Seriously now, why is it that (some)managers maintain that by telling the worker both what to do and how to do it, they're making them more productive? That's what this article is saying.
And it's an article without a point - why should management care? If they feel better using toys at work, great! I have a stuffed penguin sitting next to my computer. It makes me feel good. When I feel good, I do better at work. So if I need a $500 toy to feel good - what's it matter to you?
The other possibility: it's a tool. Well, good for you if it is. I use a franklin planner, and it's cheaper than a palm pilot, and can do more. As an added bonus, my handwriting is encrypted so only I can decrypt it.:) But everybody has their own style of organization. Maybe a palm pilot fits their system better than more conventional stuff does.
Bottom line: Some anal-retentive managers insist on micromanaging everything. This article is for them. For everybody else... just let us do our job.
Not trying to be rude here, but I really don't think everytime somebody gets a new job it ought to be put up in neon lights. People change jobs every day. It doesn't really change the flow of things... neither does it have *much* bearing here.
And as to "compatibility", Redhat has always stuffed executables in non-standard places, and if no effort is made to have enlightenment look for those files in the right place, it may very well not run. Hence my concern.
Well, good for you raster. Now can somebody please tell me what's going on with Enlightenment? It's all wonderful that you've got a new job.. but we want to know how this is going to impact the devel of E. Also.. will any effort be made to keep E compatible with future redhat releases? I know they rather soured the milk on this, but alot of us still use redhat..
I just have to tell you right now why the real reason for these caps are. It has nothing to do with "bandwidth" problems. They've oversubscribed their userbase. I have a graph up on my website detailing this. If you want the scripts to generate it yourself, contact me. What disgusts me the most is that I was paying $40 a month when the service was *good* during prime time. Now I'm still paying $40 a month, but the service is completely unusuable during prime-time. Please contact your PUC (Public Utilities Commissioner), as well as the technically-savvy press. This is an outrage - they're delivering less, but charging the same rate. In any other industry, this would be outright fraud.
Actually, since mediaone (now part of the roadrunner/@home network) has advertised their modem as "up to 50x faster than a regular modem"... I'll be raising hell with the Public Utilities Commissioner in my state.
Actually, maybe I'll sue them for false advertising, and intent to defraud.
This article sounds more like a marketing brochure than a technical evaluation. And maybe as it should be - for the non-geeky out there. But I would urge people not to cite this as proof that linux is winning, and microsoft is losing. When you have a small army, any victory seems like a big victory against a intractable enemy.
Without knowing what configuration those machines were tested in (PC labs didn't disclose that information in their article), that's going to be alittle difficult.
Microsoft is trying very hard to say "NT is better! see! see!". But I can take that claim apart by simply asking any NT administrator how many times they had to reboot their "4,196 hits/minute" NT box, compared with the measily 1800 linux put out...
Linux is more reliable, and has greater flexibility (courtesty of the unix philosophy of piping, and making everything modular). No benchmark can, or will, ever convince me that NT is more stable than linux, or more flexible. Maybe NT is faster at some things - whatever parameters were used for the benchmark obviously bear that out.
But I'll ask you all one question: Where do you think linux will be in one year from now? Think it would beat w2k?
That's the ultimate question.. Microsoft may have a performance advantage (gasp!) right now.. but we all know how quickly open source moves forward, and how quickly bugs are fixed. Even Microsoft can't beat the distributed efforts of tens of thousands of developers working in concert. No corporation on the planet can.
I think it's rather irresponsible for any vendor to simply drop support - even if it is CVS we're dealing with. Pinning support for hundreds(thousands?) of users on one person in a company is just bad policy.
Is there nobody at the company with the required expertise? If not, why did they start supporting CVS in the first place? I think it's a convenient excuse to get rid of the higher support costs involved in CVS. Not that this is entirely a bad thing. But if I was a customer of theirs, I might be asking a few questions along the lines of "what support do you have that *doesn't* depend on just a few critical personnel? How can you guarantee continuing support with the non-cvs versions?"
Sorry I didn't get a chance to finish this. I had somebody portscan my system, so I had to finger his system, get a name, goto his school's homepage, lookup his phone number, and ring him.
I know it's more than 2 things listed up there, so don't flame me about it. I was kinda rushed.
4. Enforceability. There aren't any technical ways to track usage across the entire internet. The only way this would be feasible would be by forcing ISPs to disclose personal information, and/or taxing them directly with their monthly bill. You can't do it individually, there's just too much overhead.
There's two things the government hasn't figured out, apparently. Let me summarize for them then:
1. Tracking things on the internet can be a pain in the arse. Just ask the NSA - even echelon can't keep up (and that's only searching for *very* specific things).
2. The US cannot dictate international law. The internet is a *global communications network*. Almost a billion people world-wide have access to it. Unless you can convince every country that uses the internet to follow your law, you're leaving a gaping-huge-i-can-drive-a-mac-truck-through-this hole in any legislation on the subject.
First, let me congratulate esr on yet another thought-provoking essay. I'd like to bring up just one point, however, that was brushed over in this essay, specifically section 4 - "Information wants to be free".
Eric, you've setup the basic of an economic model to base open source on. This lays to rest many questions of the economics behind the free software movement. But you skipped over a central point - one that's debated and brought up daily across the geek community - the idea that information should be free.
Two cases: MP3s and "warez". Despite wide-spread media campaigning and propaganda, not many people consider this to be "wrong". The simplest arguement - is that it's free - and if it's free, why should I go elsewhere (possibly with more hassle) to have the priveledge of paying for it? Especially considering the cost-benefit of getting caught is so low.
This is an issue that desperately needs to be analyzed and thought out. Programmers modus operanti is "copy rip copy" from other programmers. It makes economic sense - why reinvent the wheel? MP3s mean (nearly) zero cost to aquire something you want (music), and this broadly applies to almost anything that can be distributed digitally. Today that means about everything.
What's stopping people from simply pushing the download button and getting something for "free"?
True. Those definitions were reversed. I really thought this issue had been resolved with the latest edition of the hacker dictionary. Sadly enough, it would seem that many on slashdot have yet to read it. I consider it required reading.
Simply put, this guy is wrong. The Hacker dictionary, aka the Jargon File (available on esr's homepage) already has definitions for all of these. And, if I may be so bold, are much better written. But as everybody is entitled to their opinion.. here's mine.:)
Twits are the people that screw up their system and then call up the nerds at the helpdesk to fix it. The nerds play quake2 all day and sit in a lab unjamming printers and changing passwords, while the geeks are busy hammering out the next e-commerce software package in the "intro to C" class down the hall. Nerds are completely bent on *one* part of computing (be it programming, hardware, whatever). They're usually good. While geeks are more of a jack-of-all-trades. They know enough about computers in general, and can usually go in-depth on a variety of topics. Nerds have no social skills. Geeks have limited social skills. Twits.. well, we'll call them the normals-that-didn't-quite-make-the-cut-and-are-rea lly-stupid.
I'm not sure which is more childish - publishing the rantings of 8 year olds, or the rants themselves.
Really - who are they convincing here? I don't think many adults will be swayed by reading this - it's obvious the people who sent this material were not the brightest bulbs on the tree. Advocates of linux should just ignore mindcraft. They shot themselves in the foot, and now they're just trying to be vengeful and childish.
How true - there's some artists that I really like that I want to get the whole album from, but let's face it - there's usually only a single that you want. CDNow had the right idea - let you put all your favorite singles on a single cd and ship it - but that's inconvenient. Why is it illegal to be able to get what you want right now?
Anyway, I think the music industry is changing - maybe more like "open source" - give away the music, and charge for the "support"- aka concerts and shows. I for one like the idea of direct capitalism - nobody controls what I buy, who I buy it from, and for how much. It's all open to the market now. The RIAA is dead. It's a market inevitability.
I believe the gist of this was that only servers can be held accountable. I can't see how intermediate points could be held accountable. It would be like me suing the post office because somebody else was sending me death threats.
But that's a scary thought.. if backbone providers were held accountable for traffic (not servers, mind you, just routing)... sheesh, what a precident that would be.
Let me lay out the significance for everybody: This Virginia court has declared AOL, well.. rogue. They just rang the dinner bell and yelled "fresh meat!". I'm sure somebody else can phrase this better, but that's essentially what they've done, and it's a sharp departure from what most courts would do.. that is, allow other courts to excercise control in their jurisdiction.
What does this mean? Well, in short.. spammers just got a few bruises. It isn't a pancea, but it's a step in the right direction.
I'm looking forward to somebody using this new development to go after the AOL spammer-scum out there.
Traffic analysis, tempest, conventional espionage... I see no reason why they would even bother trying to decrypt anything. Unless your security methodology makes the encryption absolutely necessary to crack to obtain the information required... it's kinda pointless to bother with decryption.
To respond in the simplest manner: everybody makes mistakes. Every operating system has mistakes.
Unless somebody can make a (good) case for him acting with malice towards the linux community, or redhat, I really don't see the problem here. Send him an e-mail stating the factual errors... and leave it at that.
And I would like to point out that linux still IS mainly for enthusiasts. Duh. But look at it another way: who will you approach when you choose, say, a new car: a mechanic, or a guy off the street? The mechanic can tell you everything you want to know about that model of car, give you his advice on related models that might not have that problem, and even suggest dealers that can give you the best deal. That mechanic will also know what models have the most problems (high maintenance).
Make sure to bring that point up the next time somebody claims linux is "just for enthusiasts". You bet we are.
Well, it could go either way. On one hand, to quote Larry, "perl is a post-modern language"... and as such adapts to it's surroundings. If Microsoft Windows is it's surroundings, then it would make perfect sense to integrate API calls and the like into perl. Whether it's developed by a proprietary company, or developed openly, doesn't matter too much: what matters is that more developers will use perl.
free software broke into the market by creating better, faster, and cheaper products than commercial ventures did. I see no reason why it wouldn't be different here... once a idea reaches "critical mass", some developer will start the development of a free version of whatever module is in demand. The important thing here is.. perl will be exposed to alot more people.. which means that perl will be developed alot more quickly.
Maybe we will wind up paying for Feature X for awhile, but if enough people want it, a free version will be created.
Since a few people out there think that Windows 2000 will be 64 bit, I've searched, and found these links. NT4 is 64-bit.. mostly. win98 is not. Hopefully this will clear up the confusion....
Windows 2000 itself isn't 64 bit. Never was supposed to be right off the bat.
I don't think you have a clue what you're talking about.
My dear AC, I believe you've answered your own question. No, it isn't supposed to be "right off the bat". They were pushing for 64 bit in W2K, which is why none of the windows 95/98/NT applications would be compatible with it, as I recall. That changed when they switched codebases.
Here's my read on it. Only a feeling, zero fact here, folks.
Microsoft is having a hell of a time getting their 64-bit version of Windows to work. Originally, this was called W2K, and would be based on the NT codebase. That didn't work, but I still think they're trying. Simply put, their current offerings suck, and they know it. W2K was supposed to address "system instability" problems. I think they've arrived at the conclusion that their code/compilers can't cut it, and now they're going for outside help. It's a huge undertaking. I don't think Microsoft, even being the world's biggest software outfit, can handle it.
They need Borland's expertise to get 64-bit Windows off the ground.
Slashdot Mirror
You know.. those sandwitches with fake fingers in them just got alot funnier...
--
: xyzzy
:) But everybody has their own style of organization. Maybe a palm pilot fits their system better than more conventional stuff does.
Nothing happens.
Seriously now, why is it that (some)managers maintain that by telling the worker both what to do and how to do it, they're making them more productive? That's what this article is saying.
And it's an article without a point - why should management care? If they feel better using toys at work, great! I have a stuffed penguin sitting next to my computer. It makes me feel good. When I feel good, I do better at work. So if I need a $500 toy to feel good - what's it matter to you?
The other possibility: it's a tool. Well, good for you if it is. I use a franklin planner, and it's cheaper than a palm pilot, and can do more. As an added bonus, my handwriting is encrypted so only I can decrypt it.
Bottom line: Some anal-retentive managers insist on micromanaging everything. This article is for them. For everybody else... just let us do our job.
--
Not trying to be rude here, but I really don't think everytime somebody gets a new job it ought to be put up in neon lights. People change jobs every day. It doesn't really change the flow of things... neither does it have *much* bearing here.
And as to "compatibility", Redhat has always stuffed executables in non-standard places, and if no effort is made to have enlightenment look for those files in the right place, it may very well not run. Hence my concern.
--
Well, good for you raster. Now can somebody please tell me what's going on with Enlightenment? It's all wonderful that you've got a new job.. but we want to know how this is going to impact the devel of E. Also.. will any effort be made to keep E compatible with future redhat releases? I know they rather soured the milk on this, but alot of us still use redhat..
--
Sorry, bad link, this one will work better.
--
graph available
I just have to tell you right now why the real reason for these caps are. It has nothing to do with "bandwidth" problems. They've oversubscribed their userbase. I have a graph up on my website detailing this. If you want the scripts to generate it yourself, contact me. What disgusts me the most is that I was paying $40 a month when the service was *good* during prime time. Now I'm still paying $40 a month, but the service is completely unusuable during prime-time. Please contact your PUC (Public Utilities Commissioner), as well as the technically-savvy press. This is an outrage - they're delivering less, but charging the same rate. In any other industry, this would be outright fraud.
--
Actually, since mediaone (now part of the roadrunner/@home network) has advertised their modem as "up to 50x faster than a regular modem"... I'll be raising hell with the Public Utilities Commissioner in my state.
Actually, maybe I'll sue them for false advertising, and intent to defraud.
--
This article sounds more like a marketing brochure than a technical evaluation. And maybe as it should be - for the non-geeky out there. But I would urge people not to cite this as proof that linux is winning, and microsoft is losing. When you have a small army, any victory seems like a big victory against a intractable enemy.
Keep it in perspective, everybody.
--
Without knowing what configuration those machines were tested in (PC labs didn't disclose that information in their article), that's going to be alittle difficult.
Microsoft is trying very hard to say "NT is better! see! see!". But I can take that claim apart by simply asking any NT administrator how many times they had to reboot their "4,196 hits/minute" NT box, compared with the measily 1800 linux put out...
Linux is more reliable, and has greater flexibility (courtesty of the unix philosophy of piping, and making everything modular). No benchmark can, or will, ever convince me that NT is more stable than linux, or more flexible. Maybe NT is faster at some things - whatever parameters were used for the benchmark obviously bear that out.
But I'll ask you all one question: Where do you think linux will be in one year from now? Think it would beat w2k?
That's the ultimate question.. Microsoft may have a performance advantage (gasp!) right now.. but we all know how quickly open source moves forward, and how quickly bugs are fixed. Even Microsoft can't beat the distributed efforts of tens of thousands of developers working in concert. No corporation on the planet can.
--
I think it's rather irresponsible for any vendor to simply drop support - even if it is CVS we're dealing with. Pinning support for hundreds(thousands?) of users on one person in a company is just bad policy.
Is there nobody at the company with the required expertise? If not, why did they start supporting CVS in the first place? I think it's a convenient excuse to get rid of the higher support costs involved in CVS. Not that this is entirely a bad thing. But if I was a customer of theirs, I might be asking a few questions along the lines of "what support do you have that *doesn't* depend on just a few critical personnel? How can you guarantee continuing support with the non-cvs versions?"
--
Sorry I didn't get a chance to finish this. I had somebody portscan my system, so I had to finger his system, get a name, goto his school's homepage, lookup his phone number, and ring him.
I know it's more than 2 things listed up there, so don't flame me about it. I was kinda rushed.
4. Enforceability. There aren't any technical ways to track usage across the entire internet. The only way this would be feasible would be by forcing ISPs to disclose personal information, and/or taxing them directly with their monthly bill. You can't do it individually, there's just too much overhead.
--
There's two things the government hasn't figured out, apparently. Let me summarize for them then:
1. Tracking things on the internet can be a pain in the arse. Just ask the NSA - even echelon can't keep up (and that's only searching for *very* specific things).
2. The US cannot dictate international law. The internet is a *global communications network*. Almost a billion people world-wide have access to it. Unless you can convince every country that uses the internet to follow your law, you're leaving a gaping-huge-i-can-drive-a-mac-truck-through-this hole in any legislation on the subject.
3. Two words: Tax Evasion.
4.
--
First, let me congratulate esr on yet another thought-provoking essay. I'd like to bring up just one point, however, that was brushed over in this essay, specifically section 4 - "Information wants to be free".
Eric, you've setup the basic of an economic model to base open source on. This lays to rest many questions of the economics behind the free software movement. But you skipped over a central point - one that's debated and brought up daily across the geek community - the idea that information should be free.
Two cases: MP3s and "warez". Despite wide-spread media campaigning and propaganda, not many people consider this to be "wrong". The simplest arguement - is that it's free - and if it's free, why should I go elsewhere (possibly with more hassle) to have the priveledge of paying for it? Especially considering the cost-benefit of getting caught is so low.
This is an issue that desperately needs to be analyzed and thought out. Programmers modus operanti is "copy rip copy" from other programmers. It makes economic sense - why reinvent the wheel? MP3s mean (nearly) zero cost to aquire something you want (music), and this broadly applies to almost anything that can be distributed digitally. Today that means about everything.
What's stopping people from simply pushing the download button and getting something for "free"?
--
True. Those definitions were reversed. I really thought this issue had been resolved with the latest edition of the hacker dictionary. Sadly enough, it would seem that many on slashdot have yet to read it. I consider it required reading.
--
Simply put, this guy is wrong. The Hacker dictionary, aka the Jargon File (available on esr's homepage) already has definitions for all of these. And, if I may be so bold, are much better written. But as everybody is entitled to their opinion.. here's mine. :)
a lly-stupid.
Twits are the people that screw up their system and then call up the nerds at the helpdesk to fix it. The nerds play quake2 all day and sit in a lab unjamming printers and changing passwords, while the geeks are busy hammering out the next e-commerce software package in the "intro to C" class down the hall. Nerds are completely bent on *one* part of computing (be it programming, hardware, whatever). They're usually good. While geeks are more of a jack-of-all-trades. They know enough about computers in general, and can usually go in-depth on a variety of topics. Nerds have no social skills. Geeks have limited social skills. Twits.. well, we'll call them the normals-that-didn't-quite-make-the-cut-and-are-re
Ciao.
--
I'm not sure which is more childish - publishing the rantings of 8 year olds, or the rants themselves.
Really - who are they convincing here? I don't think many adults will be swayed by reading this - it's obvious the people who sent this material were not the brightest bulbs on the tree. Advocates of linux should just ignore mindcraft. They shot themselves in the foot, and now they're just trying to be vengeful and childish.
--
How true - there's some artists that I really like that I want to get the whole album from, but let's face it - there's usually only a single that you want. CDNow had the right idea - let you put all your favorite singles on a single cd and ship it - but that's inconvenient. Why is it illegal to be able to get what you want right now?
Anyway, I think the music industry is changing - maybe more like "open source" - give away the music, and charge for the "support"- aka concerts and shows. I for one like the idea of direct capitalism - nobody controls what I buy, who I buy it from, and for how much. It's all open to the market now. The RIAA is dead. It's a market inevitability.
--
I believe the gist of this was that only servers can be held accountable. I can't see how intermediate points could be held accountable. It would be like me suing the post office because somebody else was sending me death threats.
But that's a scary thought.. if backbone providers were held accountable for traffic (not servers, mind you, just routing)... sheesh, what a precident that would be.
--
Thanks 1E+08.
Let me lay out the significance for everybody: This Virginia court has declared AOL, well.. rogue. They just rang the dinner bell and yelled "fresh meat!". I'm sure somebody else can phrase this better, but that's essentially what they've done, and it's a sharp departure from what most courts would do.. that is, allow other courts to excercise control in their jurisdiction.
What does this mean? Well, in short.. spammers just got a few bruises. It isn't a pancea, but it's a step in the right direction.
I'm looking forward to somebody using this new development to go after the AOL spammer-scum out there.
disclaimer: #include
--
Why do they need to crack your message at all?
Traffic analysis, tempest, conventional espionage... I see no reason why they would even bother trying to decrypt anything. Unless your security methodology makes the encryption absolutely necessary to crack to obtain the information required... it's kinda pointless to bother with decryption.
--
To respond in the simplest manner: everybody makes mistakes. Every operating system has mistakes.
Unless somebody can make a (good) case for him acting with malice towards the linux community, or redhat, I really don't see the problem here. Send him an e-mail stating the factual errors... and leave it at that.
And I would like to point out that linux still IS mainly for enthusiasts. Duh. But look at it another way: who will you approach when you choose, say, a new car: a mechanic, or a guy off the street? The mechanic can tell you everything you want to know about that model of car, give you his advice on related models that might not have that problem, and even suggest dealers that can give you the best deal. That mechanic will also know what models have the most problems (high maintenance).
Make sure to bring that point up the next time somebody claims linux is "just for enthusiasts". You bet we are.
--
Well, it could go either way. On one hand, to quote Larry, "perl is a post-modern language"... and as such adapts to it's surroundings. If Microsoft Windows is it's surroundings, then it would make perfect sense to integrate API calls and the like into perl. Whether it's developed by a proprietary company, or developed openly, doesn't matter too much: what matters is that more developers will use perl.
free software broke into the market by creating better, faster, and cheaper products than commercial ventures did. I see no reason why it wouldn't be different here... once a idea reaches "critical mass", some developer will start the development of a free version of whatever module is in demand. The important thing here is.. perl will be exposed to alot more people.. which means that perl will be developed alot more quickly.
Maybe we will wind up paying for Feature X for awhile, but if enough people want it, a free version will be created.
--
Since a few people out there think that Windows 2000 will be 64 bit, I've searched, and found these links. NT4 is 64-bit.. mostly. win98 is not. Hopefully this will clear up the confusion....
Next Consumer Windows to be 98 Derivative Feb, 1999
NT5 officially 'Windows 2000' Oct, 1998
--
Windows 2000 itself isn't 64 bit. Never was supposed to be right off the bat.
I don't think you have a clue what you're talking about.
My dear AC, I believe you've answered your own question. No, it isn't supposed to be "right off the bat". They were pushing for 64 bit in W2K, which is why none of the windows 95/98/NT applications would be compatible with it, as I recall. That changed when they switched codebases.
--
Here's my read on it. Only a feeling, zero fact here, folks.
Microsoft is having a hell of a time getting their 64-bit version of Windows to work. Originally, this was called W2K, and would be based on the NT codebase. That didn't work, but I still think they're trying. Simply put, their current offerings suck, and they know it. W2K was supposed to address "system instability" problems. I think they've arrived at the conclusion that their code/compilers can't cut it, and now they're going for outside help. It's a huge undertaking. I don't think Microsoft, even being the world's biggest software outfit, can handle it.
They need Borland's expertise to get 64-bit Windows off the ground.
--