Insights into the corporate mentality for OS / GNU
on
Ask Jonathan Zdziarski
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Jon, your acheivements thus far are impressive. I am personally most impressed by your adherence to Open Source Solutions in a corporate environment.
I myself have had numerous interactions with less-than-technically-savvy management-types. Any time I bring up solutions that are quite obviously a better technical and financial choice over software-giant-type solutions; conversation seems to hit a brick wall. The ignorance of these people on such topics is astounding, and I find many approaches I have tried seem to yield no results in the short term. "Well, yes, your example proves that we would save $500,000 per year using that Open Source solution. But We've decided to go the Microsoft (or what-have-you) route."
With your track record, I can only assume you have found some ways to overcome this closed-mindedness.
I would greatly appreciate any input you have on this; from the perspective of someone who has overcome this obstacle before.
I wonder if Google will monitor what is being chatted about and throw up relevant banner ads...At what point in time will they become cliche'?"
Um dude, that ship sailed ages ago... say when Google became a verb on the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer circa 2000 during dialogue between Buffy and Willow, where willow claims that she will "Google it".
As for "will they give me ads based on what I chat about" if they are releasing an IM client, could you possibly see any reason they would not use the same approach that has proven so successful with everything else they do? (ie: search, gmail, gmaps, etc etc etc)
As for mutterings of VOIP being tied into the rumored IM client... were I an overlord at google, I'd see it as necessary, unless they have some other gimmick to draw people to their service, instead of other, existing ones.
While I'm still not satisfied with the GUI side (Winamp-type-skins would be beautiful in later ver's of this util) I do love a lot of the features 'Gesktop' offers.
Yes, I could use pre-loaded options for some of what the Google Desktop offers, such as Winblows' built-in search... but a: I don't find it as effective at obscure files, and b: I hate M$'s search from the backbone to the GUI (let me choke that claymation dog!) I find it slow, counter-intuitive, and more frustrating than digging thru the files manually (almost as aggravating as using IE to browse the 'net.)
I'm wondering how far they intend to take this project. With 2 full version releases, I'm wondering what direction they hope to take this in.... more of a toolbar/client util, or more of a true desktop-replacement. Anyone who's run a different OS knows there are several things frustrating about the current state of the M$ dsktop, so it would be a market share they'd be welcome to...
All in all a solid release, which we have come to expect from the boys at Google.
" I have a big problem with 'protest form letters'. On the surface it seems like a pretty good idea......Sending form letters to your representatives is, in my opinion, one of the least productive methods of making your voice heard."
Sum1 with mod points left, troll this (expletive deleted) like he deserves, I humbly request.
OK, so, like a true troll, you call down people's point of view, and 'inform' them as to how they are wasting their time getting involved in politics.
For shame. The parent, and anyone who gets in on his mass-mail idea is in the right. Maybe they haven't grabbed Michael's flaming sword and begun
a crusade, but they are doing their part. I personally don't have any voice to your bureaucracy's officials, but I do get involved in our own. And do you know what can really swing a cause? When there is a gathering/meeting of the suits, and one can stand up on an issue and say "this many of our people tell me that they feel we should do Plan B." That's getting our voice heard.
Don't give me that 'There are better ways' line unless you happen to be sharing a realistic way to get better involved. I'm sure many of the people copying the parent's letter verbatim and submitting it to the same place would love to do more. However, this is not a course in political science. The general population first of all does not know how, and secondly cannot afford to 'get involved' and 'make a real difference' as you succinctly condemned all non-crusaders. Guess what I am doing when my legslative bodies are 'in House'? Working to feed my family. Non-violent protest? That takes far more time--and far more friends of friends than I can round up--to be appropriately effective.
Coming down on anyone for getting involved is a rude combination of ignorance and arrogance. You think you know better? Do better. I do not see any evidence whatsoever that even suggests you have a better track record than I or anyone else at affecting the way our political leaders run the world, our continent and respective countries. And as for 'without sounding condescending', I think you should practice what you preach, brother.
--end rant
Getting involved at any level is what is necessary. In this web-based world we've cooked ourselves into (I love it, all problems included, indisputably), people seem to have forgotten that saying things need to change in an online forum does not a force for change make. A letter to your Neighbourhood, city, state/province, etc representative goes a **Hell** of a lot further towards making a change than shooting calls at those who do so.
1) 1$ salary as tax-avoidance. Doable, very doable, and if you know what you're doing, the only way to make Real money. You make sure that your shareholdings etc are set up correctly and away you go. The reason: tax for personal income is done before you spend, tax for your company dollars are all after you've paid your fees, your R&D your investments etc. So a 1$ salary means it's both a wonderful PR gimmick, as well as a reduction in the dollars they send to the government. -- 2 birds, one stone.
2) Nobody should get modded to a 4 ranking for the fifth comment on the string having nothing to do with the topic at hand. Excuse me suso (#12187013) but I don't give a rat's ass that you didn't want to pay your federal taxes and are too stupid to figure out a way. And any mod that ranks you highly for that should be dragged out into the middle of the street and shit-kicked. (Yes, I am offering o mighty slashdotters!)
3) Trying to page through 400 comments of bullshit to find the three decent comments on a topic is getting to be a detriment to the slashdot experience. If you have nothing intelligent and relevant to the topic at hand go find a fucking chatroom.
4) the update by 'H'; First off, don't fuck with another's article, secondly, don't discredit something just because you are too stupid to figure it out. The tax breaks are astounding, unfortunately, it seems nobody is able to look at a subject such as finances in an analytical manner. They just hear something from 'my friend, the expert' and then pass it off as gospel truth.
Now that I've ranted on y'all, re-read #1; the article means only those 2 things. Now go outside and play goddamn it! You've all got a terrible case of NADD.
OK, back to my morning coffee:p
So, I may get severely modded for this, but I have to comment.
Kraft is owned by the same people who own one of the most well known cigarette manufacturers/distributors in the world.
Isn't the whole point of this article (Like many here at/.) to show how the law constantly supports big business, and who gives a fuck who and how many individuals they hurt?
Are tobacco companies not the absolute poster-children for this? I'm looking at the pack I'm trying to quit with right now, and the surgeon general tells me I've got approximately a 75% chance of dying young and horribly mutilated if I continue to use these products. Yet still they are nearly the most popular, easiest-to-find product in the world. Yet they are still always smoked by the 'cool guys' in the movies and even cartoons our kids watch...
So, to say that the bigot company Kraft; who has legally been allowed--NO, Encouraged!--to terrorize some poor old seamstress off of her Rightfully Owned website; is owned by the even larger more widely known, bastard, make-money-off-your-suffering tobbacco company would be one of the most insightful replies posted here.
Certainly it deserves a better ranking than some guy who pasted a poor translation of the page. After all, if we're all supposed to be geeks here, shouldn't we already be aware of Google's 'translate this page'?
I back your point puke76, and I think it's one of the most pertinent statements here. To the Mod: Re-Mod his post!
OK, So SCO starts a frivolous lawsuit to try and become a household name before it goes belly up. Now, in the crosshairs, and with far more power and finances at their disposal, IBM calls in some other top-dogs to drag this out into a dirty courtroom scrap that promises to last even longer.
Stalling tactics hoping SCO runs out of money? Maybe, but more likely, like most of these software-based lawsuits, it's just to add enough confusion to the mediation to keep anyone who wasn't actually there from ever seeing the truth.
And this drama all plays out for us on the daily news... lucky us.
Your tax dollars hard at work. That's one expensive soap-opera.
Slashdot Mirror
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=160001&cid=133 92632
At least it's not a dupe article.
Jon, your acheivements thus far are impressive. I am personally most impressed by your adherence to Open Source Solutions in a corporate environment.
I myself have had numerous interactions with less-than-technically-savvy management-types. Any time I bring up solutions that are quite obviously a better technical and financial choice over software-giant-type solutions; conversation seems to hit a brick wall. The ignorance of these people on such topics is astounding, and I find many approaches I have tried seem to yield no results in the short term. "Well, yes, your example proves that we would save $500,000 per year using that Open Source solution. But We've decided to go the Microsoft (or what-have-you) route."
With your track record, I can only assume you have found some ways to overcome this closed-mindedness.
I would greatly appreciate any input you have on this; from the perspective of someone who has overcome this obstacle before.
I wonder if Google will monitor what is being chatted about and throw up relevant banner ads...At what point in time will they become cliche'?"
Um dude, that ship sailed ages ago... say when Google became a verb on the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer circa 2000 during dialogue between Buffy and Willow, where willow claims that she will "Google it".
As for "will they give me ads based on what I chat about" if they are releasing an IM client, could you possibly see any reason they would not use the same approach that has proven so successful with everything else they do? (ie: search, gmail, gmaps, etc etc etc)
As for mutterings of VOIP being tied into the rumored IM client... were I an overlord at google, I'd see it as necessary, unless they have some other gimmick to draw people to their service, instead of other, existing ones.
While I'm still not satisfied with the GUI side (Winamp-type-skins would be beautiful in later ver's of this util) I do love a lot of the features 'Gesktop' offers.
Yes, I could use pre-loaded options for some of what the Google Desktop offers, such as Winblows' built-in search... but a: I don't find it as effective at obscure files, and b: I hate M$'s search from the backbone to the GUI (let me choke that claymation dog!) I find it slow, counter-intuitive, and more frustrating than digging thru the files manually (almost as aggravating as using IE to browse the 'net.)
I'm wondering how far they intend to take this project. With 2 full version releases, I'm wondering what direction they hope to take this in.... more of a toolbar/client util, or more of a true desktop-replacement. Anyone who's run a different OS knows there are several things frustrating about the current state of the M$ dsktop, so it would be a market share they'd be welcome to...
All in all a solid release, which we have come to expect from the boys at Google.
" I have a big problem with 'protest form letters'. On the surface it seems like a pretty good idea......Sending form letters to your representatives is, in my opinion, one of the least productive methods of making your voice heard."
Sum1 with mod points left, troll this (expletive deleted) like he deserves, I humbly request.
OK, so, like a true troll, you call down people's point of view, and 'inform' them as to how they are wasting their time getting involved in politics.
For shame. The parent, and anyone who gets in on his mass-mail idea is in the right. Maybe they haven't grabbed Michael's flaming sword and begun a crusade, but they are doing their part. I personally don't have any voice to your bureaucracy's officials, but I do get involved in our own. And do you know what can really swing a cause? When there is a gathering/meeting of the suits, and one can stand up on an issue and say "this many of our people tell me that they feel we should do Plan B." That's getting our voice heard.
Don't give me that 'There are better ways' line unless you happen to be sharing a realistic way to get better involved. I'm sure many of the people copying the parent's letter verbatim and submitting it to the same place would love to do more. However, this is not a course in political science. The general population first of all does not know how, and secondly cannot afford to 'get involved' and 'make a real difference' as you succinctly condemned all non-crusaders. Guess what I am doing when my legslative bodies are 'in House'? Working to feed my family. Non-violent protest? That takes far more time--and far more friends of friends than I can round up--to be appropriately effective.
Coming down on anyone for getting involved is a rude combination of ignorance and arrogance. You think you know better? Do better. I do not see any evidence whatsoever that even suggests you have a better track record than I or anyone else at affecting the way our political leaders run the world, our continent and respective countries. And as for 'without sounding condescending', I think you should practice what you preach, brother.
--end rant
Getting involved at any level is what is necessary. In this web-based world we've cooked ourselves into (I love it, all problems included, indisputably), people seem to have forgotten that saying things need to change in an online forum does not a force for change make. A letter to your Neighbourhood, city, state/province, etc representative goes a **Hell** of a lot further towards making a change than shooting calls at those who do so.
1) 1$ salary as tax-avoidance. Doable, very doable, and if you know what you're doing, the only way to make Real money. You make sure that your shareholdings etc are set up correctly and away you go. The reason: tax for personal income is done before you spend, tax for your company dollars are all after you've paid your fees, your R&D your investments etc. So a 1$ salary means it's both a wonderful PR gimmick, as well as a reduction in the dollars they send to the government. -- 2 birds, one stone.
2) Nobody should get modded to a 4 ranking for the fifth comment on the string having nothing to do with the topic at hand. Excuse me suso (#12187013) but I don't give a rat's ass that you didn't want to pay your federal taxes and are too stupid to figure out a way. And any mod that ranks you highly for that should be dragged out into the middle of the street and shit-kicked. (Yes, I am offering o mighty slashdotters!)
3) Trying to page through 400 comments of bullshit to find the three decent comments on a topic is getting to be a detriment to the slashdot experience. If you have nothing intelligent and relevant to the topic at hand go find a fucking chatroom.
4) the update by 'H'; First off, don't fuck with another's article, secondly, don't discredit something just because you are too stupid to figure it out. The tax breaks are astounding, unfortunately, it seems nobody is able to look at a subject such as finances in an analytical manner. They just hear something from 'my friend, the expert' and then pass it off as gospel truth.
Now that I've ranted on y'all, re-read #1; the article means only those 2 things. Now go outside and play goddamn it! You've all got a terrible case of NADD. OK, back to my morning coffee :p
So, I may get severely modded for this, but I have to comment.
/.) to show how the law constantly supports big business, and who gives a fuck who and how many individuals they hurt?
Kraft is owned by the same people who own one of the most well known cigarette manufacturers/distributors in the world.
Isn't the whole point of this article (Like many here at
Are tobacco companies not the absolute poster-children for this? I'm looking at the pack I'm trying to quit with right now, and the surgeon general tells me I've got approximately a 75% chance of dying young and horribly mutilated if I continue to use these products. Yet still they are nearly the most popular, easiest-to-find product in the world. Yet they are still always smoked by the 'cool guys' in the movies and even cartoons our kids watch...
So, to say that the bigot company Kraft; who has legally been allowed--NO, Encouraged!--to terrorize some poor old seamstress off of her Rightfully Owned website; is owned by the even larger more widely known, bastard, make-money-off-your-suffering tobbacco company would be one of the most insightful replies posted here.
Certainly it deserves a better ranking than some guy who pasted a poor translation of the page. After all, if we're all supposed to be geeks here, shouldn't we already be aware of Google's 'translate this page'?
I back your point puke76, and I think it's one of the most pertinent statements here. To the Mod: Re-Mod his post!
And there's my 2 cents.
OK, So SCO starts a frivolous lawsuit to try and become a household name before it goes belly up. Now, in the crosshairs, and with far more power and finances at their disposal, IBM calls in some other top-dogs to drag this out into a dirty courtroom scrap that promises to last even longer. Stalling tactics hoping SCO runs out of money? Maybe, but more likely, like most of these software-based lawsuits, it's just to add enough confusion to the mediation to keep anyone who wasn't actually there from ever seeing the truth. And this drama all plays out for us on the daily news... lucky us. Your tax dollars hard at work. That's one expensive soap-opera.
Woulda loved to look, but it got /.'d anyone got a mirror that works?