1) Solutions management is better - KDevelop is much better at managing multiple build targets, working with complicated builds, and more.
Really, because I couldn't even figure out where to get started. Of course this was some years ago, and KDevelop would crash more than actually start.
2) Source control is better - that's really for any Unix system. MS source control blows compared to what you get out of subversion, just because vss uses that stupid check out model.
Yes, VSS blows. A good replacement is SourceGear's Vault / Fortress. Of course you can use svn on Windows as well, any and of the other OSS source control. Also, Team Foundation Server is supposed to be good, from what I heard from those that can actually afford it.
3) Collaboration is better. If you want a genuine team suite type of thing, its pretty hard to top SourceForge.
Huh? Again, ruling out TFS, and many other scs. Yes, they cost money, but that doesn't mean you can rule them out.
6) Code is more accurate. Everyone deals with temporal data lately and that means time zone conversions. On Windows these do not work and cannot work because the OS does not consider historic time zone transitions, while Linux does.
I think on XP and above that isn't true. There are APIs on Windows to do this.
7) There is no COM on Linux. A few years ago, I would have argued this to be a disadvantage for Linux, but, having seen the disaster that resulted from COM, I'd have to say that Linux sticking to a basic C style call for the vast majority of its services turned out to be a pretty good plan.
Well, there's COBRA. At any rate COM is going away and the replacement is.Net. Its pretty obvious that's how they are positioning.Net, and.Net is worlds better than COM.
Really, I'd almost have to say that people who say Microsoft is better for C++ haven't really programmed in C++ enough to know what they are talking about. If C++ on Windows was that good, the world would not be beating down the doors to C#...
I don't get the obsession with C++. Yes, its powerful. It also lets you shoot yourself in the foot. Since moving to C# (or Java), I find I'm spending most of my time dealing with solving the actual problem at hand.. not writing lots of code to micromanage memory. Why is it that when your manager micromanges you, he's incompetent, yet developers have no problem micromanaging memory?
Re:I couldn't help but post this amazing quote.
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Fidel Castro Resigns
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When discussing if the system works, it helps to read the Constitution and associated documents before saying "it works as designed."
Hmm... you must not talk to very many people, especially considering there is no VS2007. I'm using VS 2008 on an older machine, AMD 3800+ X2, and it runs fine with 1GB of RAM... on Vista even.
The latest VS releases have been very good as far as reliablity goes. Of course, that may be affected by some plugins.. they shouldn't bring down VS, but I imagine they could slow it significantly if they are poorly written.
So what, does it matter what your school uses? I did almost no MS in college, all programming was Unix / C++ with some Java and more assembly. I haven't done work profesionally on *nix since then.
Don't be suprised if end up working on the MS platform when you graduate.
I'm liking Eclipse, but I have to agree it takes a while to start up, for whatever reason. VS2008 starts up much quicker. I recently did a site were we used a Java applet, and those start up slowly as well.
My Eclipse install is a few months old, at most, 1GB ram, 120 GB IDE drive, 3800+ X2 AMD. Not brand new, but Vista and VS 2008 run very well on it.
Oh, and can Eclipse add the ability to pin / un-pin panes? This all or nothing is annoying.. otherwise though I do like it.
Now Java OTOH... please please add explicit interface implementation and real generics.
Also: * Runs like ass when used over Remote desktop.
Re:I couldn't help but post this amazing quote.
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Fidel Castro Resigns
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Please. The system hasn't worked for a while; I'm not convienced that just the last two elections were rigged. Seeing what's going on now, it mostly looks like a farse.
But is also true that of the millions of people on MySpace of the millions of servicemen's SSN's that have been stolen, I am not an attractive target in a very target rich environment.
Do you have even an ok credit score? If you do, you're in the target range. All they need is one credit card in your name.
None of those things are difficult to do, and especially the personal care (including exercise), it is your own fault if you get sick and die. Its not difficult to do.
I have to agree with the OP; people do need to invest time to maintain themselves and their posessions, and if they don't they really don't have room to complain. People always seem time to eat, why can't they find time to make sure what they're eating is healthy? It really isn't that hard.
With the exception of checking the car oil every week (which seems excessive), those are all the proper things to do. Do them, and you will see a benefit.
Do they also not have a responsiblity to keep the few from exploiting the many? I really think, if left to their own devices, we'd still have no basic workplace safety, no reasonable break / lunch time, poor wages and forced overtime. Without force of law, unions couldn't function as they do, because companies would just lay everyone off and hire new non-union people.
On a side note, this is why I hate "globalization." Workers in the US now need to "compete" with workers in India, and the only way we can really do that is giving up the standard of living and the workers rights we've fought to get the last 100 years. I think in the end we need to be elevating our race, not a minority living very well off the majority.
Swings and roundabouts. When you buy a commercial product, the huge risk is that you find it has a problem, and the developer won't fix it.
Yes, that can be a problem, but its much less likely because you are PAYING them. With OSS, if the developer doesn't fix it, you now have to take responsiblity for the entire library. Which one is more costly in the end?
I don't think you need to read or understand all the code to use it. Like a commercial product, you'll need to be familiar with the API. Unlike a commercial product, if it doesn't behave as expected, you'll always have the source to refer to (one reason MS are making a big deal out of releasing their CLR sources for reference).
We're not talking about simply using it; if there's a problem in OSS the developers refuse to fix, you have to then take ownership of the entire API code, and figure out how it works. Changes in one part of the API can trickle to other areas, since some parts of the API may depend on certain functionality which you've now changed.
Worse, if the project still exists, you may need to figure out how to merge in the latest release every time the project hits another milestone. Managing source code is not a free activity, there is a cost.
Well abstracted OO code in particular you don't need to understand all of.
You need to look at code from a certain viewpoint; every API has a philosophy that has driven the design. Unless you can figure that out, and be sure to make changes along those lines, you may inadvertently break some important functionality.
That sounds like a poster quote for OSS:-P
How exactly? It applies equally well to commercial software as well.
Difficult to work out ; so is the cost of the delay caused by our software purchasing process.
That's a problem unique to your company; not every company throws up as many blocks. However, if you "adopt" an OSS framework, you're stuck maintaining that for the life of your product. Not an insignificant cost.
In every case, it's been longer than the trial period on commercial software.
Again, a problem unique to your company. Not all companies make purchases that difficult. Also, the trial period can vary from one week to three months, so it also depends somewhat on the particular software involved. But one carpet statement doesn't make a fact.
In one case, I was waiting 13 weeks (yes, more than 3 months) for a VB6 code analysis tool. As you can imagine, I'd probably done most of the work it would have saved me by the time the license came. I would have loved even a half-broken OSS equivalent but alas, there is nothing comparable to this product commercial or OSS. So I guess commercial won that one.
And again, that sounds like its a problem with your company. Every software license I've purchased I typically get the license emailed to me within hours.
This is particular to my situation ; but I'm not certain that I'm on my own here.
So why do you knock commercial software then you know its a problem with your company?
Well, you don't have to do quality assurance on commercial products.. but maybe you should be? Surely you need to know that your libraries behave as you expect, regardless of their source. So as a minimum, you are testing that it behaves as expected for the purposes of your software.... which you are doing anyway, if you are testing your software, through the abstraction layer of... your own code.
Commerical software can be expected to work, just as I would expect a non-beta OSS project to work as advertised. That's part of the benefit of using someone else's code; its likely been pretty well tested. You can also research this before you decide to use an API.
I'm not talking about testing to ensure the product is fit for your particular use; I'm talking about all the tests that ensure it works as it should (which, without being familiar with the code, you d
I believe I replied to the person expecting a child, and I quoted your comments in my reply to them.
You are right; I saw my comment quoted, so thought you were replying to me.
And time WILL tell. When your time and my time on earth is over.
Well, if you go first, be sure to come back and tell me what you've found. Of course nothing changes for those still alive...
And where does the Bible say sex is evil/dirty?
Really now, haven't you been paying attention to the other bible bangers out there? They quote it all the time and explain how such and such a verse means sex is wrong.
And what is some of the evidence in favor of atheism/lack of evidence for Christianity? What, in your opinion, would be a proper way to refer to atheism? Belief system? Theory of...something?
You seem to have it backwards; you must prove by presenting evidence that something exists, in this case a god. Do you have any scientific evidence that god exists? We don't say black holes exist because a theory says they do.. we think they might, then we look for evidence that suggests we are right. Currently, there's more evidence to suggest black holes exist than god does. Atheism I suppose just means a lack in a belief of a god. Wikipedia says its a "philosophical view." I'm willing to live with that definition.
And why are atheists so reluctant to admit they've adopted some ideas/beliefs about the existence of this universe, and your own existence, and that you call it atheism.
The beliefs are grounded in a shared reality, and we have devised experiments to prove some of these beliefs correct. So they go a bit beyond beliefs, because they seem to accurately describe our universe.
I believe the world atheism means something like "away from god" or "against god", right? Anyhow, you're allowed to have your own beliefs, just as Christians and others are. Don't be afraid to call it a religon. It has to be something, doesn't it?
No, not from what I've seen. At least I'm not using at such... its just a short way of saying "I don't believe in god, because I have not had any evidence to suggest otherwise." Wikipedia describes religon as "... a set of beliefs and practices generally organized around supernatural and moral claims, and often codified as prayer, ritual, and religious law."
There's nothing supernatural about my beliefs, nor does not believing in god have any bearing on any moral claims. I derive my morals using reason. I don't practice any sort of ritual to codify these, nor do I pray. So it doesn't see my belief system falls under the category of "religon."
I believe that you should be able to have your own beliefs, regardless of how absurd I think they are. The problem is that many people that believe as you tend to want to force everyone into their same set of laws and morals. If you detect any anger or detest for religon in my posts, that's the source of it.
If it's nearly good enough, they can push it the rest of the way, and possibly do so more cheaply than buying an equivalent commercial product. There may not even be a commercial equivalent.
Its also a huge risk. I can more than double the amount of code people now need to be familiar with. Its an even bigger risk if you don't afford more developers. I don't get why you think there's no commercial equiovlent; if you are encountering a specific problem, its likely that someone else has, and already built a solution.
My projects either include or use several components which are open-source, which did not quite meet with my needs, and which I have patched to suit my requirements (WiX, XStream, HTML Tidy, etc). In most cases, I've submitted my patches to the core project, although the licenses these projects are under (at most restrictive) do not require me to - only to distribute source to recipients of the binaries. I consider it payment, which is only fair because I didn't give them any money. In all cases, the the effort involved was far less than just the effort required to cut enough red tape to obtain approval to purchase a commercial product. In some cases, there wasn't a commercial equivalent.
Yes, for minor things this can be true. When there was a commerical equivolent did you factor in the cost to the company for you to roll your own (don't forget about the cost of your benefits)? If it was less than a commercial product, good for you. I suspect many times its not though.
If you can't find a commercial equivolent, you may not be looking hard enough.
It's less clear cut if your existing coders are not skilled enough to actually modify a given OSS codebase, but if you have skilled coders and mundane requirements, there is usually something out there in the Open which either suits, or can be modified to suit with relatively less effort.
Yes, it certainly depends. Of course DIY means you now have additional testing and code to manage, maybe a bigger server if you have a build server, time for people to become familar with the code you're adopting, which is likely not trivial or you could have more easily rolled your own. I don't think any coder, no matter how skilled, can claim to "understand" a million code framework in a day or so.
There are a lot of people who care more about covering their ass than about delivering solutions. They want to put in a 40 hour day, and if it doesn't work, they want to point fingers at someone and go home without being blamed.
First, there's nothing wrong with wanting to leave after 40 hours. I work to live, I don't live to work. Second, you are again assuming its about accountability. I'm talking about risk. Its more risky to try and fix someone else's code when you're not familar with it. That's just life.
Those people are losers. They don't care about protecting their capacity to succeed, they care about preventing accountability. They fail on a regular basis because of this attitude.
Really? Someone that doesn't spead every waking moment coding is a loser? I may suggest the opposite is true. And again, you fail to understand this thing called risk. Its a more risky proprosition to modify someone else's code that you're not familar with than your own. Those that throw caution to the wind are typically the ones that fail.
There are some people who care more about delivering a top notch solution to a problem. They want to put in the time to make it work, and they don't want to have to ask someone to care about their problem and hope they do.
Well if you have to code this other project yourself, then why bother using it all all? Might as well always roll your own solution. Your line of thinking though is that you should build each nut and bolt, instead of buying some and using the premade ones to put together a solution.
Also, typically if you're PAYING someone they WILL care about your problem, because you are paying them. Or they won't be in business for long.
Those people are winners. They don't care much about accountability and suits, they care about being a person who always succeeds at what they attempt. They don't generally fail.
Winners don't like depending on other companies to cover their ass. They like being able to do it themselves. They take responsibility because that is their nature.
I suppose this is why OSS is very far behind in many areas... too many people doing everything themselves, instead of using another component that has already tackled a particular problem.
That is the answer to your question. Stick it wherever you like.
I guess you build your own house by cutting down the trees yourself too, huh?
Yes, they may have to update their existing infrastructure... but if all you had to do was go home and plug in your car, doesn't that make everything they've built so far totally useless, and leave them with absolutely nothing to do?
I beg to differ. If the society at large has "decided" more or less to drop certain words, its prefectly valid. We decide how language evolves by how we use it, not because some dork in glasses says "no you can't do that, see this rule written here!!"
What an odd interpertation. Why should anyone in your company try to dig into someone else's code to fix it? What if the "OSS community" doesn't bother to help, how does that leave your project? Pretty fucked, from my point of view. As expensive as MS support is, at least you CAN get them to find a solution to your problem.
We live in a democracy, and you have a voice. Back in the old days, individuals used to be more proactive with their local governments, and would form local lobbies and push for change.
Well, we live in a republic where a minotiry voice is not to be tramped on by a majority. At any rate, we're talking about economics here, and you were arguing for unrestrained markets. So government shouldn't be interfering in my choice of phone company. Or are you abandoning your stance?
So, in a way, yes; others around you dictate certain aspects in your life (it need not even be related to economics). By the same token, you, in a way, dictate certain aspects of life of the people around you. Democracy is you and the people around you forming an equitable policy of governance. I know that sounds pie-in-the-sky; to the extent that you are unable to do this, the system is broken and needs to be repaired.
I never said I disagree; it should be kept to a minimum, of course, but some regulation is needed. That has been my argument all along.
I believe labor unions have an important place in capitalism.
As do I.
They did not begin as government-mandated, either. In fact, government intervention only occurred because companies were breaking the law (even to the extent of murder) to prevent unions. In that case, I have no sympathy for the corporations because they brought it on themselves.
I agree; however labor unions didn't remove child labor, nor were they solely responsible for saftey improvements either. I think government intervention would have occurred regardless of what the companies were doing; people were realizing they were being screwed, so to speak.
Unfortunately, many labor unions have become very much like the corporations they were organized against (the "company store" becomes the "membership fee", mandatory membership, corruption, political shenanigans, etc.), with members having no recourse against them.
That's a bit much; the company store is no where near a union's membership fee. I agree they have corrupted as well.. which is why regulation seem to work better. The government is a more or less neutral third party (with its share of corruption, of course). I won't say there are not downsides to regulation either; for some reason a barely literate HS dropout can't be made to work overtime without pay, yet because I have a more specialized skill for some reason that's acceptable.
I think there's a bit of difference between active damange and staying more or less neutral. Progress is good, but people need to make a living, and shouldn't we have some way to encourage those that come up with things that help progress? Patents are still reasonably time limited.. I think that provides a good balance. Right away it may slow things down, but we know we are doing that to reward the person or persons that developed idea. Later we'll benefit when the patent expires.
Yes, I might theoretically build a billion dollar enterprise to milk this concept for all its worth, I would ultimately though screw everyone else with whom such a breakthrough might be useful, and damage the overall economy that many millions of times more.
Just playing devil's advocate here.. how can you damage the economy by withholding something that didn't yet exist anyway? That is, if you don't come up with a way, are you benefiting the economy somehow?
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Sounds like it would apply to the type of contracts US cell phone companies force upon us. Can anyone really figure those out without a lawyer?
1) Solutions management is better - KDevelop is much better at managing multiple build targets, working with complicated builds, and more.
.Net. Its pretty obvious that's how they are positioning .Net, and .Net is worlds better than COM.
Really, because I couldn't even figure out where to get started. Of course this was some years ago, and KDevelop would crash more than actually start.
2) Source control is better - that's really for any Unix system. MS source control blows compared to what you get out of subversion, just because vss uses that stupid check out model.
Yes, VSS blows. A good replacement is SourceGear's Vault / Fortress. Of course you can use svn on Windows as well, any and of the other OSS source control. Also, Team Foundation Server is supposed to be good, from what I heard from those that can actually afford it.
3) Collaboration is better. If you want a genuine team suite type of thing, its pretty hard to top SourceForge.
Huh? Again, ruling out TFS, and many other scs. Yes, they cost money, but that doesn't mean you can rule them out.
6) Code is more accurate. Everyone deals with temporal data lately and that means time zone conversions. On Windows these do not work and cannot work because the OS does not consider historic time zone transitions, while Linux does.
I think on XP and above that isn't true. There are APIs on Windows to do this.
7) There is no COM on Linux. A few years ago, I would have argued this to be a disadvantage for Linux, but, having seen the disaster that resulted from COM, I'd have to say that Linux sticking to a basic C style call for the vast majority of its services turned out to be a pretty good plan.
Well, there's COBRA. At any rate COM is going away and the replacement is
Really, I'd almost have to say that people who say Microsoft is better for C++ haven't really programmed in C++ enough to know what they are talking about. If C++ on Windows was that good, the world would not be beating down the doors to C#...
I don't get the obsession with C++. Yes, its powerful. It also lets you shoot yourself in the foot. Since moving to C# (or Java), I find I'm spending most of my time dealing with solving the actual problem at hand.. not writing lots of code to micromanage memory. Why is it that when your manager micromanges you, he's incompetent, yet developers have no problem micromanaging memory?
When discussing if the system works, it helps to read the Constitution and associated documents before saying "it works as designed."
Hmm... you must not talk to very many people, especially considering there is no VS2007. I'm using VS 2008 on an older machine, AMD 3800+ X2, and it runs fine with 1GB of RAM... on Vista even.
The latest VS releases have been very good as far as reliablity goes. Of course, that may be affected by some plugins.. they shouldn't bring down VS, but I imagine they could slow it significantly if they are poorly written.
So what, does it matter what your school uses? I did almost no MS in college, all programming was Unix / C++ with some Java and more assembly. I haven't done work profesionally on *nix since then.
Don't be suprised if end up working on the MS platform when you graduate.
I'm liking Eclipse, but I have to agree it takes a while to start up, for whatever reason. VS2008 starts up much quicker. I recently did a site were we used a Java applet, and those start up slowly as well.
My Eclipse install is a few months old, at most, 1GB ram, 120 GB IDE drive, 3800+ X2 AMD. Not brand new, but Vista and VS 2008 run very well on it.
Oh, and can Eclipse add the ability to pin / un-pin panes? This all or nothing is annoying.. otherwise though I do like it.
Now Java OTOH... please please add explicit interface implementation and real generics.
Also: * Runs like ass when used over Remote desktop.
Please. The system hasn't worked for a while; I'm not convienced that just the last two elections were rigged. Seeing what's going on now, it mostly looks like a farse.
You must be the only person that wasn't getting them all along. ;-)
But is also true that of the millions of people on MySpace of the millions of servicemen's SSN's that have been stolen, I am not an attractive target in a very target rich environment.
Do you have even an ok credit score? If you do, you're in the target range. All they need is one credit card in your name.
None of those things are difficult to do, and especially the personal care (including exercise), it is your own fault if you get sick and die. Its not difficult to do.
I have to agree with the OP; people do need to invest time to maintain themselves and their posessions, and if they don't they really don't have room to complain. People always seem time to eat, why can't they find time to make sure what they're eating is healthy? It really isn't that hard.
With the exception of checking the car oil every week (which seems excessive), those are all the proper things to do. Do them, and you will see a benefit.
Why are you limiting software to MS software? At any rate, if MS software doesn't do want you want, than it doesn't make sense to use it.
Do they also not have a responsiblity to keep the few from exploiting the many? I really think, if left to their own devices, we'd still have no basic workplace safety, no reasonable break / lunch time, poor wages and forced overtime. Without force of law, unions couldn't function as they do, because companies would just lay everyone off and hire new non-union people.
On a side note, this is why I hate "globalization." Workers in the US now need to "compete" with workers in India, and the only way we can really do that is giving up the standard of living and the workers rights we've fought to get the last 100 years. I think in the end we need to be elevating our race, not a minority living very well off the majority.
Swings and roundabouts. When you buy a commercial product, the huge risk is that you find it has a problem, and the developer won't fix it.
:-P
Yes, that can be a problem, but its much less likely because you are PAYING them. With OSS, if the developer doesn't fix it, you now have to take responsiblity for the entire library. Which one is more costly in the end?
I don't think you need to read or understand all the code to use it. Like a commercial product, you'll need to be familiar with the API. Unlike a commercial product, if it doesn't behave as expected, you'll always have the source to refer to (one reason MS are making a big deal out of releasing their CLR sources for reference).
We're not talking about simply using it; if there's a problem in OSS the developers refuse to fix, you have to then take ownership of the entire API code, and figure out how it works. Changes in one part of the API can trickle to other areas, since some parts of the API may depend on certain functionality which you've now changed.
Worse, if the project still exists, you may need to figure out how to merge in the latest release every time the project hits another milestone. Managing source code is not a free activity, there is a cost.
Well abstracted OO code in particular you don't need to understand all of.
You need to look at code from a certain viewpoint; every API has a philosophy that has driven the design. Unless you can figure that out, and be sure to make changes along those lines, you may inadvertently break some important functionality.
That sounds like a poster quote for OSS
How exactly? It applies equally well to commercial software as well.
Difficult to work out ; so is the cost of the delay caused by our software purchasing process.
That's a problem unique to your company; not every company throws up as many blocks. However, if you "adopt" an OSS framework, you're stuck maintaining that for the life of your product. Not an insignificant cost.
In every case, it's been longer than the trial period on commercial software.
Again, a problem unique to your company. Not all companies make purchases that difficult. Also, the trial period can vary from one week to three months, so it also depends somewhat on the particular software involved. But one carpet statement doesn't make a fact.
In one case, I was waiting 13 weeks (yes, more than 3 months) for a VB6 code analysis tool. As you can imagine, I'd probably done most of the work it would have saved me by the time the license came. I would have loved even a half-broken OSS equivalent but alas, there is nothing comparable to this product commercial or OSS. So I guess commercial won that one.
And again, that sounds like its a problem with your company. Every software license I've purchased I typically get the license emailed to me within hours.
This is particular to my situation ; but I'm not certain that I'm on my own here.
So why do you knock commercial software then you know its a problem with your company?
Well, you don't have to do quality assurance on commercial products.. but maybe you should be? Surely you need to know that your libraries behave as you expect, regardless of their source. So as a minimum, you are testing that it behaves as expected for the purposes of your software.... which you are doing anyway, if you are testing your software, through the abstraction layer of... your own code.
Commerical software can be expected to work, just as I would expect a non-beta OSS project to work as advertised. That's part of the benefit of using someone else's code; its likely been pretty well tested. You can also research this before you decide to use an API.
I'm not talking about testing to ensure the product is fit for your particular use; I'm talking about all the tests that ensure it works as it should (which, without being familiar with the code, you d
I believe I replied to the person expecting a child, and I quoted your comments in my reply to them.
...something?
You are right; I saw my comment quoted, so thought you were replying to me.
And time WILL tell. When your time and my time on earth is over.
Well, if you go first, be sure to come back and tell me what you've found. Of course nothing changes for those still alive...
And where does the Bible say sex is evil/dirty?
Really now, haven't you been paying attention to the other bible bangers out there? They quote it all the time and explain how such and such a verse means sex is wrong.
And what is some of the evidence in favor of atheism/lack of evidence for Christianity? What, in your opinion, would be a proper way to refer to atheism? Belief system? Theory of
You seem to have it backwards; you must prove by presenting evidence that something exists, in this case a god. Do you have any scientific evidence that god exists? We don't say black holes exist because a theory says they do.. we think they might, then we look for evidence that suggests we are right. Currently, there's more evidence to suggest black holes exist than god does. Atheism I suppose just means a lack in a belief of a god. Wikipedia says its a "philosophical view." I'm willing to live with that definition.
And why are atheists so reluctant to admit they've adopted some ideas/beliefs about the existence of this universe, and your own existence, and that you call it atheism.
The beliefs are grounded in a shared reality, and we have devised experiments to prove some of these beliefs correct. So they go a bit beyond beliefs, because they seem to accurately describe our universe.
I believe the world atheism means something like "away from god" or "against god", right? Anyhow, you're allowed to have your own beliefs, just as Christians and others are. Don't be afraid to call it a religon. It has to be something, doesn't it?
No, not from what I've seen. At least I'm not using at such... its just a short way of saying "I don't believe in god, because I have not had any evidence to suggest otherwise." Wikipedia describes religon as "... a set of beliefs and practices generally organized around supernatural and moral claims, and often codified as prayer, ritual, and religious law."
There's nothing supernatural about my beliefs, nor does not believing in god have any bearing on any moral claims. I derive my morals using reason. I don't practice any sort of ritual to codify these, nor do I pray. So it doesn't see my belief system falls under the category of "religon."
I believe that you should be able to have your own beliefs, regardless of how absurd I think they are. The problem is that many people that believe as you tend to want to force everyone into their same set of laws and morals. If you detect any anger or detest for religon in my posts, that's the source of it.
If it's nearly good enough, they can push it the rest of the way, and possibly do so more cheaply than buying an equivalent commercial product. There may not even be a commercial equivalent.
Its also a huge risk. I can more than double the amount of code people now need to be familiar with. Its an even bigger risk if you don't afford more developers. I don't get why you think there's no commercial equiovlent; if you are encountering a specific problem, its likely that someone else has, and already built a solution.
My projects either include or use several components which are open-source, which did not quite meet with my needs, and which I have patched to suit my requirements (WiX, XStream, HTML Tidy, etc). In most cases, I've submitted my patches to the core project, although the licenses these projects are under (at most restrictive) do not require me to - only to distribute source to recipients of the binaries. I consider it payment, which is only fair because I didn't give them any money. In all cases, the the effort involved was far less than just the effort required to cut enough red tape to obtain approval to purchase a commercial product. In some cases, there wasn't a commercial equivalent.
Yes, for minor things this can be true. When there was a commerical equivolent did you factor in the cost to the company for you to roll your own (don't forget about the cost of your benefits)? If it was less than a commercial product, good for you. I suspect many times its not though.
If you can't find a commercial equivolent, you may not be looking hard enough.
It's less clear cut if your existing coders are not skilled enough to actually modify a given OSS codebase, but if you have skilled coders and mundane requirements, there is usually something out there in the Open which either suits, or can be modified to suit with relatively less effort.
Yes, it certainly depends. Of course DIY means you now have additional testing and code to manage, maybe a bigger server if you have a build server, time for people to become familar with the code you're adopting, which is likely not trivial or you could have more easily rolled your own. I don't think any coder, no matter how skilled, can claim to "understand" a million code framework in a day or so.
There are a lot of people who care more about covering their ass than about delivering solutions. They want to put in a 40 hour day, and if it doesn't work, they want to point fingers at someone and go home without being blamed.
First, there's nothing wrong with wanting to leave after 40 hours. I work to live, I don't live to work. Second, you are again assuming its about accountability. I'm talking about risk. Its more risky to try and fix someone else's code when you're not familar with it. That's just life.
Those people are losers. They don't care about protecting their capacity to succeed, they care about preventing accountability. They fail on a regular basis because of this attitude.
Really? Someone that doesn't spead every waking moment coding is a loser? I may suggest the opposite is true. And again, you fail to understand this thing called risk. Its a more risky proprosition to modify someone else's code that you're not familar with than your own. Those that throw caution to the wind are typically the ones that fail.
There are some people who care more about delivering a top notch solution to a problem. They want to put in the time to make it work, and they don't want to have to ask someone to care about their problem and hope they do.
Well if you have to code this other project yourself, then why bother using it all all? Might as well always roll your own solution. Your line of thinking though is that you should build each nut and bolt, instead of buying some and using the premade ones to put together a solution.
Also, typically if you're PAYING someone they WILL care about your problem, because you are paying them. Or they won't be in business for long.
Those people are winners. They don't care much about accountability and suits, they care about being a person who always succeeds at what they attempt. They don't generally fail.
Winners don't like depending on other companies to cover their ass. They like being able to do it themselves. They take responsibility because that is their nature.
I suppose this is why OSS is very far behind in many areas... too many people doing everything themselves, instead of using another component that has already tackled a particular problem.
That is the answer to your question. Stick it wherever you like.
I guess you build your own house by cutting down the trees yourself too, huh?
Yes, they may have to update their existing infrastructure... but if all you had to do was go home and plug in your car, doesn't that make everything they've built so far totally useless, and leave them with absolutely nothing to do?
Just because it's common doesn't make it correct.
I beg to differ. If the society at large has "decided" more or less to drop certain words, its prefectly valid. We decide how language evolves by how we use it, not because some dork in glasses says "no you can't do that, see this rule written here!!"
What an odd interpertation. Why should anyone in your company try to dig into someone else's code to fix it? What if the "OSS community" doesn't bother to help, how does that leave your project? Pretty fucked, from my point of view. As expensive as MS support is, at least you CAN get them to find a solution to your problem.
We live in a democracy, and you have a voice. Back in the old days, individuals used to be more proactive with their local governments, and would form local lobbies and push for change.
Well, we live in a republic where a minotiry voice is not to be tramped on by a majority. At any rate, we're talking about economics here, and you were arguing for unrestrained markets. So government shouldn't be interfering in my choice of phone company. Or are you abandoning your stance?
So, in a way, yes; others around you dictate certain aspects in your life (it need not even be related to economics). By the same token, you, in a way, dictate certain aspects of life of the people around you. Democracy is you and the people around you forming an equitable policy of governance. I know that sounds pie-in-the-sky; to the extent that you are unable to do this, the system is broken and needs to be repaired.
I never said I disagree; it should be kept to a minimum, of course, but some regulation is needed. That has been my argument all along.
I believe labor unions have an important place in capitalism.
As do I.
They did not begin as government-mandated, either. In fact, government intervention only occurred because companies were breaking the law (even to the extent of murder) to prevent unions. In that case, I have no sympathy for the corporations because they brought it on themselves.
I agree; however labor unions didn't remove child labor, nor were they solely responsible for saftey improvements either. I think government intervention would have occurred regardless of what the companies were doing; people were realizing they were being screwed, so to speak.
Unfortunately, many labor unions have become very much like the corporations they were organized against (the "company store" becomes the "membership fee", mandatory membership, corruption, political shenanigans, etc.), with members having no recourse against them.
That's a bit much; the company store is no where near a union's membership fee. I agree they have corrupted as well.. which is why regulation seem to work better. The government is a more or less neutral third party (with its share of corruption, of course). I won't say there are not downsides to regulation either; for some reason a barely literate HS dropout can't be made to work overtime without pay, yet because I have a more specialized skill for some reason that's acceptable.
I think there's a bit of difference between active damange and staying more or less neutral. Progress is good, but people need to make a living, and shouldn't we have some way to encourage those that come up with things that help progress? Patents are still reasonably time limited.. I think that provides a good balance. Right away it may slow things down, but we know we are doing that to reward the person or persons that developed idea. Later we'll benefit when the patent expires.
That is, until clocking technology is invented, I suppose.
Clocking technology is suprisingly sophisticated. I even have such a device on my arm.
Yes, I might theoretically build a billion dollar enterprise to milk this concept for all its worth, I would ultimately though screw everyone else with whom such a breakthrough might be useful, and damage the overall economy that many millions of times more.
Just playing devil's advocate here.. how can you damage the economy by withholding something that didn't yet exist anyway? That is, if you don't come up with a way, are you benefiting the economy somehow?