Oracle Enterprise Linux is not a clone of RHEL anymore than Ubuntu is a clone of Debian. It's more like a fork but with several additional packages and changes for clustering that RH doesn't have. That pretty much makes it their own, no matter how you spin it.
Besides RH will be de-listed when they are bought in the near future.:)
My HDTV also has a DVI connection. Attaching a HDMI->DVI cable seems to work fine though I don't get the audio. Which is no problem since that runs to tuner. As far as HDCP, that's working since my cable box whines when the TV isn't on first to negotiate the connection.
Considering how poor AlienWare support actually is, I can't imagine how Dell could bring it down. In fact, I've had pretty good luck with them over the years. Dell has always replaced failed components quickly and didn't give me much hassle about it. AlienWare on the other hand broke a system we purchased from them with an 'update' and wouldn't do anything to fix it. After fighting with them for a while we ended up sending the entire $10k machine back to them for a failing to live up to their support contract agreements. Needless to say they are no longer one of our vendors.
It is irrelevant if it would be used by google or not. Simply by transferring the files to a 3rd party w/o a relevant Non-disclosure Agreement would invalidate any trade-secret protection it might have had and make it useable by anybody not just Google.
That in and of itself is reasons for any company to block this type of transfer. :
You're right there about gaming. I teach CS @ a university and a lot of incoming freshman came to CS because they like games and want to learn how to write them. Most of the time they come to realize that liking to play games or playing with a computer has nothing to do with programming it. A lot of those typically change majors by their sophomore/junior year.
While plagiarism is a big deal it's also becoming easier to spot. There are many tools available that we make use of, plus we profs aren't that dumb. When you spend 15 weeks in class with a student you learn a bit about his/her capabilities. That makes it much easier to spot code that they likely couldn't produce.
Congress is expressly required to create and protect what we now call Intellectually Property Rights by the US Constitution. See Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8. http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.htm l
IMHO, this puts it on an even higher plane than the right to privacy which was derived from the 4th Amendment by the SCOTUS. While the implementation is left to Congress to decide, the right itself is inalienable even if time limited.
Interesting considering that to file a patient you need to have a complete description of the device not just the idea. I would venture based on the spec requirements that you need something working to get the right level of detail
Actually the Right to Privacy does exist in the United States. It was established as a penumbra from the rights guranteed by the US Constitution by The US Supreme Count in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965).
I again agree with you, a UNIX guru can easily handle more systems than a Microsoft person, and that does factor out the cost of maintaining such skilled labor; however that doesn't mean that the costs of Window don't also factor out. The average student and office worker, who likely have a PC or MAYBE a Mac at home, can do the majority of administration (installing software, adding printers and peripherals, and the like) on their own. More complicated things can be handled by moderately trained work-study or other student, and thus nearly free labor. That is less true when we consider Linux and only because it would require more training since end-users are not that familiar with it. Now in an ideal situation where Linux is 90% of the desktop then that would no longer be true. I also agree with you that servers are an entirely different breed and regardless of UNIX or windows they need to be managed by skilled pros.
This, however, is all aside from my central point which is that under agreements such as the one that my school has, the low cost software CAN be commercial. And I only point it out because it appears as though people are thinking that schools are paying 200USD for windows, 700USD for office and the like when that is far from the case. Now if you want to talk corporate, I think well agree 100% on things. Well maybe 98% since I'd still have reservations about putting a Linux desktop in front of a secretary.:)
Actually I don't need to wonder why students don't deal with UNIX, especially since they don't have an option. The advanced courses I mentioned are required if they wish to graduate. As I said we'd be doing a huge disservice if we didn't expose the students to various systems and environment. While the majority of our development classes are taught on Windows machines there are merely terminals to write their reports or compile real code on our Sun or Linux servers.
It sounds like your UNIX teacher needs a good kick in the butt since it obvious that such a class is a benefit to students. My school has been offering Introduction to Systems Administration for at least the last 4 years now as a general elective and it's usually quite full when I walk by.
What's wrong with this picture is that you still are misunderstanding. I'm not arguing over which is better or more stable or whatever. That debate will rage forever since there are too many on both side who are far to passionate to reason that they just might be wrong, or there's somethings we could learn from the other side that would help. I'm simply making the point that MS software for schools isn't AS expensive everyone seems to be assuming it is. And if they do understand that the costs for acadmics isn't retail than the whole arguement is moot anyway.
I don't believe in that case it should be. My only argument for regulation are when companies offer services that must/should tie-in to the emergency network for Public Safety.
I completely agree with you. Anyone who signs an exclusive agreement is making a grievous error and doing so in education is doing a huge disservice to their students.
No that's not included, but a typical IT staffer, if any place I've worked or studied are indications, are far more capable of handling Windows networks than UNIX. As with most schools mine also uses work-study and other student labor to supplement the staffs. These students can generally be "thrown into the deep end" of Windows and survive where as the ability to support UNIX or Linux requires far more training. While it was an error on my part to not mention the Windows admin costs, they still factor out to be far less than OSS or other UNIX solutions.
Our university too developed their own distribution system for the Academic Alliance software thru the web; it was developed by a friend of mine using a few hundred lines of CF code for a couple hundred dollars. I'm sure the department made that choice since it was likely cheaper to do than pay the AA management people to do it for them. However, despite all that, it is not a significant cost to the school or to students to provide that access which again is my point.
Also, I didn't say there was anything noble or selfless about MS offering these kinds of deals. You're absolutely right that they are doing it so students use and grow accustomed to their software. Hence my comment that it's a brilliant strategy.
Finally if students wish to be limited that's their choice. Our CS students are required to deal with UNIX for their more advanced classes(Compiler Theory, Operating Systems, Analysis of Algorithms, etc), and we have ample resources available to them if they wish to learn UNIX or Linux. We even offer two classes on UNIX administration and software development tools. A lot take advantage of it while others do not. I personally see PCs as a glorified access point to the web and to get to real computers running Solaris, AIX, or some UNIX variant. Why else are there X-Servers and SSH clients for them.:)
Now to re-iterate, since you seemed to miss the whole point before, under such agreements the cost of offering and using MS products in education goes down greatly. It was my whole goal to point this matter out so people can consider it in their own analysis.
Now as a side comment, predicting an end-of-the-world scenario simply because people use MS products as using it as a supporting comment is the exact reason why people don't take arguments like yours seriously. That "chicken little" attitude isn't going to support a real business case for change and like it or not that's what any organization wants. You made some good points, which I hope I've addressed, but I'd suggest a little more objective or at least more dispassionate view.
There is this common assumption that MS charges a lot of money to put their software into schools. This is quite erroneous. Microsoft has a brilliant strategy in that it sells it software to schools for rock bottom prices.
My university, which is a small private institution, has a site-wide agreement that covers every machine on our campus for nearly any software Microsoft makes. I've believe it is something on the order of 20 - 30K USD/year. Considering that it's covering well over 1500 machines they are paying approximately 20 USD for Windows, Office, Visual Studio and the like. So for less than 1/2 of one UNIX guy, don't forget benefits as well as salary, it would take to manage Linux the school gets all this software.
Regarding students, it can get even better. Our computer science department is a member of the MS Academic Alliance which for less then 400 USD/year any CS students can get access to any MS software, with the exception of office, available on MS Developer Network for free. That includes Visual Studio, SQLServer, MS Server 2003, Exchange, etcetera.
Now before the impression is given that we are an all MS campus and that's all we do, let me state that every machine in our computing labs are configured as dual-boot with XP/2000 and Linux(RedHat), most of our main servers are either Sun running Solaris or IBM machines with RedHat Enterprise.
We have our share of windows, but as an educational institution we would be sorely failing our students if we only exposed them to a single platform whether it's Windows or Linux or whatever.
Now despite the cries of foul Windows still has about 90% of the desktop market and even as that drops as Linux gets better and/or people start liking Macs more, it's still something that anyone needs to learn, if they plan on working in this market.
When it comes to public safety then yes. Not sure about the system in Canada. Considering the mishaps that have happend with VoIP phones and ppl attempting to dial 911 here in the States I believe that regulation is something that is needed in how the systems tie in with POTS network and routing.
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Oracle Enterprise Linux is not a clone of RHEL anymore than Ubuntu is a clone of Debian. It's more like a fork but with several additional packages and changes for clustering that RH doesn't have. That pretty much makes it their own, no matter how you spin it. Besides RH will be de-listed when they are bought in the near future. :)
My HDTV also has a DVI connection. Attaching a HDMI->DVI cable seems to work fine though I don't get the audio. Which is no problem since that runs to tuner. As far as HDCP, that's working since my cable box whines when the TV isn't on first to negotiate the connection.
Considering how poor AlienWare support actually is, I can't imagine how Dell could bring it down. In fact, I've had pretty good luck with them over the years. Dell has always replaced failed components quickly and didn't give me much hassle about it. AlienWare on the other hand broke a system we purchased from them with an 'update' and wouldn't do anything to fix it. After fighting with them for a while we ended up sending the entire $10k machine back to them for a failing to live up to their support contract agreements. Needless to say they are no longer one of our vendors.
It is irrelevant if it would be used by google or not. Simply by transferring the files to a 3rd party w/o a relevant Non-disclosure Agreement would invalidate any trade-secret protection it might have had and make it useable by anybody not just Google. That in and of itself is reasons for any company to block this type of transfer. :
You're right there about gaming. I teach CS @ a university and a lot of incoming freshman came to CS because they like games and want to learn how to write them. Most of the time they come to realize that liking to play games or playing with a computer has nothing to do with programming it. A lot of those typically change majors by their sophomore/junior year.
While plagiarism is a big deal it's also becoming easier to spot. There are many tools available that we make use of, plus we profs aren't that dumb. When you spend 15 weeks in class with a student you learn a bit about his/her capabilities. That makes it much easier to spot code that they likely couldn't produce.
Congress is expressly required to create and protect what we now call Intellectually Property Rights by the US Constitution. See Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8. http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.htm l
IMHO, this puts it on an even higher plane than the right to privacy which was derived from the 4th Amendment by the SCOTUS. While the implementation is left to Congress to decide, the right itself is inalienable even if time limited.
Interesting considering that to file a patient you need to have a complete description of the device not just the idea. I would venture based on the spec requirements that you need something working to get the right level of detail
Actually the Right to Privacy does exist in the United States. It was established as a penumbra from the rights guranteed by the US Constitution by The US Supreme Count in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965).
I think SMB, in this case, means Small-to-Medium sized Business rather than Server Message Block
I again agree with you, a UNIX guru can easily handle more systems than a Microsoft person, and that does factor out the cost of maintaining such skilled labor; however that doesn't mean that the costs of Window don't also factor out. The average student and office worker, who likely have a PC or MAYBE a Mac at home, can do the majority of administration (installing software, adding printers and peripherals, and the like) on their own. More complicated things can be handled by moderately trained work-study or other student, and thus nearly free labor. That is less true when we consider Linux and only because it would require more training since end-users are not that familiar with it. Now in an ideal situation where Linux is 90% of the desktop then that would no longer be true. I also agree with you that servers are an entirely different breed and regardless of UNIX or windows they need to be managed by skilled pros.
:)
This, however, is all aside from my central point which is that under agreements such as the one that my school has, the low cost software CAN be commercial. And I only point it out because it appears as though people are thinking that schools are paying 200USD for windows, 700USD for office and the like when that is far from the case. Now if you want to talk corporate, I think well agree 100% on things. Well maybe 98% since I'd still have reservations about putting a Linux desktop in front of a secretary.
Actually I don't need to wonder why students don't deal with UNIX, especially since they don't have an option. The advanced courses I mentioned are required if they wish to graduate. As I said we'd be doing a huge disservice if we didn't expose the students to various systems and environment. While the majority of our development classes are taught on Windows machines there are merely terminals to write their reports or compile real code on our Sun or Linux servers.
It sounds like your UNIX teacher needs a good kick in the butt since it obvious that such a class is a benefit to students. My school has been offering Introduction to Systems Administration for at least the last 4 years now as a general elective and it's usually quite full when I walk by.
What's wrong with this picture is that you still are misunderstanding. I'm not arguing over which is better or more stable or whatever. That debate will rage forever since there are too many on both side who are far to passionate to reason that they just might be wrong, or there's somethings we could learn from the other side that would help. I'm simply making the point that MS software for schools isn't AS expensive everyone seems to be assuming it is. And if they do understand that the costs for acadmics isn't retail than the whole arguement is moot anyway.
I don't believe in that case it should be. My only argument for regulation are when companies offer services that must/should tie-in to the emergency network for Public Safety.
I completely agree with you. Anyone who signs an exclusive agreement is making a grievous error and doing so in education is doing a huge disservice to their students.
No that's not included, but a typical IT staffer, if any place I've worked or studied are indications, are far more capable of handling Windows networks than UNIX. As with most schools mine also uses work-study and other student labor to supplement the staffs. These students can generally be "thrown into the deep end" of Windows and survive where as the ability to support UNIX or Linux requires far more training. While it was an error on my part to not mention the Windows admin costs, they still factor out to be far less than OSS or other UNIX solutions.
:)
Our university too developed their own distribution system for the Academic Alliance software thru the web; it was developed by a friend of mine using a few hundred lines of CF code for a couple hundred dollars. I'm sure the department made that choice since it was likely cheaper to do than pay the AA management people to do it for them. However, despite all that, it is not a significant cost to the school or to students to provide that access which again is my point.
Also, I didn't say there was anything noble or selfless about MS offering these kinds of deals. You're absolutely right that they are doing it so students use and grow accustomed to their software. Hence my comment that it's a brilliant strategy.
Finally if students wish to be limited that's their choice. Our CS students are required to deal with UNIX for their more advanced classes(Compiler Theory, Operating Systems, Analysis of Algorithms, etc), and we have ample resources available to them if they wish to learn UNIX or Linux. We even offer two classes on UNIX administration and software development tools. A lot take advantage of it while others do not. I personally see PCs as a glorified access point to the web and to get to real computers running Solaris, AIX, or some UNIX variant. Why else are there X-Servers and SSH clients for them.
Now to re-iterate, since you seemed to miss the whole point before, under such agreements the cost of offering and using MS products in education goes down greatly. It was my whole goal to point this matter out so people can consider it in their own analysis.
Now as a side comment, predicting an end-of-the-world scenario simply because people use MS products as using it as a supporting comment is the exact reason why people don't take arguments like yours seriously. That "chicken little" attitude isn't going to support a real business case for change and like it or not that's what any organization wants. You made some good points, which I hope I've addressed, but I'd suggest a little more objective or at least more dispassionate view.
There is this common assumption that MS charges a lot of money to put their software into schools. This is quite erroneous. Microsoft has a brilliant strategy in that it sells it software to schools for rock bottom prices.
My university, which is a small private institution, has a site-wide agreement that covers every machine on our campus for nearly any software Microsoft makes. I've believe it is something on the order of 20 - 30K USD/year. Considering that it's covering well over 1500 machines they are paying approximately 20 USD for Windows, Office, Visual Studio and the like. So for less than 1/2 of one UNIX guy, don't forget benefits as well as salary, it would take to manage Linux the school gets all this software.
Regarding students, it can get even better. Our computer science department is a member of the MS Academic Alliance which for less then 400 USD/year any CS students can get access to any MS software, with the exception of office, available on MS Developer Network for free. That includes Visual Studio, SQLServer, MS Server 2003, Exchange, etcetera.
Now before the impression is given that we are an all MS campus and that's all we do, let me state that every machine in our computing labs are configured as dual-boot with XP/2000 and Linux(RedHat), most of our main servers are either Sun running Solaris or IBM machines with RedHat Enterprise.
We have our share of windows, but as an educational institution we would be sorely failing our students if we only exposed them to a single platform whether it's Windows or Linux or whatever. Now despite the cries of foul Windows still has about 90% of the desktop market and even as that drops as Linux gets better and/or people start liking Macs more, it's still something that anyone needs to learn, if they plan on working in this market.
When it comes to public safety then yes. Not sure about the system in Canada. Considering the mishaps that have happend with VoIP phones and ppl attempting to dial 911 here in the States I believe that regulation is something that is needed in how the systems tie in with POTS network and routing.