Maybe someone can help me understand something I'm unclear on: How does one go about creating proprietary software that runs on Linux (the kernel) without "violating the GPL?" Based on the blurb, and many similar stories I've read here over the years, it almost seems like the FOSS community expects every piece of software that is written to run on a Linux platform to be Open Source. If that's the case, why? I understand not liking proprietary device drivers for the want of controlling the hardware you own, and I understand liking a project/product like MySQL for the desire to be able to tune the software that controls your data. But there should be room for proprietary software that leverages the significant platform that is Linux.
I harken back to the days of Netware NLMs. Netware didn't seem to want some sort of ownership for people loading things onto their kernel, nor did Microsoft demand rights for people distributing TSRs. So why is this different?
If you do, I suggest trying out OSX for a couple weeks after your purchase. I ran SUSE for two years before buying my iMac, and am much happier on OSX than I was on Linux. Sure, there are some issues with OSX that frustrate me (like having to reboot every time there's a minor update, like Windows circa 2003), but the net result is one of happiness. Sure, Ubuntu has pushed Linux a long way in the last couple of years, I'm just saying try a taste of the Kool-Aid if you're going to buy the cup anyhow.
But we're not discussing your home computer needs here, but the standards of (based on what you said) a multi-site corporation. On your desk at work is a computer. Who makes it? Was it put together by techs in the basement out of parts garnered from a weekend run to Fry's? No. I'm betting it's either Dell or HP, as those are the two most common corporate IT brands. And, yes, you can get machines without Windows from those vendors as well as Gateway and possibly Lenovo. But what's the price differential? I suspect it's around $50, as I stated before, which is not such a significant margin in the eyes of a corporate department manager that they would consider it significant to the development of a standard such as the platform they are going to deploy code to. Many, many other factors end up costing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a few years, or even just one year. Again, take off your zealot's hat (or blinders) and look at the situation from a different perspective. Make an argument that's compelling.
Maybe I should clarify: When I said, "Presuming your workstation runs XP or something similar," I should have said, "Presuming your workstation is running or came with XP or something similar." Like it or not, most x86 machines these days come with Windows. Further, AFAIK, the difference in price between a Linux-based workstation from Dell and a Windows-based version of the same machine is around $50. That's not enough of a difference to make most shops care one way or the other on the basis of cost. What I was trying to say overall is stop trying to sell a FOSS stack based on monetary savings. There are a lot of other reasons that are far more valid, and also a lot of reasons to standardize on a.NET-based infrastructure. By the way, have you ever tried coding on a.NET stack? If not, you should try it, if for no other reason than you can argue your position as someone with experience in both environments.
I realize that you're not quoting said manager directly, but it sounds like your premise is that he/she thinks that "free things can't be good." Well, as we know, there's free as in freedom, and free... well, you know the rest.
I wouldn't suggest arguing on the "doesn't cost anything" path, since, as you've pointed out, many PHBs don't understand the concept of a quality product that someone gives away. As a matter of fact, I would recommend pointing out that current software distribution models are such that they'll give you the product, but if you want support, well, then the checkbook comes out. "Oh, you don't run Linux in a production environment without paying. You want support for your critical stuff, right? You pay for that. Same for Solaris. They'll send it to you free to install, but if you want to call and ask a question, it's going to cost you if you don't have a contract." Once the manager sees where the vendor gets their revenue from, they feel more comfortable.
But you're talking development languages, and that's another kettle of fish. You can get a long way using C# as your development platform without spending a dime. Presuming your workstation runs XP or some similar, you can download Visual Studio Express without charge ("free"), run it against the.NET CLR already installed on the machine, use IIS that came with it... the stack exists, and the IDE is available without monetary burden, so you're really arguing one free stack against another when you presume that the base OS came with the machine.
I think the best approach you can make is to argue the technical merits of either stack. Take off your zealot's hat and give a good run at arguing FOR the idea of standardizing on the Microsoft stack and see where you get. Then do the same for standardizing on LAMP or whatever using the same criteria. If you're a good analyst (many developers aren't, no offense), you'll put together a defensible presentation.
Not that this technology doesn't have its issues, but we keep running into environmental impacts that were either unforseen in their nature or scope. Dams cause fisheries problems when foodstock fish like salmon swim upstream to spawn; coal plants belch fumes into the air (though they're cleaner now than they used to be); nuclear power creates waste storage and management problems. Even windfarms may cause weather changes that people didn't predict, we're just not sure yet. At some point, we're going to run out of options for clean, reliable sources of power here on Earth. The idea here is that solar power generation in space is available 24-hours a day (sunsets are a problem for terrestrial solar power generators), and, given good stationkeeping, should be able to accurately beam power down to Earth with little environmental impact. The proof is in the doing, but this looks like about the cleanest next to nuclear, without all the politics.
The problem is energy density. Assuming you're using microwaves (that won't burn your retinas when you look up), the frequency and amplitude that would be safe for splashing down over a populated area would be so low on energy that you'd have to have an acre-sized rectenna on your house. Not too useful for a 5000 sq.ft. city lot (about 1/9 of an acre).
...we need power not only in Iraq, but in Afghanistan, and perhaps even Japan could use some supplemental boosts.
That's all well and good from a governmental standpoint (the DoD would like nothing better than to be able to deliver large amounts of energy to specific points on the Earth, some of it even to power remote bases), but the organizations that are going to make this sort of thing plausible are energy companies. Look at all the wind farms being constructed. Who's doing it? Energy companies have the capital to put into these sort of projects, and they're doing it because of the long term financial benefits.
We've had DirecTV + TiVo for years and really love it. Our friends got DirecTV recently and got the new DirecTV-branded DVR. It sucks. Bad. We're keeping our TiVo-based unit until some better option comes along. Does the inclusion of CableCARD slots in this new TiVo HD unit mean that we can get DirecTV tuners for it? Of course, that would presume that DirecTV had a CableCARD product, right?
Life as a Loadmaster was a mixed blessing. On good days, it's the best job in the world. On bad days, it really, really sucks. Luckily, though, good days far outnumbered bad days.
A Loadmaster is responsible for the weight and balance of an aircraft. He (or she) is part of the crew, and flies with the aircraft. On standard cargo runs, in-flight duties consist mostly of checking hydraulic fluid levels every hour or so (it takes ten seconds, and I never saw a level be wrong), keeping the pilot in coffee, and trying to keep one's self occupied without pissing off the rest of the crew. Napping is a favorite past time, but then you're subject to the whims of the rest of the crew.
The exciting in-flight business is airdrops. Cargo is rigged on the ground for airdrop, but it's the Loadmaster that's responsible to see that a) it gets rigged right, and b) the drop gets executed. When you're standing at the front of a full cargo compartment, and you open a 10x10 foot (3m x 3m for you non-Imperial unit people) hole in the back of your aircraft at 1500 feet altitude and 225 knots, push a button and watch your entire load of cargo exit the aircraft, well, that's exciting. Unfortunately, it's really hard to describe in text.
On the ground, you and the crew chiefs (mechanics) are the first ones to arrive at the aircraft before a mission and the last ones to leave afterward. You learn to take an aircraft from bare cargo hauler to fully rigged for 92 passengers in about 90 minutes (that's an hour and a half for you non-Imperial unit people). You spend a lot of time crawling around dirty cargo, dealing with sick passengers (Herky's are notoriously noisy, bumpy rides), and filling out customs forms if you're going between countries (we did a lot of that in Europe).
Due to the requirements for crews to get day and night airdrop experience, hours vary widely. You often find yourself going to work when everyone else is going out to party, or dragging in, dog tired, about the time everyone else is getting out of bed. On the upside, we spend most summers only working three days a week because of scheduling. Normally we'd fly Tues-Thurs days one week, then Tues-Thurs nights the next. If the scheduler liked you, you got days for a month, then nights for a month. If he hated you, you got days and nights both in one week.
showing MACs blowing up and Steve Jobs carrying them
It's early yet, and the coffee hasn't kicked in, so I'm feeling a bit snippy. Please grant pardon for this:
When posting among confirmed geeks, you should understand the difference between "Mac" as a shortened colloquialism for "Macintosh," a brand of computer system, and "MAC," an acronym for "Media Access Controller," a component of a network controller, as in "my MAC address is 0F:BA:29:C6:D5:18." If you want to refer to a Macintosh as MAC, go post over at PCWeek.
KDE vs. GNOME?! Graphical user environments?! Kids these days! Back in my day, all we had was the good ol' fashioned vi vs. emacs argument, which I would like to point out to you is still going. I tell you what, that baby has stamina. None of these high-falutin' graphics and acronyms of capitalized letters, no, our flamewars were all lower case, the way they should be. We were so busy arguing, we didn't have time for shifting cases.
And all this business about Windows versus MacOS versus Linux? What has this world come to? All we had to argue over was OS/400 versus VMS. And the computers weren't even ours. We had to steal time on them from the neighbors, in the middle of the night when they weren't looking. And we had to sneak our terminal cables through their open windows, standing on snowdrifts in our bare feet. We couldn't afford shoes, because we spent all our money on our one lone screen. And it wasn't even 132 columns...
So, what is so hard about generating "truly random" numbers in a computer? I would think that a fairly simple grabbing of arbitrary chunks of memory and using the bytes as floats would produce something that's truly random. So long as your selection method for the bytes was sufficiently arbitrary, there should be no opportunity for pattern development. What am I missing?
Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't MOSIX do clustering entirely differently than other clustering systems common today, such as Veritas? I've had no real experience with MOSIX, and plenty with Veritas, but my understanding is that MOSIX distributes threads across the entire network, creating one distributed machine from an assembly of all the nodes present. Veritas, OTOH, monitors multiple systems and moves applications from one to the other based on established criteria. You have to have disk that's addressable by all nodes in a cluster, but it's not shared in the same sense as MOSIX, and certainly not like VMS.
Quite possibly the openMOSIX project would have better success and funding if they had better press. I haven't heard much about them in years, but have heard plenty about Xen, VMWare, Veritas and other similar tools.
Kids! Back in my day, astronauts didn't have toilets. When they had to take a crap, they did it in their suits, and just lived with it for the duration of the mission. And if it stunk, that was just too bad, they learned to like it. Privacy? Yer in outer space? Who's gonna see you, anyway? Martians? I mean really...
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe someone can help me understand something I'm unclear on: How does one go about creating proprietary software that runs on Linux (the kernel) without "violating the GPL?" Based on the blurb, and many similar stories I've read here over the years, it almost seems like the FOSS community expects every piece of software that is written to run on a Linux platform to be Open Source. If that's the case, why? I understand not liking proprietary device drivers for the want of controlling the hardware you own, and I understand liking a project/product like MySQL for the desire to be able to tune the software that controls your data. But there should be room for proprietary software that leverages the significant platform that is Linux.
I harken back to the days of Netware NLMs. Netware didn't seem to want some sort of ownership for people loading things onto their kernel, nor did Microsoft demand rights for people distributing TSRs. So why is this different?
Time to update my epiphany...
I, for one, welcome our new manufacturing overlords...
Right. Let's just hope the network doesn't drop the doc's session at a critical moment...
If you do, I suggest trying out OSX for a couple weeks after your purchase. I ran SUSE for two years before buying my iMac, and am much happier on OSX than I was on Linux. Sure, there are some issues with OSX that frustrate me (like having to reboot every time there's a minor update, like Windows circa 2003), but the net result is one of happiness. Sure, Ubuntu has pushed Linux a long way in the last couple of years, I'm just saying try a taste of the Kool-Aid if you're going to buy the cup anyhow.
The un-news is the whole "Events" thing. Photo tagging. So what?
Is it just me, or did he not say, "Boom!" once during this presentation?
But we're not discussing your home computer needs here, but the standards of (based on what you said) a multi-site corporation. On your desk at work is a computer. Who makes it? Was it put together by techs in the basement out of parts garnered from a weekend run to Fry's? No. I'm betting it's either Dell or HP, as those are the two most common corporate IT brands. And, yes, you can get machines without Windows from those vendors as well as Gateway and possibly Lenovo. But what's the price differential? I suspect it's around $50, as I stated before, which is not such a significant margin in the eyes of a corporate department manager that they would consider it significant to the development of a standard such as the platform they are going to deploy code to. Many, many other factors end up costing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a few years, or even just one year. Again, take off your zealot's hat (or blinders) and look at the situation from a different perspective. Make an argument that's compelling.
Maybe I should clarify: When I said, "Presuming your workstation runs XP or something similar," I should have said, "Presuming your workstation is running or came with XP or something similar." Like it or not, most x86 machines these days come with Windows. Further, AFAIK, the difference in price between a Linux-based workstation from Dell and a Windows-based version of the same machine is around $50. That's not enough of a difference to make most shops care one way or the other on the basis of cost. What I was trying to say overall is stop trying to sell a FOSS stack based on monetary savings. There are a lot of other reasons that are far more valid, and also a lot of reasons to standardize on a .NET-based infrastructure. By the way, have you ever tried coding on a .NET stack? If not, you should try it, if for no other reason than you can argue your position as someone with experience in both environments.
I realize that you're not quoting said manager directly, but it sounds like your premise is that he/she thinks that "free things can't be good." Well, as we know, there's free as in freedom, and free... well, you know the rest.
.NET CLR already installed on the machine, use IIS that came with it... the stack exists, and the IDE is available without monetary burden, so you're really arguing one free stack against another when you presume that the base OS came with the machine.
I wouldn't suggest arguing on the "doesn't cost anything" path, since, as you've pointed out, many PHBs don't understand the concept of a quality product that someone gives away. As a matter of fact, I would recommend pointing out that current software distribution models are such that they'll give you the product, but if you want support, well, then the checkbook comes out. "Oh, you don't run Linux in a production environment without paying. You want support for your critical stuff, right? You pay for that. Same for Solaris. They'll send it to you free to install, but if you want to call and ask a question, it's going to cost you if you don't have a contract." Once the manager sees where the vendor gets their revenue from, they feel more comfortable.
But you're talking development languages, and that's another kettle of fish. You can get a long way using C# as your development platform without spending a dime. Presuming your workstation runs XP or some similar, you can download Visual Studio Express without charge ("free"), run it against the
I think the best approach you can make is to argue the technical merits of either stack. Take off your zealot's hat and give a good run at arguing FOR the idea of standardizing on the Microsoft stack and see where you get. Then do the same for standardizing on LAMP or whatever using the same criteria. If you're a good analyst (many developers aren't, no offense), you'll put together a defensible presentation.
Good luck.
Not that this technology doesn't have its issues, but we keep running into environmental impacts that were either unforseen in their nature or scope. Dams cause fisheries problems when foodstock fish like salmon swim upstream to spawn; coal plants belch fumes into the air (though they're cleaner now than they used to be); nuclear power creates waste storage and management problems. Even windfarms may cause weather changes that people didn't predict, we're just not sure yet. At some point, we're going to run out of options for clean, reliable sources of power here on Earth. The idea here is that solar power generation in space is available 24-hours a day (sunsets are a problem for terrestrial solar power generators), and, given good stationkeeping, should be able to accurately beam power down to Earth with little environmental impact. The proof is in the doing, but this looks like about the cleanest next to nuclear, without all the politics.
Fresh data: http://www.physorg.com/news104501218.html
that won't burn your retinas when you look up like laser beams might (sorry for the omission)
The problem is energy density. Assuming you're using microwaves (that won't burn your retinas when you look up), the frequency and amplitude that would be safe for splashing down over a populated area would be so low on energy that you'd have to have an acre-sized rectenna on your house. Not too useful for a 5000 sq.ft. city lot (about 1/9 of an acre).
That's all well and good from a governmental standpoint (the DoD would like nothing better than to be able to deliver large amounts of energy to specific points on the Earth, some of it even to power remote bases), but the organizations that are going to make this sort of thing plausible are energy companies. Look at all the wind farms being constructed. Who's doing it? Energy companies have the capital to put into these sort of projects, and they're doing it because of the long term financial benefits.
We've had DirecTV + TiVo for years and really love it. Our friends got DirecTV recently and got the new DirecTV-branded DVR. It sucks. Bad. We're keeping our TiVo-based unit until some better option comes along. Does the inclusion of CableCARD slots in this new TiVo HD unit mean that we can get DirecTV tuners for it? Of course, that would presume that DirecTV had a CableCARD product, right?
Life as a Loadmaster was a mixed blessing. On good days, it's the best job in the world. On bad days, it really, really sucks. Luckily, though, good days far outnumbered bad days.
A Loadmaster is responsible for the weight and balance of an aircraft. He (or she) is part of the crew, and flies with the aircraft. On standard cargo runs, in-flight duties consist mostly of checking hydraulic fluid levels every hour or so (it takes ten seconds, and I never saw a level be wrong), keeping the pilot in coffee, and trying to keep one's self occupied without pissing off the rest of the crew. Napping is a favorite past time, but then you're subject to the whims of the rest of the crew.
The exciting in-flight business is airdrops. Cargo is rigged on the ground for airdrop, but it's the Loadmaster that's responsible to see that a) it gets rigged right, and b) the drop gets executed. When you're standing at the front of a full cargo compartment, and you open a 10x10 foot (3m x 3m for you non-Imperial unit people) hole in the back of your aircraft at 1500 feet altitude and 225 knots, push a button and watch your entire load of cargo exit the aircraft, well, that's exciting. Unfortunately, it's really hard to describe in text.
On the ground, you and the crew chiefs (mechanics) are the first ones to arrive at the aircraft before a mission and the last ones to leave afterward. You learn to take an aircraft from bare cargo hauler to fully rigged for 92 passengers in about 90 minutes (that's an hour and a half for you non-Imperial unit people). You spend a lot of time crawling around dirty cargo, dealing with sick passengers (Herky's are notoriously noisy, bumpy rides), and filling out customs forms if you're going between countries (we did a lot of that in Europe).
Due to the requirements for crews to get day and night airdrop experience, hours vary widely. You often find yourself going to work when everyone else is going out to party, or dragging in, dog tired, about the time everyone else is getting out of bed. On the upside, we spend most summers only working three days a week because of scheduling. Normally we'd fly Tues-Thurs days one week, then Tues-Thurs nights the next. If the scheduler liked you, you got days for a month, then nights for a month. If he hated you, you got days and nights both in one week.
I wouldn't trade my experience as a Loadmaster for much of anything. For better or worse, it shaped a lot of who I am. If you want to see some nifty videos on the subject, look to these: http://www.digitalfog.com/gallery/airdrop.htm http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-466411340 3926414433
Well, yeah, or "Military Airlift Command" in a previous life I had [C-130 Loadmaster]. I was doing my best to stay contextual. :)
Thank you for educating me without calling me stupid, and validating my confusion about the significance of the story.
showing MACs blowing up and Steve Jobs carrying them
It's early yet, and the coffee hasn't kicked in, so I'm feeling a bit snippy. Please grant pardon for this:
When posting among confirmed geeks, you should understand the difference between "Mac" as a shortened colloquialism for "Macintosh," a brand of computer system, and "MAC," an acronym for "Media Access Controller," a component of a network controller, as in "my MAC address is 0F:BA:29:C6:D5:18." If you want to refer to a Macintosh as MAC, go post over at PCWeek.
KDE vs. GNOME?! Graphical user environments?! Kids these days! Back in my day, all we had was the good ol' fashioned vi vs. emacs argument, which I would like to point out to you is still going. I tell you what, that baby has stamina. None of these high-falutin' graphics and acronyms of capitalized letters, no, our flamewars were all lower case, the way they should be. We were so busy arguing, we didn't have time for shifting cases.
And all this business about Windows versus MacOS versus Linux? What has this world come to? All we had to argue over was OS/400 versus VMS. And the computers weren't even ours. We had to steal time on them from the neighbors, in the middle of the night when they weren't looking. And we had to sneak our terminal cables through their open windows, standing on snowdrifts in our bare feet. We couldn't afford shoes, because we spent all our money on our one lone screen. And it wasn't even 132 columns...
So, what is so hard about generating "truly random" numbers in a computer? I would think that a fairly simple grabbing of arbitrary chunks of memory and using the bytes as floats would produce something that's truly random. So long as your selection method for the bytes was sufficiently arbitrary, there should be no opportunity for pattern development. What am I missing?
Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't MOSIX do clustering entirely differently than other clustering systems common today, such as Veritas? I've had no real experience with MOSIX, and plenty with Veritas, but my understanding is that MOSIX distributes threads across the entire network, creating one distributed machine from an assembly of all the nodes present. Veritas, OTOH, monitors multiple systems and moves applications from one to the other based on established criteria. You have to have disk that's addressable by all nodes in a cluster, but it's not shared in the same sense as MOSIX, and certainly not like VMS.
Quite possibly the openMOSIX project would have better success and funding if they had better press. I haven't heard much about them in years, but have heard plenty about Xen, VMWare, Veritas and other similar tools.
Well, not only that, but saying that a crack would only affect one layer is basically publishing a detail about your security, generally a bad idea.
Kids! Back in my day, astronauts didn't have toilets. When they had to take a crap, they did it in their suits, and just lived with it for the duration of the mission. And if it stunk, that was just too bad, they learned to like it. Privacy? Yer in outer space? Who's gonna see you, anyway? Martians? I mean really...