Look at the way P2P works at this moment, it looks like a true non-centralized system won't be reliable enough for grandma in Alberta to voice conference and exchange files with Grandson in South Africa for a real long time (60 years).
Big problems include recognizing resources of such a network is not merely nodes, but more.
Directory services: It's upkeeping and serving of phone number/profile/quality of service/billing/geomatic information. In Engrish: you need a directory that doesn't suck. You can't just stick on LDAP and pray.
Serving dark backbones: Telco is not goign to let you piggy back on their end nodes for no apparant reason, you can either tunnel everything over encrypted channels or leave it in the open. Open communication will just be chopped off by the telco using federal or state laws, even colleges have to follow these laws. The routers that route will not route these data without a fight. That leaves dark backbones. There are already too few of these to speak of, and you can go around town digging up tunnels for "community service".
Encryption, the way we use telephones is private 1 to 1 or 1:some conference calls or the rare IP multicasting. Basically in IP geek speak you are talking billions of VPNs or secure sessions created and destroyed on the fly and you can't do this until every 802.11 can do this in a way that 1) works with that mythical directory services that doesn't exist 2) works in a way that backdoors current legislation..
And a billion more reasons you can't do this now..
At best you'll see this in some semblance of usability in 13 years at 3 cities in Japan, and 4 regions smaller than 10 miles wide somewhere in California and Washington State.
See Cygnus's GCJ, and Matt Welsh (Berkeley NINJA
group)'s Jaguar. The combination of both projects
(GCJ+Jaguar) helps to achieve
through Java what the new amiga seems to be
striving for. Mainly, platform
independance while having direct but responsible
(security/privilage-wise)
access POKE/FETCH of low-level system
calls. If they are aiming for different things
(maybe GCJ+Jaguar needs OpenGL and SDL binding to
compare well with the new Amiga,
and when you write Jaguar programs.. you need to
write in either Java or some other language you
can translate to JVM-runnable bytecodes), I think
both will make good comparisons. C# however
could be very different from what Jaguar or the
new Amiga are trying to achieve.
One of the great advantages of the net is that a small local vendor (your neighborhood bookstore) has an opportunity to impress global web buyers just as well as Amazon. As long as Amazon's tens and hundred's of web programmers continues to do stupid things and the small local vendor hires a smartie--we web buyers consider them equals--each with a unique service to offer.
But no single smartie representing small businesses and small business websites can handle the statistical nightmare of modifying very website he or she is responsible for to handle 50+ different sales taxes, exceptions, forms generations. It's not so different than trying to handle 50+ income tax forms yearly. Human or superman programmers--no programmers can cope with that.
But Amazon's army of 10 to 100 programmer can.
Are we trying to turn the Net into something only the rich companies can afford to operate in?
We will be if we pass this law.
The founders of the Web made a point of keeping the Web infrastructure and software simple. With CGI, HTTP, XML. And the universal use of simple SQL (for the catalog), HTML forms (for the sales pitch), Perl/Tcl (for manipulating business logic) and JPEG (product pictures) made it easy for the little guys to get on the net. Let's try to keep in mind the spirit of the Net and consistently push for simplicity and equality.
I think State-imposed sales tax on the net makes about is about as sensible as laws that brought us Segregation and restricting people to Indian Reserves. It's flawed logic and everyone gets hurt.
Is he also preaching the pros of close-source development associated with Solaris? (many still believe in this model)
The pros of old school many flavor of unix reflected by Sun and other unix vendors? (I assume safely there are a few pros left in this, though not likely)
The pros of having a mature unix that supports more high-end hardware perhaps?
And then he has to worry about the many pros associated with the polar opposite of unix diversity, or high-end hardware compatibility, or close-sourced development.
It's not an easy evaluation.
I would personally not try to answer all these questions myself. Since GNU/Linux is truely a moving target in many senses. If you have a raid card that works only with proprietary unixes, nt, and novell today--it could be accompanied by a GPLed device driver or great specification documentations tomorrow. And if this raid card is popular enough. Over-night it would see to those who use this card Linux is equivalent to a Sun box using the same raid card. Over-night. For many many diverse hardware--truely a moving target no one can track. If one even dares to claim it one should take their words with a grain of salt.
The best one can do is to ask a GNU/Linux vet (one who attempted to run production linux boxes since 1995), and ask her very specific questions (say specific to your computational needs or business problems) about what you are trying to do, where you want to go tomorrow, and the day after that. And try to catch up yourself to their level of expertises--which means patience and dedication.
Until then, my feeling is Solaris holds its own ground for certain customers. But it also holds back certain computer users (who use Solaris) at the same time. It depends on your circumstances.
Whenever young programmers and admins venture far from shore--they hope to see a beacon of light to guide them away from the hidden rocks and the cruel currents of the ubiquitous internet/unix ocean--destined to take young men and women who knew too little too late out to sea--forever lost--until they come upon the glimps of those solid lighthouses...
...until these young adventurers pull out the precious maps placed in their trust by past sailors...
--Richard had though enough of us mere mortals to map the world so new to the immigrants of DOS, Macintosh, and other platforms. So that we can arrive safely and roam this new continent with confidence.
Richard's succinct thoughts and illustrations will be sorely missed. I hope I will someday afford the other books he has so kindly nurtured into intellectual giants. I already thoroughly enjoy my copy of APUE & TCPIPv1 and skimming through NetProgramminge2v1 at the bookstore.
I'm very happy to hear from Tom (of Perl Cookbook fame)--who in a early post helped me paint a more complete picture of Richard. I'm quite glad to be informed that Richard is fond of his living years, that he love his life, that he wants everyone around him to love it as much as he did. I believe Richard 'is' now heading to a better place--with bigger challenges--I wish him well in his eternal journey of excellence. Thank you Richard. I look forward to seeing the great maps and lighthouses you'll continue to create when we all join the big party:)
33. The money may not be in end-user licensing--but in selling consulting time to modify SO scripts that automate the document flow of a company (think VBA).
32. The money may not be in end-user licensing--but in consulting time to link together Oracle Financial/SAP R/3 logic with custom made SO documents and spreadsheets.
31. The money could come from create Sun "MS Terminal Server--like" VNC servers that serve hundreds of SO sessions--companies and schools can save on administration with this method of deploying SO.
30. It took a long time to educate enough people to script MS Office a certain way--it certainly will be the same situation with Sun's SO--this means advertising money, creating a certification infrastructure money--to balance the balance sheet consider utilizing the cheaper development model of GNU software and third party documentation--this is most effective if a significant percentage of your SO developers and technical writers comes from the hungry and over-drive world of OSS.
29. End-user licensing is unhealthy when you use existing non-net-download methods. The cost is high (paid to distributors of glossy boxes), the erratas late (wait for the next version boxes), and the only people you can contact in the view of end-users is Sun's SO division, not their local consultants.
28. With net-distribution, you save on bandwidth (each download would be the glorious 500+ Megabytes after all) with source and executable mirrors.
27. Consumers will associate SO download with visiting local SO Consultant's website--which happens to be an important source of executable and source mirrors--even distributors of physical cds--but they are SMART DISTRIBUTORS--be they certified by SO certifications or Sun employees--Consumers would immediately be exposed to the possibility of scripting and customizing their product--hiring consultants--Sun can get revenue by training consultants and testing consultants as SO gain important customization features.
26. If GPLing the source of SO provides the incentive and thus trend and drive for consumers to download from SO mirrors--this will educate them to the importance of getting persistant connections such as cable modem and dsl--with these connections as the norm Sun technicians can better remotely login to user's computer and fix problems, educate, and enhance copies of software. Again, lowering technical support hours and effectiveness. (Tools like VNC enable SO technicians to visually remote control Macs, PCs, and UNIXes, servers and even dumb terminals to debug settings and problems)
25. In return for consumer investment in DSL and cable modem--Sun can push other net-reliant technologies like Sun webservers and java products. Opening the channel to other products. (This is a long stretch--sorta like saying the hog that Win9x/Office has helped bring about the requirement for powerful computers that could finally make use of unix's many great features--bringing about a renaissance of Linux--so I'm making the analogy to requirement of DSL and cable modem to get work done as opening the floodgate to the use of java and other net products)
24. Making SO on Java work is a trillion dollar proposition. It involves the assumption of more than just getting networking to work--it's reliable java stations and java servers, programmers understanding the ins and outs of the latest Java technologies. Let's talk about educating programmers... What's the chance that your everyday no-cs education programmer will care about the source of JFC? How about SO on Java? How about the scripts that automate SO on Java? It's like a stepping ladder--there are more interest as you get more higher level. But most importantly--if you closed any of the tiers (JFC/SO/Scripts for SO) it gives scripting programmer doubts--who can they trust nearby who actually seen and played with the codes? Who can fix the bugs? GPLing SO on Java helps to bring future programmers and scripters confidence they'll find support nearby--maybe even for free. The argument gets better when you realize with the GPL developers will read SO's source even if they only use a tiny portion of SO's code for a totally unrelated project--but I'm saving this for a latter point.
23. GPLing SO has the way of also answering anothe important question with the first choice. The question is When do we GPL? The first choice answer is now. The second choice is later. The mozilla project suggests now. The Darwin/Quicktime Streaming Server suggests now. Why? What's their incentive? Finding out could help you determine what role SO is about to take on when it's popular among MS Office folks. Here are my assessments: 1. They feel their users/developers could benefit from these product's compliance with standards--somehow they determine that GPL help them achieve that goal. 2. That their users/developers would choose their products over non-GPL products because they have access to key technologies they can take home and use in other projects (Mozilla's Gecko renderer as activex object for example, or the Rhino drop in javascript on java product, or the XML renderer)--some how the decision to GPL now helps them find developers who use the exact same technologies in diverse industries but these developers as a result can contribute to the future health of Mozilla and Darwin/QT Streaming Server product)
22. GPLing SO will help business users with weather-worthy old computers to walk away from your SO-Customer relationship with less "abandonware" pains. When some SO developers and SO consultants move on to fresher products of the future--business users can walk their path knowing they can try to hire a developer who can tackle and repair the bugs not only associated with busines logic written in scripts--but unforseenable bugs that reside in SO's executables and libraries.
21. SAP R/3 products that are based on a solid DB+OS+NET+IRON can now trust on a few stable fundation. They'll be able to incorporate SO onto the age old hierarchy (SO+DB+OS+NET+IRON). Before we get theoretical. I can see it already as a more document or spreadsheet oriented front-end to business logic--one small businesses and big businesses are familiar with--with the help of extensive exposure to web sites. This aids businesses to make more money with your products.
20. Businesses can also use such a SO+DB+OS+NET+IRON to isolate softwares that needs to be designed in the most scalable way and request proper and real world modifications to SO. The end result being a serious development track of SO that could benefit SO on Java. You'll be able to understand better than Microsoft what it is like to create a Office application designed for scalability--giving administrators and MIS people the same benefit of reliability and ease of configuration.
19. There will be businesses already sold on this idea of extending SO for scalability even if you never spend on dollar on researching this possibility. Giving them the GPL source allows you to freely benefit from such end-user development and research (which may go very far--as one can see with NASA's contribution to Linux's networking kernel and NIC driver research in order to benefit from a working Beowulf product).
18. A user like NASA doing the extending for you has a way of not only doing research for you. But supporting the product without you. Reselling the product without you. This is all very scary to those who rather entertain the possibility of one copy of software = one check sent to Sun economy--those in Sun and SO's competitors (MS/Corel/IBM/Apple). But the only one who can giggle AND be nervous at the same time is Sun/SO--because NASA would be using your software--not someone elses. Other's have nothing to celebrate.
17. Outside developers sympathetic to BeOS/MacOS/Research OSes/Embedded OSes/Evil Empire OSes/UN*X varients users would not forget your GPL'ed code base--they'll try to port these products to these platforms. To the users of these platforms--Sun would finally be seen as a champion of popular software--not just expensive super-computer research. And they'll be open to related products Sun has to sell them.
Bonus Point for Free. I lost my points 16-10 when netscape crashed due to what I suppose is an buffer overload to the slashdot reply forms. I went around looking through the core files and found nothing. No backup. Nah dah. Good thing I copy and paste 33-17 to a text file and have perfect memory of points 16-10. Unlimited undos, journaling of all changes, and all sorts of features might need SO's own team to develop--but your dedication to a GPL'ed source will mean that other products of unrelated nature will benefit from SO's components in the future. Imagine a drop-in unlimited undo-history module to enhance the text frame one would definitely love to have when perl scripting a quick and dirty application. If something breaks you get a free bug report--even since these group of users are in the 3rd-world countries--not using a full-blown PC--but rather a setup-box. Maybe I didn't remember all 16-10 points. Oh well. Let's hope future generations of computer users can benefit fully from Sun/SO's innovation.
16. Don't remember.
15. Don't remember.
14. Don't remember.
13. Don't remember.
12. I'm going to extend out my neck and claim what's important to wordprocessor and spreadsheet business users and consultants of past and future--they're ultimately very excited about these things: a) potential great music that can be produced from an amazing relationship between the scripting engine and the application/b) amazing scripting engine features and ability to bring the proper features to the surface and hide the unnecessary features out of the executable when the consultant is customizing the product for a business/c) ability to not only add to SO through things like MS's ActiveX objects (which is basically BONOBO in Linux) and not excited at all about these things: x)speed of scripting engine--especially if it's an proprietary engine--learn from BeOS--they don't force any scripting language on anyone/y)number of features in new applications when they aren't exposed to scripting engine or very useful even when exposed/z)huge manuals that explain all the new features to those who need it and those who don't. Conclusion/Claim: GPL fuels the real world touch and experience and dynamic nature of the former (a/b/c) where as close-source fuels the research oriented touch of the latter (x/y/z).
Another Bonus Point for Free. GPLed software based of mature and large projects does not force outside developers and contributors to the fundation source base to use SO or understand all of SO in order to sustain their contribution to SO. Even if they try to make a tiny technology inside of SO work (like Rhino in Mozilla) for them--this little technology could play a key role (say a unlimited undo text editing module from SO) in set-up boxes--without any managers knowing. The technology and brain-share is helping SO--however--it will concentrate on key technologies. It's always rewarding when someone out there make it their No.1 to make sure an seemingly unimportant part of your project work well and perfectly in the real world--it gives you a chance to leave features in even if you lack the programming money or time to sustain it otherwise.
11. The interest of wordprocessor and spreadsheet users and consultants are in automating these documents as a poor-man's way of bringing business logic to the webserver scripts running on the same computer. Give them the piece of mind that thousands of eyeballs are looking and fixing security bugs that may exist in SO and the scripting engine or architecture SO may deploy--just as major webserver projects and scripting engines for webserver projects GPL their source. Why don't they adapt a Sun half-ass OSS licensing like the Sun community license? Because under that shadow there are no incentive to use the source. Potential eye-balls will only use something they can apply elsewhere for free--free to modify at will. Only retarded idiots will submit to the reading of thousands of lines of source code which will benefit no one but SO developers.
Please do not spend 90 million dollars like all the other merger-crazied accounting dagger and cloaking hi-tech companies does.
Indeed, many people have come to recognize the importance of bringing UNIX a friendly face--this was the overwelming theme that brings logic to the IPO of RedHat... whenever you create software you create value--especially OSS software. RedHat was definitely IPOed to answer to the need of customers, employees, and investors. However you prioritize it RedHat is not another proprietary software company with a closed source model. The RedHat brand is powerful and people will continue to true and purchase all sorts of services associated with RedHat innovated OSS software. We won't need to imitate proprietary companies hoarding and killing close-source software (Think SUN's Wabi and maybe StarOffice too if Sun keeps all the source to themselves)--even if they are a serious form of money-making method.
I realize that a lot of linux users don't buy into the GNU and OSS philophy of software innovation. It's sorta like being an immigrant to America. You enjoy the green card. But that's it. But I invite you to do more than that.
Consoles are great because it is a controlled environment. That's nice. But aside from similar development tools (GNU) and similar skills. PC Game developers have alot of room to creatively add multi-user gaming experiences to a complete networked-PC. This is something that confuses me sometimes, as it is not that hard for a console designer to include an el cheapo NIC card or modem, or both, into the package. It shouldn't cost that much.
Wait, this little robot ball takes 2 years to build? Also, shouldn't be consider a baby submarine? (zero gravity, fan to thrust aka no nano-rockets/compressed air/pulley system via wires or fibers) Well, robotic due to it's intelligence, avoiding getting into people's way and all. I guess the 2 years is to make it durable and work under stress, you are asking a tennis ball size to survive space station disasters and do investigations after all.
I bet another hard part is to have a hoard of them working together. It could take 5 spaceballs to cooperate and put out a little fire or take different camera shots of a unreachable space.
Another thing that would help these balls do precision positioning is if once there they can attach a tricorder to a solid space and use that tricorder to move in little increments. Just because you can't send a human into small places doesn't mean you don't need the fingers of a astronaut. But this is probably hard to include into the budget--micro surgeons these balls aren't. On the bright side, the surgical programming can be on a mainframe that's on the shuttle, not in the ball, you just need to give it a robotic arm--maybe the Toyota assembly factory can help in this respect:)
I wonder if positioning them for surgical work would be manual, like a 3D view of the tunnel and you see a ball, and you use your hand to guide the ball left and right.
Talk about juggling. This is a hard project. Good luck.
You are right. What a twit I was. Another road kill in the typographical distaster zone. If only the the notice that this was a repost was more prominent... Like I said, road-kill. Anyway, the guy who wrote it (not the reposter) is a idiot.
Lots of apologies and s/Anonymous Coward/Original Writer/g
You should try "Linux Sucks" next time. That way you can bill 2 more hours to a Microsoft customer for whatever Exchange Server version you just learn how to support. Thank you for reciting everything MS says on their website, cds, and MCSE books. We're truely enlightened.
But I wish you could save me from having a major itch to flame you to a Peiking duck crisp.
My feeling (as oppose to "real world experience" and "scientific facts" listed by Anonymous Coward) is that it's all moot anyway.
1. In the future, little robotic birds that feed on wind power and solar energy and automatic power stations every 2 square mile will eliminate a good chunk of what we now know as the all profitable transportation industry. The prototyping of nanotechnologies (or whatever prior art is invented in the researching frustration of finding out that nanotech is bull) will make manufacturing less manual. By then, all hell would break lose. Not only will low tech jobs (UPS drivers) be gone gone gone. High tech jobs would already be saturated (ask a EE/ITer) and hard for flame-bait writing anony's to penetrate (did I say penetrate, excuse me). Thus, by then we would nuke everyone in the fight for bottled water and it won't make much point whether Linux sucks or the presence of online Amiga hold-outs are actually just a buncha really smart and funny perl scripts.
2. Learn perl, before idiots like Anonymous learns it and cause havoc writing obscene low-performance scripts on a NT box and blame it on us. You'll have a good chance, cus he'll be here flaming me:) You got a 2 hour head start, go!
3. In a world where MATRIX 3 will exist. Year 2000 is really 2000 BC. A GIANT STEP BACKWARDS FOR MANKIND.
Slashdot Mirror
Big problems include recognizing resources of such a network is not merely nodes, but more.
At best you'll see this in some semblance of usability in 13 years at 3 cities in Japan, and 4 regions smaller than 10 miles wide somewhere in California and Washington State.
See Cygnus's GCJ, and Matt Welsh (Berkeley NINJA group)'s Jaguar. The combination of both projects (GCJ+Jaguar) helps to achieve through Java what the new amiga seems to be striving for. Mainly, platform independance while having direct but responsible (security/privilage-wise) access POKE/FETCH of low-level system calls. If they are aiming for different things (maybe GCJ+Jaguar needs OpenGL and SDL binding to compare well with the new Amiga, and when you write Jaguar programs.. you need to write in either Java or some other language you can translate to JVM-runnable bytecodes), I think both will make good comparisons. C# however could be very different from what Jaguar or the new Amiga are trying to achieve.
One of the great advantages of the net is that
a small local vendor (your neighborhood bookstore)
has an opportunity to impress global web buyers
just as well as Amazon. As long as Amazon's
tens and hundred's of web programmers continues to do stupid things and the small local vendor hires a smartie--we web buyers consider them equals--each with a unique service to offer.
But no single smartie representing small businesses and small business websites can handle the statistical nightmare of modifying very website he or she is responsible for to handle 50+ different sales taxes, exceptions, forms generations. It's not so different than trying to handle 50+ income tax forms yearly. Human or superman programmers--no programmers can cope with that.
But Amazon's army of 10 to 100 programmer can.
Are we trying to turn the Net into something only the rich companies can afford to operate in?
We will be if we pass this law.
The founders of the Web made a point of keeping the Web infrastructure and software simple. With CGI, HTTP, XML. And the universal use of simple SQL (for the catalog), HTML forms (for the sales pitch), Perl/Tcl (for manipulating business logic) and JPEG (product pictures) made it easy for the little guys to get on the net. Let's try to keep in mind the spirit of the Net and consistently push for simplicity and equality.
I think State-imposed sales tax on the net makes about is about as sensible as laws that brought us Segregation and restricting people to Indian Reserves. It's flawed logic and everyone gets hurt.
It's shallow as it stand.
There is much more to the equation after all.
Is he also preaching the pros of close-source development associated with Solaris? (many still believe in this model)
The pros of old school many flavor of unix reflected by Sun and other unix vendors? (I assume safely there are a few pros left in this, though not likely)
The pros of having a mature unix that supports more high-end hardware perhaps?
And then he has to worry about the many pros associated with the polar opposite of unix diversity, or high-end hardware compatibility, or close-sourced development.
It's not an easy evaluation.
I would personally not try to answer all these questions myself. Since GNU/Linux is truely a moving target in many senses. If you have a raid card that works only with proprietary unixes, nt, and novell today--it could be accompanied by a GPLed device driver or great specification documentations tomorrow. And if this raid card is popular enough. Over-night it would see to those who use this card Linux is equivalent to a Sun box using the same raid card. Over-night. For many many diverse hardware--truely a moving target no one can track. If one even dares to claim it one should take their words with a grain of salt.
The best one can do is to ask a GNU/Linux vet (one who attempted to run production linux boxes since 1995), and ask her very specific questions (say specific to your computational needs or business problems) about what you are trying to do, where you want to go tomorrow, and the day after that. And try to catch up yourself to their level of expertises--which means patience and dedication.
Until then, my feeling is Solaris holds its own ground for certain customers. But it also holds back certain computer users (who use Solaris) at the same time. It depends on your circumstances.
Whenever young programmers and admins venture
:)
far from shore--they hope to see a beacon of
light to guide them away from the hidden rocks
and the cruel currents of the ubiquitous internet/unix ocean--destined to take young men and women who knew too little too late out to sea--forever lost--until they come upon the glimps of those solid lighthouses...
...until these young adventurers pull out the precious maps placed in their trust by past sailors...
--Richard had though enough of us mere mortals to map the world so new to the immigrants of DOS, Macintosh, and other platforms. So that we can arrive safely and roam this new continent with confidence.
Richard's succinct thoughts and illustrations will be sorely missed. I hope I will someday afford the
other books he has so kindly nurtured into
intellectual giants. I already thoroughly enjoy
my copy of APUE & TCPIPv1 and skimming through NetProgramminge2v1 at the bookstore.
I'm very happy to hear from Tom (of Perl Cookbook fame)--who in a early post helped me paint a more complete picture of Richard. I'm quite glad to be informed that Richard is fond of his living years, that he love his life, that he wants everyone around him to love it as much as he did. I believe Richard 'is' now heading to a better place--with bigger challenges--I wish him well in his eternal journey of excellence. Thank you Richard. I look forward to seeing the great maps and lighthouses you'll continue to create when we all join the big party
Star Office dev team/mgmt = SO.
33. The money may not be in end-user licensing--but in selling consulting time to modify SO scripts that automate the document flow of a company (think VBA).
32. The money may not be in end-user licensing--but in consulting time to link together Oracle Financial/SAP R/3 logic with custom made SO documents and spreadsheets.
31. The money could come from create Sun "MS Terminal Server--like" VNC servers that serve hundreds of SO sessions--companies and schools can save on administration with this method of deploying SO.
30. It took a long time to educate enough people to script MS Office a certain way--it certainly will be the same situation with Sun's SO--this means advertising money, creating a certification infrastructure money--to balance the balance sheet consider utilizing the cheaper development model of GNU software and third party documentation--this is most effective if a significant percentage of your SO developers and technical writers comes from the hungry and over-drive world of OSS.
29. End-user licensing is unhealthy when you use existing non-net-download methods. The cost is high (paid to distributors of glossy boxes), the erratas late (wait for the next version boxes), and the only people you can contact in the view of end-users is Sun's SO division, not their local consultants.
28. With net-distribution, you save on bandwidth (each download would be the glorious 500+ Megabytes after all) with source and executable mirrors.
27. Consumers will associate SO download with visiting local SO Consultant's website--which happens to be an important source of executable and source mirrors--even distributors of physical cds--but they are SMART DISTRIBUTORS--be they certified by SO certifications or Sun employees--Consumers would immediately be exposed to the possibility of scripting and customizing their product--hiring consultants--Sun can get revenue by training consultants and testing consultants as SO gain important customization features.
26. If GPLing the source of SO provides the incentive and thus trend and drive for consumers to download from SO mirrors--this will educate them to the importance of getting persistant connections such as cable modem and dsl--with these connections as the norm Sun technicians can better remotely login to user's computer and fix problems, educate, and enhance copies of software. Again, lowering technical support hours and effectiveness. (Tools like VNC enable SO technicians to visually remote control Macs, PCs, and UNIXes, servers and even dumb terminals to debug settings and problems)
25. In return for consumer investment in DSL and cable modem--Sun can push other net-reliant technologies like Sun webservers and java products. Opening the channel to other products. (This is a long stretch--sorta like saying the hog that Win9x/Office has helped bring about the requirement for powerful computers that could finally make use of unix's many great features--bringing about a renaissance of Linux--so I'm making the analogy to requirement of DSL and cable modem to get work done as opening the floodgate to the use of java and other net products)
24. Making SO on Java work is a trillion dollar proposition. It involves the assumption of more than just getting networking to work--it's reliable java stations and java servers, programmers understanding the ins and outs of the latest Java technologies. Let's talk about educating programmers... What's the chance that your everyday no-cs education programmer will care about the source of JFC? How about SO on Java? How about the scripts that automate SO on Java? It's like a stepping ladder--there are more interest as you get more higher level. But most importantly--if you closed any of the tiers (JFC/SO/Scripts for SO) it gives scripting programmer doubts--who can they trust nearby who actually seen and played with the codes? Who can fix the bugs? GPLing SO on Java helps to bring future programmers and scripters confidence they'll find support nearby--maybe even for free. The argument gets better when you realize with the GPL developers will read SO's source even if they only use a tiny portion of SO's code for a totally unrelated project--but I'm saving this for a latter point.
23. GPLing SO has the way of also answering anothe important question with the first choice. The question is When do we GPL? The first choice answer is now. The second choice is later. The mozilla project suggests now. The Darwin/Quicktime Streaming Server suggests now. Why? What's their incentive? Finding out could help you determine what role SO is about to take on when it's popular among MS Office folks. Here are my assessments: 1. They feel their users/developers could benefit from these product's compliance with standards--somehow they determine that GPL help them achieve that goal. 2. That their users/developers would choose their products over non-GPL products because they have access to key technologies they can take home and use in other projects (Mozilla's Gecko renderer as activex object for example, or the Rhino drop in javascript on java product, or the XML renderer)--some how the decision to GPL now helps them find developers who use the exact same technologies in diverse industries but these developers as a result can contribute to the future health of Mozilla and Darwin/QT Streaming Server product)
22. GPLing SO will help business users with weather-worthy old computers to walk away from your SO-Customer relationship with less "abandonware" pains. When some SO developers and SO consultants move on to fresher products of the future--business users can walk their path knowing they can try to hire a developer who can tackle and repair the bugs not only associated with busines logic written in scripts--but unforseenable bugs that reside in SO's executables and libraries.
21. SAP R/3 products that are based on a solid DB+OS+NET+IRON can now trust on a few stable fundation. They'll be able to incorporate SO onto the age old hierarchy (SO+DB+OS+NET+IRON). Before we get theoretical. I can see it already as a more document or spreadsheet oriented front-end to business logic--one small businesses and big businesses are familiar with--with the help of extensive exposure to web sites. This aids businesses to make more money with your products.
20. Businesses can also use such a SO+DB+OS+NET+IRON to isolate softwares that needs to be designed in the most scalable way and request proper and real world modifications to SO. The end result being a serious development track of SO that could benefit SO on Java. You'll be able to understand better than Microsoft what it is like to create a Office application designed for scalability--giving administrators and MIS people the same benefit of reliability and ease of configuration.
19. There will be businesses already sold on this idea of extending SO for scalability even if you never spend on dollar on researching this possibility. Giving them the GPL source allows you to freely benefit from such end-user development and research (which may go very far--as one can see with NASA's contribution to Linux's networking kernel and NIC driver research in order to benefit from a working Beowulf product).
18. A user like NASA doing the extending for you has a way of not only doing research for you. But supporting the product without you. Reselling the product without you. This is all very scary to those who rather entertain the possibility of one copy of software = one check sent to Sun economy--those in Sun and SO's competitors (MS/Corel/IBM/Apple). But the only one who can giggle AND be nervous at the same time is Sun/SO--because NASA would be using your software--not someone elses. Other's have nothing to celebrate.
17. Outside developers sympathetic to BeOS/MacOS/Research OSes/Embedded OSes/Evil Empire OSes/UN*X varients users would not forget your GPL'ed code base--they'll try to port these products to these platforms. To the users of these platforms--Sun would finally be seen as a champion of popular software--not just expensive super-computer research. And they'll be open to related products Sun has to sell them.
Bonus Point for Free. I lost my points 16-10 when netscape crashed due to what I suppose is an buffer overload to the slashdot reply forms. I went around looking through the core files and found nothing. No backup. Nah dah. Good thing I copy and paste 33-17 to a text file and have perfect memory of points 16-10. Unlimited undos, journaling of all changes, and all sorts of features might need SO's own team to develop--but your dedication to a GPL'ed source will mean that other products of unrelated nature will benefit from SO's components in the future. Imagine a drop-in unlimited undo-history module to enhance the text frame one would definitely love to have when perl scripting a quick and dirty application. If something breaks you get a free bug report--even since these group of users are in the 3rd-world countries--not using a full-blown PC--but rather a setup-box. Maybe I didn't remember all 16-10 points. Oh well. Let's hope future generations of computer users can benefit fully from Sun/SO's innovation.
16. Don't remember.
15. Don't remember.
14. Don't remember.
13. Don't remember.
12. I'm going to extend out my neck and claim what's important to wordprocessor and spreadsheet business users and consultants of past and future--they're ultimately very excited about these things: a) potential great music that can be produced from an amazing relationship between the scripting engine and the application/b) amazing scripting engine features and ability to bring the proper features to the surface and hide the unnecessary features out of the executable when the consultant is customizing the product for a business/c) ability to not only add to SO through things like MS's ActiveX objects (which is basically BONOBO in Linux) and not excited at all about these things: x)speed of scripting engine--especially if it's an proprietary engine--learn from BeOS--they don't force any scripting language on anyone/y)number of features in new applications when they aren't exposed to scripting engine or very useful even when exposed/z)huge manuals that explain all the new features to those who need it and those who don't. Conclusion/Claim: GPL fuels the real world touch and experience and dynamic nature of the former (a/b/c) where as close-source fuels the research oriented touch of the latter (x/y/z).
Another Bonus Point for Free. GPLed software based of mature and large projects does not force outside developers and contributors to the fundation source base to use SO or understand all of SO in order to sustain their contribution to SO. Even if they try to make a tiny technology inside of SO work (like Rhino in Mozilla) for them--this little technology could play a key role (say a unlimited undo text editing module from SO) in set-up boxes--without any managers knowing. The technology and brain-share is helping SO--however--it will concentrate on key technologies. It's always rewarding when someone out there make it their No.1 to make sure an seemingly unimportant part of your project work well and perfectly in the real world--it gives you a chance to leave features in even if you lack the programming money or time to sustain it otherwise.
11. The interest of wordprocessor and spreadsheet users and consultants are in automating these documents as a poor-man's way of bringing business logic to the webserver scripts running on the same computer. Give them the piece of mind that thousands of eyeballs are looking and fixing security bugs that may exist in SO and the scripting engine or architecture SO may deploy--just as major webserver projects and scripting engines for webserver projects GPL their source. Why don't they adapt a Sun half-ass OSS licensing like the Sun community license? Because under that shadow there are no incentive to use the source. Potential eye-balls will only use something they can apply elsewhere for free--free to modify at will. Only retarded idiots will submit to the reading of thousands of lines of source code which will benefit no one but SO developers.
10-1. That's Letterman's job.
Please do not spend 90 million dollars like
all the other merger-crazied accounting
dagger and cloaking hi-tech companies does.
Indeed, many people have come to recognize
the importance of bringing UNIX a friendly
face--this was the overwelming theme that
brings logic to the IPO of RedHat... whenever
you create software you create value--especially
OSS software. RedHat was definitely IPOed to
answer to the need of customers, employees,
and investors. However you prioritize it RedHat
is not another proprietary software company
with a closed source model. The RedHat brand
is powerful and people will continue to true
and purchase all sorts of services associated
with RedHat innovated OSS software. We won't
need to imitate proprietary companies hoarding
and killing close-source software (Think SUN's Wabi and maybe StarOffice too if Sun keeps all the source to themselves)--even if
they are a serious form of money-making method.
I realize that a lot of linux users don't buy
into the GNU and OSS philophy of software innovation. It's sorta like being an immigrant
to America. You enjoy the green card. But that's
it. But I invite you to do more than that.
Consoles are great because it is a controlled environment. That's nice. But aside from similar
development tools (GNU) and similar skills. PC
Game developers have alot of room to creatively
add multi-user gaming experiences to a complete
networked-PC. This is something that confuses me
sometimes, as it is not that hard for a console
designer to include an el cheapo NIC card or
modem, or both, into the package. It shouldn't
cost that much.
Wait, this little robot ball takes 2 years to build? Also, shouldn't be consider a baby submarine? (zero gravity, fan to thrust aka no nano-rockets/compressed air/pulley system via wires or fibers) Well, robotic due to it's intelligence, avoiding getting into people's way and all. I guess the 2 years is to make it durable and work under stress, you are asking a tennis ball size to survive space station disasters and do investigations after all.
:)
I bet another hard part is to have a hoard of them working together. It could take 5 spaceballs to cooperate and put out a little fire or take different camera shots of a unreachable space.
Another thing that would help these balls do precision positioning is if once there they can attach a tricorder to a solid space and use that tricorder to move in little increments. Just because you can't send a human into small places doesn't mean you don't need the fingers of a astronaut. But this is probably hard to include into the budget--micro surgeons these balls aren't. On the bright side, the surgical
programming can be on a mainframe that's on the
shuttle, not in the ball, you just need to give it a robotic arm--maybe the Toyota assembly factory can help in this respect
I wonder if positioning them for surgical work would be manual, like a 3D view of the tunnel and you see a ball, and you use your hand to guide the ball left and right.
Talk about juggling. This is a hard project. Good luck.
You are right. What a twit I was. Another road
kill in the typographical distaster zone. If only the the notice that this was a repost was more prominent... Like I said, road-kill. Anyway, the guy who wrote it (not the reposter) is a idiot.
Lots of apologies and
s/Anonymous Coward/Original Writer/g
rotfl
:) You got a 2 hour head start, go!
Mr. Anony,
You should try "Linux Sucks" next time. That way you can bill 2 more hours to a Microsoft customer for whatever Exchange Server version you just learn how to support. Thank you for reciting everything MS says on their website, cds, and MCSE books. We're truely enlightened.
But I wish you could save me from having a major itch to flame you to a Peiking duck crisp.
My feeling (as oppose to "real world experience" and "scientific facts" listed by Anonymous Coward) is that it's all moot anyway.
1. In the future, little robotic birds that feed on wind power and solar energy and automatic power stations every 2 square mile will eliminate a good chunk of what we now know as the all profitable transportation industry. The prototyping of nanotechnologies (or whatever prior art is invented in the researching frustration of finding out that nanotech is bull) will make manufacturing less manual. By then, all hell would break lose. Not only will low tech jobs (UPS drivers) be gone gone gone. High tech jobs would already be saturated (ask a EE/ITer) and hard for flame-bait writing anony's to penetrate (did I say penetrate, excuse me). Thus, by then we would nuke everyone in the fight for bottled water and it won't make much point whether Linux sucks or the presence of online Amiga hold-outs are actually just a buncha really smart and funny perl scripts.
2. Learn perl, before idiots like Anonymous learns it and cause havoc writing obscene low-performance scripts on a NT box and blame it on us. You'll have a good chance, cus he'll be here flaming me
3. In a world where MATRIX 3 will exist. Year 2000 is really 2000 BC. A GIANT STEP BACKWARDS FOR MANKIND.
4. La la la