"This person may be a secretary who does nothing more than remind her boss of meetings. It might be the building supervisor who makes sure all the light bulbs work."
He was a programmer. But really it doesn't matter. Everybody who works at MS in any capacity shares in the responsibility for their corporation does. Not 100%, not mostly but some. Even if it's a tiny little bit they have to share some of the blame.
" But to turn around and walk out, that's what makes you an asshole."
that's your opinion and I respect that. My opinion is that people who work at microsoft are assholes or at the least have no moral compass.
I once met an MS employee at a bar. I turned around and left.
I had no desire to become involved in a conversation or to become friends with anybody who works at MS.
Yes it's probably prejudiced but that's the way I felt.
I just perceive them as being unethical people working for an unethical company. Look at the way MS has stabbed so many of its friends in the back, who is to say an MS employee won't stab his friends in the back too?
"As far as querying XML files goes, that's actually a pet peeve of mine. While one could maybe build some cool stuff around XML storage, the whole idea is just wrong-headed IMO as one ought to be querying a database and not flat text files. But then, I may just be prejudiced.:+)"
I am no expert but my understanding is that oracle takes an XML document and automatically generates tables (with relations) to store it. You can then query using either SQL or Xquery.
We do tend to deal a lot with XML document interchange so it seemed like a logical choice.
Anyway the CIO shot the idea down so now the programmers have to parse the XML, create the proper tables and store them manually. What's worse they have to code up bi directional syncing code and attempt at some sort of a merge replication thing.
It seems ugly and messy to me. If oracle could do it why spend all that time coding?
Shared nothing merge replication. Syncronizing with desktops and PDAs (oracle light) are the two I was told about. I think there were more, I remember them talking storing XML files and being able to query them. Apparently oracle has some super cool XML sotrage technology.
"If you needed DBMS software, you were being irresponsible with your company's money if you didn't evaluate PostgreSQL to see if it would do what you needed and went with MS SQL Server or Oracle just on the basis of the name."
We just did a study for database servers for a new software we are writing. After examining all criterea the developers decided that oracle was the only product that had the desired feature set. The management went with SQL server even though oracle cost the same.
Don't ask me why. The developers are now forced to write a ton of code to work around missing features and they grumble constantly.
My point is that as long as the management is too stupid to understand technology and too arrogant to listen to people who will be trying to work with that technology you will never save money.
"The only thing I can see as being beneficial is a new MQ implemented with interaction entirely in XML-RPC, etc... as this would allow J2EE/.NET/PHP/whatever apps to use it regardless of platform."
" What's the worst that can happen? It gets deader?"
That's not the worst that can happen. The worst that can happen is that your kids schools will crumble, social security will be bankrupt and you will not be able to invade countries willy nilly because you spent all your money trying to make another planet livable.
On second thought if it makes military adventures too expensive I am all for it.
"So, is McNealy just being coy, or is Bray terminally out of the loop?"
Neither. Sun is an extremely disorganized corporation flailing around trying desparately to find something to sell that anybody wants. Right now all they have to sell is hardware and it's not that special. Buyign cobalt didn't work out so well, no money being made from java, solaris is free, what's left?
Ingres is the only "enterprise" open source DB that can scale to lots of processors.
Obviously sun will want to go with something that will run well on their high end hardware.
It will be interesting to see sun try and sell ingres though. CA couldn't really sell it to any new customers and sun isn't known for their marketing savvy.
It sounds like you guy need better management. You should be able to get PCs from dell with an OS no matter how many you buy. They don't advertise it on their front page but they can't legally force you to buy windows anymore.
I am forced to use a terminal service application occatinally at my work, I dread every second of it. We are a windows only shop but somebody decided to serve certain applications via terminal server for some insane reason.
" but my point remains that we cannot supply the desktops at a good price unless we use windows machines."
You are only thinking about the initial purchase price. I am talking about the long run. A mac mini in the US costs about the same as a cheap dell for about the same specs. But as I said you can remote boot the macs and manage them centrally. That saves you tens of thousands of dollars every year.
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"This person may be a secretary who does nothing more than remind her boss of meetings. It might be the building supervisor who makes sure all the light bulbs work."
He was a programmer. But really it doesn't matter. Everybody who works at MS in any capacity shares in the responsibility for their corporation does. Not 100%, not mostly but some. Even if it's a tiny little bit they have to share some of the blame.
" But to turn around and walk out, that's what makes you an asshole."
that's your opinion and I respect that. My opinion is that people who work at microsoft are assholes or at the least have no moral compass.
I once met an MS employee at a bar. I turned around and left.
I had no desire to become involved in a conversation or to become friends with anybody who works at MS.
Yes it's probably prejudiced but that's the way I felt.
I just perceive them as being unethical people working for an unethical company. Look at the way MS has stabbed so many of its friends in the back, who is to say an MS employee won't stab his friends in the back too?
I have not given them any private information. I set up a spamgourmet email address and gave them that. They can do whatever they want with it.
What's wrong with this job posting is that it means MS is gearing up for a patent assault.
It's not good news for OSS.
Neat but a bit expensive just to use as a front end.
MS like most corporations know that the truth does not matter to Americans. Americans believe what they want to believe no matter what the facts are.
History also shows that any lie that is repeated enough becomes indistinguishable from the truth.
This is true in politics, it's true in entertainment and it's true in business.
"MySQL is what they use to teach you structured query in school"
And it's terrible for that. People should use firebird it has much better SQL compliance.
Too bad he could not test on Mac OS X.
Of course in order to do that he would have to install the OSes on a PPC machine and I don't think freebsd on PPC is ready for prime time yet.
Since the trees are being cut down faster then they grow back your unwillingness to give up your comforts will effect your children and grandchildren.
"As far as querying XML files goes, that's actually a pet peeve of mine. While one could maybe build some cool stuff around XML storage, the whole idea is just wrong-headed IMO as one ought to be querying a database and not flat text files. But then, I may just be prejudiced. :+)"
I am no expert but my understanding is that oracle takes an XML document and automatically generates tables (with relations) to store it. You can then query using either SQL or Xquery.
We do tend to deal a lot with XML document interchange so it seemed like a logical choice.
Anyway the CIO shot the idea down so now the programmers have to parse the XML, create the proper tables and store them manually. What's worse they have to code up bi directional syncing code and attempt at some sort of a merge replication thing.
It seems ugly and messy to me. If oracle could do it why spend all that time coding?
Shared nothing merge replication. Syncronizing with desktops and PDAs (oracle light) are the two I was told about. I think there were more, I remember them talking storing XML files and being able to query them. Apparently oracle has some super cool XML sotrage technology.
I actually saw this someplace (it was from MS)
"We have to do this to get this pig into memory"
"If you needed DBMS software, you were being irresponsible with your company's money if you didn't evaluate PostgreSQL to see if it would do what you needed and went with MS SQL Server or Oracle just on the basis of the name."
We just did a study for database servers for a new software we are writing. After examining all criterea the developers decided that oracle was the only product that had the desired feature set. The management went with SQL server even though oracle cost the same.
Don't ask me why. The developers are now forced to write a ton of code to work around missing features and they grumble constantly.
My point is that as long as the management is too stupid to understand technology and too arrogant to listen to people who will be trying to work with that technology you will never save money.
When you say you "saved" the 3 SQL server licenses what do you mean exactly?
You already paid for the licenses and I am pretty sure MS did not give you a refund because you are no longer using them.
All you are doing is not using something you already paid for.
"The only thing I can see as being beneficial is a new MQ implemented with interaction entirely in XML-RPC, etc ... as this would allow J2EE/.NET/PHP/whatever apps to use it regardless of platform."
Wouldn't jabber be perfect for this?
If IBM can produce these things in enough volume this could be the ideal linux platform for the future.
PS3 is expected to sell very well so the chip production might be soaked up by the game consoles but you never know.
I bet apple engineers are salivating right now too.
Promises to be interesting for intel and AMD next year.
" What's the worst that can happen? It gets deader?"
That's not the worst that can happen. The worst that can happen is that your kids schools will crumble, social security will be bankrupt and you will not be able to invade countries willy nilly because you spent all your money trying to make another planet livable.
On second thought if it makes military adventures too expensive I am all for it.
"So, is McNealy just being coy, or is Bray terminally out of the loop?"
Neither. Sun is an extremely disorganized corporation flailing around trying desparately to find something to sell that anybody wants. Right now all they have to sell is hardware and it's not that special. Buyign cobalt didn't work out so well, no money being made from java, solaris is free, what's left?
The BSD licence allows you to add BSD code to GPL. The sun license does not.
eclipse is under the IBM license and I am pretty sure you can't intermingle any sun code with the sun license.
"Just for laughs and to illustrate how risable your point "
risable? What does that mean?
YOu forgot the most important reason.
Ingres is the only "enterprise" open source DB that can scale to lots of processors.
Obviously sun will want to go with something that will run well on their high end hardware.
It will be interesting to see sun try and sell ingres though. CA couldn't really sell it to any new customers and sun isn't known for their marketing savvy.
It sounds like you guy need better management. You should be able to get PCs from dell with an OS no matter how many you buy. They don't advertise it on their front page but they can't legally force you to buy windows anymore.
Why do you guys go on and on about support.
You talk as if no company offers support for linux. HP, IBM, RedHat, and a thousand other companies offer support for linux.
Where did you get the idea that it's impossible to buy support for linux?
I am forced to use a terminal service application occatinally at my work, I dread every second of it. We are a windows only shop but somebody decided to serve certain applications via terminal server for some insane reason.
It sucks rotten eggs.
" but my point remains that we cannot supply the desktops at a good price unless we use windows machines."
You are only thinking about the initial purchase price. I am talking about the long run. A mac mini in the US costs about the same as a cheap dell for about the same specs. But as I said you can remote boot the macs and manage them centrally. That saves you tens of thousands of dollars every year.