Disclaimer: I work for FedEx, my comments are my own.
From the Article Link:The incorporation of three different types of radio
communication links in each unit will ensure that package delivery information is available to customers almost instantaneously...
FedEx has done this sort of real-time updates on packages since the early 1980's when we started using the DADS radio network. Thats right, back when I was using an Apple IIe, and many slashdoter's weren't even in Kindergarten, FedEx had near-time tracking updates on packages. Let's not act like it's rocket science.
As for running Linux on the device, that's not really important, except for a coolness factor. I do know that FedEx has many projects headed towards Linux and OpenSource.
Funding an Open Source startup seems silly too. Why not just hire experienced Open Source talent. That's what we've been doing @ FedEx. Seems to work pretty well provided the hacker-types can live in the business-type environment. 200k person companies aren't for everybody.
Anyways.. I digress. Cool hand-held custom built. Neat. They still call themselves "brown" and that speaks for itself.;-)
Aren't you glad nobody made this obversation about Open-Source in the early '90s?
Where would the world be without forward thinking?
For those who've been criticizing why it's just another spliter faction from {Free|Open|Net}BSD, Did you even bother to read their annoucement?
Here's an Excerpt from the Announcement:
The TrustedBSD extensions will be made available under a two-clause BSD-style license , which permits integration of the extensions into projects under almost any licensing model, both free and commercial.
A web site is now online to act as a central source of information about the project, and as a distribution point for code not yet committed to the FreeBSD source repository.
Furthermore, there is some POSIX-1E ACL support in FreeBSD 4.0-RELEASE. So your "18 months" of hard work is well underway.
Robert Watson, from the TrustedBSD project wrote them.
Slashdot Mirror
From the Article Link: The incorporation of three different types of radio communication links in each unit will ensure that package delivery information is available to customers almost instantaneously...
FedEx has done this sort of real-time updates on packages since the early 1980's when we started using the DADS radio network. Thats right, back when I was using an Apple IIe, and many slashdoter's weren't even in Kindergarten, FedEx had near-time tracking updates on packages. Let's not act like it's rocket science.
As for running Linux on the device, that's not really important, except for a coolness factor. I do know that FedEx has many projects headed towards Linux and OpenSource.
Funding an Open Source startup seems silly too. Why not just hire experienced Open Source talent. That's what we've been doing @ FedEx. Seems to work pretty well provided the hacker-types can live in the business-type environment. 200k person companies aren't for everybody.
Anyways.. I digress. Cool hand-held custom built. Neat. They still call themselves "brown" and that speaks for itself. ;-)
Aren't you glad nobody made this obversation about Open-Source in the early '90s?
Where would the world be without forward thinking?
For those who've been criticizing why it's just another spliter faction from {Free|Open|Net}BSD, Did you even bother to read their annoucement?
Here's an Excerpt from the Announcement:
Furthermore, there is some POSIX-1E ACL support in FreeBSD 4.0-RELEASE. So your "18 months" of hard work is well underway.
Robert Watson, from the TrustedBSD project wrote them.
sigh.
Don't forget that Kirk McKusick is teaching a class on BSD Unix for the first two days. It's an extra $400 or so, but well worth it.
Looks to be very cool.