I read the CCAGW press release regarding Massachusetts' decision to move future expentidures to Open Source-licensed software. For a long time I have been generally in agreement with CCAGW's recommendations, but this has changed my views. There are a few, well, severe problems with the claims presented.
First, it is widely known in the industry that Open Source software can often provide a much lower total cost of ownership than proprietary software. The release quotes CCAGW president Tom Schatz claming the opposite. I find this rather bizarre, since Mr. Schatz is not an information systems analyst, nor does he have any training in information technology decisionmaking. He cites no field experts, nor data, nor even an anecdote, in making his claim that training and deployment costs outweigh acquisition savings.
Users only have to be trained once on a new system. Experience has shown that after training, they come to prefer Linux-based solutions due to the greater stability and security of the platform. End-users no longer need worry about viruses, and the operating system no longer crashes. This improves productivity and overall satisfaction with the technology.
Schatz reveals a fundamental ignorance of Open Source technology with a second claim: that Massachusetts is creating a "monopoly" through this mandate. Had CCAGW done even *five minutes* of research into Linux and Open Souce application software, it would have become unbelievably obvious that the Linux operating system is distributed by no less than six major organizations worldwide, and over a hundred smaller ones. Open Source application software is provided by -- literally -- thousands upon thousands of different, competing vendors.
Red Hat, Mandrake, Slackware, SuSE, and Gentoo are all under different ownership. Debian is a non-profit organization. I haven't even spoken of the myriad vendors of individual applications. Anyone who has read, say, the front page of http://www.linux.org would find the monopoly claim, well, laughable.
Finally, Open Source software offers critical functionality for government applications. The superior security record of Linux-based systems means a near-zero risk of data theft or security compromises when systems are properly deployed. In contrast to closed-source solutions, Open Source software can be subjected to a security audit with ease. When vulnerabilities are discovered, the Open Source development model generally makes a patch available in under 12 hours (in contrast to the usual 36-72 hours, or more, from proprietary vendors).
While Windows users scrambled during the initial attacks by the Blaster, Sobig, Welchia, and Swen worms (all just last month!), Linux users continued working, disturbed only by the excessive network traffic pumped out by their infected Windows colleagues.
If I were a resident of Massachusetts, I would hope that my personal information were protected by the security of a Linux platform, rather than the virus-ridden, exploit-perforated wasteland of Windows 2000.
Open Source offers a savings. But CCAGW already knows that: "The site cagw.org is running Apache/1.3.12 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.6.5 OpenSSL/0.9.6e ApacheJServ/1.1.2 mod_fastcgi/2.2.10 on FreeBSD." (from netcraft.com)
Why not share CCAGW's own rationale in selecting Open Source solutions in another press release? It would help to persuade me, and others, that CCAGW hasn't been paid off by a proprietary software vendor.
that's true of any interpreted language (though lisp, and to some degree python, are pretty zippy), but I'm more than happy to trade 30 seconds of boot time for the ability to completely reprogram the init sequence. far better to trust system initialization to something I can read and change -- without even having to recompile it -- than to some black box binary:-)
I've been skeptical of this all-hailed content distribution technology since I first read of it. but, hell, I figured I would finally try it.
really, it's a good idea. most of us have cable; our downstream bandwidth is much larger than our upstream. if only file sharing could find some way to balance that, right? enter bittorrent, which claims it will automatically distribute load among many servers, even allowing you to use sources that don't have the complete file.
ok, so I figured I'd give it a try. apt-get install bittorrent, I say, and that's all taken care of. bit[tab]... hmm... bt[tab][tab]... btdownloadgui ~/dl/The[tab][enter]. still pretty easy.
a dialog box pops up. cool! it's downloading. ok, 40k/s downstream, 12k/s upstream. I can handle that.
elapse 15 seconds.
Download rate: 2kb/s
Upload rate: 6kb/s
Estimated time left: 10 hour 50 min 22 sec
# apt-get remove bittorrent
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
bittorrent
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 446kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database... 95650 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing bittorrent...
#
FOR THE LAST TIME, THIS IS NOT THE CONTENT DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM OF THE FUTURE!
what I mean is that "The" Microsoft Word.doc format should *be* XML -- the full-featured default file format, possible zipped or gzipped. not with cryptic stuff scattered inside the tags, but human readable...
*that's* what XML is for. it's a format for describing structured documents that's both human-readable and machine-readable. fine, it can "Save As" XML -- but if I decompress a StarOffice document, I can look at the XML, without any documentation, and basically understand how the formatting code is working.
MS won't stand for an XML file format -- it's human-readable. the last thing MS wants is for their file format to be easily convertible and transformable. it's a pity, because switching Office files to XML would quickly make them insanely useful.
imagine you write an outline in word. file -> export as -> presentation... or in access you select some rows and export to a spreadsheet. this is where staroffice stands to beat them.
but MS Office derives its profitability from incompatibility -- you have to use their products to get full use of their file format. so using MS Office will necessarily sacrifice this functionality.
I think the difference would more likely be due to stereo/mono, samplerate, and codec differences (tfa). latency's just going to affect how quickly you get the packets, not the sound quality.
amendments one through ten are *all* violated to various degrees. while I would like to provide you with a remedial constitutional law background, I can only recommend that you do some reading on your own. search google for "united states constitution text" or "bill of rights text".
both debian and redhat have their advantages. I run both redhat 9 and debian unstable at home and am highly satisfied with each of them.
redhat is very easy to install and configure, is mostly up to date, and security patches come out very quickly. given (basically) any intel/amd style hardware, I can usually get a redhat system booting within an hour with little tinkering. it includes the redhat-config-foo lineup, which make major system setup tasks very convenient; however, for the most part, redhat's configuration files and scripts are not 'managed' by the distribution. redhat also has a tendency to heavily patch some portions of the distribution (for example, the kernel and gnome/kde).
debian is far more difficult to install and configure (and the stable distribution is pretty old), but once done, updates and configuration are as simple as apt-get and dpkg-reconfigure -- switching to unstable will put most of your system ahead of redhat. the apt repositories are extensive -- for example, installing ardour on a red hat system will require quite a bit of hand-compiling and tweaking, but under debian it's nothing more than 'apt-get install ardour-gtk', with all the dependencies automagically computed and installed as well.
personally, I have abandoned up2date/RHN in favor of apt-rpm. the apt-rpm repositories *are* much smaller than the debian repositories, but they are a superset of redhat's own updates, and they include a lot of other things as well. for those who don't need/want a redhat support contract, apt-rpm provides much the same functionality as up2date, but without leeching off redhat's servers to get bugfixes and upgrades. an advantage to apt-rpm is that many, many 3rd party applications are available as RPMs -- and these don't tend to stress the RPM system as much as unofficial.deb's do.
they're different distributions with different purposes & I'd say each is the best in its class. kudos for a great 2nd quarter!
Slashdot Mirror
The site www.mstc.state.ms.us is running NetWare-Enterprise-Web-Server/5.1 on NetWare.
I, for one, welcome our new blog-spamming overlords.
for the last time MIDI = a protocol for transmitting musical data. YAMAHA OPL3 = the FM synthesizer you hate. OPL3 != MIDI
nothing beats a parker roller ball.
nothing.
why are gamers mad? or is valve just trying to paint it that way?
I read the CCAGW press release regarding Massachusetts' decision to move future expentidures to Open Source-licensed software. For a long time I have been generally in agreement with CCAGW's recommendations, but this has changed my views. There are a few, well, severe problems with the claims presented.
First, it is widely known in the industry that Open Source software can often provide a much lower total cost of ownership than proprietary software. The release quotes CCAGW president Tom Schatz claming the opposite. I find this rather bizarre, since Mr. Schatz is not an information systems analyst, nor does he have any training in information technology decisionmaking. He cites no field experts, nor data, nor even an anecdote, in making his claim that training and deployment costs outweigh acquisition savings.
Users only have to be trained once on a new system. Experience has shown that after training, they come to prefer Linux-based solutions due to the greater stability and security of the platform. End-users no longer need worry about viruses, and the operating system no longer crashes. This improves productivity and overall satisfaction with the technology.
Schatz reveals a fundamental ignorance of Open Source technology with a second claim: that Massachusetts is creating a "monopoly" through this mandate. Had CCAGW done even *five minutes* of research into Linux and Open Souce application software, it would have become unbelievably obvious that the Linux operating system is distributed by no less than six major organizations worldwide, and over a hundred smaller ones. Open Source application software is provided by -- literally -- thousands upon thousands of different, competing vendors.
Red Hat, Mandrake, Slackware, SuSE, and Gentoo are all under different ownership. Debian is a non-profit organization. I haven't even spoken of the myriad vendors of individual applications. Anyone who has read, say, the front page of http://www.linux.org would find the monopoly claim, well, laughable.
Finally, Open Source software offers critical functionality for government applications. The superior security record of Linux-based systems means a near-zero risk of data theft or security compromises when systems are properly deployed. In contrast to closed-source solutions, Open Source software can be subjected to a security audit with ease. When vulnerabilities are discovered, the Open Source development model generally makes a patch available in under 12 hours (in contrast to the usual 36-72 hours, or more, from proprietary vendors).
While Windows users scrambled during the initial attacks by the Blaster, Sobig, Welchia, and Swen worms (all just last month!), Linux users continued working, disturbed only by the excessive network traffic pumped out by their infected Windows colleagues.
If I were a resident of Massachusetts, I would hope that my personal information were protected by the security of a Linux platform, rather than the virus-ridden, exploit-perforated wasteland of Windows 2000.
Open Source offers a savings. But CCAGW already knows that: "The site cagw.org is running Apache/1.3.12 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.6.5 OpenSSL/0.9.6e ApacheJServ/1.1.2 mod_fastcgi/2.2.10 on FreeBSD." (from netcraft.com)
Why not share CCAGW's own rationale in selecting Open Source solutions in another press release? It would help to persuade me, and others, that CCAGW hasn't been paid off by a proprietary software vendor.
CR
"shut up and get in your cell."
"don't I get a phone call?"
"I said shut up."
things are not always as they seem.
and more often than not, the cops are the vile ones.
don't buy the shoes.
that's true of any interpreted language (though lisp, and to some degree python, are pretty zippy), but I'm more than happy to trade 30 seconds of boot time for the ability to completely reprogram the init sequence. far better to trust system initialization to something I can read and change -- without even having to recompile it -- than to some black box binary :-)
but HOW did he sign it? HUH?
athlon here too, debian unstable.
file is corrupt -- others had the same complaint.
X-Video Extension version 2.2
video_out_xv: Xv image format: 0x32595559 (YUY2) packed
video_out_xv: this adaptor supports the yuy2 format.
video_out_xv: Xv image format: 0x32315659 (YV12) planar
video_out_xv: this adaptor supports the yv12 format.
video_out_xv: Xv image format: 0x59565955 (UYVY) packed
video_out_xv: Xv image format: 0x30323449 (I420) planar
error while decoding MB 0 0
ffmpeg: error decompressing frame
unsupported slice header (FF)
ffmpeg: error decompressing frame
unsupported slice header (FF)
ffmpeg: error decompressing frame
unsupported slice header (FF)
ffmpeg: error decompressing frame
left block unavailable for requested intra mode at 0 8
error while decoding MB 0 8
ffmpeg: error decompressing frame
error while decoding MB 23 3
ffmpeg: error decompressing frame
Segmentation fault
didn't change anything. my patience with this client is quickly wearing thin...
oops. duh!
your last chance to persuade me to use bittorrent!
$ btdownloadheadless The-Fanimatrix-\(MPEG\).mpg
ERROR:
got bad file info -
saving:
percent done:
time left:
download to:
download rate:
upload rate:
ERROR:
got bad file info -
saving:
percent done: 0
time left: Download Failed!
download to:
download rate:
upload rate:
$
wow, this bittorrent sure is the AWESOME!
really, it's a good idea. most of us have cable; our downstream bandwidth is much larger than our upstream. if only file sharing could find some way to balance that, right? enter bittorrent, which claims it will automatically distribute load among many servers, even allowing you to use sources that don't have the complete file.
ok, so I figured I'd give it a try. apt-get install bittorrent, I say, and that's all taken care of. bit[tab] ... hmm ... bt[tab][tab] ... btdownloadgui ~/dl/The[tab][enter]. still pretty easy.
a dialog box pops up. cool! it's downloading. ok, 40k/s downstream, 12k/s upstream. I can handle that.
elapse 15 seconds.
Download rate: 2kb/s
Upload rate: 6kb/s
Estimated time left: 10 hour 50 min 22 sec
# apt-get remove bittorrent ... 95650 files and directories currently installed.) ...
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
bittorrent
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 446kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database
Removing bittorrent
#
FOR THE LAST TIME, THIS IS NOT THE CONTENT DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM OF THE FUTURE!
then why did you suggest it? really...
eh?
my kindgom for a mod point.
*that's* what XML is for. it's a format for describing structured documents that's both human-readable and machine-readable. fine, it can "Save As" XML -- but if I decompress a StarOffice document, I can look at the XML, without any documentation, and basically understand how the formatting code is working.
imagine you write an outline in word. file -> export as -> presentation... or in access you select some rows and export to a spreadsheet. this is where staroffice stands to beat them.
but MS Office derives its profitability from incompatibility -- you have to use their products to get full use of their file format. so using MS Office will necessarily sacrifice this functionality.
I think the difference would more likely be due to stereo/mono, samplerate, and codec differences (tfa). latency's just going to affect how quickly you get the packets, not the sound quality.
amendments one through ten are *all* violated to various degrees. while I would like to provide you with a remedial constitutional law background, I can only recommend that you do some reading on your own. search google for "united states constitution text" or "bill of rights text".
redhat is very easy to install and configure, is mostly up to date, and security patches come out very quickly. given (basically) any intel/amd style hardware, I can usually get a redhat system booting within an hour with little tinkering. it includes the redhat-config-foo lineup, which make major system setup tasks very convenient; however, for the most part, redhat's configuration files and scripts are not 'managed' by the distribution. redhat also has a tendency to heavily patch some portions of the distribution (for example, the kernel and gnome/kde).
debian is far more difficult to install and configure (and the stable distribution is pretty old), but once done, updates and configuration are as simple as apt-get and dpkg-reconfigure -- switching to unstable will put most of your system ahead of redhat. the apt repositories are extensive -- for example, installing ardour on a red hat system will require quite a bit of hand-compiling and tweaking, but under debian it's nothing more than 'apt-get install ardour-gtk', with all the dependencies automagically computed and installed as well.
personally, I have abandoned up2date/RHN in favor of apt-rpm. the apt-rpm repositories *are* much smaller than the debian repositories, but they are a superset of redhat's own updates, and they include a lot of other things as well. for those who don't need/want a redhat support contract, apt-rpm provides much the same functionality as up2date, but without leeching off redhat's servers to get bugfixes and upgrades. an advantage to apt-rpm is that many, many 3rd party applications are available as RPMs -- and these don't tend to stress the RPM system as much as unofficial .deb's do.
they're different distributions with different purposes & I'd say each is the best in its class. kudos for a great 2nd quarter!
a gentoo user is claiming incomprehensible performance boosts due to foo! film at eleven!