The dot com bust reminds me of the other employment busts of the last 20 years.
When I entered college (1979), the hot jobs were in the energy sector. I took the bait and changed my major to geology from computer science. By the time I graduated from college, oil prices dropped from $50/barrel to ~$20/barrel. The consolidation of the oil industry started at nearly the same time I received my diploma. Jobs for anyone with a BS or BA vanished in less than a year and those with MS degrees either had to fight for the few jobs that remained in exploration, or they moved over to environmental positions in production. Those folks with doctorates who had contacts and could get academic positions considered themselves lucky.
The next group were the MBA crowd of the mid- to late-1980's. Every graduate school of any size was milling out MBAs by the thousands. Eventually the stock crash and recession removed that degree from the "hot" list and computer science moved to the top slot.
For those of you who have lost your jobs but love the industry should take my advice: Don't jump ship because the waters have gotten rough. Consider this current downturn as an opportunity to flush the deadwood and uncommitted from the field. If you can hang in there long enough, keep your skill level up, and are willing to make job changes (and location changes) to keep yourself fed, you can bet that you will be well positioned when demand increases again. Just don't expect that demand to be what it was during the dot com craze.
Had I not stayed with geology, I wouldn't have accumulated the experience that allows me to earn the wage level I've attained. Had I quit and become a dot com worker in the early '90s, I would have gone from one frying pan to another. I would have made some great cash for a short period of time, but I would have jettisoned all the experience I was building as a geologist.
I haven't forgotten the lesson of the downturn, however, and have cross trained extensively since my first brush with that state of "unemployable" you are now experiencing. I'm not just a geologist/hydrologist/geophysicist, but I also have experience in industrial hygiene, computer programming, computer network administration, heavy equipment operation, asbestos removal, building demolition...
If you think this is true then how do you explain NT running Battleships (and failing - I forget the article but it was a bruise to MS for sure),
Actually it was a cruiser (I think), and the NT server failed miserably in testing. I'm not sure whether the Navy retested or scrubbed the entire venture.
and how do explain it's presence on the International Space Station?
And what M$ products are being used on the ISS? I would guess that M$ products are supplying email, spreadsheets, and wordprocessing capabilities to the mission specialists.
I doubt that the operating system that runs the lighting/air supply/alarm systems/station diagnostics is a M$ product.
When M$ begins building OSs that run nuclear power stations or other mission critical (non-business definition) systems, then you will be comparing oranges to oranges with the original posters comments.
The customer service rep didn't laugh out loud at my protest and was pleasently pleased that I spoke favorably about Ford products.
Apparently she was so used to getting flamed about Ford that any positive statements got her attention immediatley.
Keep in mind, if you are going to call large companies, try to find at least one thing positive to say about them. That way you are more inclined to get your comments elevated to someone who can act on your concern. Calling them just to rake their asses over the coals will result in a round file rejection.
I just called Ford's customer service line (an 800 number) and told the representative that I was extremely disturbed that they would go after 2600 this way. I told them that I started buying Ford products because I was so sick of the constant quality problems I had with GM products. I also told them that my wife and I just purchased a 2000 Taurus, we've owned our '96 Escort Wagon since 1997, and that we are buying my wife a 2002 Mustang this fall. In short, I informed them that I am perfectly happy with Ford's products.
But I expressed my dismay at the legal tack they have chosen to take. I told them that if I had typed "fuckgeneralmotors" into a search engine, or directed my browser to go to fuckgeneralmotors.com, it wouldn't have bothered me a bit. I would have been laughing at the joke, and would have appreciated being directed to a company who produce a product that I have been happy with for 5 years running.
I told the customer rep to send a note to legal that they shouldn't have been so heavy handed in dealing with Corley and 2600. They could have expressed their displeasure with being associated with the domain name without having to resort to lawsuits.
Gee, maybe they could have even talked to Corely and explained their position. What a novel concept that would have been.
In short, shame on Ford for being so odious. Call their customer reps and let them know that you got the joke, that you would buy Ford products based on your impression of their quality (not on a domain name), and that by basing 2600 they have shown themselves to be nothing but corporate bullies.
Paragraph three outlines the principle reason why no one should go to college just to get a job and make lots of money.
If the only reason to go to college is to get a high paying job, then why go? Why not create a network of technical schools that boil the curriculum down to just those topic that support the students desire to get trained and get working?
The reason I went to college was to learn how to learn. I went to college to get an EDUCATION, not training for a job. I studied topics that had nothing to do with my profession. These courses expanded my thinking and broadened my expirences. The value I place on these courses cannot be measured in dollars (although I paid dollars to take them); I am a different person for having learned these things.
What open source and free software means to me is that not everything has a monitary value. There is something intrinsically valueable in having an operating system that doesn't belong to one company or person. There is something incredibly valueable to science and free thought in a software system that enables people to communicate these ideals without having to pay royalties to express them.
If you don't understand the point I'm trying to make, you never will.
Actually, you should be pissing on the NYT - they were the ones who were providing the information that the/. article was based on.
As for ESR's comments, well, consider who he is dealing with: an organization who falsified a demonstration in a federal court, an organization who produced a document that outlined a campaign to bury Linux in FUD, and an organization who's main Window's coder is an unapologetic Red Baiter.
Given the choice on who to believe here, xp, I'd take ESR and/.
"Microsoft is a sucessful company and Linux companies aren't".
How many times are we going to be subjected to this stupid assed arguement (and I'm being kind by qualifying it as an arguement).
I couldn't care less if Linux EVER generates a sucessful business. Why is it that every thing that is useful needs to fulfill some Wall Stret definition of success? Is money all that matters to you?
Consider this: Will you ever be free if you have no choices in life? If there were no other alternatives to Microsoft, what would be a 'fair' price for their software and services? Would you pay the price they charged if you thought the value for the price wasn't justifiable? Where would you go if you didn't LIKE the price?
I don't look forward to an answer because every Microserf I've ever posed this question to couldn't get further than "Stallman is a commie".
Consider your view of markets before you start giving me your shit about business models. It is obvious from your comment that you haven't a clue about freedom of choice.
"I would challenge you," he [Mundie] said, "to find a company who is a large established enterprise, who at the end of the day would throw all of its intellectual property into the open- source category."
Thanks to khym (matt{at}nightrealms{dot}com) for the nicely formatted quote. I read this and just about did a spit take with my coffee.
What a company, this Microsoft.... They are so full of themselves that they have either ignored or lied about their own past.
Tell me - Which two companies benefited the MOST from the Open Architecture (the x86 architecture), developed by I.B.M, and released for ALL PC MANUFACTURERS TO USE WITHOUT PAYING ROYALTIES?!?
One of them is Chipzilla; the other is run by a pack of fucking hypocrites.
Now MSFT should understand why I don't use their shit software.
Think about this: more jobs are created by small businesses in this country than all of the top Fortune 500 companies combined. These mom-n-pops and various franchise outfits owned by small investors carry a tremendous amount of clout on Capitol Hill.
Hmmmm..... I can hear you're doubt a few thousand miles away. If you are having a problem accepting this, then consider writing the Chamber of Commerce of the United States and ask them for a position on eliminating encrypted communications for all but the largest multinational corporations.
I doubt they will see things your way
That doesn't mean that I don't acknowledge the fact that if this were a matter of individual rights, we (as in the general public) would be screwed. You can be thankful that there are just enough small businesses out there now that, together, have created enough of a critical mass that NO CONGRESSIONAL REP OR SENETOR will defy them.
Individuals? - Yeah, they'd screw them in a heartbeat. Businesses? - Not on your life....
After all, this is America - land of the free, home of the buck.
I don't see any legislation getting through the Congress that would ban encryption w/o public keys because there are plenty of companies who need to send their email and other business traffic securely over the web.
The thought businesses would agree to the RIAA or any other organization having exclusive rights to screen private information for potential copyright violations will never fly.
Do you really think IBM or Chevron will agree to anything that gives the RIAA permission to read their email?
They will shit on this quicker than seagulls at a beachside picnic.
Your economics have been argued at length here and on various other forums with the same effect: Linux users will continue to seek alternatives to MSFT branded products because without them, there would be no choice to make.
You make it sound as though we haven't figured out the cost angle of migrating to Linux. Many of us are well aware of this problem; many of us made the same decision when we migrated from Mac-centric offices to MSFT-centric offices.
"Linux is a great os for people that want to play around."
I used to read this line about 15 years ago when describing MS-DOS. The primary gaming/desktop application machine of that day was a Mac. When I used to tell my colleagues of the power of the command line, and how I could get great color games for virtually nothing, they would all laugh and tell me what a "piece of crap" DOS was.
Amazing how the fortunes have changed, eh? Now the pompus bullshitters are the former DOS users who couldn't shake the MSGUI and are now trapped in it. The only ones who "get it" when it comes to what Linux is about are the folks who were lucky enough to work on U*IX boxes at work or in graduate schools... and those of us who used MS-DOS and bailed from the MSFT camp due to the high overhead.
IP thieves thrive on MSFT products; always have, always will.
The truth hurts, don't it?
Linux and GPL have never been about theft of IP. It is the antithesis of your stupid-assed boast. Every time I read an article by someone who tries to link Napster and Linux, I make another notch in my desk to increment the "Clueless Counter". I put two in for you. You should be honored.
Your bullshit connection of Gnapster and Napster puts you on a second counter - "The Terminally Stupid Counter". That counter is reserved for those who fail to see any peer-to-peer as a viable file shareing application for anything other than mp3s or warez. I use gnutella to share files with colleagues in laboratories throughout the nation (non-mp3's; can you do that with Napster?).
If you were to spend more time reading whitepapers and less time surfing for porn, you'd know more about the topics discussed on/.
Most Napster users were fans of Windows.
Napster never made a Linux client (that I am aware of).
Sacrificing karma to put the Napster-Linux connection in its proper perspective.
Why don't we start a collection to take "ourselves" to court? We could take donations to pay for the court costs and attorney's fees (pro bono anyone?) to challenge the GPL by two parties who are not MSFT-beholden?
That way we could settle the issue amicably without threatening the GPL directly.
Why don't we start a collection to take "ourselves" to court? We could take donations to pay for the court costs and attorney's fees (pro bono anyone?) to challenge the GPL by two parties who are not MSFT-beholden?
That way we could settle the issue amicably without threatening the GPL directly.
Slashdot Mirror
When I entered college (1979), the hot jobs were in the energy sector. I took the bait and changed my major to geology from computer science. By the time I graduated from college, oil prices dropped from $50/barrel to ~$20/barrel. The consolidation of the oil industry started at nearly the same time I received my diploma. Jobs for anyone with a BS or BA vanished in less than a year and those with MS degrees either had to fight for the few jobs that remained in exploration, or they moved over to environmental positions in production. Those folks with doctorates who had contacts and could get academic positions considered themselves lucky.
The next group were the MBA crowd of the mid- to late-1980's. Every graduate school of any size was milling out MBAs by the thousands. Eventually the stock crash and recession removed that degree from the "hot" list and computer science moved to the top slot.
For those of you who have lost your jobs but love the industry should take my advice: Don't jump ship because the waters have gotten rough. Consider this current downturn as an opportunity to flush the deadwood and uncommitted from the field. If you can hang in there long enough, keep your skill level up, and are willing to make job changes (and location changes) to keep yourself fed, you can bet that you will be well positioned when demand increases again. Just don't expect that demand to be what it was during the dot com craze.
Had I not stayed with geology, I wouldn't have accumulated the experience that allows me to earn the wage level I've attained. Had I quit and become a dot com worker in the early '90s, I would have gone from one frying pan to another. I would have made some great cash for a short period of time, but I would have jettisoned all the experience I was building as a geologist.
I haven't forgotten the lesson of the downturn, however, and have cross trained extensively since my first brush with that state of "unemployable" you are now experiencing. I'm not just a geologist/hydrologist/geophysicist, but I also have experience in industrial hygiene, computer programming, computer network administration, heavy equipment operation, asbestos removal, building demolition...
I hope I'm making my point.
Any attempt to use the cultural heritage of my people(s) will hereby be an act of infringement.
I'll sue... No, really!
Actually it was a cruiser (I think), and the NT server failed miserably in testing. I'm not sure whether the Navy retested or scrubbed the entire venture.
and how do explain it's presence on the International Space Station?
And what M$ products are being used on the ISS? I would guess that M$ products are supplying email, spreadsheets, and wordprocessing capabilities to the mission specialists.
I doubt that the operating system that runs the lighting/air supply/alarm systems/station diagnostics is a M$ product.
When M$ begins building OSs that run nuclear power stations or other mission critical (non-business definition) systems, then you will be comparing oranges to oranges with the original posters comments.
I think the quote in the US Senate at the beginning of the Civil War went something like this:
"With my handkerchief, I shall wipe all of the blood that will be shed in this war"
Who said the "War Betwen The States" was over?
Apparently she was so used to getting flamed about Ford that any positive statements got her attention immediatley.
Keep in mind, if you are going to call large companies, try to find at least one thing positive to say about them. That way you are more inclined to get your comments elevated to someone who can act on your concern. Calling them just to rake their asses over the coals will result in a round file rejection.
But I expressed my dismay at the legal tack they have chosen to take. I told them that if I had typed "fuckgeneralmotors" into a search engine, or directed my browser to go to fuckgeneralmotors.com, it wouldn't have bothered me a bit. I would have been laughing at the joke, and would have appreciated being directed to a company who produce a product that I have been happy with for 5 years running.
I told the customer rep to send a note to legal that they shouldn't have been so heavy handed in dealing with Corley and 2600. They could have expressed their displeasure with being associated with the domain name without having to resort to lawsuits.
Gee, maybe they could have even talked to Corely and explained their position. What a novel concept that would have been.
In short, shame on Ford for being so odious. Call their customer reps and let them know that you got the joke, that you would buy Ford products based on your impression of their quality (not on a domain name), and that by basing 2600 they have shown themselves to be nothing but corporate bullies.
They did take my comments seriously.
keep my dancing up to spec Yes, but can you Texas Two-Step?
Private property rights (the heart of any capitalist system) say yes.
You're obviously ignorant about economics and political rights.
If the only reason to go to college is to get a high paying job, then why go? Why not create a network of technical schools that boil the curriculum down to just those topic that support the students desire to get trained and get working?
The reason I went to college was to learn how to learn. I went to college to get an EDUCATION, not training for a job. I studied topics that had nothing to do with my profession. These courses expanded my thinking and broadened my expirences. The value I place on these courses cannot be measured in dollars (although I paid dollars to take them); I am a different person for having learned these things.
What open source and free software means to me is that not everything has a monitary value. There is something intrinsically valueable in having an operating system that doesn't belong to one company or person. There is something incredibly valueable to science and free thought in a software system that enables people to communicate these ideals without having to pay royalties to express them.
If you don't understand the point I'm trying to make, you never will.
As for ESR's comments, well, consider who he is dealing with: an organization who falsified a demonstration in a federal court, an organization who produced a document that outlined a campaign to bury Linux in FUD, and an organization who's main Window's coder is an unapologetic Red Baiter.
Given the choice on who to believe here, xp, I'd take ESR and /.
How many times are we going to be subjected to this stupid assed arguement (and I'm being kind by qualifying it as an arguement).
I couldn't care less if Linux EVER generates a sucessful business. Why is it that every thing that is useful needs to fulfill some Wall Stret definition of success? Is money all that matters to you?
Consider this: Will you ever be free if you have no choices in life? If there were no other alternatives to Microsoft, what would be a 'fair' price for their software and services? Would you pay the price they charged if you thought the value for the price wasn't justifiable? Where would you go if you didn't LIKE the price?
I don't look forward to an answer because every Microserf I've ever posed this question to couldn't get further than "Stallman is a commie".
Consider your view of markets before you start giving me your shit about business models. It is obvious from your comment that you haven't a clue about freedom of choice.
Thanks to khym (matt{at}nightrealms{dot}com) for the nicely formatted quote. I read this and just about did a spit take with my coffee.
What a company, this Microsoft.... They are so full of themselves that they have either ignored or lied about their own past.
Tell me - Which two companies benefited the MOST from the Open Architecture (the x86 architecture), developed by I.B.M, and released for ALL PC MANUFACTURERS TO USE WITHOUT PAYING ROYALTIES?!?
One of them is Chipzilla; the other is run by a pack of fucking hypocrites.
Now MSFT should understand why I don't use their shit software.
So much for the ban.
No way.
Think about this: more jobs are created by small businesses in this country than all of the top Fortune 500 companies combined. These mom-n-pops and various franchise outfits owned by small investors carry a tremendous amount of clout on Capitol Hill.
Hmmmm..... I can hear you're doubt a few thousand miles away. If you are having a problem accepting this, then consider writing the Chamber of Commerce of the United States and ask them for a position on eliminating encrypted communications for all but the largest multinational corporations.
I doubt they will see things your way
That doesn't mean that I don't acknowledge the fact that if this were a matter of individual rights, we (as in the general public) would be screwed. You can be thankful that there are just enough small businesses out there now that, together, have created enough of a critical mass that NO CONGRESSIONAL REP OR SENETOR will defy them.
Individuals? - Yeah, they'd screw them in a heartbeat. Businesses? - Not on your life....
After all, this is America - land of the free, home of the buck.
The thought businesses would agree to the RIAA or any other organization having exclusive rights to screen private information for potential copyright violations will never fly.
Do you really think IBM or Chevron will agree to anything that gives the RIAA permission to read their email?
They will shit on this quicker than seagulls at a beachside picnic.
You make it sound as though we haven't figured out the cost angle of migrating to Linux. Many of us are well aware of this problem; many of us made the same decision when we migrated from Mac-centric offices to MSFT-centric offices.
And now look were Apple is wrt MSFT.
I guess your is missing a few factors, isn't it?
I used to read this line about 15 years ago when describing MS-DOS. The primary gaming/desktop application machine of that day was a Mac. When I used to tell my colleagues of the power of the command line, and how I could get great color games for virtually nothing, they would all laugh and tell me what a "piece of crap" DOS was.
Amazing how the fortunes have changed, eh? Now the pompus bullshitters are the former DOS users who couldn't shake the MSGUI and are now trapped in it. The only ones who "get it" when it comes to what Linux is about are the folks who were lucky enough to work on U*IX boxes at work or in graduate schools... and those of us who used MS-DOS and bailed from the MSFT camp due to the high overhead.
Linux is what DOS could have been.
On the fringes of the city limits, the quote I was given (when it becomes available) is 128kbs upload, 384kbs download.
Nope; not joking. Are you an attorney?
IP thieves thrive on MSFT products; always have, always will.
The truth hurts, don't it?
Linux and GPL have never been about theft of IP. It is the antithesis of your stupid-assed boast. Every time I read an article by someone who tries to link Napster and Linux, I make another notch in my desk to increment the "Clueless Counter". I put two in for you. You should be honored.
Your bullshit connection of Gnapster and Napster puts you on a second counter - "The Terminally Stupid Counter". That counter is reserved for those who fail to see any peer-to-peer as a viable file shareing application for anything other than mp3s or warez. I use gnutella to share files with colleagues in laboratories throughout the nation (non-mp3's; can you do that with Napster?).
If you were to spend more time reading whitepapers and less time surfing for porn, you'd know more about the topics discussed on /.
We shouldn't expect to own the software we buy either, right.
We should... RENT it from Microsoft, right?
Well, I guess you are too young to remember the position that MSFT had on RENTING software about, oh, 15 years ago.
What was that you were saying about hypocrite?
Most Napster users were fans of Windows. Napster never made a Linux client (that I am aware of). Sacrificing karma to put the Napster-Linux connection in its proper perspective.
Why don't we start a collection to take "ourselves" to court? We could take donations to pay for the court costs and attorney's fees (pro bono anyone?) to challenge the GPL by two parties who are not MSFT-beholden?
That way we could settle the issue amicably without threatening the GPL directly.
Who wants to volunteer to be the litigants?
Why don't we start a collection to take "ourselves" to court? We could take donations to pay for the court costs and attorney's fees (pro bono anyone?) to challenge the GPL by two parties who are not MSFT-beholden?
That way we could settle the issue amicably without threatening the GPL directly.
Who wants to volunteer to be the litigants?