"You don't know what percent is . . . If a Win2k3 server is down 10 hours, and the Linux server down 20% more, then it is 10hrs*1.2=12hrs. Which makes sense. So the linux server has 20% more downtime, not 20% of the total year"
You don't know what uptime vs. downtime is. Your calculation is fine, and I might believe it(although I would still want to know the details of the study) but that's NOT what the article is claiming. It clearly states that Win2k3 servers have 20% more UPTIME, not that RHEL servers have 20% more DOWNTIME.
Their conclusion just doesn't make any sense unless that are some very unusual circumstances at work.
" . . . it's best to just label the story FUD on the front page, even though it may very well be true (regardless of the reasons)."
I understand that/. is overwhelmingly populated with Linux bigots, but it's obviously not cloaking itself in a white veil of "objectivity" like this study. Saying that the study may be "true" "regardless of the reasons" is ridiculous based on the inherent assumptions a person would make regarding normal server operation.
So, maybe it's "true" because . . .
1. The businesses are fireworks vendors which are only open 6 days per year, and it took them a day to get their RHEL boxes up? 2. A building housing the Linux farm was crushed in an earthquake and it took 60 days to get the servers back online? 3. The velocity difference between the Windows and Linux servers was a substantial fraction of the speed of light?
Aren't the "reasons" the essence of the conclusion that the study is trying to draw?
OK, so based on your anecdotal evidence, the Windows servers have less than 1% greater uptime than the Linux servers. I find that entirely plausible. The "20% more uptime" figure is an obvious fabrication or based on inherent flaws in the data gathering process.
As to your TCO/support question, how many support people PER CLIENT do you have for your respective OS bases? Don't you think a "good" Linux admin can take care of a hell of a lot more machines than a "good" Windows admin?
What the hell kind of shops/businesses/people are they surveying? People that have their servers running for a couple of days a year??
"According to the Yankee Group's annual server reliability survey . . . Windows 2003 Server, in fact, led the popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime."
I would think that most businesses want to have their servers up 24/7/365 minus a few hours of scheduled reboots and upgrades, and unless something breaks or crashes. So, assume a Windows 2003 server had PERFECT uptime record for the year.
365/1.2 = 304.17. So, in order for Windows to beat Linux with 20% more uptime, they're trying to say that a server running RHEL is down more than SIXTY DAYS a year? My BS meter just crashed.
I think this is the most intriguing analogy about the whole thing. Just for the sake of argument, suppose the kid in question has "your" VCR at his house and records programs for you at a price using "your" tapes. It's definitely a fine line, but I think it would be difficult to call this illegal, even if you had another VCR at home to watch "your" tapes.
At any rate, I think the "personalization" aspect is relevant to the argument. Consider the scenario where Cablevision is recording ALL content and then making it generally available to ALL customers on demand. Then, by comparison, suppose that "I" set up my own DVR service(with hardware in Cablevision's IT maze) to record a specific channel at a particular time. I think this difference is what would make the service a legal one. I suppose that the next argument would be one of capacity available to the individual user. If the cable company kept their price/connection the same(i.e. charge to record programs on 'N' channels simultaneously == cost of running 'N' cable connections to the home) I think they have a compelling case for the legality of offering the service.
"We have bipartisan review of this and programs like it. It's called "Senate Select Committee on Intelligence""
Whew. That's a relief. I feel much better knowing that it's OK for the government to violate our civil rights only if Republicans and Democrats agree about it.
is when people like you who are supposed to be enforcing the law are the ones that are VIOLATING IT!
"We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected."
You have an obligation to OBEY the law as well! Your boss has sworn an oath to preserve, protect and defend The Constitution against all enemies both foreign and DOMESTIC. Protecting our national security is important, but protecting our freedom is even more important.
Great job of diverting the discussion away from the topic of AT&T monitoring vast amounts of Internet traffic in collaboration with the Federal government.
You successfully managed to devolve the discussion into utterly meaningless partisan bickering and lent support to the ridiculous idea that there is political opposition within our nation. The fact that otherwise intelligent/. readers can be so easily distracted from the REAL issue is the very reason that our individual liberties are evaporating.
I have to laugh at the people who are generally ignorant on the subject of firearms and guerilla warfare tactics. If an insurgency ever DID occur in the U.S. it wouldn't be a bunch of people standing in a field wearing uniforms and waving a flag.
Insurgents don't wear a name tag labeling themselves as such, and are generally indistinguishable from any other member of the population. That fact renders all of the tanks, planes, artillery and . . . nuclear weapons?(LOL, the US is really going to use a nuke on its own soil to kill some armed citizens??) virtually irrelevant. It also negates your argument about the quantities of munitions required to conduct a war.
Unless the military force is willing to kill a few hundred civilians for every insurgent they kill, overwhelming military force isn't much of an advantage.
Spend 10 minutes doing Google searches, and you can find all of the friggin bullets you want.
"You aren't going to topple the USA government with a few rifles."
How about 50 million+ rifles?
"When are you going to do this?"
When the government comes to take them away.
"If you aren't going to use them, you might as well not have them. Your guns have done nothing whatsoever to protect your freedom and they will continue to do nothing as long as they are not used."
That sounds suspiciously like you're advocating armed insurrection . .."knock knock"
What constantly amazes me is that the same people who would decry any intrusion on the right to free speech and abhor the undermining of the 4th Amendment would so willingly give up their 2nd Amendment rights.
"The government is going to have more and better guns than the populace."
The U.S. military had an overwhelming firepower advantage in Vietnam and ended up getting their asses kicked. The Soviets had a similar advantage in Afghanistan, with a similar outcome. The current U.S. military in Iraq had the most technologically advanced weapons systems in the world, yet the insurgency persists.
Never underestimate the capabilities of a determined soldier fighting on his or her home soil. Consider also that the U.S. military and law enforcement personnel are citizens too, many of whom would refuse to kill their fellow citizens. Overwhelming firepower is only useful if the wielder of that force is willing to decimate the civilian population in order to suppress armed resistance. It's hardly logical to kill the very people you are trying to subjugate.
". ..easy supply only ends up harming your society."
If I ever see a well documented and methodologically sound study demonstrating that firearms have significant negative effects on our society, I will reconsider my position. The prevailing anti-gun arguments are either anecdotal in nature, or deliberately exlusive of relevant facts.
Just spouting off an idea that I had 5 minutes ago. Feel free to use for target practice.
I fully agree with the parent in that Linux/open source is not an alternative for most companies. Maybe we could form an open "support" community to provide collaborative volunteer tech support to businesses willing to deploy an open source solution in their shops? Sure, there are open source solutions to 90% of commercial apps, and customer demand could easily make it 100%. However, an eclectic collection of point applications with a labor intensive deployment requirement and a painful switch for the user base isn't a "solution". If there were an out of the box OS, Office, e-mail, messaging and SUPPORT package, it would be a much more realistic alternative.
Anyone willing to donate some time for tech support in addition to or as a substitute for your code development efforts?
" . ..the official version of SuSE with extra packages on the DVD is quite a lot cheaper than the Mandriva offerings."
Can you please provide links to show what you're comparing? The MSRP on SUSE Linux 10.0 (from the Novell site) is $60. The Mandriva PowerPack version(option #3 from this document) is 80 euros =~ $62. $2 != "quite a lot"
I'm an experienced Linux/Unix user in a work environment where the OS and all of the hardware has been pre-configured. I also created a dual boot system using a Kanotix boot CD on my old Win98 system which wasn't too hard. I really want to get Linux up and running on a new system I'm putting together, but all of the choices for various distros have me baffled. I was leaning toward SUSE, but the $60 didn't seem like an attractive price point. Trying to find a distro with the optimal combination of price, capability and user friendliness.
"Cable TV has a number of packages, all geared to specific type of viewers, at different prices. The sports nuts can watch every baseball, hocky, & basketball game played.... but he'll pay."
Same is true of the ISPs . . . faster connection, higher price. What the telecom companies want to do is not only make you pay for a level of service, but also make the sports leagues pay to have their content delivered at a certain speed. Based on the financial resources of the major sports leagues, you'll be able to get football and baseball at normal speed. Basketball can't afford to pay quite as much, so you'll get those games at maybe 2/3 speed, and you'll have to watch hockey in slow motion.
"Making "gobs and gobs" of money doesn't sound dead in the water to me."
From the standpoint of an equities investor, a steady and expected profit does not amount to a great investment. If a company can be expected to earn X dollars of profit on a regular basis, that earnings stream is quickly factored into the stock price. It may be a "solid" investment and earn a dividend income, but without potential growth in revenue and profits, the company value is going to be more or less constant.
That being said, predictions about the decline of Microsoft are about as reliable as the predictions regarding the end of Moore's Law.
I respectfully disagree. I'm inclined toward free market capitalism, but the model just doesn't work when public funding has entered the equation and there are institutionalized monopolies in that market.
Your independent ISPs STILL have to go through networks owned by the big Telcos or cable companies. If the Internet is fully "de-regulated" as you suggest, those companies will be able to slow down the service you get from the little guys, and/or make it more expensive. Consumers will definitely gravitate toward whoever provides the best service for the money.
"De-regulation" is a nice buzz word, but when the consumer is locked into a market where a monopoly dictates availability and price of the service, "free market" capitalism is broken.
Even if the legislation had been approved, the wording from the article seems a little sketchy in terms of what it would actually accomplish. Giving the FCC "The Power" to enforce a net neutrality policy doesn't mean that they actually WILL. Have we already lost? If the telecoms have managed to twist the debate into a question of FCC power as opposed to a fundamental discussion on net neutrality, we've definitely been weakened. If my interpretation is correct, this would just shift the question from a corrupt legislature to a corrupt government agency.
:-) Can't believe I overlooked the idiocy of that statement. The differentiation between "virus" and "routine" clouded my normal perspicacity. Failure does seem to be the routine in FedGov
It's obvious that this is a computer malfunction. They'll have to disconnect the logic circuits of their Saab 9000 before it terminates any further life functions.
So, by your rationale,the USA Patriot Act, which passed 98-1 in the Senate, is the fault of the Republicans simply because they hold the majority of seats?
"I hate it when the media holds Republican party members accountable for their voting record."
Yet you think that the Democrats should get a free pass because they "don't have much of a say in the process"???
I don't like this decision, and I don't like a lot of the legislation and policy decisions that have come out of the Republican controlled government in recent years. At the same time it is totally naive to look at the world in such a black and white manner. Would you vote for the Democrats who helped kill this legislation simply because they're not Republicans? It's exactly that sort of narrow-minded partisan thinking that has our country in such a mess! Maybe you're not paying attention to how the Democrats vote, but be sure that Verizon and AT&T are.
Slashdot Mirror
"You don't know what percent is . . . If a Win2k3 server is down 10 hours, and the Linux server down 20% more, then it is 10hrs*1.2=12hrs. Which makes sense. So the linux server has 20% more downtime, not 20% of the total year"
You don't know what uptime vs. downtime is. Your calculation is fine, and I might believe it(although I would still want to know the details of the study) but that's NOT what the article is claiming. It clearly states that Win2k3 servers have 20% more UPTIME, not that RHEL servers have 20% more DOWNTIME.
Their conclusion just doesn't make any sense unless that are some very unusual circumstances at work.
" . . . it's best to just label the story FUD on the front page, even though it may very well be true (regardless of the reasons)."
/. is overwhelmingly populated with Linux bigots, but it's obviously not cloaking itself in a white veil of "objectivity" like this study. Saying that the study may be "true" "regardless of the reasons" is ridiculous based on the inherent assumptions a person would make regarding normal server operation.
I understand that
So, maybe it's "true" because . . .
1. The businesses are fireworks vendors which are only open 6 days per year, and it took them a day to get their RHEL boxes up?
2. A building housing the Linux farm was crushed in an earthquake and it took 60 days to get the servers back online?
3. The velocity difference between the Windows and Linux servers was a substantial fraction of the speed of light?
Aren't the "reasons" the essence of the conclusion that the study is trying to draw?
OK, so based on your anecdotal evidence, the Windows servers have less than 1% greater uptime than the Linux servers. I find that entirely plausible. The "20% more uptime" figure is an obvious fabrication or based on inherent flaws in the data gathering process. As to your TCO/support question, how many support people PER CLIENT do you have for your respective OS bases? Don't you think a "good" Linux admin can take care of a hell of a lot more machines than a "good" Windows admin?
What the hell kind of shops/businesses/people are they surveying? People that have their servers running for a couple of days a year??
"According to the Yankee Group's annual server reliability survey . . . Windows 2003 Server, in fact, led the popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime."
I would think that most businesses want to have their servers up 24/7/365 minus a few hours of scheduled reboots and upgrades, and unless something breaks or crashes. So, assume a Windows 2003 server had PERFECT uptime record for the year.
365/1.2 = 304.17. So, in order for Windows to beat Linux with 20% more uptime, they're trying to say that a server running RHEL is down more than SIXTY DAYS a year? My BS meter just crashed.
There is no Osama bin Laden.
sed "s/communist/terrorist"/g 1950s > 2000s
I think this is the most intriguing analogy about the whole thing. Just for the sake of argument, suppose the kid in question has "your" VCR at his house and records programs for you at a price using "your" tapes. It's definitely a fine line, but I think it would be difficult to call this illegal, even if you had another VCR at home to watch "your" tapes.
At any rate, I think the "personalization" aspect is relevant to the argument. Consider the scenario where Cablevision is recording ALL content and then making it generally available to ALL customers on demand. Then, by comparison, suppose that "I" set up my own DVR service(with hardware in Cablevision's IT maze) to record a specific channel at a particular time. I think this difference is what would make the service a legal one. I suppose that the next argument would be one of capacity available to the individual user. If the cable company kept their price/connection the same(i.e. charge to record programs on 'N' channels simultaneously == cost of running 'N' cable connections to the home) I think they have a compelling case for the legality of offering the service.
"Perl" Jam? LOL
"We have bipartisan review of this and programs like it. It's called "Senate Select Committee on Intelligence"" Whew. That's a relief. I feel much better knowing that it's OK for the government to violate our civil rights only if Republicans and Democrats agree about it.
is when people like you who are supposed to be enforcing the law are the ones that are VIOLATING IT!
"We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected."
You have an obligation to OBEY the law as well! Your boss has sworn an oath to preserve, protect and defend The Constitution against all enemies both foreign and DOMESTIC. Protecting our national security is important, but protecting our freedom is even more important.
Great job of diverting the discussion away from the topic of AT&T monitoring vast amounts of Internet traffic in collaboration with the Federal government. You successfully managed to devolve the discussion into utterly meaningless partisan bickering and lent support to the ridiculous idea that there is political opposition within our nation. The fact that otherwise intelligent /. readers can be so easily distracted from the REAL issue is the very reason that our individual liberties are evaporating.
If AT&T hasn't done anything wrong, then they have nothing to fear.
I have to laugh at the people who are generally ignorant on the subject of firearms and guerilla warfare tactics. If an insurgency ever DID occur in the U.S. it wouldn't be a bunch of people standing in a field wearing uniforms and waving a flag.
Insurgents don't wear a name tag labeling themselves as such, and are generally indistinguishable from any other member of the population. That fact renders all of the tanks, planes, artillery and . . . nuclear weapons?(LOL, the US is really going to use a nuke on its own soil to kill some armed citizens??) virtually irrelevant. It also negates your argument about the quantities of munitions required to conduct a war.
Unless the military force is willing to kill a few hundred civilians for every insurgent they kill, overwhelming military force isn't much of an advantage.
Spend 10 minutes doing Google searches, and you can find all of the friggin bullets you want.
"You aren't going to topple the USA government with a few rifles."
."knock knock"
How about 50 million+ rifles?
"When are you going to do this?"
When the government comes to take them away.
"If you aren't going to use them, you might as well not have them. Your guns have done nothing whatsoever to protect your freedom and they will continue to do nothing as long as they are not used."
That sounds suspiciously like you're advocating armed insurrection . .
What constantly amazes me is that the same people who would decry any intrusion on the right to free speech and abhor the undermining of the 4th Amendment would so willingly give up their 2nd Amendment rights.
"The government is going to have more and better guns than the populace." The U.S. military had an overwhelming firepower advantage in Vietnam and ended up getting their asses kicked. The Soviets had a similar advantage in Afghanistan, with a similar outcome. The current U.S. military in Iraq had the most technologically advanced weapons systems in the world, yet the insurgency persists. Never underestimate the capabilities of a determined soldier fighting on his or her home soil. Consider also that the U.S. military and law enforcement personnel are citizens too, many of whom would refuse to kill their fellow citizens. Overwhelming firepower is only useful if the wielder of that force is willing to decimate the civilian population in order to suppress armed resistance. It's hardly logical to kill the very people you are trying to subjugate. ". . .easy supply only ends up harming your society."
If I ever see a well documented and methodologically sound study demonstrating that firearms have significant negative effects on our society, I will reconsider my position. The prevailing anti-gun arguments are either anecdotal in nature, or deliberately exlusive of relevant facts.
Just spouting off an idea that I had 5 minutes ago. Feel free to use for target practice.
I fully agree with the parent in that Linux/open source is not an alternative for most companies. Maybe we could form an open "support" community to provide collaborative volunteer tech support to businesses willing to deploy an open source solution in their shops? Sure, there are open source solutions to 90% of commercial apps, and customer demand could easily make it 100%. However, an eclectic collection of point applications with a labor intensive deployment requirement and a painful switch for the user base isn't a "solution". If there were an out of the box OS, Office, e-mail, messaging and SUPPORT package, it would be a much more realistic alternative.
Anyone willing to donate some time for tech support in addition to or as a substitute for your code development efforts?
" . . .the official version of SuSE with extra packages on the DVD is quite a lot cheaper than the Mandriva offerings."
Can you please provide links to show what you're comparing? The MSRP on SUSE Linux 10.0 (from the Novell site) is $60. The Mandriva PowerPack version(option #3 from this document) is 80 euros =~ $62. $2 != "quite a lot"
I'm an experienced Linux/Unix user in a work environment where the OS and all of the hardware has been pre-configured. I also created a dual boot system using a Kanotix boot CD on my old Win98 system which wasn't too hard. I really want to get Linux up and running on a new system I'm putting together, but all of the choices for various distros have me baffled. I was leaning toward SUSE, but the $60 didn't seem like an attractive price point. Trying to find a distro with the optimal combination of price, capability and user friendliness.
I'm glad that this discussion is taking place.
"Cable TV has a number of packages, all geared to specific type of viewers, at different prices. The sports nuts can watch every baseball, hocky, & basketball game played .... but he'll pay."
Same is true of the ISPs . . . faster connection, higher price. What the telecom companies want to do is not only make you pay for a level of service, but also make the sports leagues pay to have their content delivered at a certain speed. Based on the financial resources of the major sports leagues, you'll be able to get football and baseball at normal speed. Basketball can't afford to pay quite as much, so you'll get those games at maybe 2/3 speed, and you'll have to watch hockey in slow motion.
"Making "gobs and gobs" of money doesn't sound dead in the water to me."
From the standpoint of an equities investor, a steady and expected profit does not amount to a great investment. If a company can be expected to earn X dollars of profit on a regular basis, that earnings stream is quickly factored into the stock price. It may be a "solid" investment and earn a dividend income, but without potential growth in revenue and profits, the company value is going to be more or less constant.
That being said, predictions about the decline of Microsoft are about as reliable as the predictions regarding the end of Moore's Law.
I respectfully disagree. I'm inclined toward free market capitalism, but the model just doesn't work when public funding has entered the equation and there are institutionalized monopolies in that market. Your independent ISPs STILL have to go through networks owned by the big Telcos or cable companies. If the Internet is fully "de-regulated" as you suggest, those companies will be able to slow down the service you get from the little guys, and/or make it more expensive. Consumers will definitely gravitate toward whoever provides the best service for the money. "De-regulation" is a nice buzz word, but when the consumer is locked into a market where a monopoly dictates availability and price of the service, "free market" capitalism is broken.
Even if the legislation had been approved, the wording from the article seems a little sketchy in terms of what it would actually accomplish. Giving the FCC "The Power" to enforce a net neutrality policy doesn't mean that they actually WILL. Have we already lost? If the telecoms have managed to twist the debate into a question of FCC power as opposed to a fundamental discussion on net neutrality, we've definitely been weakened. If my interpretation is correct, this would just shift the question from a corrupt legislature to a corrupt government agency.
Wish I had a +1 Funny. First LOL I've had in a while on /.
:-) Can't believe I overlooked the idiocy of that statement. The differentiation between "virus" and "routine" clouded my normal perspicacity. Failure does seem to be the routine in FedGov
It's obvious that this is a computer malfunction. They'll have to disconnect the logic circuits of their Saab 9000 before it terminates any further life functions.
So, by your rationale,the USA Patriot Act, which passed 98-1 in the Senate, is the fault of the Republicans simply because they hold the majority of seats? "I hate it when the media holds Republican party members accountable for their voting record." Yet you think that the Democrats should get a free pass because they "don't have much of a say in the process"??? I don't like this decision, and I don't like a lot of the legislation and policy decisions that have come out of the Republican controlled government in recent years. At the same time it is totally naive to look at the world in such a black and white manner. Would you vote for the Democrats who helped kill this legislation simply because they're not Republicans? It's exactly that sort of narrow-minded partisan thinking that has our country in such a mess! Maybe you're not paying attention to how the Democrats vote, but be sure that Verizon and AT&T are.