The expensive part of buildings, roads, railways, bridges etc is the construction (and land), if they're useful maintaining them isn't a problem.
Maybe maintenance isn't an issue for your stone bridge. But, for lots of bigger bridges (tunnels, roads, etc.), maintenance costs are certainly significant. Here in the US, we have many bridges and roads that have deteriorated to the point where they are barely serviceable, because cities, states, and the federal government focused on building flashy new structures rather than on maintaining the ones they already have.
In fact, this is one of the concerns I have about Obama's plan for massive fiscal stimulus. I worry that the federal government will build even more infrastructure, further increasing an already punishingly high maintenance debt.
Open source effectively caps what you can charge for a closed source "light" version, what you can charge for a closed source software or workflow because there's the option to go with open source, deal with or fix its limitations.
Precisely. Open source turns basic software into a commodity, and that's why companies such as Microsoft dislike it. Their profit model is based on them being able to charge monopoly rates, not rates that a perfectly competitive market in software would support.
If you conspicuously think of the elderly, the tax paying public between 18-60 will notice and have something to look forward to.
Really? Personally, I thought it was because the elderly vote at much higher rates than the rest of the population, ensuring that propositions favorable to the elderly get passed on the basis of the relatively high number of votes they'll generate.
As a side note, I expect this effect to become much worse once the baby boomers fully enter retirement. Not only will they be voting in proportionally greater numbers, but the absolute number of elderly will have risen as well.
Forget printing, how about the fact that the old "Edit->Undo" menu action isn't there any more, because the old menu structure is totally gone? And, rather than replacing it with something sensible, the undo button is a tiny smudge of an arrow next to the giant "Office" button, making it very hard to hit accurately for users that aren't skilled with a mouse.
I and lots of other tech. support people are going to have to disagree with you there. Frankly, I don't see how Office 2007's interface is any more intuitive than Office 2003's. The feedback I receive from my users is that Office 2007 actually less intuitive, since it tries to "guess" what you're trying to do and puts the "appropriate" tools on the ribbon. However, the rules that it uses to guess are limited, and it often guesses wrong, forcing the user to override its guess.
If the user doesn't know that this behavior is occurring, then it seems like the tool that they want has "disappeared", and they don't know how to get it back.
The issue I have with Vista's integrated search is that it doesn't seem to shut down properly when a laptop is running on battery power. I shut down the search service manually, and I've noted almost a full hour more battery life as the search service isn't thrashing the hard drive any more.
Of course, one can credibly claim that the bug should never have existed in the first place, given that the loop triggering the bug wouldn't have passed a code review in any half-decent software organization.
I still remain skeptical about the benefits of model-driven-development. I recall that, at the latter end of the 1980s, developers were promised much the same thing with the push toward CASE tools. Of course, developers and managers quickly learned that such tools were only of use in a certain limited number of scenarios, and that attempting to use those tools outside of the scenarios for which they had been designed quickly led to the same problems.
Frankly, I'm not sure that "software entropy" is solvable by any sort of tool or language. Rather, it is solved by training developers to write tests, and enforcing certain minimum style standards on the code, so that any developer can look at any portion of the codebase without feeling too unfamiliar with it.
It depends on the nature of the customization. If the customization is fairly domain specific, then neither of the above two scenarios work, since there may not be enough interested people within the community to take on the burden of supporting the project.
Consider this: every time the Rails team changes things, you'll have to go through your patches and make sure they still apply correctly.
If that's a major chore for you, may I suggest investing in a test suite, so that you don't have to go through manually and test all your patches?
The problem was, however, that they released new versions frequently, and we needed them as soon as they were released.
What sort of features were they adding that made it necessary for you to upgrade so frequently? Might it have been possible for your team to not upgrade to the latest version every time?
And when the guy knowing Django moves on, what's the chance of finding a replacements who knows it? How much will that reduce the number of eligible applicants for a position -- will you disqualify fifty really smart guys for five mediocre ones who happen to know Django?
Probably not. In my (admittedly limited) experience, I find that Ruby on Rails and Python/Django are similarly supported, and have similar user/developer base sizes. Frankly, if I was choosing between Rails or Django, finding developers for either would be pretty far from the top of the list of my worries.
And, no, rich people DON'T pay a bigger percentage of taxes. They pay accountants (or politicians, if they're big enough) to cut their taxes in half or even get subsidies (out of the middle man's taxes, of course).
Then, isn't that sort of the fault of us "middle people" for allowing the rich to squirm out of paying their fair share for the common resources that they consume?
To be quite honest, concept of the "desktop" in computing isn't that pervasive. Frankly, I wouldn't been surprised if the user had said, "Desktop? Do you want me to save it to Windows?"
There's also the fact that tech. support is usually free. If they were paying for the services (i.e. taking it to Geek Squad) they'd be much less likely to complain about your fixes.
What exactly are the virtues of proprietary software? It seams to me that it has to be your forced to do something you may not want to.
want to use an ipod? Got to use itunes!
want to use OS X? Got to use expensive mac hardware!
want to work with people using the latest version of office? Got to use the latest version of office!
If proprietary software has virtues why bother with lock-in, surely it could compete by itself on a level playing field?
Proprietary software can compete on a level playing field. Just look at SubEthaEdit. Where's the lock-in there? Its a text editor - no proprietary formats at all. Yet, it manages to compete by making things like collaborative editing significantly easier than its competitors, both free and proprietary.
Same thing with all the software you've listed. No one's forcing you to use an iPod, a Mac or even the latest version of Office. There are competing MP3 players, competing computer systems, and OpenOffice has handled all of the docx I've thrown at it, once I've run it through ODF Converter/Integrator.
If you don't like proprietary software, don't complain - vote with your wallet and buy hardware that does support the standards and formats you want.
Yes, we would trust it if, say, a company such as the IRS had the code analyzed and was able to certify its accuracy.
There, fixed that for you. Frankly, given H&R's reputation as an audit-magnet (due to their aggressive deductions), I'd be more wary of something that they endorsed, not less.
Notes+Domino may or may not do everything that Outlook+Exchange does (I don't know, I'm just a user, not an admin). However, I'm not sure that there's perfect compatibility between Notes and Outlook, so, even if Notes were to be open-sourced, all we'd get is another Zimbra, at best.
I fail to see how making Notes open-source would help this aim. After all, the main obstacle to people using calendaring and groupware apps is that said apps are difficult to use. Given Notes' horrible record regarding usability, I fail to see how making Notes freely available to all would spread the usage of calendaring amongst the general computing public.
In fact, I think that GMail and Google Calendar are doing more to spread automated calendaring than open-sourcing Notes (or even Outlook, for that matter) ever could.
As I state in the title, companies only open-source unprofitable products. As I understand it, Sun was willing to open-source Solaris because it was no longer profitable by itself - instead, it was just driving sales of Sun hardware. Until I see some similar evidence regarding Notes (showing that its unprofitable on its own and only drives sales of other IBM products), call me a skeptic of this effort.
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The expensive part of buildings, roads, railways, bridges etc is the construction (and land), if they're useful maintaining them isn't a problem.
Maybe maintenance isn't an issue for your stone bridge. But, for lots of bigger bridges (tunnels, roads, etc.), maintenance costs are certainly significant. Here in the US, we have many bridges and roads that have deteriorated to the point where they are barely serviceable, because cities, states, and the federal government focused on building flashy new structures rather than on maintaining the ones they already have.
In fact, this is one of the concerns I have about Obama's plan for massive fiscal stimulus. I worry that the federal government will build even more infrastructure, further increasing an already punishingly high maintenance debt.
Open source effectively caps what you can charge for a closed source "light" version, what you can charge for a closed source software or workflow because there's the option to go with open source, deal with or fix its limitations.
Precisely. Open source turns basic software into a commodity, and that's why companies such as Microsoft dislike it. Their profit model is based on them being able to charge monopoly rates, not rates that a perfectly competitive market in software would support.
If you conspicuously think of the elderly, the tax paying public between 18-60 will notice and have something to look forward to.
Really? Personally, I thought it was because the elderly vote at much higher rates than the rest of the population, ensuring that propositions favorable to the elderly get passed on the basis of the relatively high number of votes they'll generate.
As a side note, I expect this effect to become much worse once the baby boomers fully enter retirement. Not only will they be voting in proportionally greater numbers, but the absolute number of elderly will have risen as well.
Indeed, scientists have even developed materials that stop and store photons.
Forget printing, how about the fact that the old "Edit->Undo" menu action isn't there any more, because the old menu structure is totally gone? And, rather than replacing it with something sensible, the undo button is a tiny smudge of an arrow next to the giant "Office" button, making it very hard to hit accurately for users that aren't skilled with a mouse.
I and lots of other tech. support people are going to have to disagree with you there. Frankly, I don't see how Office 2007's interface is any more intuitive than Office 2003's. The feedback I receive from my users is that Office 2007 actually less intuitive, since it tries to "guess" what you're trying to do and puts the "appropriate" tools on the ribbon. However, the rules that it uses to guess are limited, and it often guesses wrong, forcing the user to override its guess.
If the user doesn't know that this behavior is occurring, then it seems like the tool that they want has "disappeared", and they don't know how to get it back.
The issue I have with Vista's integrated search is that it doesn't seem to shut down properly when a laptop is running on battery power. I shut down the search service manually, and I've noted almost a full hour more battery life as the search service isn't thrashing the hard drive any more.
Of course, one can credibly claim that the bug should never have existed in the first place, given that the loop triggering the bug wouldn't have passed a code review in any half-decent software organization.
I still remain skeptical about the benefits of model-driven-development. I recall that, at the latter end of the 1980s, developers were promised much the same thing with the push toward CASE tools. Of course, developers and managers quickly learned that such tools were only of use in a certain limited number of scenarios, and that attempting to use those tools outside of the scenarios for which they had been designed quickly led to the same problems.
Frankly, I'm not sure that "software entropy" is solvable by any sort of tool or language. Rather, it is solved by training developers to write tests, and enforcing certain minimum style standards on the code, so that any developer can look at any portion of the codebase without feeling too unfamiliar with it.
It depends on the nature of the customization. If the customization is fairly domain specific, then neither of the above two scenarios work, since there may not be enough interested people within the community to take on the burden of supporting the project.
Consider this: every time the Rails team changes things, you'll have to go through your patches and make sure they still apply correctly.
If that's a major chore for you, may I suggest investing in a test suite, so that you don't have to go through manually and test all your patches?
The problem was, however, that they released new versions frequently, and we needed them as soon as they were released.
What sort of features were they adding that made it necessary for you to upgrade so frequently? Might it have been possible for your team to not upgrade to the latest version every time?
Well, perhaps a developer has time now to make the changes, but won't have time later to maintain them?
And when the guy knowing Django moves on, what's the chance of finding a replacements who knows it? How much will that reduce the number of eligible applicants for a position -- will you disqualify fifty really smart guys for five mediocre ones who happen to know Django?
Probably not. In my (admittedly limited) experience, I find that Ruby on Rails and Python/Django are similarly supported, and have similar user/developer base sizes. Frankly, if I was choosing between Rails or Django, finding developers for either would be pretty far from the top of the list of my worries.
And, no, rich people DON'T pay a bigger percentage of taxes. They pay accountants (or politicians, if they're big enough) to cut their taxes in half or even get subsidies (out of the middle man's taxes, of course).
Then, isn't that sort of the fault of us "middle people" for allowing the rich to squirm out of paying their fair share for the common resources that they consume?
I suppose you could call the caldera containing lava in Mt. Doom a "boiling cauldron" if you were speaking metaphorically.
Indeed, it may be in the AV manufacturers' interests to keep the computing public stupid so as to ensure a continuing demand for their products.
To be quite honest, concept of the "desktop" in computing isn't that pervasive. Frankly, I wouldn't been surprised if the user had said, "Desktop? Do you want me to save it to Windows?"
More likely, she thought that an optional bit of the MLA citation standard for web documents (the update date) was mandatory.
There's also the fact that tech. support is usually free. If they were paying for the services (i.e. taking it to Geek Squad) they'd be much less likely to complain about your fixes.
Well, safe as long as the network stays down, that is.
What exactly are the virtues of proprietary software? It seams to me that it has to be your forced to do something you may not want to. want to use an ipod? Got to use itunes! want to use OS X? Got to use expensive mac hardware! want to work with people using the latest version of office? Got to use the latest version of office! If proprietary software has virtues why bother with lock-in, surely it could compete by itself on a level playing field?
Proprietary software can compete on a level playing field. Just look at SubEthaEdit. Where's the lock-in there? Its a text editor - no proprietary formats at all. Yet, it manages to compete by making things like collaborative editing significantly easier than its competitors, both free and proprietary.
Same thing with all the software you've listed. No one's forcing you to use an iPod, a Mac or even the latest version of Office. There are competing MP3 players, competing computer systems, and OpenOffice has handled all of the docx I've thrown at it, once I've run it through ODF Converter/Integrator.
If you don't like proprietary software, don't complain - vote with your wallet and buy hardware that does support the standards and formats you want.
Yes, we would trust it if, say, a company such as the IRS had the code analyzed and was able to certify its accuracy.
There, fixed that for you. Frankly, given H&R's reputation as an audit-magnet (due to their aggressive deductions), I'd be more wary of something that they endorsed, not less.
Notes+Domino may or may not do everything that Outlook+Exchange does (I don't know, I'm just a user, not an admin). However, I'm not sure that there's perfect compatibility between Notes and Outlook, so, even if Notes were to be open-sourced, all we'd get is another Zimbra, at best.
I fail to see how making Notes open-source would help this aim. After all, the main obstacle to people using calendaring and groupware apps is that said apps are difficult to use. Given Notes' horrible record regarding usability, I fail to see how making Notes freely available to all would spread the usage of calendaring amongst the general computing public.
In fact, I think that GMail and Google Calendar are doing more to spread automated calendaring than open-sourcing Notes (or even Outlook, for that matter) ever could.
As I state in the title, companies only open-source unprofitable products. As I understand it, Sun was willing to open-source Solaris because it was no longer profitable by itself - instead, it was just driving sales of Sun hardware. Until I see some similar evidence regarding Notes (showing that its unprofitable on its own and only drives sales of other IBM products), call me a skeptic of this effort.