"They are something else, and therefore not entitled to the rights of either POWs or noncombatants. and certainly they are not entitled to the rights of BOTH."
They are human beings. As human beings they are endowed by their creator certain inaliable rights. First and foremost amongst these is the right not to be tortured.
Do you know why people are writing AJAX applications? It's because Sun failed the promise of java. Do you know why there are so few java gui apps? Because Sun failed java. Do you know why Ruby on Rails exist? Because Sun failed Java.
Java was all full of promise. Cross platform, run from the browser, free yourself from the drudgery of writing stateless apps using http and and that abortion known as javascript, no more learning 15 different gui toolkits, etc.
Sun failed misreably in fulfilling the promise of java. They took forever to get swing to perform at 70% of native applications, they still don't have VM sharing, java web start is still the ugliest and worst behaving application ever put out by a fortune 500 company.
So yes there are a billion java programmers all writing web apps but it's become a ghetto. Java was destined for bigger things.
Unfortunately when you buy a mac laptop you have to get applecare. Their quality control is just lousy. They provide nice service when things go wrong but things go wrong way too often.
"Even Microsoft cannot continue to lose money forever on XBox."
Maybe not forever but for the next thousand years or so should not be a problem for them at all. MS has a monopoly on operating systems and office software so they are able leverage their profits from those products to "dump" other items on the market. As long as they maintain their monopolies they can continue to dump xboxes on to the market forever. They could even afford to give them away if wanted it.
Iraqis were starving but mostly that was due to the sanctions imposed on them. Before the sanctions it was a fairly well off population living under a secular socialist dictatorship.
The sanctions did cause immense suffering mainly because they were implemented after Bush the elder destroyed a lot of infrasture like water treatment plants, factories, roads, bridges, electrical generation facilites etc. The UN estimated that more then a million people died as a consequence including hundreds of thousands of children.
Having said that I for one am greateful there is an ISP in iraq. The voices of the iraqis would not be heard otherwise. I have learned so much from reading the iraqi bloggers. I would reccomend everybody else seek out the read them too. Your news outlets are not giving the real story (if you live in the US).
Forget the vote. Work for real change like an end to winner take all, instant runoff (or whatever else rocks your boat) something like that. We are never going to have a more represtitive form of govt like the parliments in the rest of the world but we can at least work to make the third party candidates matter but getting rid of the black and white voting.
"Postgres provides a MUCH more flexible infrastructure than MySQL for doing real clustering and replication... unfortunately no one's seriously built up that infrastructure."
Yea, I would love multi master replication or even replication over unreliable links. Too bad I can't have either with postgres. Master slave over a local LAN is all you get really. Good for failover but not much else. Having said that failover is better then nothing!
The guy was asking about whether he should go into the IT industry given the likelyhood of oursourcing. He was clearly concerned about job security.
My advice to him was to look into the trades. Plumbers, elections, heating and AC, etc all pay as much if not more then your typical IT monkey jobs and they will never be outsourced to india.
"Um, it doesn't cost nothing. My time or the OP's time costs the company money. That is the point you have so obviously have missed."
Is it your position that implementing a clustering database using a better named product would not take of your time and the OP's time?
"For example: If it takes me a day to learn how to install & configure "Ultra Monkey" on a box, then that costs the company a day of my time not doing something else productive."
This presumes that the decision makers are considering factors such as ease of use, speed of implementation and such. You have told me that your management (and you because you are in management) base your decisions based on the name of the product not the time it takes to implement it.
Finally a clue for you. Databases are hard. Implementing a clustered failover solution is going to take a lot of time no matter what you use. Replication in Mysql is easier to set up then replication in oracle or sql server (I know because I have done all of the above). Unfortunately none of that matters in your organization, you have already dismissed the Mysql solution because of the name of an associated product.
When the clothes you buy, the bricks that were used in your house and everything else you buy or use has been made with the labor of people living in slums it's easy to work for peanuts.
I was talking about being a plummer in the US, I don't know why anybody would be a plummer in india. A plummer in the US is likely to make as much money as an IT worker, will never have his job outsourced to india, and as a bonus gets to make a living in an honest proffession devoid of petty office politics and navelgazing that is so prevelant in the IT industry.
"Hmm... While one certainly does not need a check to use an open source software, one does need to get a permission to use company resources to implement the project (people, to be precise) which involves submitting certain documentation known as project charter, or project specs."
OK let's see how this conversation might go...
"sir, we are going to implement a clustered failover database so that we don't have any downtime and our customers will be happy, the best part is that it's not going to cost anything!."
"nothing?"
"Nothing!. Not for the database, not for the clustering software, no licenses, no need to worry about dual core licensing issues, nothing at all"
"great what is it called?"
"The database is called mysql and the clustering software is called ultra monkey"
"WHAT!!!!. I refuse to have something called ultra monkey in my company. How dare you install something called ultra monkey. Here is a check for 80 thousand dollars, now go and install an oracle cluster. Oh and you are fired for even saying ultra monkey in my presence"
"but i have earned my status by working 10-12 hours a day 6 days a week. "
I called you company a septic tank because on in a septic tank can people who judge products and technologies based on name can rise to the top. These types of organizations are run by people who are incapable of making sound decisions, they are incapable of evaluating products on merit. They look at the name and if they don't like the name they reject it no matter what other merits the product may have.
You worked hard to get promoted in a company run by imbeciles (by your own admission). The fact that these guys promoted you tells me that you were promoted because you had the right name and you "looked the part". It had nothing to do with your performance, you yourself admitted that performance does not enter into the decision making process at your company.
"and sometimes needs to be run by not-so-open-minded people who happen to write the check."
Write a check? It's an open source program. Oh and when was the last time you wrote THE NAME OF THE PRODUCT on a check? You write the check out to the company, is the company named ultra monkey?
"and sometimes needs to be run by not-so-open-minded people who happen to write the check."
Just go download it. You don't need a check.
"At least those a my thoughts."
Well we now know why you are a CTO. You have cleary risen/floated up the septic tank that is your corporation. Next time don't write the name of the product where the name of the company should go, your checks should clear faster that way.
Anybody else getting tired of the "we don't like the names" troll?
The people who wrote switchtower (cool name) got sued and had to switch over to capistrano (a crappy name). This happens all the time. If you name your product something that's even remotely decent you will get sued by someone.
Let's also consider the fact that we may not want people who choose products based on name as the userbase for open source products. They are clearly not going to contribute anything at all and intead be BOFHs who are a strain on a community. They will yell and scream about anything and everything while sucking up the resources of the more productive members of the community who are trying to help people.
Finally when you visit your CTO who chooses products based on name only tell them it's named the-name-of-your-CTOs-son-or-daughter. They will love the fact that it's named after their daughter and it will really stroke their ego. Since these guys make every decision based on stupid criterea like name you will be golden. Hell tell them it's named after him!. That ought to stroke his ego. Thell him the one of the developers read some article by him and was so impressed he decided to name the product after him!.
One important reason why developers can work for cheap in india is the prevelance of slave, indentured and child labor there. Because of a permanent underclass of slaves and near slaves the developers get all their needs for housing, food, clothing etc met dirt cheap. When your bricks are made by 14 year olds who have been sold into slavery it's pretty cheap to build a house.
If India ever outlaws child labor or the buying and selling of humans and gives the untouchables full rights the cost of development will go up there and the outsources will move to africa or use chinese prison laborers.
In actually a plummer gets just as much money as a code monkey if not more and your job is not likely to be outsourced. Think about it.
"I wasn't criticizing developers in my original post."
Yes you were. You said flat out that developers are not capable of communicating with users. Do you need me to go back and copy and paste your own statement?
"Thanks for proving my point."
No thank you for proving my point. Now go back to pissing on developers till they give you a free copy of photoshop or autocad or quicken. No, No, don't get up. There is no need for you to do anything at all, no don't bother reading the documentation either. Just hang out at slashdot calling us names, that works great.
As for your other point. If you subscribe to an unstable repo you will always get the latest software. Beware though it's called unstable for a reason.
"Because the users, including the developers, are the reason we have software."
That's the reason we have commercial software. The users want stuff, some company develops software to give the users what they want, the users pay for the rights to use that software under the terms dictated by the company.
"Asking for software that prioritizes users, including developers who use it, isn't pissing on those people."
You are right. But that's not whats going on is it? What is going is that/. the newsgroups, the listserves are all full of users doing nothing but hurling insults and yes PISSING on developers for not giving them the exact same UI as a commercial product, asking them to GASP read the docs to get their answer, or because the developers keep telling them 9truthfully) that the problem lies with the device driver/harware manufacturer or the user.
"developers are often not qualified to communicate with the people who use the software, including deciding what those users want."
yes it's the fault of those idiot developers who lack social skills to communicate with the most reverend users. People who write softare are simply not qualified to talk to human beings are they?
This is exactly what I am talking about. Here you are pissing on the developers. There is no other way to put this most insulting statement. Have you once considered that the users are the ones too stupid to talk to the developers? Ya think that might be possible?
What an odd statement. So you would rather vote for an incompetent, incorehent, illeterate war pig, chicken hawk then a lying senator?
Holy crap!. At least Kerry could carry on a conversation in english and not embarass the nation in front of the entire world. Oh and how could kerry possibly done a worse job? How could anybody?
First of all developers are users too. Secondly the users just want more stuff without ever once lifting a finger to do anything. As a rule they don't even say thank you. They get ubuntu and all they can do is to bitch and moan about how gimp isn't photoshop and that it won't run quicken.
Personally i think it's time the users stopped pissing on people who give them free software, maybe then there will be greater communication between them.
Yes you should never argue with somebody who does not agree with you.
If you want to go along believing that there is nothing wrong with aiding and abetting MS and being a part of the harm they cause consumers and the IT industry at large then by all means wallow in your delusion.
All i am asking you to do is to stand up and take personal responsibility for your part in the evil empire.
"Do you guys honestly think that every product made in MS is done via evil means?"
No to evil ends, there is a difference.
"That every decision being made is anti-competitive, screws over customers, kills babies, etc.?"
You keep falling back to this straw men. I think it's telling that the only way you can defend your company is to say it doesn't kill babies. Hey guys look at me, I don't kill babies, aren't I great? You really should set your moral goals higher then "at least I don't kill babies" because even Jeffrey Dahmer can make that claim.
"But as I said before, you probably won't believe me. It's a lot easier for folks to make assumptions and think that everything is so black and white. Sorry if you think that way, that we're all horrible people.:\"
You work for a horrible company which does horrible things. If you want to pretend that none of that evil sticks on you then by all means do so. The fact is that you are a vital part of a machinery of evil. You participate willingly and that makes you partially responsible for everything MS does.
"Just following orders" does not absolve you of your moral culpability. Never has, never will.
Stand up and take responsibility for your actions.
I am sorry but the supreme court disagrees with you. Although a corporation is not a person it is considered an entitity which enjoys all the rights of a human being (and only a tiny percentage of the responsibilites).
They are just like people in the eyes of the law, they even have second amendment rights to arm themsleves.
Slashdot Mirror
"They are something else, and therefore not entitled to the rights of either POWs or noncombatants. and certainly they are not entitled to the rights of BOTH."
They are human beings. As human beings they are endowed by their creator certain inaliable rights. First and foremost amongst these is the right not to be tortured.
"Most dont know or want to know what pop/smtp/imap are"
And here I thought the purpose of school was to teach people not whore out their students to corporations.
Lets call spade a spade here. Schools just sold their students to MS. There is no other way to look at it.
Future civilizations will find all our plastic bits and try to reconstruct our society from them.
Do you know why people are writing AJAX applications? It's because Sun failed the promise of java. Do you know why there are so few java gui apps? Because Sun failed java. Do you know why Ruby on Rails exist? Because Sun failed Java.
Java was all full of promise. Cross platform, run from the browser, free yourself from the drudgery of writing stateless apps using http and and that abortion known as javascript, no more learning 15 different gui toolkits, etc.
Sun failed misreably in fulfilling the promise of java. They took forever to get swing to perform at 70% of native applications, they still don't have VM sharing, java web start is still the ugliest and worst behaving application ever put out by a fortune 500 company.
So yes there are a billion java programmers all writing web apps but it's become a ghetto. Java was destined for bigger things.
Unfortunately when you buy a mac laptop you have to get applecare. Their quality control is just lousy. They provide nice service when things go wrong but things go wrong way too often.
"Even Microsoft cannot continue to lose money forever on XBox."
Maybe not forever but for the next thousand years or so should not be a problem for them at all. MS has a monopoly on operating systems and office software so they are able leverage their profits from those products to "dump" other items on the market. As long as they maintain their monopolies they can continue to dump xboxes on to the market forever. They could even afford to give them away if wanted it.
Iraqis were starving but mostly that was due to the sanctions imposed on them. Before the sanctions it was a fairly well off population living under a secular socialist dictatorship.
The sanctions did cause immense suffering mainly because they were implemented after Bush the elder destroyed a lot of infrasture like water treatment plants, factories, roads, bridges, electrical generation facilites etc. The UN estimated that more then a million people died as a consequence including hundreds of thousands of children.
Having said that I for one am greateful there is an ISP in iraq. The voices of the iraqis would not be heard otherwise. I have learned so much from reading the iraqi bloggers. I would reccomend everybody else seek out the read them too. Your news outlets are not giving the real story (if you live in the US).
Forget the vote. Work for real change like an end to winner take all, instant runoff (or whatever else rocks your boat) something like that. We are never going to have a more represtitive form of govt like the parliments in the rest of the world but we can at least work to make the third party candidates matter but getting rid of the black and white voting.
"Postgres provides a MUCH more flexible infrastructure than MySQL for doing real clustering and replication ... unfortunately no one's seriously built up that infrastructure."
Yea, I would love multi master replication or even replication over unreliable links. Too bad I can't have either with postgres. Master slave over a local LAN is all you get really. Good for failover but not much else. Having said that failover is better then nothing!
The guy was asking about whether he should go into the IT industry given the likelyhood of oursourcing. He was clearly concerned about job security.
My advice to him was to look into the trades. Plumbers, elections, heating and AC, etc all pay as much if not more then your typical IT monkey jobs and they will never be outsourced to india.
Simple no?
"Um, it doesn't cost nothing. My time or the OP's time costs the company money. That is the point you have so obviously have missed."
Is it your position that implementing a clustering database using a better named product would not take of your time and the OP's time?
"For example: If it takes me a day to learn how to install & configure "Ultra Monkey" on a box, then that costs the company a day of my time not doing something else productive."
This presumes that the decision makers are considering factors such as ease of use, speed of implementation and such. You have told me that your management (and you because you are in management) base your decisions based on the name of the product not the time it takes to implement it.
Finally a clue for you. Databases are hard. Implementing a clustered failover solution is going to take a lot of time no matter what you use. Replication in Mysql is easier to set up then replication in oracle or sql server (I know because I have done all of the above). Unfortunately none of that matters in your organization, you have already dismissed the Mysql solution because of the name of an associated product.
When the clothes you buy, the bricks that were used in your house and everything else you buy or use has been made with the labor of people living in slums it's easy to work for peanuts.
I was talking about being a plummer in the US, I don't know why anybody would be a plummer in india. A plummer in the US is likely to make as much money as an IT worker, will never have his job outsourced to india, and as a bonus gets to make a living in an honest proffession devoid of petty office politics and navelgazing that is so prevelant in the IT industry.
So you are saying that your use of the word "often" mitigates on your pissing on the developers. OK you can continue to believe that if you want.
People who give me free software are "often" idiots who are unable to communicate human beings.
Is that what you were saying there?
"Hmm... While one certainly does not need a check to use an open source software, one does need to get a permission to use company resources to implement the project (people, to be precise) which involves submitting certain documentation known as project charter, or project specs."
OK let's see how this conversation might go...
"sir, we are going to implement a clustered failover database so that we don't have any downtime and our customers will be happy, the best part is that it's not going to cost anything!."
"nothing?"
"Nothing!. Not for the database, not for the clustering software, no licenses, no need to worry about dual core licensing issues, nothing at all"
"great what is it called?"
"The database is called mysql and the clustering software is called ultra monkey"
"WHAT!!!!. I refuse to have something called ultra monkey in my company. How dare you install something called ultra monkey. Here is a check for 80 thousand dollars, now go and install an oracle cluster. Oh and you are fired for even saying ultra monkey in my presence"
"but i have earned my status by working 10-12 hours a day 6 days a week. "
I called you company a septic tank because on in a septic tank can people who judge products and technologies based on name can rise to the top. These types of organizations are run by people who are incapable of making sound decisions, they are incapable of evaluating products on merit. They look at the name and if they don't like the name they reject it no matter what other merits the product may have.
You worked hard to get promoted in a company run by imbeciles (by your own admission). The fact that these guys promoted you tells me that you were promoted because you had the right name and you "looked the part". It had nothing to do with your performance, you yourself admitted that performance does not enter into the decision making process at your company.
"and sometimes needs to be run by not-so-open-minded people who happen to write the check."
Write a check? It's an open source program. Oh and when was the last time you wrote THE NAME OF THE PRODUCT on a check? You write the check out to the company, is the company named ultra monkey?
"and sometimes needs to be run by not-so-open-minded people who happen to write the check."
Just go download it. You don't need a check.
"At least those a my thoughts."
Well we now know why you are a CTO. You have cleary risen/floated up the septic tank that is your corporation. Next time don't write the name of the product where the name of the company should go, your checks should clear faster that way.
Anybody else getting tired of the "we don't like the names" troll?
The people who wrote switchtower (cool name) got sued and had to switch over to capistrano (a crappy name). This happens all the time. If you name your product something that's even remotely decent you will get sued by someone.
Let's also consider the fact that we may not want people who choose products based on name as the userbase for open source products. They are clearly not going to contribute anything at all and intead be BOFHs who are a strain on a community. They will yell and scream about anything and everything while sucking up the resources of the more productive members of the community who are trying to help people.
Finally when you visit your CTO who chooses products based on name only tell them it's named the-name-of-your-CTOs-son-or-daughter. They will love the fact that it's named after their daughter and it will really stroke their ego. Since these guys make every decision based on stupid criterea like name you will be golden. Hell tell them it's named after him!. That ought to stroke his ego. Thell him the one of the developers read some article by him and was so impressed he decided to name the product after him!.
One important reason why developers can work for cheap in india is the prevelance of slave, indentured and child labor there. Because of a permanent underclass of slaves and near slaves the developers get all their needs for housing, food, clothing etc met dirt cheap. When your bricks are made by 14 year olds who have been sold into slavery it's pretty cheap to build a house.
If India ever outlaws child labor or the buying and selling of humans and gives the untouchables full rights the cost of development will go up there and the outsources will move to africa or use chinese prison laborers.
In actually a plummer gets just as much money as a code monkey if not more and your job is not likely to be outsourced. Think about it.
"I wasn't criticizing developers in my original post."
Yes you were. You said flat out that developers are not capable of communicating with users. Do you need me to go back and copy and paste your own statement?
"Thanks for proving my point."
No thank you for proving my point. Now go back to pissing on developers till they give you a free copy of photoshop or autocad or quicken. No, No, don't get up. There is no need for you to do anything at all, no don't bother reading the documentation either. Just hang out at slashdot calling us names, that works great.
Firefox does do that. It updates itself.
As for your other point. If you subscribe to an unstable repo you will always get the latest software. Beware though it's called unstable for a reason.
"Because the users, including the developers, are the reason we have software."
/. the newsgroups, the listserves are all full of users doing nothing but hurling insults and yes PISSING on developers for not giving them the exact same UI as a commercial product, asking them to GASP read the docs to get their answer, or because the developers keep telling them 9truthfully) that the problem lies with the device driver/harware manufacturer or the user.
That's the reason we have commercial software. The users want stuff, some company develops software to give the users what they want, the users pay for the rights to use that software under the terms dictated by the company.
"Asking for software that prioritizes users, including developers who use it, isn't pissing on those people."
You are right. But that's not whats going on is it? What is going is that
"developers are often not qualified to communicate with the people who use the software, including deciding what those users want."
yes it's the fault of those idiot developers who lack social skills to communicate with the most reverend users. People who write softare are simply not qualified to talk to human beings are they?
This is exactly what I am talking about. Here you are pissing on the developers. There is no other way to put this most insulting statement. Have you once considered that the users are the ones too stupid to talk to the developers? Ya think that might be possible?
What an odd statement. So you would rather vote for an incompetent, incorehent, illeterate war pig, chicken hawk then a lying senator?
Holy crap!. At least Kerry could carry on a conversation in english and not embarass the nation in front of the entire world. Oh and how could kerry possibly done a worse job? How could anybody?
Why? Really why?
First of all developers are users too. Secondly the users just want more stuff without ever once lifting a finger to do anything. As a rule they don't even say thank you. They get ubuntu and all they can do is to bitch and moan about how gimp isn't photoshop and that it won't run quicken.
Personally i think it's time the users stopped pissing on people who give them free software, maybe then there will be greater communication between them.
Yes you should never argue with somebody who does not agree with you.
If you want to go along believing that there is nothing wrong with aiding and abetting MS and being a part of the harm they cause consumers and the IT industry at large then by all means wallow in your delusion.
All i am asking you to do is to stand up and take personal responsibility for your part in the evil empire.
"Do you guys honestly think that every product made in MS is done via evil means?"
:\"
No to evil ends, there is a difference.
"That every decision being made is anti-competitive, screws over customers, kills babies, etc.?"
You keep falling back to this straw men. I think it's telling that the only way you can defend your company is to say it doesn't kill babies. Hey guys look at me, I don't kill babies, aren't I great? You really should set your moral goals higher then "at least I don't kill babies" because even Jeffrey Dahmer can make that claim.
"But as I said before, you probably won't believe me. It's a lot easier for folks to make assumptions and think that everything is so black and white. Sorry if you think that way, that we're all horrible people.
You work for a horrible company which does horrible things. If you want to pretend that none of that evil sticks on you then by all means do so. The fact is that you are a vital part of a machinery of evil. You participate willingly and that makes you partially responsible for everything MS does.
"Just following orders" does not absolve you of your moral culpability. Never has, never will.
Stand up and take responsibility for your actions.
I am sorry but the supreme court disagrees with you. Although a corporation is not a person it is considered an entitity which enjoys all the rights of a human being (and only a tiny percentage of the responsibilites).
They are just like people in the eyes of the law, they even have second amendment rights to arm themsleves.