Wind River's acquisition of FreeBSD was to respond to Linux. Has to be. What other reason could have motivated the purchase? What did they really buy except a name (no real IP)?
Since the commercial threat of Linux has diminished (look at the market's reaction to Linux companies) Wind River doesn't need to maintain FreeBSD anymore.
Personally, I'm glad that FreeBSD won't be part of a marketing plan, a business model, or a competition strategy. The support structure for FreeBSD will be what it should be - developers writing code for the betterment of the code itself.
i hope we can analyze what ALL CAPS MEANS next in a future JonKatz article. I would really like to see what arises from such probing and insightful research.
just think of the possiblities!!
am i the only one who can smell a nobel prize for priceless research into the human condition?? i hope not! go jon!
Yeah, could you explain that last paragraph? That kinda threw me.
Great explanation of the issue, however, I am more of a programmer and had no idea what this was about, gut this clears it up considerably. Thanks for the info!
One question for you though, is there any way to distribute the risk of that one machine running the vHost redirection? It seems like if that machine was ever subjected to a dDos or went down for some reason, you'd be up the creek. The way it seems now is if a particular DNS server goes down, there is a backup, and sometimes the name to ip is sometimes cached anyway. How frustrating would it be to have your web server sitting totally idle because nobody can get to it due to a crashed vHost redirect!!!
bottom line, if Microsoft hadn't come along, everyone thinks that we'd still have an e-economy (whatever that is)? would tech jobs still be the best?
i have serious doubt that without a microsoft, the computing world would be like we know it. the entire economy wouldn't be "tech-based" like it is today.
and this is a point which i think is totally missed by the majority of the "anything microsoft is evil" weenies out there. yeah, they have some down right nasty business practices. that sucks, and that's life. get used to it. maybe you should try socialism. that'd be a fun field trip. something that needs to sink in, and obviously is not, is how easy they've made it to use computers. and this ease of use, such that the majority of problems can be fixed by a drooling monkey on the other end of a telephone (i'm referring to tech support here) can fix it, is a good thing. the spur of Windows-based machines has caused more PCs to be built, which has lowered hardware costs, which has been certainly a nice change from when RAM was $40 per MB.
yeah they bullied intel, yeah they made proprietary hardware standards. that's pretty evil. but any other market-driven technology company will tell you that there are no holds barred when going after the competition.
don't bother replying to this post if you're going to shove more anti-microsoft crap over my way. i'm sick of it.
zealotry aside, its important to recognize "what" happened on a larger scale: they brought the computing power of a spreadsheet to the masses. they made the technology that was so powerful and sharp around the edges home to millions of PCs.
true they didn't invent the internet (thanks Al!) or the browser, or a lot of the technology that they sell, but they found a way to bridge the gap between the uninformed computer user and some impressive computing. this is apparent when you compare simple tasks such as word processing 5 or 10 years ago to now; its within reach for a lot of PC users.
without a pretty interface, most of the people that bought PCs simply wouldn't have, and things would be a lot different.
in every story there are good guys and bad guys, depending upon your point of view, but it is both sides of the struggle that in one way or another contribute to the end result.
too excessive? nah, i'd say adding a warm mister to simulate giblets flying in your face after a nice frag would be a little too much. after using it for a while, of course.
this is a very good question that it think needs to be addressed with slackware.
developing a migration path between major releases of any operating system is very important for a few many different reasons.
i think that the lack of such a tool to upgrade either pieces or the whole distro is a bit of a limiting factor in not only new users trying the distro (who wants to install a new operating system and know that when the next release comes out they need to reformat?) but also for experienced users as well. maintenance is important, and upgrading software packages when there are strong motivators to do so is much more tedious manually doing it one by one than with some sort of automation.
this being said, i would like to know, what is the overall philosophy behind the slackware distribution? it seems to me that slacky is intended for the most adroit persons who are wary of new software releases (its getting better, but the install can be pretty tough, and most of the packages on slackware seem to be those versions that have been tried and tested - a contrast from some distros that throw the newest stable release of code on the system).
i can see the point in making a system such that it takes nothing for granted and relies on the administrator for everything; this is a pretty secure model to work from. but, what position do you see slackware taking in the future? unlike some other distros (debian, turboLinux, etc) there isn't a "profile" selection when installing, so what then is the overall direction that you are going, what need do you slackware filling right now, and what need do you see slackware filling in the future as some of the current needs change (administration requirements, etc)??
i have been using slackware for a long time; i like the overall distro, but think that it could be in danger of sliding into a pidgeon-hole, and never progressing further beyond that.
It interests me that there are several Anonymous Coward comments that are trashing someone as a "60 minutes wannabe," etc. when in reality he was asking valid questions. After reading some of the material on the main story link, I'd be nervous about buying into LinuxOne. Frankly the close ties that the CEO has to Global whatver (the company he donated 50% of his stock to) just seems a little too odd for my tastes. And the writer was right on when asking things like about stock freezes for that other company. I looked at the site for LinuxOne a while ago, and wasn't to impressed. After hearing all of this stuff being tossed around, I think that LinuxOne is not on the up and up. What do you guys think given the recent deveopments? That would be an interesting poll;)
who needs this object oriented crap? are you serious?
the string class rocks, it makes string manipulation a lot easier. i wrote a small app in c++, and had to build my own tokenizer. not a problem, but having to build it was lame. java's got a string tokenizer. it makes parsing a lot easier, a breeze, actually.
one thing about java that literally feeds the fire of my laziness is the automatic garbage collection. you gotta give it up for that.
does anyone see the connection?? i think that this post has had the effect of drawing huge blinking radioactive neon arrows toward that fact. this thread is pretty weak.
wow. that is amazingly informed. your obvious higher intelligence has produced a great argument, founded in well prepared facts and excellent observations.
one point escapes me: if you're so anti-linux, why are you reading such a publication as subersive as slashdot?
oh, and please note: you seem to speak with the voice of truth. why post anonymously?
have a great day, and i hope when puberty starts, it isn't too rough on ya.
of course the sites were/.-ed what else would someone expect? >:)
did anyone else get some strange timeouts from adfu.blockstackers.com ?? these kept the pages from loading because all of the images arent declared in size...thank goodness for stop button. wish i had a 'don't load images' button too.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't know what RvB was either, but checked it out tonight. Thought it was hilarious.
"Bitch, camper!"
"Its a legitimate strategy!"
Had me in stiches.
"Kill the reds, kill the reds, kill the reds..."
"What are they saying??"
"Uhh, it wouldn't make you happy"
Ilarious.
Wind River's acquisition of FreeBSD was to respond to Linux. Has to be. What other reason could have motivated the purchase? What did they really buy except a name (no real IP)?
Since the commercial threat of Linux has diminished (look at the market's reaction to Linux companies) Wind River doesn't need to maintain FreeBSD anymore.
Personally, I'm glad that FreeBSD won't be part of a marketing plan, a business model, or a competition strategy. The support structure for FreeBSD will be what it should be - developers writing code for the betterment of the code itself.
First the FatBoys break up, now this
i hope we can analyze what ALL CAPS MEANS next in a future JonKatz article. I would really like to see what arises from such probing and insightful research.
just think of the possiblities!!
am i the only one who can smell a nobel prize for priceless research into the human condition?? i hope not! go jon!
Yeah, could you explain that last paragraph? That kinda threw me.
Great explanation of the issue, however, I am more of a programmer and had no idea what this was about, gut this clears it up considerably. Thanks for the info!
One question for you though, is there any way to distribute the risk of that one machine running the vHost redirection? It seems like if that machine was ever subjected to a dDos or went down for some reason, you'd be up the creek. The way it seems now is if a particular DNS server goes down, there is a backup, and sometimes the name to ip is sometimes cached anyway. How frustrating would it be to have your web server sitting totally idle because nobody can get to it due to a crashed vHost redirect!!!
bottom line, if Microsoft hadn't come along, everyone thinks that we'd still have an e-economy (whatever that is)? would tech jobs still be the best?
i have serious doubt that without a microsoft, the computing world would be like we know it. the entire economy wouldn't be "tech-based" like it is today.
and this is a point which i think is totally missed by the majority of the "anything microsoft is evil" weenies out there. yeah, they have some down right nasty business practices. that sucks, and that's life. get used to it. maybe you should try socialism. that'd be a fun field trip. something that needs to sink in, and obviously is not, is how easy they've made it to use computers. and this ease of use, such that the majority of problems can be fixed by a drooling monkey on the other end of a telephone (i'm referring to tech support here) can fix it, is a good thing. the spur of Windows-based machines has caused more PCs to be built, which has lowered hardware costs, which has been certainly a nice change from when RAM was $40 per MB.
yeah they bullied intel, yeah they made proprietary hardware standards. that's pretty evil. but any other market-driven technology company will tell you that there are no holds barred when going after the competition.
don't bother replying to this post if you're going to shove more anti-microsoft crap over my way. i'm sick of it.
zealotry aside, its important to recognize "what" happened on a larger scale: they brought the computing power of a spreadsheet to the masses. they made the technology that was so powerful and sharp around the edges home to millions of PCs.
true they didn't invent the internet (thanks Al!) or the browser, or a lot of the technology that they sell, but they found a way to bridge the gap between the uninformed computer user and some impressive computing. this is apparent when you compare simple tasks such as word processing 5 or 10 years ago to now; its within reach for a lot of PC users.
without a pretty interface, most of the people that bought PCs simply wouldn't have, and things would be a lot different.
in every story there are good guys and bad guys, depending upon your point of view, but it is both sides of the struggle that in one way or another contribute to the end result.
too excessive?
nah, i'd say adding a warm mister to simulate giblets flying in your face after a nice frag would be a little too much.
after using it for a while, of course.
this is a very good question that it think needs to be addressed with slackware.
developing a migration path between major releases of any operating system is very important for a few many different reasons.
i think that the lack of such a tool to upgrade either pieces or the whole distro is a bit of a limiting factor in not only new users trying the distro (who wants to install a new operating system and know that when the next release comes out they need to reformat?) but also for experienced users as well. maintenance is important, and upgrading software packages when there are strong motivators to do so is much more tedious manually doing it one by one than with some sort of automation.
this being said, i would like to know, what is the overall philosophy behind the slackware distribution? it seems to me that slacky is intended for the most adroit persons who are wary of new software releases (its getting better, but the install can be pretty tough, and most of the packages on slackware seem to be those versions that have been tried and tested - a contrast from some distros that throw the newest stable release of code on the system).
i can see the point in making a system such that it takes nothing for granted and relies on the administrator for everything; this is a pretty secure model to work from. but, what position do you see slackware taking in the future? unlike some other distros (debian, turboLinux, etc) there isn't a "profile" selection when installing, so what then is the overall direction that you are going, what need do you slackware filling right now, and what need do you see slackware filling in the future as some of the current needs change (administration requirements, etc)??
i have been using slackware for a long time; i like the overall distro, but think that it could be in danger of sliding into a pidgeon-hole, and never progressing further beyond that.
what do you think?
It interests me that there are several Anonymous Coward comments that are trashing someone as a "60 minutes wannabe," etc. when in reality he was asking valid questions. After reading some of the material on the main story link, I'd be nervous about buying into LinuxOne. Frankly the close ties that the CEO has to Global whatver (the company he donated 50% of his stock to) just seems a little too odd for my tastes. And the writer was right on when asking things like about stock freezes for that other company. I looked at the site for LinuxOne a while ago, and wasn't to impressed. After hearing all of this stuff being tossed around, I think that LinuxOne is not on the up and up. What do you guys think given the recent deveopments? That would be an interesting poll ;)
who needs this object oriented crap? are you serious?
the string class rocks, it makes string manipulation a lot easier. i wrote a small app in c++, and had to build my own tokenizer. not a problem, but having to build it was lame. java's got a string tokenizer. it makes parsing a lot easier, a breeze, actually.
one thing about java that literally feeds the fire of my laziness is the automatic garbage collection. you gotta give it up for that.
this is pointless.
how about we simply stop replying to the posts in this particular thread.
this is obviously not going anywhere.
i am supposing that when i go to hell as a "fucking linux user" i will have to press "control-alt-delete" to log in??
>:)
does anyone see the connection?? i think that this post has had the effect of drawing huge blinking radioactive neon arrows toward that fact. this thread is pretty weak.
wow. that is amazingly informed. your obvious higher intelligence has produced a great argument, founded in well prepared facts and excellent observations.
one point escapes me: if you're so anti-linux, why are you reading such a publication as subersive as slashdot?
oh, and please note: you seem to speak with the voice of truth. why post anonymously?
have a great day, and i hope when puberty starts, it isn't too rough on ya.
that is pretty damn funny. heh. i agree that Katz articles need to be taken with a grain of salt. actually, a whole damn bottle. :)
oh yeah. i think so. mirror anyone???
of course the sites were /.-ed what else would someone expect? >:)
did anyone else get some strange timeouts from adfu.blockstackers.com ?? these kept the pages from loading because all of the images arent declared in size...thank goodness for stop button. wish i had a 'don't load images' button too.
later...
yes yes yes yes yes. eudora rox!!!