What I want to know is what is the difference between spam and advertising? If we can now say, "You can't send me spam", can we not also say "you can't send me advertising"? If spam is an invasion of privacy, then isn't a billboard on the side of the street also an invasion? What about the flyers that appear in your mailbox and on your doorstop? Isn't that spam too?
Why do we have radios in all our cars? So we can pipe advertising into a captive audience. Why do we have televisions in all our homes? So we can pipe advertising into a captive audience. Why do we have our computers plugged into the internet?
Do we really need advertising?
You want a red hat baseball cap? You pay money for that. You want a red hat t-shirt? You pay money for that. You want a CD with the red hat logo on it? You pay money for that. They are not selling open source software, they are selling BRANDED open source software. They are selling the idea that their open source software is somehow better than, more secure than, sexier than the other guy's open source software. Branding sells. There's nothing in the licenses that says you can brand it.
Gentoo Rulez!;-)
I wrote buckets of REXX code about 10-12 years ago. I wrote a mainframe automated trouble ticketing system and an automated alphanumeric paging system with it well before any of the vendors had such things. REXX is simple, powerful, and fast. Kinda like Python but without the coolness factor.
Thank you, javamutt, for adding that much needed context to your earlier post. When you view the tools from an availability engineering perspective, you can see how they might be used within a larger process of which regression testing is only a part.
It is unfortunate that they "observed" in their conclusions that their "tests demonstrate that the Linux system is reliable and stable over long durations and can provide a robust, enterprise-level environment." Their tests did show that Linux is "reliable and stable" over the durations specified in their report, but stating that Linux can "provide a robust, enterprise-level environment" is a wee bit too subjective for my tastes, even if I agree with them. I can forgive them for this, though, because when I write my test reports I often try to give my customers some sense of where to go after the completion of the tests, as opposed to just letting the dry facts speak for themselves. In their case, it seems to me that they chose a bit of a marketing slant for their conclusions; not surprising given that they chose to publish it on the internet.
The purpose of the Linux Test Project is not to "prove" anything. The test suite is simply a tool to be used to make linux better. They have been working on the tools and the methodology for a very long time. The tool is ready; the methodology is sound. They have shown that by running a series of tests and releasing them to the community.
I am a professional tester and I work for IBM, so you may consider me biased. But, IMHO, the LTP has done a rock-solid series of tests. If I was a kernal developer I would be busy logging enhancement requests from those 5% failures and planning ways to use the suite in my regression tests.
The only people who would sign the NDA would be IBM legal staff so they can see if there is a good reason to settle out of court. It's probably already been done. The question in my mind is if IBM does settle out of court, is that the end of this issue?
I have a right to life without advertising.
I'm hoping that the open source revolution will change the way we do things at IBM. We are still very compartmentalized in our functional areas and very rigid in how we build our contracts. We need to learn the lessons of open source in a way that will allow us to leverage the innovation and creativity that comes from a community environment. We're starting to see the beginnings of this in our creation of Communities of Practice. I joined the Open Source Community of practice just this morning. I'm really looking forward to shaking the tree a bit!;-)
Excellent comments. I didn't mean to suggest that IBM wanted Linux to lose, just that they win either way. I'm glad IBM is into open source; it gives me a reason to come to work every morning.
"Actually I do not quite understand IBM. Why the hell are they giving this a chance to be viewed in Utah?"
Excellent question. IBM makes a gzillion dollars selling software too, and the open source revolution will make that all go away. IBM is jumping on the Linux bandwagon because they think you would rather pay a ton of money to run DB2 and Websphere on Linux rathar than run MySQL and JBoss on Linux for free.
IBM won't cry if Linux goes away; they'll breathe a sigh of relief.
Interesting point of view. But it doesn't really matter how many people USE open source software; it matters more how many people are IMPROVING it. So the corporations stop deploying Linux for a few months. That won't stop the bleeding over at Microsoft; it just slows it down a bit.
You bet they are scared. SCO is simply a Microsoft pawn here. Microsoft is terrified of the open source movement. You can now get quality software to do anything on almost any platform for free. How do you sell software in such a marketplace? You can't, unless it's just a box, CD and manual. The open source movement is going to transform the software industry into a services industry, and many traditional software companies are going to find their products/intellectual property totally worthless. Revolutions are never pretty, and this one is going to be particularly bloody.
Slashdot Mirror
What I want to know is what is the difference between spam and advertising? If we can now say, "You can't send me spam", can we not also say "you can't send me advertising"? If spam is an invasion of privacy, then isn't a billboard on the side of the street also an invasion? What about the flyers that appear in your mailbox and on your doorstop? Isn't that spam too? Why do we have radios in all our cars? So we can pipe advertising into a captive audience. Why do we have televisions in all our homes? So we can pipe advertising into a captive audience. Why do we have our computers plugged into the internet? Do we really need advertising?
You want a red hat baseball cap? You pay money for that. You want a red hat t-shirt? You pay money for that. You want a CD with the red hat logo on it? You pay money for that. They are not selling open source software, they are selling BRANDED open source software. They are selling the idea that their open source software is somehow better than, more secure than, sexier than the other guy's open source software. Branding sells. There's nothing in the licenses that says you can brand it. Gentoo Rulez! ;-)
Yep. Send the planes into enemy airspace to get them to turn on all their radar sites. Then you know where to send the cruise missiles.
I wrote buckets of REXX code about 10-12 years ago. I wrote a mainframe automated trouble ticketing system and an automated alphanumeric paging system with it well before any of the vendors had such things. REXX is simple, powerful, and fast. Kinda like Python but without the coolness factor.
"else we'll have a dozen forks that won't play nice with each other." That's what we have now. They're called JDK releases.
Thank you, javamutt, for adding that much needed context to your earlier post. When you view the tools from an availability engineering perspective, you can see how they might be used within a larger process of which regression testing is only a part.
It is unfortunate that they "observed" in their conclusions that their "tests demonstrate that the Linux system is reliable and stable over long durations and can provide a robust, enterprise-level environment." Their tests did show that Linux is "reliable and stable" over the durations specified in their report, but stating that Linux can "provide a robust, enterprise-level environment" is a wee bit too subjective for my tastes, even if I agree with them. I can forgive them for this, though, because when I write my test reports I often try to give my customers some sense of where to go after the completion of the tests, as opposed to just letting the dry facts speak for themselves. In their case, it seems to me that they chose a bit of a marketing slant for their conclusions; not surprising given that they chose to publish it on the internet.
Cheers!
The purpose of the Linux Test Project is not to "prove" anything. The test suite is simply a tool to be used to make linux better. They have been working on the tools and the methodology for a very long time. The tool is ready; the methodology is sound. They have shown that by running a series of tests and releasing them to the community. I am a professional tester and I work for IBM, so you may consider me biased. But, IMHO, the LTP has done a rock-solid series of tests. If I was a kernal developer I would be busy logging enhancement requests from those 5% failures and planning ways to use the suite in my regression tests.
Didn't Sun just agree to let JBoss have the compatibility toolkit which would allow them to certify J2EE complaince? Does that spell sell-out?
The only people who would sign the NDA would be IBM legal staff so they can see if there is a good reason to settle out of court. It's probably already been done. The question in my mind is if IBM does settle out of court, is that the end of this issue? I have a right to life without advertising.
I'm hoping that the open source revolution will change the way we do things at IBM. We are still very compartmentalized in our functional areas and very rigid in how we build our contracts. We need to learn the lessons of open source in a way that will allow us to leverage the innovation and creativity that comes from a community environment. We're starting to see the beginnings of this in our creation of Communities of Practice. I joined the Open Source Community of practice just this morning. I'm really looking forward to shaking the tree a bit! ;-)
Excellent comments. I didn't mean to suggest that IBM wanted Linux to lose, just that they win either way. I'm glad IBM is into open source; it gives me a reason to come to work every morning.
"Actually I do not quite understand IBM. Why the hell are they giving this a chance to be viewed in Utah?" Excellent question. IBM makes a gzillion dollars selling software too, and the open source revolution will make that all go away. IBM is jumping on the Linux bandwagon because they think you would rather pay a ton of money to run DB2 and Websphere on Linux rathar than run MySQL and JBoss on Linux for free. IBM won't cry if Linux goes away; they'll breathe a sigh of relief.
Interesting point of view. But it doesn't really matter how many people USE open source software; it matters more how many people are IMPROVING it. So the corporations stop deploying Linux for a few months. That won't stop the bleeding over at Microsoft; it just slows it down a bit.
You bet they are scared. SCO is simply a Microsoft pawn here. Microsoft is terrified of the open source movement. You can now get quality software to do anything on almost any platform for free. How do you sell software in such a marketplace? You can't, unless it's just a box, CD and manual. The open source movement is going to transform the software industry into a services industry, and many traditional software companies are going to find their products/intellectual property totally worthless. Revolutions are never pretty, and this one is going to be particularly bloody.