Hmm.. the claim of it being extremely clean is often used, but in my book an ip_input.c which is mostly a single 450+ lines long function doesn't qualify as clean. That said, that was in FreeBSD 4.2 and earlier, didn't look at that part since.
The BSD source tree itself is reasonably well organized, and things are consistent, that is the most important part when dealing with the source I think, it means you can predict where to find the stuff you are looking for.
I guess that is why MS and others are still replicating one of X' most important features, being usable over a network to provide a remote desktop.
Don't get me wrong, it is definitely time to kick out some outdated stuff or at least bring in replacement for many of the things X does when used locally, but generally X is very usefull and there is no reason to throw that away.
For example, some providers offer a dialin number that you can dial with a modem and simple terminal software to send a message, there are ways to use a web interface for sendign sms using for exampel a perl script, there is an ip based protocol for deliverign messages to internet connected sms centers and so on.
With all those trendy phones with cameras, palmtops with handscanners and wireless links to digicams, expect that to become standard in many organisations.
Hmm.. on one hand audio equipment is mostly a commodity, on the other hand, its not like it doesn't matter at all what equipment you use, as you correctly point out it depends on the situation or type of business, and price is a factor, relations with the producer of that specific brand might be another. Overall the biggest one however is how to make a match between the products that exist and the actual business needs of a company or organisation.
a) product based
revenue = number of sales * price
b) service based
revenue = amount of time * rate
The only way to increase the revenue stream in (b) is to increase the rate. Whereas in (a) revenue can go up simply by increasing volume (marketing) _or_ by increasing price.
The one thing you forget is that number of products sold/used affects b as well since the amount of time will be different depending on how much the products you support/service are being used.
To keep to comparisons like the ones you make, I'd say that an end-user application programmer and compiler programmer share aa bit of their skillset, but would be comparable to a street worker vs someone building houses. Yeah, both use a subset of eachothers tools, they even share a basic part of knowledge.. yet the jobs are not the same, and the knowledge that is most relevant for the jobs is not the same either.
Bottomline, at this moment a typist and application programer both need a similar skill, beign able to type on a keyboard and read a display.. (among other skills).. and for someone not having a clue whatsoever with regards to computers etc, it may even look like they are doign the same (frantically typing away at the computer)
When you have a dozen products that can in theory forfill your need, you might need an expert to select the one that fits your needs best.
Choice is good, but it is not like choice makes it easier, and as a result having choice is only going to have more companies end up needign expert advice for makign their choices.
> In general in the U.S., people who work more have more. Perhaps this trend is not followed as closely as some people would like, but it does work to some degree.
Not exactly. It works on the lower end of the spectrum, but definitely not on the upper end of it.
The one thing that helps most for making money is having money. Work is for those who lack the money.
> You guys are way too little rosy eyed -- The main reason IBM likes LInux is that it allows them to sell DB2 and WebSphere licenses to people who don't run IBM hardware.
That logic would see them sell Windows versions of both..
I have worked for IBM for 11 years, so I have a bit of a clue what I am talkign about here.
1 1/2 decades ago, IBM was inyterested in OS and application software as a commodity because it allowed them to sell hardware, server software and services. Now it allows them to sell (as you mention correctly) server software, hardware and services.
Anyway, all I was trying to point out is that this all has nothign to do with being good or evil, but with it fitting in well with their business model, and that not beign anythign new, so as logn as OSS provides the 'good stuff' for them, theres little chance to see them drop out.
which incidentely explains IBM's interest in using Linux and supporting open source. They have been interested in selling services and solutions for decades now (and did so)
They are no more or less evil then MS in intention, both want to generate a money stream that doesn't depend on products but on contracts. IBM's business model and philosophy however are served by OS and basic applications being comodities and OSS has proven to provide that.
MS on the other side tries to achieve this by trying to provide all comodities exclusively and getting people to basicly rent it.
Part of the problem I guess is that while there are 5 shops selling games at less then 10 mins from my home, the only way I could get their games was ordering online.
> Perhaps legitimate screw-ups should be eaten up by the person who made the mistake. While there are accidents which are truly unpreventable (Act of God, Force of nature, etc), many things could be prevented.
Yes, and many things couldn't. What you are arguing here is exactly what is causing theliability insanity and lawsuits in the USA.
> While I don't think what our Gov't did to them was correct, I do know that it WAS in the past, and there's no way to go back to the way it was.
No. there is a way to compensate for it tho. This is also a very bad example, first of all, this was not a legitimate screwup, and 2nd, compensation for damage done on purpose and for the reason of monetary gain is not bad to ask for really.
Many screwups we have to carry as a society as a whole. Why? because you make life into a minefield if you don't.
> For example, if I want to filter virus and spam mail from the real thing, I can see if the e-mails I got claiming to be from my mother are really signed by her computer or not.
Factually true, but how helpfull is that? If her computer decides to send you a virus or is used somehow as a spam relay, the mail could be very well signed by it.
It is usefull to have a cryptographic id, and as long as that also comes with an open interface it will not be in the way of anything.
Online traders? are very interested in reliably determining who is going to pay them, which computer is used for that is pretty much irrelevant.
The one simple problem with Trusted Computing is that it is purely and exclusively aimed to allow media providers to determine what a computer can and cannot do while playing whatever media.
DRM is oen side of that, wanting the same type of control as DVD offers (unskippable parts etc) is another.
The consumer is not served by this, and except for the cryptogrpahic id, it is very much useless for anyone other then media providers and software makers who need strict control over the runtime environment.
The price the consumer will pay comes first fo all in the form of loss of flexibility, and in the long term a dramatic increase of the cost of general purpose computing combined with a huge push toward specialized multi-purpose 'black box' devices.
Maybe we just should start living with the fact that if you need such a controllable device, you should make such a device and keep it out of general purpose computing.
In that sense, the French minitel network may be outdated technologywise, but it did definitely offer what merchants, banks as well as customers needed to do transactions that are way more reliable then anything possible on the internet today.
And the fun is that you can emulate those devices on a pc but transactiosn depend on something like an external card reader.
Anyway, it is not the computer but the user that is of interest to online trading, posing TCA as a solution for that when all it provides is runtime control and indentification of the computer is simply utter bullshit.
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Heh.. that sounds liek them wantign the OSS kind of workforce without payign the price...
Hmm.. the claim of it being extremely clean is often used, but in my book an ip_input.c which is mostly a single 450+ lines long function doesn't qualify as clean. That said, that was in FreeBSD 4.2 and earlier, didn't look at that part since.
The BSD source tree itself is reasonably well organized, and things are consistent, that is the most important part when dealing with the source I think, it means you can predict where to find the stuff you are looking for.
Because we do not like monopolies in general? Competition is a good thing
I guess that is why MS and others are still replicating one of X' most important features, being usable over a network to provide a remote desktop. Don't get me wrong, it is definitely time to kick out some outdated stuff or at least bring in replacement for many of the things X does when used locally, but generally X is very usefull and there is no reason to throw that away.
Look again.. they provide an OS wrapper in source form, and there is some odd binary file in there that has the actual driver.
There are quite a few other ways.
For example, some providers offer a dialin number that you can dial with a modem and simple terminal software to send a message, there are ways to use a web interface for sendign sms using for exampel a perl script, there is an ip based protocol for deliverign messages to internet connected sms centers and so on.
It wont stop peopel bent on doign the unethical, it will amke it so much easier for those who consider doing the unethical.
Generally, a security measure can't stop everything, but not taking it makes you a lot more vulnerable.
With all those trendy phones with cameras, palmtops with handscanners and wireless links to digicams, expect that to become standard in many organisations.
Hmm.. on one hand audio equipment is mostly a commodity, on the other hand, its not like it doesn't matter at all what equipment you use, as you correctly point out it depends on the situation or type of business, and price is a factor, relations with the producer of that specific brand might be another. Overall the biggest one however is how to make a match between the products that exist and the actual business needs of a company or organisation.
More like.. it gets slower as you go along ;P
The one thing you forget is that number of products sold/used affects b as well since the amount of time will be different depending on how much the products you support/service are being used.
To keep to comparisons like the ones you make, I'd say that an end-user application programmer and compiler programmer share aa bit of their skillset, but would be comparable to a street worker vs someone building houses. Yeah, both use a subset of eachothers tools, they even share a basic part of knowledge.. yet the jobs are not the same, and the knowledge that is most relevant for the jobs is not the same either.
Bottomline, at this moment a typist and application programer both need a similar skill, beign able to type on a keyboard and read a display.. (among other skills).. and for someone not having a clue whatsoever with regards to computers etc, it may even look like they are doign the same (frantically typing away at the computer)
When you have a dozen products that can in theory forfill your need, you might need an expert to select the one that fits your needs best.
Choice is good, but it is not like choice makes it easier, and as a result having choice is only going to have more companies end up needign expert advice for makign their choices.
> In general in the U.S., people who work more have more. Perhaps this trend is not followed as closely as some people would like, but it does work to some degree.
Not exactly. It works on the lower end of the spectrum, but definitely not on the upper end of it.
The one thing that helps most for making money is having money. Work is for those who lack the money.
Well, by virtue of usign and supporting it, they give Linux legitimacy in the eyes of many PHBs and other 'big business' orriented people.
I'd say that is helping Linux more then a little bit.
> You guys are way too little rosy eyed -- The main reason IBM likes LInux is that it allows them to sell DB2 and WebSphere licenses to people who don't run IBM hardware.
That logic would see them sell Windows versions of both..
I have worked for IBM for 11 years, so I have a bit of a clue what I am talkign about here.
1 1/2 decades ago, IBM was inyterested in OS and application software as a commodity because it allowed them to sell hardware, server software and services. Now it allows them to sell (as you mention correctly) server software, hardware and services.
Anyway, all I was trying to point out is that this all has nothign to do with being good or evil, but with it fitting in well with their business model, and that not beign anythign new, so as logn as OSS provides the 'good stuff' for them, theres little chance to see them drop out.
which incidentely explains IBM's interest in using Linux and supporting open source. They have been interested in selling services and solutions for decades now (and did so)
They are no more or less evil then MS in intention, both want to generate a money stream that doesn't depend on products but on contracts. IBM's business model and philosophy however are served by OS and basic applications being comodities and OSS has proven to provide that.
MS on the other side tries to achieve this by trying to provide all comodities exclusively and getting people to basicly rent it.
While BSD offers different implementations on kernel level suited for different uses while offering a pretty consistent userland on top of that.
Part of the problem I guess is that while there are 5 shops selling games at less then 10 mins from my home, the only way I could get their games was ordering online.
> Perhaps legitimate screw-ups should be eaten up by the person who made the mistake. While there are accidents which are truly unpreventable (Act of God, Force of nature, etc), many things could be prevented.
Yes, and many things couldn't.
What you are arguing here is exactly what is causing theliability insanity and lawsuits in the USA.
> While I don't think what our Gov't did to them was correct, I do know that it WAS in the past, and there's no way to go back to the way it was.
No. there is a way to compensate for it tho.
This is also a very bad example, first of all, this was not a legitimate screwup, and 2nd, compensation for damage done on purpose and for the reason of monetary gain is not bad to ask for really.
Many screwups we have to carry as a society as a whole. Why? because you make life into a minefield if you don't.
It seems Philips (and Sony?) objects to them using that logo when it isn't a proper audio CD ;P
> For example, if I want to filter virus and spam mail from the real thing, I can see if the e-mails I got claiming to be from my mother are really signed by her computer or not.
Factually true, but how helpfull is that?
If her computer decides to send you a virus or is used somehow as a spam relay, the mail could be very well signed by it.
It is usefull to have a cryptographic id, and as long as that also comes with an open interface it will not be in the way of anything.
Online traders? are very interested in reliably determining who is going to pay them, which computer is used for that is pretty much irrelevant.
The one simple problem with Trusted Computing is that it is purely and exclusively aimed to allow media providers to determine what a computer can and cannot do while playing whatever media.
DRM is oen side of that, wanting the same type of control as DVD offers (unskippable parts etc) is another.
The consumer is not served by this, and except for the cryptogrpahic id, it is very much useless for anyone other then media providers and software makers who need strict control over the runtime environment.
The price the consumer will pay comes first fo all in the form of loss of flexibility, and in the long term a dramatic increase of the cost of general purpose computing combined with a huge push toward specialized multi-purpose 'black box' devices.
Maybe we just should start living with the fact that if you need such a controllable device, you should make such a device and keep it out of general purpose computing.
In that sense, the French minitel network may be outdated technologywise, but it did definitely offer what merchants, banks as well as customers needed to do transactions that are way more reliable then anything possible on the internet today.
And the fun is that you can emulate those devices on a pc but transactiosn depend on something like an external card reader.
Anyway, it is not the computer but the user that is of interest to online trading, posing TCA as a solution for that when all it provides is runtime control and indentification of the computer is simply utter bullshit.
Freedom and the purest form of capitalism are incompatible.
Teah, like getting correct election results isn't hard enough already, lets introduce 1/2 and 1/4 votes ;P
Tell that to my dual pIII machine... the whine from that thing is horrible.