In this case they don't seem to consider their police assisting child porn buster as being in the commercial realm
Just because they don't sell "M$ PornBuster", they don't consider this type of software to be in the commercial realm. What about my new porn busting software that I have paid 200 developers to write over the last 3 years? They have destroyed my market! And what about the "marketing costs" that I paid to all of those/. readers to go out and download terrabytes of porn? All that money has been stolen from me because M$ doesn't consider my product to be "in the commercial realm!"
BTW, I use OSS and I don't consider the following types of software to be "in the commercial realm":
"Standard Oil" was the company. A great read on this issue and other war-related dealings of German industry: "The Crimes and Punishment of I.G. Farben".
And Oregon tried to allow euthenasia. California tried to allow medical marijuana. Florida judges allowed "no life support" requests. Nevada said, "No importation of nuclear waste". These neocons have absolutely no respect for States' rights.
concern within the American scientific community over the lag in American research and publication. Research just isn't a priority anymore in America
I don't that research is less of a priority in America than it used to be. Research is being funded from companies and government agencies that have fallen prey to the same thinking that caused/exacerbated the Enron-ish scandals: Only short-term rewards are important. This thinking also seems to be showing-up in our government officials (perhaps because the current crop are businessmen?).
Any research that is not expected to bear fruit within a very few years is less likely to get funding, even if the long-term rewards that might be forthcoming from that research are great.
Nod to Godwin's Law: Hitler made two large mistakes concerning scientific research. He banned any research into defensive weapons (on the theory that his uber-soldiers would never be on the defensive), and he banned any weapons research that was expected to take more than two years to deliver a weapon (probably on the theory that he would control the world in less than two years). American research is falling into this second trap.
So you are paying $1800 for a P4 that you have to give back at the end of 3 years. That pretty much sucks. You could buy a Dell Optiplex with: 2.8GHz P4, 512MB RAM, WinXP Pro, 40GB SATA drive (7200rpm), CDRW, kbd, mouse, etc for a whopping $776 with 'economy onsite support'. The onsite support that you are getting had better be extremely valuable to you, or you are getting hosed.
Event if it is true that we were never able to sell the old ones, you would be better off (financially) throwing these Dells into the trashcan every three years than leasing under your current arrangement.
On Linux, I use Java with the free NetBeans IDE as a VB 'replacement'. It has a drag-and-drop form designer that will automatically tie control-events to your functions (it writes an empty stub method for you). It uses Swing, and is a good bit slower than C++ (partly Swing's fault, largely Java's fault), but likely as fast as VB. This will be more like a re-write than a simple port, but it uses a more 'popular' platform than any of the Basic solutions that have been mentioned, and is probably easier and more portable than the C++ solutions.
RTFQ. He didn't ask "how many thought it was worse?" If he had asked that, then your answer would have been correct. He wants a breakdown of the "two factors that were treated as one".
the police don't go and give your gun to somebody else, even another police officer
*bzzzzzt*, wrong. Some cash-strapped jurisdictions have decided to auction-off siezed firearms just as they do siezed boats, cars, houses, etc. The only reason that they have not done so in the past is that the police don't like the idea of being shot by a gun that they sold.
M$ has engaged in criminal behavior to prevent other companies from competing. This has included *stealing* other companies work (Stak) and including it in M$ products. They have already been convicted of this. Then there are the Sherman Anti-Trust Act violations.
You are free to compete with my restaurant by opening your own. If I repeatedly burn down your restaurant and those of my other competitors, it just means that I am the best restauranteur, and all of you would-be competitors are incompetent.
Thank you for declaring open season on your companies' "intellectual property". Your stupidity has absolved the government of any obligation to enforce copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret laws. As soon as I find *one* of your employees who would like a $5k 'bonus', I get all of your source code and internal documents. And I get to use them as I see fit.
Remember, Caesar governed without computers, but IBM could never have come into existence without a society whose stability was guaranteed by some form of government.
This argument is flawed. Because a project is OpenSource, and forking is a possibility, the 'authors' take that into consideration. Forking is generally considered to be wasteful and bad. If someone forks your project, they are either incredibly unreasonable people or you have screwed-up and mismanaged the project. Look at OpenSource history; forking is very rare. How many forks have their been of: Apache, Linux (kernel, not distros), Postgres, MySQL, PHP, Python, Perl, etc.
The result of this pressure to prevent forking is that the 'authors' go to great lengths to prevent breaking backwards-compatibility and new features are discussed at length. If any of the existing user base complains about upcoming changes, then their concerns are usually given a great amount of weight.
If the 'authors' had a closed source project, then they would feel free to behave in an autocratic fashion as long as it wouldn't cost them "too many customers". And thanks to vendor lock-in, they could screw their existing customer base pretty hard before "losing too many customers".
The problem is that the idea with "simple" might make literate people shun it, since it could be percieved as insulting to their intelligence.
You have just identified why Windows feels so icky whenever I am forced to use it. After living in Linux nirvana, Windows insults my intelligence, especially when that little paperclip points at me and says, "Ha Ha!".
What will happen when countries like Tuvalu (.tv) reach technological savyness and find that their entire TLD has been used up by TV networks,
All 600 of the Tuvalese people will be SOL. However, once their government decides that you must have some connection to Tuvalu to get a.tv domain, you can expect to see CBS's "Survivor: Tuvalu" at survivor.tv
What *WE* (programmers) want is for the customers to be happy.
After a few years of frustration, a young programmer learns that to make the customer happy, you must give them what they need, and make them think that you are giving them what they want. Any other combination, real or imagined, will lead to a dissatisfied customer.
Think about it for a second. Who gives the final yes or no on a program time frame, the programmers. They are the final word and now, a lot of them just plain suck.
If by 'final... time frame', you mean the actual delivery date, rather than the promised delivery date, then you are correct. But this is not just a software issue. Who decides what time your garbage gets picked-up? The garbage men. Who decides what time your pizza arrives? The Deliverator. Management is free to: 1) fire people who keep blowing management deadlines, 2) add resources or 3) do the work themselves to take up the slack. When it comes to programming, most management deadlines cannot be met by anybody, adding resources usually slows-down a project, and management couldn't code "Hello World" to save their lives.
As a result, they have absolutely zero recourse to the fact that software development takes time. They can start creating 'better' deadlines, or they can stick to the status quo and expect to blow their 'bad' deadlines.
And a good portion of the younger developers I've dealt with have no clue about marketing or financial pressures on getting a product out that's "good enough".
Damn little software in existence is actually "Good Enough". Most of it is "You're lucky that you don't have any competition for this app." Any software that is "Good Enough" is usually also "Quite Good". There is no middle ground. Microsoft keeps shooting for "Good Enough", while Linus and crew are shooting for "Better".
The governments going for microsoft software isn't necessarily not spending the money in a wise way. The cost of licenses is only a small part of IT costs
Even if the Linux conversion is expensive, the government of Brazil would probably make a wiser decision if they spent $3B in their local economy, rather than sending $1B outside their borders to the USA. As that $3B changes hands from contract-company to employee to restaurant to farmer, it gets taxed and a large chunk of that money ends-up back in Brazil's coffers. And if trickle-down does work (no I am not a Republican), then that money goes to your poorest citizens and offsets the need for social services.
Add to that the tons of ms office (proprietary) format documents... Using an office suite that may open most of your word & excel files isn't good enough here, you pretty much need 100% support.
The cost and effort that you are detailing here is a one-time penalty. You will reap the benefits of your conversion for how long? 20 years? 50 years? I expect that the sooner you break the back of vendor lock-in, the cheaper this will be.
Those of us who do think in C++ seem to think more than those who 'think' in English. I agree with GP; there is very little value in translating poorly conceived requirements into poorly written software.
Art is only an indicator of the state of society when it is society that is creating and supporting the art. When the government is supporting the art against the wishes of the people, then the indicator is pointing in the wrong direction. Using your argument, as long as the government supports art, the populace can be a pack of violent, slobbering morons but that is still a health society.
And no, I didn't choosing "violent, slobbering morons" just because the GP was talking about Georgia.
Slashdot Mirror
No, "kitty porn" is not illegal (yet). Your collection is safe (for now).
Just because they don't sell "M$ PornBuster", they don't consider this type of software to be in the commercial realm. What about my new porn busting software that I have paid 200 developers to write over the last 3 years? They have destroyed my market! And what about the "marketing costs" that I paid to all of those /. readers to go out and download terrabytes of porn? All that money has been stolen from me because M$ doesn't consider my product to be "in the commercial realm!"
BTW, I use OSS and I don't consider the following types of software to be "in the commercial realm":
Operating Systems
Web Servers
Relational Database Servers
Dev Tools (compilers, IDEs, debuggers)
Office Suites
What luck for rulers that men do not think.
--Adolf Hitler
"Standard Oil" was the company. A great read on this issue and other war-related dealings of German industry: "The Crimes and Punishment of I.G. Farben".
And Oregon tried to allow euthenasia. California tried to allow medical marijuana. Florida judges allowed "no life support" requests. Nevada said, "No importation of nuclear waste". These neocons have absolutely no respect for States' rights.
OK, 'mindshare'. Are you happy now?
I don't that research is less of a priority in America than it used to be. Research is being funded from companies and government agencies that have fallen prey to the same thinking that caused/exacerbated the Enron-ish scandals: Only short-term rewards are important. This thinking also seems to be showing-up in our government officials (perhaps because the current crop are businessmen?).
Any research that is not expected to bear fruit within a very few years is less likely to get funding, even if the long-term rewards that might be forthcoming from that research are great.
Nod to Godwin's Law: Hitler made two large mistakes concerning scientific research. He banned any research into defensive weapons (on the theory that his uber-soldiers would never be on the defensive), and he banned any weapons research that was expected to take more than two years to deliver a weapon (probably on the theory that he would control the world in less than two years). American research is falling into this second trap.
Event if it is true that we were never able to sell the old ones, you would be better off (financially) throwing these Dells into the trashcan every three years than leasing under your current arrangement.
On Linux, I use Java with the free NetBeans IDE as a VB 'replacement'. It has a drag-and-drop form designer that will automatically tie control-events to your functions (it writes an empty stub method for you). It uses Swing, and is a good bit slower than C++ (partly Swing's fault, largely Java's fault), but likely as fast as VB. This will be more like a re-write than a simple port, but it uses a more 'popular' platform than any of the Basic solutions that have been mentioned, and is probably easier and more portable than the C++ solutions.
RTFQ. He didn't ask "how many thought it was worse?" If he had asked that, then your answer would have been correct. He wants a breakdown of the "two factors that were treated as one".
*bzzzzzt*, wrong. Some cash-strapped jurisdictions have decided to auction-off siezed firearms just as they do siezed boats, cars, houses, etc. The only reason that they have not done so in the past is that the police don't like the idea of being shot by a gun that they sold.
You are free to compete with my restaurant by opening your own. If I repeatedly burn down your restaurant and those of my other competitors, it just means that I am the best restauranteur, and all of you would-be competitors are incompetent.
Remember, Caesar governed without computers, but IBM could never have come into existence without a society whose stability was guaranteed by some form of government.
The result of this pressure to prevent forking is that the 'authors' go to great lengths to prevent breaking backwards-compatibility and new features are discussed at length. If any of the existing user base complains about upcoming changes, then their concerns are usually given a great amount of weight.
If the 'authors' had a closed source project, then they would feel free to behave in an autocratic fashion as long as it wouldn't cost them "too many customers". And thanks to vendor lock-in, they could screw their existing customer base pretty hard before "losing too many customers".
You have just identified why Windows feels so icky whenever I am forced to use it. After living in Linux nirvana, Windows insults my intelligence, especially when that little paperclip points at me and says, "Ha Ha!".
All 600 of the Tuvalese people will be SOL. However, once their government decides that you must have some connection to Tuvalu to get a .tv domain, you can expect to see CBS's "Survivor: Tuvalu" at survivor.tv
After a few years of frustration, a young programmer learns that to make the customer happy, you must give them what they need, and make them think that you are giving them what they want. Any other combination, real or imagined, will lead to a dissatisfied customer.
Technically you are correct, but what they didn't tell you is that those 5% never deliver a project at all.
If by 'final ... time frame', you mean the actual delivery date, rather than the promised delivery date, then you are correct. But this is not just a software issue. Who decides what time your garbage gets picked-up? The garbage men. Who decides what time your pizza arrives? The Deliverator. Management is free to: 1) fire people who keep blowing management deadlines, 2) add resources or 3) do the work themselves to take up the slack. When it comes to programming, most management deadlines cannot be met by anybody, adding resources usually slows-down a project, and management couldn't code "Hello World" to save their lives.
As a result, they have absolutely zero recourse to the fact that software development takes time. They can start creating 'better' deadlines, or they can stick to the status quo and expect to blow their 'bad' deadlines.
Damn little software in existence is actually "Good Enough". Most of it is "You're lucky that you don't have any competition for this app." Any software that is "Good Enough" is usually also "Quite Good". There is no middle ground. Microsoft keeps shooting for "Good Enough", while Linus and crew are shooting for "Better".
No, RMS requires that it be called GNU/Netscape/Firefox. If you don't refer to it that way, he'll throw a tantrum and refuse all interview requests.
Even if the Linux conversion is expensive, the government of Brazil would probably make a wiser decision if they spent $3B in their local economy, rather than sending $1B outside their borders to the USA. As that $3B changes hands from contract-company to employee to restaurant to farmer, it gets taxed and a large chunk of that money ends-up back in Brazil's coffers. And if trickle-down does work (no I am not a Republican), then that money goes to your poorest citizens and offsets the need for social services.
Add to that the tons of ms office (proprietary) format documents... Using an office suite that may open most of your word & excel files isn't good enough here, you pretty much need 100% support.
The cost and effort that you are detailing here is a one-time penalty. You will reap the benefits of your conversion for how long? 20 years? 50 years? I expect that the sooner you break the back of vendor lock-in, the cheaper this will be.
Those of us who do think in C++ seem to think more than those who 'think' in English. I agree with GP; there is very little value in translating poorly conceived requirements into poorly written software.
I'm going to do both, and write a grant application application.
Art is only an indicator of the state of society when it is society that is creating and supporting the art. When the government is supporting the art against the wishes of the people, then the indicator is pointing in the wrong direction. Using your argument, as long as the government supports art, the populace can be a pack of violent, slobbering morons but that is still a health society.
And no, I didn't choosing "violent, slobbering morons" just because the GP was talking about Georgia.