If by "how many more", you mean "how many less", then you deserve your metafumberated score.
Gartner got beaten up two years ago for an independent study that found the number of non-hobbyist servers to be much lower than suggested by the [at the time] tech press. We now know that indeed Gartner's results were verified. I believe at last measure the non-hobbyist Linux market share was well under 27%.
MS' products churn my stomach as well as the next/.'ers, however, facts are facts. I suggest that Linux is more commonly hacked for the simple reason that the source code is available. Additionally, open-source security bulletins are posted with regularity to myriad public formums.
The fact that Linux is more often hacked, but less often compromised is the real victory here.
Once again, meta-moderation does not work. Your comment is no more "insightful" than it is informed, sincere, or humorous.
1) Juvinile law is significantly different from the law that applies to adults.
2) The mother's liability is subject to many limitiations because of (1) above. Were they to fight in court, this would probably be the main legal premise for defense.
3) Your metaphore is perhaps the single most "troll-ish" I've heard in this argument yet.
a) Copyright violations are covered by civil law. The criminal laws related to copyrights are few, and indirect.
b) Shooting people is primarily a criminal act.
c) The subject of _INTENT_ is everything under the law. e.g. Everyone who runs over a child with their car is not charged with murder.
4) Of course she is the Victim, and is being portrayed as such. Luckily for the rest of us living in this country we still have a barely surviving system of judgement by our peers (jury trial), where bullshit such as this can be dismissed.
I sincerely hope that this little girl's case goes to a court with a jury. Of course, RIAA will never do that; they will drop the case against her first. This, my trollish friend, is the ultimate reason your contribution is anything but.
First, this is simply a poorly written, ill informed, and altogether uninformative article. Perhaps the jobs are shifting oversees not because of the reasons stated by the author, but because we seem to have lost the ability to properly write a journalistic article in this country.
Directly to the point: about eighty percent of those replying--the 'hey, it's capitalism, and you should like it' gang--need to take a basic course in economics. The problem is, folks, the real world(tm) is not ceteris paribus. That is, things are not perfectly efficient. What that translates into, in terms of the job-export dimension of globalization, is exploitation. Of course, this is part of captitalism too, and it's not always a bad thing (unless it's happening to *you*).
And to a number of unresearched points made in other replies: protectionism is just as old and solid of economic tradition as free trade. Sometimes protecting industries/markets is a wise thing; sometimes allowing global free trade is a wise thing. Depends upon the circumstance. In general, protecting young, developing markets long enough to allow a ROI is prudent. Protecting old, low margin markets is not. I leave it to the/. pseudo-experts to determine which category IT falls within.
Not a chance. The/. crowd is a highly polarized, biased, libertarian-leaning population sample. Get out of the computer lab and talk to regular folks. They're not worried about--or don't understand--this RFID stuff.
If it gets Bubba and Darlene through the checkout at Walmart faster, then they're all for it.
Less cynically, RFID has huge implications for the overall supply chain. META Group has covered this extensively. The investment in RFID technologies will continue to expand for at least the next 10 years, probably from the supply/manufacturer side of the economy towards the consumer. The razor-blade Walmart experiment is just that: the Java Applets of this technology. The real uses will be largely hidden from Bubba and Darlene.
And, if you still question the [American] public's mindset about this type of thing, then just visit Anytown, Ohio, and you'll see exactly why people just don't give a hoot about all the hand wringing over RFID-as-big-brother.
Like a lot of other slashdotters, I've been intimately involved with Telcom, Ameritech/SBC specifically, for decades. This issue is not really all that complicated, at a high level.
SBC is becoming a monopoly, or more accurately, one of an oligopoly.
Of course, this is no surprise. We are in the midst of a rising megatrend in the USA whereby a number of monopoly/oligopoly forces are rising. Look at any myriad industry; nearly all large capital markets are increasingly dominated by a very few players. Software/OS is only the latest to fall into this trend--telecom has been here before, during the last cycle.
Someday, probably 15-25 years from now, we will look back at this era and wonder how we allowed so few to control so much. I fear that we won't right this ship until much in terms of jobs, standard of living, innovation, security has been sapped for want of greed.
(Note, SBC is among many companies actively outsourcing a very large portion of their technical resource to China and India. They are masking this action by in fact forcing their vendors, contractors, and suppliers to do it on their behalf in order to win contracts with SBC. They are concerned about public perception and political backlash, but they are nonetheless still doing it.)
That's what patents are for. They protect your "invention" against any other thing being developed that is the same. It doesnt matter if you never saw theirs, or even knew of a patent. The inventor is responsible for searching for pre-existing patents. A patent is different from a Copyright, where knowledge of existance might be important.
Actually, you are not correct, although your position is commonly believed by most people today. In fact, developing something without knowledge of a pre-existing patent _can_ be a legitimate defense in many cases. Specifically, if you can show that, by using a body of existing art/knowledge, the "logical/natural" conclusion would be your invention, then the pre-existing patent can be ruled invalid. Case in point, the infamous patenting of XOR as applied to mouse cursor graphics. Although some jackass patented it (was actually granted a patent through the US Patent Office), it was thrown out as a logical, natural, and foreseeable application of a commonly known concept.
I am sorry, but just a bit of clarification. First, thank you for citing your sources. Second, the problem with BLS reports like this from the Dept. of Labor, is that they are economic extrapolations, not predictive models.
Put simply, the BLS uses statistics from the past 5 years in this report. That, of course, includes data from "the boom". Since, the BLS does not fit the data into any type of super-fancy economic formula (a predictive model), they just "continue the line" into the future based upon what happened in the past.
When you hear financial news, they always refer to these types of reports as "looking backwards" or "review mirrors".
Finally, the economics that goes into a truly predictive model is so prohibitively complex, that it approaches voodoo. Regardless, what people are emotionally reacting to is not the _nubmer_ of jobs in IT, but more what the market is willing to value those jobs at. I hazard to say that there won't be a lot of aspiring young software engineers, doctors, or scientists coming through school if they can only command Walmart sized paychecks.
A. Read my reply to another similar comment for a basic tutorial on why the conclusions you _think_ will come about, are flawed and will not.
B. Your country, New Zealand, is by far more protectionist than the USA, or many other countries for that fact.
C. The USA is not the richest economy in the world. I don't even know what exactly "the richest economy in the world" means. If you mean total GDP, then the EU is larger. If you mean highest standard of living, well then some Scandinavian countries might take issue with your comment. If you mean "total GDP of a single sovereign nation, ignoring debt considerations", well then I guess you are right.
D. The USA does not come anywhere close to controlling 90% of the world's resources. Can you cite your source, or are you just making these numbers up? Are you measuring the world's resources in terms of value, quantity, weighted value? (I think you're just making it up, so the question is rhetorical)
E. Your comment:
"Slowly prices will rise and maybe, just maybe, India will have a standard of living equal to a first world country."
Please, please, learn more about economics. It just doesn't work that way anywhere but in a utopian economists graph. Unfortunately, reality doesn't head Ceteris Paribus.
I hear this argument often. For some masochistic reason, I feel it necessary to attempt to remedy your ignorance of how economics works, even though I somehow know that it is pointless.
Globalization theories which result in raising the standard of living in developing countries presuppose a number of requisites. Important among those are (a) the developing country is allowed to become a relative competitor to the countries exporting jobs there; (b) the overall global GDP continues to grow; and (c) productivity rises and/or overall economic efficiency improves.
Now the problem with your argument:
What is occurring to day is a corruption of price-to-value parity. In more specific terms, the value of work being performed is being undermined by an artificial devaluation of the price the market is willing to pay for that labor/service/product. This is possible only because of temporary inefficiencies between developed and developing nations. As developing nations seek to increase their relative competitiveness, which necessitates increasing their cost of production and standard of living, the global firm again relocates those jobs elsewhere, thus hindering/halting improvement within that nation, and starting the process again in another developing nation. (There is historical precedent for this in Asia within heavy manufacturing) Further complicating the situation is the fact that markets are not efficient, and this entire process creates enormous monetary incentives for the exporting country to create political barriers preventing/slowing developing nations from improving.
The basic problem with the "we'll all benefit" arguments relating to globalization is that they are utopian. They assume a near perfect efficiency of global markets. So long as even the most basic trade barriers exist--that is nations are sovereign and have differing legal/commerce/social systems--the current globalization efforts only serve to concentrate wealth into the hands of those willing to exploit cheap labor for the want of greed.
There is a basic truism that is all but ignored today: you get what you pay for. Apparently they're not teaching critical thinking or even basic common sense in the gilded MBA schools these days.
Globalization is the great leveler (assuming free markets). It takes time, but eventually, everyone gets paid what they're actually worth as opposed to what they think they're worth.
The above statement cannot be supported economically. The problem is the qualifier "free markets". Globalization is, in theory, an agent of leveling, but only if it's viewed in a near-zero-sum manner. What is occurring today is not free market globalization, but rather short-term greed exploitation. This introduces more inefficiency, not less.
Specifically, US skilled technology jobs moving to India, if a free market is assumed, should proportionally increase the standard of living in India, along with the relative competitiveness of Indian OEM product. However, when this occurs, pseudo-globalization will simply relocate again to lower cost of production regions. The net effect is that the actual value of the product/service is not reflected in the price of the product/service until either (a) true equality is reached or (b) external factors halt the trend. Further, a cynic, of which there is not shortage on Slashdot, will extrapolate the obvious notorious effect of global politics. That is, the pseudo-globalization effort creates a dependence upon low-wage exploitation. This creates a vested interest in slowing development of developing countries.
Someone evoked the European free market approach earlier. Although certainly not a flawless approach, the European philosophy is more disposed to pricing products/services at their true value. My interpretation of the European model, as applies to Indian off-shoring of high skill jobs, is that enough reasonable protectionism is necessary to both protect the value-price parity of European OEM product, while still encouraging Indian OEM competition. This model benefits both parties and is arguably the true intent of positive globalization.
The *BSDs help each other *MUCH* more than they "fight". *BSDs diversity is on of its strengths and no weakness.
A good example of this is the recent beta release of the LAP (Linux Application Platform) for BSD/OS (BSDI). Our early testing has been extremely positive, with LAP running some native Linux bins faster than equivalent Linux installs. And, LAP was largely the efforts of cooperation between FreeBSD and BSDI, as I understand it.
I'd just like to echo the comments above. Having attempted to bring sanity to a some of the perplexing "Linux vs. Java" flame wars, I see the same thing occurring with any article about BSD. I like your reference to Ford vs. GM. Where I grew up in Ohio you could get your ass kicked for something as silly as a stray comment about an American auto brand. They didn't even see the Japanese coming on.
Perhaps that analogy is relevant here. Linux proponents need to realize that there are many trends, currents, variables, forces at work in the market; more now than in the past 10 years. We all have a very small vote in forming the future. I, for one, cast my small vote for the power of diversity and choice. Read: BSD has a valid role to play and articles which help promote that message to the rest of the world are positive.
It's so much easier to deconstruct than to construct.
Never ceases to amaze me how rapidly the maturity level here on/. is diminishing. Myriad crusading script kiddies react to anything with the word Java in it, usually with something along the lines of those hype, fud, suit, slow, awt-peddling, non-gpl jerks are trying to piggyback on the unfallable Linux.
Give me a break.
1. Java is alive and well. Script kiddies won't know it, but those in the industry certainly do. Java is rapidly expanding into corporate IS/IT, server-side startup software ventures, and embedded systems. Java talent earns somewhere around 50% more on average than equivalent C/C++ talent.
2. Java doesn't suck. You only think it sucks because either you haven't really tried implementing a significant project in it (since 1.1.x), or you're a script kiddie who can't handle complying with imposed methodology. The class libs in Java are very close to object-based systems like Smalltalk. Very nice, but very strict. It's not PERL, VB, or any other script interpreted thing. It's more on a par with C++, Smalltalk, CLOS, etc.
Crusading script kiddie zealots would be well advized to embrace Java, Delphi, Oracle, Informix, ODI, or anything else enterprise level which legitimizes Linux in the enterprise. I know you hate it, but the enterprise is important to your succeeding beyond "hobbyist" status. (And save your ISP args; witness FreeBSD q.e.d)
Your points are well taken, and I tend to agree with your analysis of the differing positions taken regarding Java. Myself, I was a C++ and Smalltalk'er in my pre-Java incarnation. I too believe that the Smalltalk/CLOS style object-based approach is theoretically superior. Problem is that in practice there are very few proficient Smalltalk engineers on Earth. Witness at least 3 failed multi-million $ Smalltalk projects at Ameritech Corp. earlier this decade. Hint: it wasn't necessarily the technology that failed. There are at least a few more *real* Java engineers on the planet.
I guess that it comes down to a pragmatic versus theoretical debate. Java, as you point out, is a series of pragmatic compromises infused into a solid theoretical base. C/C++ syntax, strong typing, "hybrid" MVC, near-late binding injected into an Object-Based framework. My first impression was "VisualWorks+ObjectPascal(pre Delphi) with C-style control syntax".
But, to again reiterate my original frustration: I cannot comprehend the outright animosity that spews forth from the./-Linux community about Java. I realize Java is a "Corporate tool of The Man". But, at the same time it legitimizes Linux. It's fun to pontificate extreme ideological positions over a Guiness, but real life is a series of compromises. After you've been in this industry for a couple of decades you begin to need a spreadsheet to keep track of all the failed great technology movements. I fear this is the fate of Linux if its primary proponent base continues to drive out parallel, symbiotic tech trends. Java, BSD, CORBA, etc. all have a similar vector to Linux; and all will benefit from exchange of energies and ideas. Standing alone, these all will go in the failed-technologies spreadsheet on Bill Gate's Win2K laptop.
It continues to amaze me that the/.er community is so quick to trash Java. The attitude regarding Linux is certainly not mutual; although, perhaps it should be given the narrow minded attitude that prevails here. I especially took note of one comment above outright comparing Java to VB in terms of disgust. Puzzling.
The AWT was decent given the enormous stride JavaSoft was attempting in cross platform VM architecture. Swing is another giant leap forward. Perhaps many of the PERL types around here don't like having to operate in a pure MVC architecture. However, my experience is that Swing results in much less code and great reusability and ease of debugging. It is still slow, but not too slow.
I've implemented very large systems that hold up in a real-time environment in a major RBOC's network engineering and support center. Our Swing applications (not applets) function without flaw on Solaris, NT, BSD and RH Linux. We only had trouble with Macintosh.
What I think many around here don't fully comprehend as that these polarizing, religious positions being taken are exactly the same kind of fractionalizing that tore the BSD community apart. If you continue to drive out differing opinions you'll end up with a real kick-ass system that no one serious uses. I, for one, think I'll take my efforts and ideas somewhere else more tolerant of diversity.
Amazes me that the Linux zealots start blowing their party horns without any critical analysis. Borland did a survey that showed, surprisingly, that Borland products are in the most demand on Linux. Notice they list JBuilder highly and don't bother to list VCafe and J++, the leading market share Java IDE products.
Don't hold your breath for Delphi. By the time it gets ported Java will be the defacto Linux choice for OOD, at least for serious commercial development. Fore scripting PERL is fine; who needs pseudo-object Delphi.
Nice cheer, but it won't get you anywhere unless you're planning to become some kind of geek-terrorist or something.
1) Red Hat had no control over what their underwriters did to "make the market".
2) E*Trade was subjected to the myriad SEC rules. They kindly explained that they had to follow SEC rules to the letter when the underwriters repriced the IPO last minute before trading started. This does happen, although not often. E*Trade would have been subject to severe penalties and litigation had they not followed the SEC rules to the letter. Remember that they are a public company with obligations to not be reckless themselves.
3) It sucks that many of us got elbowed out by those with the big bucks. The market is not a friendly place and those who trade in it for a living are smart people with as much experience trading as you and I have coding.
Perhaps your anger is best directed towards yourself for getting too anxious about "winning this bet".
As far as getting screwed: technogeeks are in demand if you haven't heard. "The Man" will pay you big (and I mean big) buck-o's for writing code. Programmers and engineers make 77% more than the average American. Keep it all in perspective.
AC is all too correct. BSDI is so dumbfounded about what to do to save their 1% market share that they're claiming to support native Linux in their upcoming release http://www.bsdi.com/press/19981214.
Then again, they also claimed Java support would be in 4.0. (A don't reply with 'Try Kaffe'; Kaffe is a nice excercise but doesn't hold up well for production purposes).
On this point, we wholeheartedly agree. The more enterprise DBMS' ported to Linux the better. When is Informix's Linux port due; do you happen to know?
...Then perhaps I can begin a campaign for FreeBSD and BSDI ports or said DBMS'.
arguments from authority are neither impressive nor valid.
you see: (a) i was an Oracle consultant for better than 7 years. i also contributed to 2 tomes on SQL optimization in Oracle (if you think real hard you can figure out which ones). (b) i've implemented massive real-time systems in Versant, ODI and Objy for companies like Ameritech, GTE, and AT&T. in all cases we replaced Oracle 7.x or 8 systems and acheived performance improvements measured in orders of magnitude.
i could go on but the topic was Linux and Oracle. I generally agree this is a good thing but methinks you toot the horn of Ideological dogma a bit much.
I'm seriously gald to see this, too. Although, I've been a big detractor of Oracle for quite a while. Firstly, you have to use RAW partitions for anything serious, so your contention about the advantage of Linux here is bogus. Memory management is more the issue.
Oracle's optimizers don't. Just stack a couple of subqueries on top of a couple of joins and you can showplan to prove this.
ODBMS' are a much better way. Perhaps Oracle should spend time putting real Java native persistence into 8i before porting to yet another OS. Or perhaps we should get ObjectStore to port ODI onto Linux (hint).
Bullshit. A *real* OS will fail gracefully and simply not respond to all those packets. It will NOT crash not matter what the load.
We've had a lot of experience with these kind of DoS attacks. Our experience is that various NTs and Linux boxes bog down or eventually become non responsive; although the Linux doesn't usually crash per se. However, our BSDI boxes chug right along without even so much as a blink.
Slashdot Mirror
If by "how many more", you mean "how many less", then you deserve your metafumberated score.
/.'ers, however, facts are facts. I suggest that Linux is more commonly hacked for the simple reason that the source code is available. Additionally, open-source security bulletins are posted with regularity to myriad public formums.
Gartner got beaten up two years ago for an independent study that found the number of non-hobbyist servers to be much lower than suggested by the [at the time] tech press. We now know that indeed Gartner's results were verified. I believe at last measure the non-hobbyist Linux market share was well under 27%.
MS' products churn my stomach as well as the next
The fact that Linux is more often hacked, but less often compromised is the real victory here.
Once again, meta-moderation does not work. Your comment is no more "insightful" than it is informed, sincere, or humorous.
1) Juvinile law is significantly different from the law that applies to adults.
2) The mother's liability is subject to many limitiations because of (1) above. Were they to fight in court, this would probably be the main legal premise for defense.
3) Your metaphore is perhaps the single most "troll-ish" I've heard in this argument yet.
a) Copyright violations are covered by civil law. The criminal laws related to copyrights are few, and indirect.
b) Shooting people is primarily a criminal act.
c) The subject of _INTENT_ is everything under the law. e.g. Everyone who runs over a child with their car is not charged with murder.
4) Of course she is the Victim, and is being portrayed as such. Luckily for the rest of us living in this country we still have a barely surviving system of judgement by our peers (jury trial), where bullshit such as this can be dismissed.
I sincerely hope that this little girl's case goes to a court with a jury. Of course, RIAA will never do that; they will drop the case against her first. This, my trollish friend, is the ultimate reason your contribution is anything but.
First, this is simply a poorly written, ill informed, and altogether uninformative article. Perhaps the jobs are shifting oversees not because of the reasons stated by the author, but because we seem to have lost the ability to properly write a journalistic article in this country.
/. pseudo-experts to determine which category IT falls within.
Directly to the point: about eighty percent of those replying--the 'hey, it's capitalism, and you should like it' gang--need to take a basic course in economics. The problem is, folks, the real world(tm) is not ceteris paribus. That is, things are not perfectly efficient. What that translates into, in terms of the job-export dimension of globalization, is exploitation. Of course, this is part of captitalism too, and it's not always a bad thing (unless it's happening to *you*).
And to a number of unresearched points made in other replies: protectionism is just as old and solid of economic tradition as free trade. Sometimes protecting industries/markets is a wise thing; sometimes allowing global free trade is a wise thing. Depends upon the circumstance. In general, protecting young, developing markets long enough to allow a ROI is prudent. Protecting old, low margin markets is not. I leave it to the
Not a chance. The /. crowd is a highly polarized, biased, libertarian-leaning population sample. Get out of the computer lab and talk to regular folks. They're not worried about--or don't understand--this RFID stuff.
If it gets Bubba and Darlene through the checkout at Walmart faster, then they're all for it.
Less cynically, RFID has huge implications for the overall supply chain. META Group has covered this extensively. The investment in RFID technologies will continue to expand for at least the next 10 years, probably from the supply/manufacturer side of the economy towards the consumer. The razor-blade Walmart experiment is just that: the Java Applets of this technology. The real uses will be largely hidden from Bubba and Darlene.
And, if you still question the [American] public's mindset about this type of thing, then just visit Anytown, Ohio, and you'll see exactly why people just don't give a hoot about all the hand wringing over RFID-as-big-brother.
Like a lot of other slashdotters, I've been intimately involved with Telcom, Ameritech/SBC specifically, for decades. This issue is not really all that complicated, at a high level.
SBC is becoming a monopoly, or more accurately, one of an oligopoly.
Of course, this is no surprise. We are in the midst of a rising megatrend in the USA whereby a number of monopoly/oligopoly forces are rising. Look at any myriad industry; nearly all large capital markets are increasingly dominated by a very few players. Software/OS is only the latest to fall into this trend--telecom has been here before, during the last cycle.
Someday, probably 15-25 years from now, we will look back at this era and wonder how we allowed so few to control so much. I fear that we won't right this ship until much in terms of jobs, standard of living, innovation, security has been sapped for want of greed.
(Note, SBC is among many companies actively outsourcing a very large portion of their technical resource to China and India. They are masking this action by in fact forcing their vendors, contractors, and suppliers to do it on their behalf in order to win contracts with SBC. They are concerned about public perception and political backlash, but they are nonetheless still doing it.)
Actually, you are not correct, although your position is commonly believed by most people today. In fact, developing something without knowledge of a pre-existing patent _can_ be a legitimate defense in many cases. Specifically, if you can show that, by using a body of existing art/knowledge, the "logical/natural" conclusion would be your invention, then the pre-existing patent can be ruled invalid. Case in point, the infamous patenting of XOR as applied to mouse cursor graphics. Although some jackass patented it (was actually granted a patent through the US Patent Office), it was thrown out as a logical, natural, and foreseeable application of a commonly known concept.
I am sorry, but just a bit of clarification. First, thank you for citing your sources. Second, the problem with BLS reports like this from the Dept. of Labor, is that they are economic extrapolations, not predictive models.
Put simply, the BLS uses statistics from the past 5 years in this report. That, of course, includes data from "the boom". Since, the BLS does not fit the data into any type of super-fancy economic formula (a predictive model), they just "continue the line" into the future based upon what happened in the past.
When you hear financial news, they always refer to these types of reports as "looking backwards" or "review mirrors".
Finally, the economics that goes into a truly predictive model is so prohibitively complex, that it approaches voodoo. Regardless, what people are emotionally reacting to is not the _nubmer_ of jobs in IT, but more what the market is willing to value those jobs at. I hazard to say that there won't be a lot of aspiring young software engineers, doctors, or scientists coming through school if they can only command Walmart sized paychecks.
A. Read my reply to another similar comment for a basic tutorial on why the conclusions you _think_ will come about, are flawed and will not.
B. Your country, New Zealand, is by far more protectionist than the USA, or many other countries for that fact.
C. The USA is not the richest economy in the world. I don't even know what exactly "the richest economy in the world" means. If you mean total GDP, then the EU is larger. If you mean highest standard of living, well then some Scandinavian countries might take issue with your comment. If you mean "total GDP of a single sovereign nation, ignoring debt considerations", well then I guess you are right.
D. The USA does not come anywhere close to controlling 90% of the world's resources. Can you cite your source, or are you just making these numbers up? Are you measuring the world's resources in terms of value, quantity, weighted value? (I think you're just making it up, so the question is rhetorical)
E. Your comment:
"Slowly prices will rise and maybe, just maybe, India will have a standard of living equal to a first world country."
Please, please, learn more about economics. It just doesn't work that way anywhere but in a utopian economists graph. Unfortunately, reality doesn't head Ceteris Paribus.
I hear this argument often. For some masochistic reason, I feel it necessary to attempt to remedy your ignorance of how economics works, even though I somehow know that it is pointless.
Globalization theories which result in raising the standard of living in developing countries presuppose a number of requisites. Important among those are (a) the developing country is allowed to become a relative competitor to the countries exporting jobs there; (b) the overall global GDP continues to grow; and (c) productivity rises and/or overall economic efficiency improves.
Now the problem with your argument:
What is occurring to day is a corruption of price-to-value parity. In more specific terms, the value of work being performed is being undermined by an artificial devaluation of the price the market is willing to pay for that labor/service/product.
This is possible only because of temporary inefficiencies between developed and developing nations.
As developing nations seek to increase their relative competitiveness, which necessitates increasing their cost of production and standard of living, the global firm again relocates those jobs elsewhere, thus hindering/halting improvement within that nation, and starting the process again in another developing nation. (There is historical precedent for this in Asia within heavy manufacturing)
Further complicating the situation is the fact that markets are not efficient, and this entire process creates enormous monetary incentives for the exporting country to create political barriers preventing/slowing developing nations from improving.
The basic problem with the "we'll all benefit" arguments relating to globalization is that they are utopian. They assume a near perfect efficiency of global markets. So long as even the most basic trade barriers exist--that is nations are sovereign and have differing legal/commerce/social systems--the current globalization efforts only serve to concentrate wealth into the hands of those willing to exploit cheap labor for the want of greed.
There is a basic truism that is all but ignored today: you get what you pay for. Apparently they're not teaching critical thinking or even basic common sense in the gilded MBA schools these days.
Could you please cite your source(s) for this statement? Oddly, I cannot find anything suggesting an increase in SA jobs in the US/Canada since 2000.
The above statement cannot be supported economically. The problem is the qualifier "free markets". Globalization is, in theory, an agent of leveling, but only if it's viewed in a near-zero-sum manner. What is occurring today is not free market globalization, but rather short-term greed exploitation. This introduces more inefficiency, not less.
Specifically, US skilled technology jobs moving to India, if a free market is assumed, should proportionally increase the standard of living in India, along with the relative competitiveness of Indian OEM product. However, when this occurs, pseudo-globalization will simply relocate again to lower cost of production regions. The net effect is that the actual value of the product/service is not reflected in the price of the product/service until either (a) true equality is reached or (b) external factors halt the trend. Further, a cynic, of which there is not shortage on Slashdot, will extrapolate the obvious notorious effect of global politics. That is, the pseudo-globalization effort creates a dependence upon low-wage exploitation. This creates a vested interest in slowing development of developing countries.
Someone evoked the European free market approach earlier. Although certainly not a flawless approach, the European philosophy is more disposed to pricing products/services at their true value. My interpretation of the European model, as applies to Indian off-shoring of high skill jobs, is that enough reasonable protectionism is necessary to both protect the value-price parity of European OEM product, while still encouraging Indian OEM competition. This model benefits both parties and is arguably the true intent of positive globalization.
A good example of this is the recent beta release of the LAP (Linux Application Platform) for BSD/OS (BSDI). Our early testing has been extremely positive, with LAP running some native Linux bins faster than equivalent Linux installs. And, LAP was largely the efforts of cooperation between FreeBSD and BSDI, as I understand it.
Perhaps that analogy is relevant here. Linux proponents need to realize that there are many trends, currents, variables, forces at work in the market; more now than in the past 10 years. We all have a very small vote in forming the future. I, for one, cast my small vote for the power of diversity and choice. Read: BSD has a valid role to play and articles which help promote that message to the rest of the world are positive.
It's so much easier to deconstruct than to construct.
Give me a break.
1. Java is alive and well. Script kiddies won't know it, but those in the industry certainly do. Java is rapidly expanding into corporate IS/IT, server-side startup software ventures, and embedded systems. Java talent earns somewhere around 50% more on average than equivalent C/C++ talent.
2. Java doesn't suck. You only think it sucks because either you haven't really tried implementing a significant project in it (since 1.1.x), or you're a script kiddie who can't handle complying with imposed methodology. The class libs in Java are very close to object-based systems like Smalltalk. Very nice, but very strict. It's not PERL, VB, or any other script interpreted thing. It's more on a par with C++, Smalltalk, CLOS, etc.
Crusading script kiddie zealots would be well advized to embrace Java, Delphi, Oracle, Informix, ODI, or anything else enterprise level which legitimizes Linux in the enterprise. I know you hate it, but the enterprise is important to your succeeding beyond "hobbyist" status. (And save your ISP args; witness FreeBSD q.e.d)
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I guess that it comes down to a pragmatic versus theoretical debate. Java, as you point out, is a series of pragmatic compromises infused into a solid theoretical base. C/C++ syntax, strong typing, "hybrid" MVC, near-late binding injected into an Object-Based framework. My first impression was "VisualWorks+ObjectPascal(pre Delphi) with C-style control syntax".
But, to again reiterate my original frustration: I cannot comprehend the outright animosity that spews forth from the ./-Linux community about Java. I realize Java is a "Corporate tool of The Man". But, at the same time it legitimizes Linux. It's fun to pontificate extreme ideological positions over a Guiness, but real life is a series of compromises. After you've been in this industry for a couple of decades you begin to need a spreadsheet to keep track of all the failed great technology movements. I fear this is the fate of Linux if its primary proponent base continues to drive out parallel, symbiotic tech trends. Java, BSD, CORBA, etc. all have a similar vector to Linux; and all will benefit from exchange of energies and ideas. Standing alone, these all will go in the failed-technologies spreadsheet on Bill Gate's Win2K laptop.
FWIW
The AWT was decent given the enormous stride JavaSoft was attempting in cross platform VM architecture. Swing is another giant leap forward. Perhaps many of the PERL types around here don't like having to operate in a pure MVC architecture. However, my experience is that Swing results in much less code and great reusability and ease of debugging. It is still slow, but not too slow.
I've implemented very large systems that hold up in a real-time environment in a major RBOC's network engineering and support center. Our Swing applications (not applets) function without flaw on Solaris, NT, BSD and RH Linux. We only had trouble with Macintosh.
What I think many around here don't fully comprehend as that these polarizing, religious positions being taken are exactly the same kind of fractionalizing that tore the BSD community apart. If you continue to drive out differing opinions you'll end up with a real kick-ass system that no one serious uses. I, for one, think I'll take my efforts and ideas somewhere else more tolerant of diversity.
Amazes me that the Linux zealots start blowing their party horns without any critical analysis. Borland did a survey that showed, surprisingly, that Borland products are in the most demand on Linux. Notice they list JBuilder highly and don't bother to list VCafe and J++, the leading market share Java IDE products.
Don't hold your breath for Delphi. By the time it gets ported Java will be the defacto Linux choice for OOD, at least for serious commercial development. Fore scripting PERL is fine; who needs pseudo-object Delphi.
Yea, like those "whatever in the hell they were" suited characters at JavaOne.
Funny. I got an extra 500 @27 and then unloaded at 52. Pretty decent for a "stupid sucker who panicked".
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Nice cheer, but it won't get you anywhere unless you're planning to become some kind of geek-terrorist or something.
1) Red Hat had no control over what their underwriters did to "make the market".
2) E*Trade was subjected to the myriad SEC rules. They kindly explained that they had to follow SEC rules to the letter when the underwriters repriced the IPO last minute before trading started. This does happen, although not often. E*Trade would have been subject to severe penalties and litigation had they not followed the SEC rules to the letter. Remember that they are a public company with obligations to not be reckless themselves.
3) It sucks that many of us got elbowed out by those with the big bucks. The market is not a friendly place and those who trade in it for a living are smart people with as much experience trading as you and I have coding.
Perhaps your anger is best directed towards yourself for getting too anxious about "winning this bet".
As far as getting screwed: technogeeks are in demand if you haven't heard. "The Man" will pay you big (and I mean big) buck-o's for writing code. Programmers and engineers make 77% more than the average American. Keep it all in perspective.
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Then again, they also claimed Java support would be in 4.0. (A don't reply with 'Try Kaffe'; Kaffe is a nice excercise but doesn't hold up well for production purposes).
On this point, we wholeheartedly agree. The more enterprise DBMS' ported to Linux the better. When is Informix's Linux port due; do you happen to know?
...Then perhaps I can begin a campaign for FreeBSD and BSDI ports or said DBMS'.
arguments from authority are neither impressive nor valid.
you see:
(a) i was an Oracle consultant for better than 7 years. i also contributed to 2 tomes on SQL optimization in Oracle (if you think real hard you can figure out which ones).
(b) i've implemented massive real-time systems in Versant, ODI and Objy for companies like Ameritech, GTE, and AT&T. in all cases we replaced Oracle 7.x or 8 systems and acheived performance improvements measured in orders of magnitude.
i could go on but the topic was Linux and Oracle. I generally agree this is a good thing but methinks you toot the horn of Ideological dogma a bit much.
I'm seriously gald to see this, too. Although, I've been a big detractor of Oracle for quite a while. Firstly, you have to use RAW partitions for anything serious, so your contention about the advantage of Linux here is bogus. Memory management is more the issue.
Oracle's optimizers don't. Just stack a couple of subqueries on top of a couple of joins and you can showplan to prove this.
ODBMS' are a much better way. Perhaps Oracle should spend time putting real Java native persistence into 8i before porting to yet another OS. Or perhaps we should get ObjectStore to port ODI onto Linux (hint).
--R
We've had a lot of experience with these kind of DoS attacks. Our experience is that various NTs and Linux boxes bog down or eventually become non responsive; although the Linux doesn't usually crash per se. However, our BSDI boxes chug right along without even so much as a blink.
FWIW.