In general, big companies like IT solutions that work like them. That means: with hugely scaled support teams and 'drop in replacement' staffing capabilities.
Big organisations abhor 'hot dog expert' solutions.
And rightly so, as it's not how they operate either.
I'm not saying it's always a good thing. Most of the truly innovative 'progress' comes out of tight small team efforts. But it's just the way it is.
Things can be 'cool' and only be used a few times and then put away.
It's not like there's a galactic law being passed saying 'No Man May Ever Again Design, Build, And Fly An SST Plane.'
It wasn't economically feasible to continue. Maybe someone will do it right, without gargantuan govermnent subisidies throwing sand in the gears that corrupts the whole design, at some time in the future.
It could even be said that the Concorde 'sucked the air out of the motivation' of a free market to come up with a better solution. Once the tax-subsidized bloat project was online, there wasn't the same economic incentive to come up with more realistic designs.
In case my point isn't very clear, an analogy is 'what if all the Open Source programmers had no itch to scratch because Microsoft supplied them with an infinite free supply of anti-itch powder?'
The fact that a Concorde crashed as dramatically as it did because of a mere flat tire was definitely a 'hey, we better stop and look at this thing' moment.
But it would be even better if they used PDFs or OpenOffice.org's native format. Then they could ensure that everybody would be able to read the files, since the files are stored in an open format that can be implemented by any format.
What you're demanding from government can be taken to ridicuous degree. Why should citizens have to have an expensive modern computer capable of running OpenOffice to read said documents? What business do you have implying that everybody can afford a computer that runs OpenOffice?
Shouldn't said documents be available in a format where people who can only afford a used VT-100 terminal can access them?? (or equivalent, i.e. there are 'free internet' services out there that are accessable with a 1200 or greater baud modem that basically have lynx as their user interface. tcfreenet.org is an example)
Where does the demand for open-ness end? Should access software be supplied on punched paper tape if that's what some of the citizens want?
In many instances, since the software is more open-ended and configurable, the Open Source solution involves all kinds of 'glue' and 'customization' and so you'll end up having to hire 'smarter' staff to implement and maintain it. There are many more variables involved, since it's open, and your cost of maintaining the system will be higher. Further, you can find yourself 'locked in' with a custom solution that some surly BOFH has control over.
With the Microsoft (or, say Oracle) 'cookie cutter' product, there is a whole education system churning out trained people who can maintain the product. There are dozens and dozens of people clamoring to apply for the position maintaining the system. If one doesn't work out, you can hire in another.
I don't think many places with actual products and/or customer/citzen bases to serve want to turn into source-code shops with a team of programmers.
Do you demand full access to the embedded controller source code for the controller(s) in your hard drive? How about the controllers in your keyboard, mouse, display, etc.?
Maybe it's just necessary for someone to point out how 'dirty' your computer is.
'Stability' has to be somehow scaled against 'usability.' A system that only does one or two things, because that's all it's capable of doing, i.e. all it has running is an HTTPd and a few other daemons, may be more stable, but that's in part because it only does a few things.
Also, one can add all sorts of other OSes to the bunch that are less stable than Windows 2000. Any version of MacOS prior to version 10. The Amiga OSes. OS/2. Trying to make the claim 'it's because of Microsoft' is short sighted and shows a streak of zeal.
Wow. I had visited the LinuxCAD page a few years ago because I was curious about the way they were spamming their product on newsgroups, etc. So I just took another look at it.
It looks like the same knockoff product it was. Similar to the crappy 'CAD' packages for Windows that you can buy at CompUSA. They're the same as Autocad. Yeah. At least, ummm, they can display that 'Space Shuttle' picture.
Added to that, their web page now has the honor of being the only web page I have seen this year that makes vigorous use of the html blink tag.
To follow this up, I have a good friend in EQ. He's male, and plays paladins. Very decent, noble guy who I like and enjoy being with a lot.
But in a way, his real chivalry gets in the way of our playing. I tried fighting with him "shoulder to shoulder" but he was always protecting me, and insisted on doing the pulling, tanking, and would even stop fighting to heal me if my hit points started dropping.
In other words, he's role playing as a Paladin.
If he acted any other way, he wouldn't be role playing as a Paladin.
Paul Allen isn't particularly 'buddy buddy' with Bill. They were in business together many years ago, but Allen lost interest and withdrew from active participation in Microsoft back in the 80's.
Allen is actually more of a computer geek than a businessperson. He's into the PDP-10 and owns an expensive PDP-10 emulator system which he makes available to other PDP enthusiasts.
Allen is the Woz of Microsoft. Gates is the Jobs of Microsoft.
Viewed from 'the other side' it clearly reinforces the notion of a condescending snob. Nothing in that particular strip shows the bearded dude as warranting any particular degree of respect.
Of course I have a well in the back yard. And there's a septic system too. Well separated from the well, of course. So all we pay for here is electricity and natural gas.
IBM will exist in 20 years because it doesn't matter if computers even exist in 20 years.
Remember, IBM before the 60's was mostly a maker of Time Clocks, Wall clocks for businesses, and Punched Card creation/sorting/storage equipment **. Until the mid 80's they were STRONG in photocopiers and still sold a lot of typewriters. IBM is a Business Machine company. Computers are important business machines, but IBM's focus has never just been on computers.
(** History Lesson- Before the computer become cheap and popular, data processing involved storing, for instance, each customer' account on a punched card. Operators would store card decks as physical databases. High Speed punched card sorters would be configured with jumper wires to sort on the patterns on discrete fields on the 80 character card. Database 'queries' would take the form of a card sorter being configured and a deck of cards being sorted into seperate bins. Then the cards from a bin could be dropped into an 'input' bin and a line printer would print each card on a line of a printout page.)
I wasn't aware that Sun was even that close to IBM in sheer size. I've always seen Sun as more like a BMW of computing, whereas IBM is like a Ford. You don't see near as many BMWs on the road as Fords. Added to that, the 'public visibility' of Sun versus IBM is magnitudes apart. You could ask one hundred random people on the street what businesses Sun and IBM are in, and probably not more than one or two would know what Sun is. They'd all know IBM, even if their only source of income comes from carving wooden walking sticks on their front porch.
Slashdot Mirror
While you're 'driving home' pick up a carton of milk and a box of bon-bons for your momma.
In general, big companies like IT solutions that work like them. That means: with hugely scaled support teams and 'drop in replacement' staffing capabilities.
Big organisations abhor 'hot dog expert' solutions.
And rightly so, as it's not how they operate either.
I'm not saying it's always a good thing. Most of the truly innovative 'progress' comes out of tight small team efforts. But it's just the way it is.
Naw.
Things can be 'cool' and only be used a few times and then put away.
It's not like there's a galactic law being passed saying 'No Man May Ever Again Design, Build, And Fly An SST Plane.'
It wasn't economically feasible to continue. Maybe someone will do it right, without gargantuan govermnent subisidies throwing sand in the gears that corrupts the whole design, at some time in the future.
You're just talking about the initial cost.
The huge subsidies and taxpayer expense in operating those planes for as long as they did far exceed the intial cost.
And it's really quite a shame, because so many of us would like to see more fireworks displays fueled by the ultra-rich.
It could even be said that the Concorde 'sucked the air out of the motivation' of a free market to come up with a better solution. Once the tax-subsidized bloat project was online, there wasn't the same economic incentive to come up with more realistic designs.
In case my point isn't very clear, an analogy is 'what if all the Open Source programmers had no itch to scratch because Microsoft supplied them with an infinite free supply of anti-itch powder?'
She was right, though.
Which is what matters.
What will you look like 30 years from now?
The fact that a Concorde crashed as dramatically as it did because of a mere flat tire was definitely a 'hey, we better stop and look at this thing' moment.
I remember that same feeling the first time I saw full color display ads for Linux products in Linux Journal magazine back in about 1995.
What you're demanding from government can be taken to ridicuous degree. Why should citizens have to have an expensive modern computer capable of running OpenOffice to read said documents? What business do you have implying that everybody can afford a computer that runs OpenOffice?
Shouldn't said documents be available in a format where people who can only afford a used VT-100 terminal can access them?? (or equivalent, i.e. there are 'free internet' services out there that are accessable with a 1200 or greater baud modem that basically have lynx as their user interface. tcfreenet.org is an example)
Where does the demand for open-ness end? Should access software be supplied on punched paper tape if that's what some of the citizens want?
How much is freedom from Admin-lockin worth?
In many instances, since the software is more open-ended and configurable, the Open Source solution involves all kinds of 'glue' and 'customization' and so you'll end up having to hire 'smarter' staff to implement and maintain it. There are many more variables involved, since it's open, and your cost of maintaining the system will be higher. Further, you can find yourself 'locked in' with a custom solution that some surly BOFH has control over.
With the Microsoft (or, say Oracle) 'cookie cutter' product, there is a whole education system churning out trained people who can maintain the product. There are dozens and dozens of people clamoring to apply for the position maintaining the system. If one doesn't work out, you can hire in another.
I don't think many places with actual products and/or customer/citzen bases to serve want to turn into source-code shops with a team of programmers.
Well, then, why would you want to get out a big hulking phone with a screen the size of a Palm to make your phone calls?
Marvin Minsky has so much egg on his face by now that it's laughable that anybody still listens to him.
Do you demand full access to the embedded controller source code for the controller(s) in your hard drive? How about the controllers in your keyboard, mouse, display, etc.?
Maybe it's just necessary for someone to point out how 'dirty' your computer is.
'Stability' has to be somehow scaled against 'usability.' A system that only does one or two things, because that's all it's capable of doing, i.e. all it has running is an HTTPd and a few other daemons, may be more stable, but that's in part because it only does a few things.
Also, one can add all sorts of other OSes to the bunch that are less stable than Windows 2000. Any version of MacOS prior to version 10. The Amiga OSes. OS/2. Trying to make the claim 'it's because of Microsoft' is short sighted and shows a streak of zeal.
Wow. I had visited the LinuxCAD page a few years ago because I was curious about the way they were spamming their product on newsgroups, etc. So I just took another look at it.
It looks like the same knockoff product it was. Similar to the crappy 'CAD' packages for Windows that you can buy at CompUSA. They're the same as Autocad. Yeah. At least, ummm, they can display that 'Space Shuttle' picture.
Added to that, their web page now has the honor of being the only web page I have seen this year that makes vigorous use of the html blink tag.
In other words, he's role playing as a Paladin.
If he acted any other way, he wouldn't be role playing as a Paladin.
You're engaging in Role Playing Games, people.
Paul Allen isn't particularly 'buddy buddy' with Bill. They were in business together many years ago, but Allen lost interest and withdrew from active participation in Microsoft back in the 80's.
Allen is actually more of a computer geek than a businessperson. He's into the PDP-10 and owns an expensive PDP-10 emulator system which he makes available to other PDP enthusiasts.
Allen is the Woz of Microsoft. Gates is the Jobs of Microsoft.
Your wife's secret lover won't be.
heh
A whole bunch of people put their money in VA Linux.
*Ulp!*
This is Slashdot. Microsoft is behind anything and everything that is bad.
Stub your toe? Just yell out 'Damn you, Bill Gates!' and you'll feel a bit better.
Viewed from 'the other side' it clearly reinforces the notion of a condescending snob. Nothing in that particular strip shows the bearded dude as warranting any particular degree of respect.
Just thought you should know...
Of course I have a well in the back yard. And there's a septic system too. Well separated from the well, of course. So all we pay for here is electricity and natural gas.
IBM will exist in 20 years because it doesn't matter if computers even exist in 20 years.
Remember, IBM before the 60's was mostly a maker of Time Clocks, Wall clocks for businesses, and Punched Card creation/sorting/storage equipment **. Until the mid 80's they were STRONG in photocopiers and still sold a lot of typewriters. IBM is a Business Machine company. Computers are important business machines, but IBM's focus has never just been on computers.
(** History Lesson- Before the computer become cheap and popular, data processing involved storing, for instance, each customer' account on a punched card. Operators would store card decks as physical databases. High Speed punched card sorters would be configured with jumper wires to sort on the patterns on discrete fields on the 80 character card. Database 'queries' would take the form of a card sorter being configured and a deck of cards being sorted into seperate bins. Then the cards from a bin could be dropped into an 'input' bin and a line printer would print each card on a line of a printout page.)
I wasn't aware that Sun was even that close to IBM in sheer size. I've always seen Sun as more like a BMW of computing, whereas IBM is like a Ford. You don't see near as many BMWs on the road as Fords. Added to that, the 'public visibility' of Sun versus IBM is magnitudes apart. You could ask one hundred random people on the street what businesses Sun and IBM are in, and probably not more than one or two would know what Sun is. They'd all know IBM, even if their only source of income comes from carving wooden walking sticks on their front porch.