As end office users become more and more savy - which in my experience they are - the importance of OLE type functionality is becoming more and more essential. The ability to embed spreadsheets in word processor files, presentations etc etc is becoming vital, as is the ability for third party apps to insert data into it. I cannot see any mention of this on their site.
Also - the ability for it to follow the theme of the user's desktop is not yet considered important it is getting there.
I do not know the product, but I do not see the advantages it gives me ofer the free ones significant, and many of the free ones have advantages over it.
As far as interplay is concerned, can it talk the OpenOffice formats? These are becoming more and more deployed.
I'm sorry SoftMaker - you may have a good product, but it has no relevance to me - and I do not seeing it have in the future either.
Linux, in my experience, IS a better product for the server market.
The problem with the Windows software is that it does not lend itself well to server functionality. It is only relatively very recently that MS put out a server that did not have to be re-booted every 24 hours! Even the newer offerings are not much better (see the stats at netcraft.com).
The POSIX environment is far better suited to the server market than Windows, and Linux seems to be the popular choice their.
As for support, RedHat, SuSE and all the rest provide that. I fail to see why you think they cannot, wehreas you appear to imply others (Sun? Microsoft?) can. If anything the reverse is true, providers of Open software HAVE to give good support as that is what their business model depends on.
The free aspect you mentioned is important, not because of the zero cost (which, as MS loves to say, is a myth anyway, although it IS a lower TCO), but because of the fact you are not tied into any vendor.
Re:So could someone please inform me
on
Xgrid Agent for Unix
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I am involved in both proprietary and open software.
In the proprietary model the software is becoming worth less and less. 5 years ago run time licenses accounted for over 80% of the income of commercial software provider companies, now you will be lucky to see it account for 40% and it is going down rapidly. The rest being made up of support, training and other services.
However, the cost of producing software is the same, and what is more, it is an upfront cost. You cannot get money for it until after you have paid a programmer to write it.
Open source takes the above to a logical conclusion. As software is becoming relatively worthless (as far as run-time licenses go) you do not lose by giving the software away for free, and if you Open Source it you have available a 90% solution from free software out there before you begin thus cutting down on the production costs.
It is not about "giving stuff away" or people "not paying a cent" to use your software, it is about facilitating an extremely cost effective way for which software companies can provide services to the customer by using open source predecessors, and passing the benefit on to successors.
I believe www.openwares.org have a fix for this IE bug now working correctly - it was originally badly written (complete with buffer overflow!) but I think they have now addressed all issues.
It is released with source under GPL (or similar) at their site.
I hope here in Europe we do not import the US stupid Patent problems.
The only way round this is for US citizens to lobby US congresmen to change the patent laws to something sensible. Also publishizing things like this in the popular press is a good idea.
To the citizens of the US - Do you really want to live in a country where these IP pirates disrupt all? Where they in effect steal monies from businesses (who will pass the loss onto the customer)? You live in a democracy - do something about it!
Outsourcing and the commodisizing of prorammers is a natural thing to happen.
As the internet becomes more and more established, geographical bounderies become less and less relevant, almost to the stage they become completely irrelevant. We are almost there now (some would say we are there and beyond..)
If you are holding a position that CAN be outsourced cheaper, then at some point it will be. Maybe not this day, or month or year - but sometime.
What to do? - In short programming deffinitions are changing. Packaged solotions are becoming free with costs only for services, and bespoked solutions are becoming cheaper, and solutions more comprehensive.
My advice to programmers is to ride the wave, do not fight it. If you are in an "outsourcable" job, then..
A - Expand your responsibilites and outsource the job yourself! - You will still be in control of the duties, will be providing your employer with more services and generally making yourself more useful.
B - Give yourself extra responsibilities, leave the job contracting yourself out to your old employer for doing the same thing for slightly less money. Then use modern tools to do the task efficiently (maybe outsourcing it) looking to expand your new company into new areas...
C - If your employer does not accept that you can do either the above then start looking to do B with someone else...
The above solutions may seem far fetched and impossible, but unless programmers change with the times they will not remain programmers long. I do not accept whinges from people complaining there job was outsourced, for if there job could have been done cheaper, then why did they overvalue there own job? And if the quality that was bought in is not so good what are they complaining about? - if their skills are worth hiring then they should not be out of work for long - there are a lot of systems out there....
My message is the same as to those who ignore the OpenSource movement - wake up and adapt - or die.
Although Solaris is currently ahead of Linux for multi-processor/64 bit computing, it will not be when Linux 2.6 gets into propper production.
Obviously SUN is trying to deploy Solaris as much as possible, and to make it as scaleable as possible, in an attempt to stay one ahead of Linux. It is destinned to fail here, there is just too much resource going into linux now. Solaris is destinned to become a legacy OS.
A better stratergy for SUN would be to provide an upgrade path of Solaris to Linux, and to ride the wave, not fight it.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean - both are adictive - both have goodies and baddies - and both are completely weird in the plot....
I mean - Darl McBride almost looks like JR Ewing! (Well sort of).
You never know - matbe this is all part of Pamela's dream ... :)
Also - the ability for it to follow the theme of the user's desktop is not yet considered important it is getting there.
I do not know the product, but I do not see the advantages it gives me ofer the free ones significant, and many of the free ones have advantages over it.
As far as interplay is concerned, can it talk the OpenOffice formats? These are becoming more and more deployed.
I'm sorry SoftMaker - you may have a good product, but it has no relevance to me - and I do not seeing it have in the future either.
The problem with the Windows software is that it does not lend itself well to server functionality. It is only relatively very recently that MS put out a server that did not have to be re-booted every 24 hours! Even the newer offerings are not much better (see the stats at netcraft.com).
The POSIX environment is far better suited to the server market than Windows, and Linux seems to be the popular choice their.
As for support, RedHat, SuSE and all the rest provide that. I fail to see why you think they cannot, wehreas you appear to imply others (Sun? Microsoft?) can. If anything the reverse is true, providers of Open software HAVE to give good support as that is what their business model depends on.
The free aspect you mentioned is important, not because of the zero cost (which, as MS loves to say, is a myth anyway, although it IS a lower TCO), but because of the fact you are not tied into any vendor.
In the proprietary model the software is becoming worth less and less. 5 years ago run time licenses accounted for over 80% of the income of commercial software provider companies, now you will be lucky to see it account for 40% and it is going down rapidly. The rest being made up of support, training and other services.
However, the cost of producing software is the same, and what is more, it is an upfront cost. You cannot get money for it until after you have paid a programmer to write it.
Open source takes the above to a logical conclusion. As software is becoming relatively worthless (as far as run-time licenses go) you do not lose by giving the software away for free, and if you Open Source it you have available a 90% solution from free software out there before you begin thus cutting down on the production costs.
It is not about "giving stuff away" or people "not paying a cent" to use your software, it is about facilitating an extremely cost effective way for which software companies can provide services to the customer by using open source predecessors, and passing the benefit on to successors.
I don't know - a lot of those names would have been discontinued and not used anymore.
I believe this concept (or one very similar) Arthur C Clarke aired in his book 2061.
This is due to the fact the book was originally written by Philip K. Dick - one of the best SF authors ever... (if not, the best).
fvwm was doing this in 1993!
How do you report prioor Art to the US Patent office? Or draw trhere attention to it? If there was a case for doing so this would be it!
I believe www.openwares.org have a fix for this IE bug now working correctly - it was originally badly written (complete with buffer overflow!) but I think they have now addressed all issues.
It is released with source under GPL (or similar) at their site.
(PS - I have nothing to do with openwares)
If a ruling comes down saying that, for example, nobody but SCO can use the methods involved in a critical feature of RHE, what happens then?
A judge cannot do this based on copyrights and trade secrets, you need to have a patent, which SCO does not have.
I hope here in Europe we do not import the US stupid Patent problems.
The only way round this is for US citizens to lobby US congresmen to change the patent laws to something sensible. Also publishizing things like this in the popular press is a good idea.
To the citizens of the US - Do you really want to live in a country where these IP pirates disrupt all? Where they in effect steal monies from businesses (who will pass the loss onto the customer)? You live in a democracy - do something about it!
Not any more. He now works for OSDL
As the internet becomes more and more established, geographical bounderies become less and less relevant, almost to the stage they become completely irrelevant. We are almost there now (some would say we are there and beyond..)
If you are holding a position that CAN be outsourced cheaper, then at some point it will be. Maybe not this day, or month or year - but sometime.
What to do? - In short programming deffinitions are changing. Packaged solotions are becoming free with costs only for services, and bespoked solutions are becoming cheaper, and solutions more comprehensive.
My advice to programmers is to ride the wave, do not fight it. If you are in an "outsourcable" job, then..
A - Expand your responsibilites and outsource the job yourself! - You will still be in control of the duties, will be providing your employer with more services and generally making yourself more useful.
B - Give yourself extra responsibilities, leave the job contracting yourself out to your old employer for doing the same thing for slightly less money. Then use modern tools to do the task efficiently (maybe outsourcing it) looking to expand your new company into new areas...
C - If your employer does not accept that you can do either the above then start looking to do B with someone else...
The above solutions may seem far fetched and impossible, but unless programmers change with the times they will not remain programmers long. I do not accept whinges from people complaining there job was outsourced, for if there job could have been done cheaper, then why did they overvalue there own job? And if the quality that was bought in is not so good what are they complaining about? - if their skills are worth hiring then they should not be out of work for long - there are a lot of systems out there....
My message is the same as to those who ignore the OpenSource movement - wake up and adapt - or die.
The answer to all that is I do not know for certain.
There is talk of it scaling well to 64 processors, any more than that, again, I do not know. Certainly Linux now scales very well.
If you compare the differences between Solaris and Linux two years ago it was far greater thwn the difference between the OS's now.
Solaris on Sparc mey still be ahead of Linux 2.6 - but Linux is advancing FAST, far faster than Solaris is. At some point it will overtake it.
Although Solaris is currently ahead of Linux for multi-processor/64 bit computing, it will not be when Linux 2.6 gets into propper production. Obviously SUN is trying to deploy Solaris as much as possible, and to make it as scaleable as possible, in an attempt to stay one ahead of Linux. It is destinned to fail here, there is just too much resource going into linux now. Solaris is destinned to become a legacy OS. A better stratergy for SUN would be to provide an upgrade path of Solaris to Linux, and to ride the wave, not fight it.
"Vrooom" - missed me! Straight over me head... Sorry about that....
In fact - according to Netcraft - they are using Linux.