"I don't believe it is a true statement that IE doesn't have the features that our customers want," Steve Vamos
"I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons... I don't know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons. That's fact number one. Rumsfeld
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Donal d_Rumsfeld [disinfopedia.org]
Now isn't that better?
..from the Bush administration?
"I don't believe it is a true statement that IE doesn't have the features that our customers want," Steve Vamos
"I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons... I don't know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons. That's fact number one.
Rumsfeld
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Donal d_Rumsfeld
Linux might be free, but Windows came installed on my aging PC. Why remove it immediately and install Linux? Windows does not cater to me. I write cross platform apps for a living and I have always loved the convenience of the command line and the Unix philosophy of clean interfaces and small programs.
I don't use Visual C++, so the tools for those programmers do not allure me. If Microsoft had catered to Unix programmers a bit more in the early days, Linux would never be where it is today-the de facto operating system (all other open source OSes and OS X included) for people who thrive on the command line.
I'm a programmer for a library automation software provider. The switch to Linux for many libraries just isn't practical. Of course the desktop licenses for Microsoft aren't cheap, but even more expensive are the licenses from the ILS (integrated library system) providers. Of course, most of the viable solutions are Microsoft only and the cost of switching to a Linux or cross platform solution, like the one developed here, is just not feasible.
The initial costs of one of these systems can be very expensive; remember that many libraries interact in 'consortia', trading books and data in many ways to reduce cost. To change software vendors is a very expensive project indeed, one that can cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus, of course, the yearly service contracts for support, bugfixes, upgrades..
The company that I work for uses client side Java and C on the server side. Most of our libraries use Windows on the client side, but some use Mac and the use of Linux is on the rise. The server also runs on Linux, but HP and Sun currently see almost all of the action here, but I suspect this will change especially as some of the libraries that have switched to Linux on the server report of their success (cross your fingers) and cost savings.
The biggest use of our cross-platform capability to this point has definitely been by our marketing department. I do suspect however that this ability is attractive to those wiley librarians, who are skeptical of most things and especially so of Microsoft.
I suspect that as the cost of library software increases the attraction of Linux will also increase. And yes, there are Open Source efforts in the library automation domain (see
http://www.ala.org/ala/lita/litapublications/ital/ volume21no1.htm#anchor338989
for an overview) but from what I've seen and read, they've got a long way to go before they are a viable solution for anything other than the simplest library. This is one programmer that won't be spending their time contributing to an open source library system.. 40hrs a week is plenty for me.:)
Slashdot Mirror
"I don't believe it is a true statement that IE doesn't have the features that our customers want," Steve Vamos
"I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons... I don't know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons. That's fact number one. Rumsfeld
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Donal d_Rumsfeld [disinfopedia.org]
Now isn't that better?
D0de, learn how to format your comments. Jeez. L0ser.
..from the Bush administration? "I don't believe it is a true statement that IE doesn't have the features that our customers want," Steve Vamos "I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons... I don't know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons. That's fact number one. Rumsfeld http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Donal d_Rumsfeld
Those who cannot laugh 'bitch'
Linux might be free, but Windows came installed on my aging PC. Why remove it immediately and install Linux? Windows does not cater to me. I write cross platform apps for a living and I have always loved the convenience of the command line and the Unix philosophy of clean interfaces and small programs. I don't use Visual C++, so the tools for those programmers do not allure me. If Microsoft had catered to Unix programmers a bit more in the early days, Linux would never be where it is today-the de facto operating system (all other open source OSes and OS X included) for people who thrive on the command line.
I'm a programmer for a library automation software provider. The switch to Linux for many libraries just isn't practical. Of course the desktop licenses for Microsoft aren't cheap, but even more expensive are the licenses from the ILS (integrated library system) providers. Of course, most of the viable solutions are Microsoft only and the cost of switching to a Linux or cross platform solution, like the one developed here, is just not feasible. The initial costs of one of these systems can be very expensive; remember that many libraries interact in 'consortia', trading books and data in many ways to reduce cost. To change software vendors is a very expensive project indeed, one that can cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus, of course, the yearly service contracts for support, bugfixes, upgrades.. The company that I work for uses client side Java and C on the server side. Most of our libraries use Windows on the client side, but some use Mac and the use of Linux is on the rise. The server also runs on Linux, but HP and Sun currently see almost all of the action here, but I suspect this will change especially as some of the libraries that have switched to Linux on the server report of their success (cross your fingers) and cost savings. The biggest use of our cross-platform capability to this point has definitely been by our marketing department. I do suspect however that this ability is attractive to those wiley librarians, who are skeptical of most things and especially so of Microsoft. I suspect that as the cost of library software increases the attraction of Linux will also increase. And yes, there are Open Source efforts in the library automation domain (see http://www.ala.org/ala/lita/litapublications/ital/ volume21no1.htm#anchor338989
for an overview) but from what I've seen and read, they've got a long way to go before they are a viable solution for anything other than the simplest library. This is one programmer that won't be spending their time contributing to an open source library system.. 40hrs a week is plenty for me. :)