and her mother is the childs legal guardian. The article should read "RIAA suing the mother of a 12 year old girl". Also, the article says "we" not "she"... if the mother listened to the music, and from the sounds of the article, she was active in downloading it... she is the guilty one.
"It's not like we were doing anything illegal," said Torres. "This is a 12-year-old girl, for crying out loud."
Ummmm... yes... it was like you were doing something illegal. Its called theft.
Like I said, im not pro- RIAA, I think there a pack of dinks... but I hate journalistic drivel like this. Who gives a shit that mommy is an honour student? That she was helping there son with homework when they got the notice... Its all designed to villify the RIAA and deflect that fact, that yes, this household was infact commiting a crime.
Really... do you have to frame the case in the way they did to vilify the RIAA? Is there not already enough hatred of them already?
Oh well, >shrug I hope the average reader is smart enough to see through the emotional fluff of this article, although somehow, I doubt it.
but MS is taking direct aim at its diminishing server market share with this.
If im not mistaken, Microsoft and Linux's adoption on the server side are both increasing. Its the pure unix systems of the world that are losing market share.
Yes, and I would agree with you... if... we didnt have calling forwarding disabled for exactly that reason. We realy cant be hacked... but still, you cant weaken the security... quite annoying.
I dont so much mind managing the dozen or so passwords I have to memorize... namingly because I get to pick them. What I cant get over is our damned voicemail system!!!
;)
First off... the damned thing expires every 3 weeks, secondly, it remembers your last 10 or so entries and wont allow you to repeat them. Also, the damned thing does pattern recognition... Ironically, the most secure thing I have is my phone at work right now!
Its gotten so bad, probrably half the phones at work have their voicemail password sticky noted to the phone. Weakest link is always the user, eh?
Your right on that one... what school is, and what school should be are two completely different beasts.
I would prefer to see *better* education, but im not holding my breath.
Im also a bit afraid of the disparancy between schools... I hate to see "tech" schools and normal schools, as it creates an unlevel playing field once you hit the post secondary level.
Then again... that exists everywhere anyways... I had always thought that university would be much better then high school was, but, in the end... sadly it seemed to pander to the stupid aswell, just in this case... they had a different definition of stupid.
Would be nice to see changes in this regard, but I highly doubt it. The whole education system needs to be blown up, and redesigned to make it work. Ironically, things like Microsoft becoming involved could be exactly the change that is needed. I tend to find a company like Microsoft, IBM, Ford, etc... would be better equipted to dictate what people should an should not learn... then a bunch of PC academics, as it is now. Although, it would scare me just how badly the bias would be... then again... its there now, its just the government gets it spin, instead of some corporation ( like the laughable version of history schools seem to like teaching... ).
Sorry, starting to rant now...
My bad, I should have researched that example before posting... I had a wierd feeling about it while I was typing it. I thought Sony picked the rights up to it, after it was released in the asian markets... my mistake.
Actually, since I got a full 5.1 surround sound stereo... almost anything can scare me now... in the dark with surround sound cranked... yikes. Hell, the video game Silent Hill almost made me piss my pants twice ...
That said... even with a nice home theatre setup, cranked and in total darkness... Blair witch wouldnt scare me... I would be too distracted thinking up new and more obscene ways to kill they annoying bitch in that movie!!!
No... no it wasnt... but it was an indy flick. Im talking about this movie though... not Lock Stock
:)
Actually, Lock Stock and Snatch are too of my favorite flicks... im not saying all Indys suck... just this one
I agree 310% on that... Blair witch was horrid, I still dont understand a) the hype or b) the fact it actually scared people.
a film that is being distributed over the Internet because independent films are being pushed out of the box office by blockbusters
I hate to burst your bubble, but Indy flicks have *never* done well at theatres. Hell... half the big chains of theatres are owned by the major production companies... ( like Cinema City, Cineplex Odeon, etc... ).
Also, if you read the site... the film took a whopping *12*!!! days to film... um... unless you have a damned good photographer, and a butt load of luck, you just cant film a quality picture in 12 days. This looks more like an attempt to sell a movie, with the production efforts less then a "made for TV" movie, ever the internet... yawn...
As a side note, I would actually argue that indy flicks are doing a bit better for cinema coverage...
Crouching Tiger
Blair Witch 1,2,3,42,etc...
Shine
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
I would say we are seeing more independant films in the theatres then ever... as to being mostly sequels... well... its summer blockbuster time... traditionally, we see the big budget sequels this time of year. Also, when you look at the fact Freddy Vs Jason was the highest grossing film for what, 3 weeks... you know how craptastic the competition is!!!
See, an environment like that would work for someone like you or I, as we ( I assume ) both have a natural affinity for computers. But, at a high school level, you have to cater to both those with an interest in a subject, and those without. Plus, the simple truth of the matter is, a great many people simply arent that bright. Our education system is design more to cater to the lowest common denominator, then to educate the truely intelligent. It seems that that task, is reserved for university/college.
;)
Without a major overhaul of how the education system works... "shooting for the stars" just wont work. As it stands now, everyone is expected to have a high school education... thus, its an education system that everyone has to be able to work within. Too bad, that "everyone" includes a great many morons...
Odd, I was under the impression that in Longhorn the file system wasnt actually going to be SQL based... but would remain NTFS. I had thought that SQL or a SQLlike layer was going to run overtop, as an interface/organiser. In which case, it would run basically as a service/daemon...
Hey... I agree with you... but stop and think about this for a momment!
:). But at this level of education, I believe the skills I mentioned earlier are the right ones to teach. Setting a school circulum ( bad spelling i know... ) to 'aim low' is... well... pretty much a necessity. Besides, if a student shows an interest they should 'aim high' in their own time, and there own way. High school is far to generic an education to provide much else.
We are talking about the High School level!
High School doesnt develop Computer Scientests ( nor Windows Monkeys as you put it )... it provides a general education to allow you to get by, to give you an idea of what a certain position is like, and to provide a foundation for post secondary school.
So, as someone who also reviews resumes... im not going to be hiring people fresh out of high school anyways
I would have loved to have even been taught C in Highschool CS... as I recall... we were taught Alice Pascal, but some guy who barely knew how to turn a computer on. Granted... in my school days, computers just werent as important as they are today.
To my understanding, the delay in Longhorn's release is a result of the TrustWorthy computing initive...
This, IMHO, is a good thing. The big difference between MS and Open Source on something like this... in Open Source land, you can often see progress from day one... no matter how unstable it is. With MS, you wont see anything until the whole product is done... Not saying one is better then the other, but...
Yes, from what I have read, that is true. MS plans to use SQL server 2k3 as the underlying technology for the file system for longhorn. What I just dont get though... if SQL is going to be used as the file system... then every Longhorn PC in a sense either needs to have SQL ( or MSDE ) or needs access to a SQL server which seems unlikely as you would bottleneck on the network speed.
What then happens to SQL as a MS product? If its built in to every OS, why then would anyone buy it. Ive seen MS build other peoples apps into their products, but never seen them do it to their own. Are they actually going to kill off a profit centre?
What an incredibly dumb thing to say... this is exactly what Longhorn is going to do, and they announced it well over a year ago!
This I have to disagree with... some jobs sure... but I would say the majority of jobs, your skillset is ...
.net or Cold Fusion )
1) Windows
2) C/C++ or Visual Basic or Java/C#
3) Web Programming ( php, asp,
I would say that covers a good 80-90% of jobs on the market... and really... how hard is it ( from a programmers perspective... ) to switch between platforms? I mean really... I have taught myself a half dozen OS/s on the job to date, with almost zero effort. A programmer generally isnt a sysadmin!
Ditto for languages... except the aberation that is Visual Basic... what skills arent transferable these days? I mean, if you know C/C++ hands down, how hard is java going to be to learn?
Hmmmm... guess some dipshit moederator doesnt understand observational humour... Oh well... greatest strenth and weakness of slashdot I guess... everyone has a kick at the can... moronic or not... ;)
I'll second what you say... in my limited experiences with IBM, I had basically the same experience. Ditto with the IBM Contractors you can hire to bring in house... the first line they send you will be relatively moronic out of school people, with a textbook ibm crash course before being dumped on your company.
Actual millage may vary, but that was my experience.
10+ years of big-iron experience is not something you can get in a few weekends
:)
No... I suppose you can't. I figure it would take 10+ years, eh?
we have been hearing (as a major consulting firm) IBM people pushing the possibility of installing a Z/Linux VM setup at one of our biggest clients (financial)
:). Personally I would stick with rack mounts... or, use a data center ( offsite ) if the opportunity presents itself.
Reading this sort of shocked me... in the past I worked for a major Canadian trust company ( hint hint ) and contracted to a different major Canadian bank, and both were in bed with IBM. In all honesty, im a bit shocked you have any say in the matter at all! From what I found of the IT departments at both banks... if IBM said it was right... it was right. Hell... I was hired to port a bunch of Visual Age C++ Framework ( forget the name now, but it was IBM's equivelant to MFC but on OS/2 and windows )to a Java compatible object model... so that eventually all their systems could be ported to java. If you remember a few years back ( perhaps 5 ) IBM was the biggest supporter of Java outside of Sun. Before that it was OS2, and for a while there I believe it was smalltalk ( before my time... ). Now, IBM has attached itself to Linux, and will consult all of their major customers to do this migration as well. Thing is... both the companies I worked with did what IBM said, almost blindly... hell, as far as I understand it, they are still porting away from OS/2 to this date... Poor bastards... im glad I left that world behind.
I guess the old adage is true... you never get fired for choosing IBM. You get a good look at the politics within a bank though... and you will see thats where most managers interests lay... self preservation... not doing whats right. Whats the Moral? Hmmm.... I suppose its just that, you should consider yourself lucky, that the financial institute you are work with even questions IBM's judgement
As to the VM solution itself, I have to admit, that particular technology I have had no direct experience with. However, unless you have the budget to have a complete server for backup ( as in standby, not as in storage... ) I dont like the concept in general. If you cant hot swap a server in place of the Z, you are playing with fire putting all your eggs in one basket. I dont care how many redunandcies are built in... you are still running multiple important tasks of one box. If you do have a hot swapable backup... obviously your budget is bigger then mine
Even in your company, I imagine that not all the software you use is custom industry-specific applications.
No, your right here... all the software we use is not industry specific, however that software tends to be off the shelf products. We use a commercial ERP package, and standard tools like Office and Catia/Pro-Engineer. However, for the stuff we have to develop in house, it tends to be always industry specific. Nature of the best I suppose. The generic stuff is already cheaper to buy or get OSS, then to design and support in-house. This is OSS's strength in my mind... generic software. But once thats all been developed, the company specific stuff tends not to be compatible with open source in general.
Another question is whether you are in a mature market. In your manufacturing job, it may be that the only way you can increase sales is at the expense of your competitors, but in some markets cutting costs might allow you to increase sales, even if your competitors are benefiting from the same cost reductions, because lowered prices increase the overall size of the market. To a great degree this is true, we are in a mostly mature market. We either grow from taking business from our competitors, or from other industries with similar products. At least, our core product does. In alot of cases, their arent many non mature markets left... outside of software anyways. Even software is starting to get fairly saturated. As it stands, im in the auto industry... somewhere between Teir1 and Teir2 suppliers. X number of jobs go to bid, and X number are rewarded. The Tier1/2/3's basically duke it out over who gets the design win. I think alot of industry, especially manufacturing is like that. If it was a growth market, there would be a bit more flexiblity in the way we distinguish ourselves, if that makes sense. However, as it stands... any competitive edge, needs to be protected.
RedHat and IBM can only employee so many people... ;-)
I think in the end, its often the individual developer(s) that gain the least from their work. At least in a monetary sense... if your doing it as an act of good will... bravo to you, you have my respect. If your doing it for commerical gain, I have trouble seeing how you wont end up rather bitter at other people making more of your work, then you!
But unless you patent the underlying business methods implemented in your software this isn't much of a competitive advantage in the first place. Not to toot my own horn too loudly, or that of software developers everywhere... but you would be suprised at just how important a good IT infrastructure is to the bottom line. Now, add in a product that can be bought somewhere else ( aka, you have competitors... ) you take any edge you can have. Does software we right make or break the company? Arguably no... but let me give you an example of how it helps ( and, in this particular case, contributed to a multi million dollar design win ).
... well... being nice.
We have to compete directly against similiar manufacturers... each with their own design and manufacturing ability. Typical business process goes... Business Development people make initial contact, Design People prototype, Costing people estimate then quote, Customer yays/neighs/changes spec, repeat... then it goes to design, then finally manufacturing. Thats a fairly typical company I might add. Now... we have end to end systems, that are used to track progress throughout that pipeline. We have faster customer turn around because we can at a 20 foot view, identify where the process has stalled. As a result... we are faster and often more accurate in presenting a quote to a customer. I know, first had, we have recieved jobs based PURELY on this response level... hey, in alot of cases a gizmo's a gizmo's a gizmo. Its efficency, accuracy and public relations that sell your company. Now... would we ever want to give the software, that helps distinguish our company... away? I cant see a reason... other then
I would certainly hope in your example that your senior managers have something better up their sleeve than your software, since it would be relatively easy for your competitors to hire developers that are as good as you are (or maybe they'd just hire you outright, after all, you have experience).
I hope they do too... our IT infrastructure is just one element of our company... I hope the other parts of our process work as efficently, from costing to manufacturing. That said... I highly doubt that those departments will be giving away their secrets either! As to competitors hiring me ( or anyone else ) your right... that is a risk we take. Hell... we lose engingeers all the time ( CAD / Design people mostly )... its a real problem in many industries. That said, the majority of people here signed a non-competitions agreement that prevents us from working for a direct competitor for one years time of dismisal. That said... those agreements are very often unenforcable. Brain drain is truly a real problem in almost every industry... especially when its a strong job market.
Looking at the spec's to this PC, it sounds like a typical corporate desktop box. The only thing I see out of the ordinary is it sells without windows. Whats the friggin point? Granted its nice to be able to purchase a PC without the MS tax, but frankly, you have been able to do that for years with WhiteBox's anyways. The type of company that would roll linux across the desktop seems to be the "roll your own" type company as it is. You would figure they would see the appeal in buying no-name pc aswells.
I would have a different view of this, if it shipped with support, and properly pre-configured... but nope.Neither HP nor Mandrake provides any free support for Linux. You can, however, purchase Mandrake email or telephone support as an option when you buy or from MandrakeSoft directly. I dont see a single advantage for a company that is going to buy a linux desktop to go with this PC. Perhaps im missing something here? But, if you are going to forgo support... why not save money, and cut HP out completely.
As to servers... well, this machine is powerful enough. At least at my work, we for space reasons will only buy rack mountables at this point in time anyways. I think thats pretty standard the world over... so that kinda ruins out using this machine for say... DNS.
As to the home user market... well... the article says it best.Since the d220 is aimed at business users instead of home users, I didn't think it important enough to comment on This machine isnt aimed at the home market... and you can buy alot more, for alot less.
Had HP offered support, I could see the value here... but in the end, its just a overpriced Windows PC, without windows... with a copy of Mandrake chucked in... YAWN!