Sun has a history of not playing nicely with other projects, however. A real culture of "not invented here", or just plain arrogance. Makes me wonder what's going to happen to MySQL.
Michael Meeks blogged about this almost 3 months ago. This post is right before the 2008-10-10 post. Though it's still pertinent, why is it only being dragged out on Slashdot now?
Easy. All they have to do is refuse to take contributions from the rest of the community. Kohei's solver module is a case in point. He had a fully functional solver, and what did Sun do? They wrote their own.
"...but you would have to have been psychic to know how fast they would have risen over the course of the past two years and to know at what point that was going to happen so you could suddenly have a boat load of fuel efficient vehicles hit the market at the exact time the market started demanding them."
I'm sorry, are you saying that the overseas car manufacturers were psychic, or just good guessers? I'd say neither: I'd say that they were responding to demand, which U.S. manufacturers did not pick up. You cannot have it both ways - if the overseas manufacturers could time their fuel efficient cars so well, then yes, I can blame the U.S. manufacturers for their stupidity.
Point 2:
"You can't blame US car companies for building vehicles that consumers want to buy. It's basic supply and demand. It's the government's responsibility to either raise taxes to affect that market or to pass laws that force fuel efficiency on all vehicles sold or driven in the US."
I can blame U.S. car companies. See above - they should have known this was going to happen. And no, I don't think that it's entirely the government's fault, though they most certainly didn't help with their stupidity themselves. However, industries survive despite government intervention, it's called foresight and planning.
Goodo, and I hope they do. Then again, I also hope that the government doesn't bail them out if they do. I think we'll then see if your assumption is correct. Hint: they are going to start to try competing with Toyota and Honda, because they know the writing is on the wall if they don't!
Not everyone does. However, ever tried to get from Sydney to Perth by car or rail? Try it some time. It's less distance to travel to New Zealand or Indonesia.
Actually, I am on the other side of the pond, and as you say "there is a reason more fuel efficient vehicles have been being built on the other side of the pond for a long, long time and they haven't been being built here". Methinks you contradict yourself - as you say, Europe the UK and Australia have had taxes on petrol for a while and thus have driven the smaller car market. Thus, you don't have to be a psychic to know that petrol prices rise (as they must, as we've known about this for some time). In fact governments and markets around the world have been telling car manufacturers this for some time, so from a global perspective the Japanese car manufacturers have been servicing the market for quite some time.
Just remember: just because the U.S. market does something doesn't mean the rest of the world will always follow.
And yet in Australia the SUV hasn't taken off to the same extent as it has in the U.S. And Australia has a lower population density and has vast regions between population centres.
Try reading. He's saying that he doesn't personally need a truck. In fact, he's saying that most people don't need a truck. And this is true. He's not saying (and for that matter I didn't say) that trucks are not necessary. But I can assure you, I personally don't need a truck. If I do, I'll hire one or get someone to deliver what I need.
And yet I'm not talking about trucks. A truck is a work-class vehicle, built and designed for... well, work. A sports utility is designed to allow some moron go around in a big car for.... well sport. On a daily basis.
I think that SUVs really say it all. An SUV is a gass-guzzling inefficient monstrosity of a car, yet its name "sports-utility vehicle" is meant to convey fun times and yet excellent functionality. Consumers were taken in for some time, but then they realised they'd been duped.
Now U.S. car companies are paying the price for trying to satisfy the market. The market has now moved on, and the car companies are are left with... SUVs.
Can you not see the problem with the following sentence?
"Why do "Christians" completely ignore every other religion in the world? Many of them have a much longer and richer history then Christianity and are no more or less logically questionable."
Yes, but that wouldn't make the man's life any easier, or even be very productive.
Don't equate "technical" with knowing every bit of software out there. The author of the question didn't actually say what they are technical in - perhaps they are an expert in LDAP, and may not know much about DTP. Let's put it this way: I'm pretty technical, but I don't pride myself on my awesome ability to use Microsoft Word!
Slashdot Mirror
I'll let you make up your own mind:
Sun has a history of not playing nicely with other projects, however. A real culture of "not invented here", or just plain arrogance. Makes me wonder what's going to happen to MySQL.
Michael Meeks blogged about this almost 3 months ago. This post is right before the 2008-10-10 post. Though it's still pertinent, why is it only being dragged out on Slashdot now?
Easy. All they have to do is refuse to take contributions from the rest of the community. Kohei's solver module is a case in point. He had a fully functional solver, and what did Sun do? They wrote their own.
[citation provided]
It's not very impressive that the centre of Freedom In The World censors the Internet. The word I'd use is "ironic".
As the creator of the {{fact}} tag on Wikipedia, I can say that you just grossly misused it :-)
I have two points I think I need to respond to.
Point 1:
"...but you would have to have been psychic to know how fast they would have risen over the course of the past two years and to know at what point that was going to happen so you could suddenly have a boat load of fuel efficient vehicles hit the market at the exact time the market started demanding them."
I'm sorry, are you saying that the overseas car manufacturers were psychic, or just good guessers? I'd say neither: I'd say that they were responding to demand, which U.S. manufacturers did not pick up. You cannot have it both ways - if the overseas manufacturers could time their fuel efficient cars so well, then yes, I can blame the U.S. manufacturers for their stupidity.
Point 2:
"You can't blame US car companies for building vehicles that consumers want to buy. It's basic supply and demand. It's the government's responsibility to either raise taxes to affect that market or to pass laws that force fuel efficiency on all vehicles sold or driven in the US."
I can blame U.S. car companies. See above - they should have known this was going to happen. And no, I don't think that it's entirely the government's fault, though they most certainly didn't help with their stupidity themselves. However, industries survive despite government intervention, it's called foresight and planning.
Goodo, and I hope they do. Then again, I also hope that the government doesn't bail them out if they do. I think we'll then see if your assumption is correct. Hint: they are going to start to try competing with Toyota and Honda, because they know the writing is on the wall if they don't!
Not everyone does. However, ever tried to get from Sydney to Perth by car or rail? Try it some time. It's less distance to travel to New Zealand or Indonesia.
Good point.
Actually, I am on the other side of the pond, and as you say "there is a reason more fuel efficient vehicles have been being built on the other side of the pond for a long, long time and they haven't been being built here". Methinks you contradict yourself - as you say, Europe the UK and Australia have had taxes on petrol for a while and thus have driven the smaller car market. Thus, you don't have to be a psychic to know that petrol prices rise (as they must, as we've known about this for some time). In fact governments and markets around the world have been telling car manufacturers this for some time, so from a global perspective the Japanese car manufacturers have been servicing the market for quite some time.
Just remember: just because the U.S. market does something doesn't mean the rest of the world will always follow.
Darn those free market radicals!
The evidence tends to indicate that car makers have NOT been working on this in any effective way for the past decade.
Best. Post. Evar.
And yet in Australia the SUV hasn't taken off to the same extent as it has in the U.S. And Australia has a lower population density and has vast regions between population centres.
Try reading. He's saying that he doesn't personally need a truck. In fact, he's saying that most people don't need a truck. And this is true. He's not saying (and for that matter I didn't say) that trucks are not necessary. But I can assure you, I personally don't need a truck. If I do, I'll hire one or get someone to deliver what I need.
And yet I'm not talking about trucks. A truck is a work-class vehicle, built and designed for... well, work. A sports utility is designed to allow some moron go around in a big car for.... well sport. On a daily basis.
I think that SUVs really say it all. An SUV is a gass-guzzling inefficient monstrosity of a car, yet its name "sports-utility vehicle" is meant to convey fun times and yet excellent functionality. Consumers were taken in for some time, but then they realised they'd been duped.
Now U.S. car companies are paying the price for trying to satisfy the market. The market has now moved on, and the car companies are are left with... SUVs.
I think this says it all really.
Can you not see the problem with the following sentence?
"Why do "Christians" completely ignore every other religion in the world? Many of them have a much longer and richer history then Christianity and are no more or less logically questionable."
Yes, but that wouldn't make the man's life any easier, or even be very productive.
Don't equate "technical" with knowing every bit of software out there. The author of the question didn't actually say what they are technical in - perhaps they are an expert in LDAP, and may not know much about DTP. Let's put it this way: I'm pretty technical, but I don't pride myself on my awesome ability to use Microsoft Word!
He is not a big fish.
Not only do I know that its illegal, I encourage it!
Thanks RIAA, for letting me know all about the super fun world of piracy.
If I had mod points, not only would I mod down Hognoxious, I'd mod the parent up as insightful.
Snappy rejoinder there pal. But I've never needed to modify any open source program myself, and I use Linux on the desktop exclusively.
Hardly. This story seems far too absurd to be true. I'm quite serious! If they were trying to prove a point though, they did so admirably.