In my experience developers are not the problem. The initial site is fast and responsive. The traffic grows and stuff keeps getting added until the point where the site needs either an upgrade in infrastructure, an interface redesign or at least a partial rewrite of the software.
The management-level decision to authorize such changes has for as long as i've been developing website always taken way too long.
A typical B-movie that does $13.8M in it's opening weekend? That's not failed hype, that is a resounding success. This snake is bound to have a very Long Tail.
However, that is plain stupid because the software is the hard part, the part that interests me, the part that I want to be paid for instead of something like support.
I think you just made the point why support is the hard part....
Writing software is the fun and easy part. Making my customers happy is the part that costs me most time and effort. And that's really what I charge them for (even though it doesn't say so on the invoices....).
In fact, when I make an estimate, the most import question is: "how much time is this client going to cost me", and not "how much time is it going to take me to write this code".
"It's rather strange that we would have such a tremendous response for the purchase of a laptop computer -- and laptop computers that probably have less-than- desirable attributes," said Paul Proto, director of general services for Henrico County.
This man is talking about 4 year old and still very sought after iBooks sold for about 10-15% of their current market value.... how clueless can you get.
Been trying to get my hands on some second hand G3 iBooks as they make ideal portable linux machines for a project, and not only do they go for prices of around 500 euro/$$$, they are pretty hard to get in the first place because people won't part with them. Less-than-desirable my ass.
ESR could be right IF we lived in the Libertarian Utopia he dreams of.
Alas, the last time I checked, our so-called free market was still ruled by megacorporations like Microsoft, kept firmly in power by corrupt and misguided governments and books full of laws and regulations protecting their interest. They really don't give a flying fuck about the benefits of open source software development model, as long as they can conquer markets with inferior products using other means.
As long as there for instance is still is a huge worldwide hunt going on for teenage kids that "illegally" copy music, and the fight to keep any kind of knowledge or human creativity in the public domain is still full on, we live in a world where having a "better" way to do things means fuck-all.
In this reality, we still need heavy handed, cumbersome methods like the GPL to protect our freedom. If that means Linux ea having a marginal marketshare instead of small marketshare (before being assimilated), tough. Let's discuss abolishing the GPL when we have a real free market.
The big question is: what will happen if mainstream music-consumers start getting confronted the consequences of DRM once they try to start playing legally downloaded music on their brand new stereo/mp3-player/pc and find out that the R in DRM really stands for Restrictions?
It may take a couple of years, maybe even the better part of a decade, but consumers will turn on the industry (again) once they find out the stuff they bought and paid for isn't really theirs the way their good old LP's and CD's were.
iTunes and alike aren't the future of music. It's growth is just the music industry going supernova before becoming a black hole.
Euh, on my end of my firewall there's still no advertising and now not only the pr0n, but also the music and movies are free....
I'm a firm believer in progress thru technology...
Slashdot Mirror
I mean, after all this, who would dare to show up at any blogger-/tech-/geek- conference with an Acer Ferrari?
I wonder if it was cheaper then bribing Novell...
In my experience developers are not the problem. The initial site is fast and responsive. The traffic grows and stuff keeps getting added until the point where the site needs either an upgrade in infrastructure, an interface redesign or at least a partial rewrite of the software. The management-level decision to authorize such changes has for as long as i've been developing website always taken way too long.
A typical B-movie that does $13.8M in it's opening weekend? That's not failed hype, that is a resounding success. This snake is bound to have a very Long Tail.
However, that is plain stupid because the software is the hard part, the part that interests me, the part that I want to be paid for instead of something like support. I think you just made the point why support is the hard part.... Writing software is the fun and easy part. Making my customers happy is the part that costs me most time and effort. And that's really what I charge them for (even though it doesn't say so on the invoices....). In fact, when I make an estimate, the most import question is: "how much time is this client going to cost me", and not "how much time is it going to take me to write this code".
"It's rather strange that we would have such a tremendous response for the purchase of a laptop computer -- and laptop computers that probably have less-than- desirable attributes," said Paul Proto, director of general services for Henrico County.
This man is talking about 4 year old and still very sought after iBooks sold for about 10-15% of their current market value.... how clueless can you get.
Been trying to get my hands on some second hand G3 iBooks as they make ideal portable linux machines for a project, and not only do they go for prices of around 500 euro/$$$, they are pretty hard to get in the first place because people won't part with them. Less-than-desirable my ass.
ESR could be right IF we lived in the Libertarian Utopia he dreams of.
Alas, the last time I checked, our so-called free market was still ruled by megacorporations like Microsoft, kept firmly in power by corrupt and misguided governments and books full of laws and regulations protecting their interest. They really don't give a flying fuck about the benefits of open source software development model, as long as they can conquer markets with inferior products using other means.
As long as there for instance is still is a huge worldwide hunt going on for teenage kids that "illegally" copy music, and the fight to keep any kind of knowledge or human creativity in the public domain is still full on, we live in a world where having a "better" way to do things means fuck-all.
In this reality, we still need heavy handed, cumbersome methods like the GPL to protect our freedom. If that means Linux ea having a marginal marketshare instead of small marketshare (before being assimilated), tough. Let's discuss abolishing the GPL when we have a real free market.
The big question is: what will happen if mainstream music-consumers start getting confronted the consequences of DRM once they try to start playing legally downloaded music on their brand new stereo/mp3-player/pc and find out that the R in DRM really stands for Restrictions?
It may take a couple of years, maybe even the better part of a decade, but consumers will turn on the industry (again) once they find out the stuff they bought and paid for isn't really theirs the way their good old LP's and CD's were.
iTunes and alike aren't the future of music. It's growth is just the music industry going supernova before becoming a black hole.
"People have lives OTHER than charity, as your presence here proves." Somebody's presence on Slashdot proves they have a live?!?
Euh, on my end of my firewall there's still no advertising and now not only the pr0n, but also the music and movies are free.... I'm a firm believer in progress thru technology...
"Wired discovers: Stupid people exist."
(this from the people who brought you the death of the webbrowser...)