There's always more than one way to tell a story. In example:
By choosing a Windows based software you already agreed (albeit implicitly) to have your system rebooted after automatic security patches, since that's the vendor stated best practices. If that's unacceptable to you, you should have to choose a different solution. But you wanted to have your cake and eat it too, didn't you? Well, sorry, it doesn't work that way.
"Anyone with half a brain knows that these services were created for the purpose of sharing copyrighted material."
Everything not in the public domain is copyrighted. On one hand this doesn't mean is not intended to be shareable (obvious example being code copyrighted under the GPL), on the other, Spanish legislation is crystal clear: just sharing copyrighted material is perfectly legal (while the entertainment lobby is pressing hard to change this).
"is it the Spanish or the French pronunciation (they're different) which is correct?"
The Spanish one since (AFAIK) RMS took the word from this language (in an intent of making clear the difference between free as in free beer vs free as in free speech).
"I would have hoped that any non trivial network (more than 2 or 3 switches) would have STP enabled for just this reason."
A non-managed entry level 24 ports gigabit switch costs about 100$, a managed one about 1000$.
It's probably the case the IT manager suggested the managed ones but failed about making a business case for expending 10x appart from answering the question of "what does this 10x equipment that the cheaper one doesn't?" with "nothing you can understand".
On the other hand, once we get into the business case, even for a 500 people office the unmanaged ones can work as good as the more expensive ones *provided* there's a more or less savvy tech and people plays by the rules so why throw money at a problem that can be solved with sane policies and common sense?
" IT should report into IT steering committees that are tasked with making sure IT meets corporate goals."
I don't know of a *single* IT company head that won't wholeheartedly agree with you.
Now you just need to convince the board of directors about this to be the case.
Once you are there, the second half will be easier: that such a comitee is there not only to make sure IT meets corporate goals but that IT adds up as much value as it can by allowing it to stand what can and can't be done and where are the new opportunities that technology opens for the company, that they are a key element to stablish those corporate goals.
"Far too frequently IT departments don't fully understand"
Far too frequently IT departments are left absolutly in the blind by the powers that be despite of the fact that they are the best positioned to know the ins and outs of the company.
"IT departments don't get billed for lost productivity"
Neither they are bonused for the gains of productivity they afford. Just try to return to pen and paper and see what happens.
"It might be cheaper net to do the security study in tandem with other parts of the project at 3, 4, 5x the cost to get the system out 75 days earlier."
Truly so. And it is the IT people the ones that usually are the best suited to come with such a claim, make such a study and reach such a conclusion. But then, do you know why they are expending "an extra 90 days"? Because nobody involved them in the early phases of the project when this would have been obvious but the last possible day -on the evening.
Just for an example: IT, and I mean here just plain old IT, nothing fashionable involving innovation, is the most achievable vector for cost cuts through mere automation: you just intelligently increase IT budget by a 10% and you gain a 10% savings all along the company (of course, numbers are made up here). But then, what do you see? "those are hard days, so we all have to make sacrifices: all departments get their budget cut by 10%" What kind of stupid company leaders don't understand the basic and easy to grasp truth that cutting IT budget is the easiest path to *increase* costs all throughout the company and that to cut costs you *need* to increase IT expenditures?
"Or maybe you need to try and figure out what unmet business need is driving the desire for a new device"
Filling the expenditure sheets is a hindrance that takes time from other more productive tasks no matter how advanced the system in place is. Now, good luck telling the beancounters that you ain't going to fill them but still you expect your expenses reimbursed.
Just an example. But the point is that the beancounters know a bit more than you and me about counting beans and about what has to be done for the company to have sane accounts so regarding counting beans, it is the way of the beancounters or no way. Basically the same can be said about any other department of the company.
"He's quite good at it, too - he actually does make our jobs easier"
Each case has to be evaluated on its own.
But I can tell I've seen my portion of the "penny wise, dollar fool" version of "making jobs easier". It's very easy to seem proactive and facilitating by putting off fires instead of avoiding problems to start with. And yes, so very many times real productivity advancements come by saying "no" when it is "no" instead of supporting a chaotic non-infrastructure becoming part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
But one thing is true: the one taking the decisions is the one taking the decision. If it is not the "the IT guy" the one appointed to make these kind of decisions (despite of the fact of probably being the most capable to do so), then he better don't do it, no matter how well meant, or he certainly will be "out of job in a week". Please note the this won't make the one making the decisions any more right by itself, it's just the he has the authority, even to fail.
"The recovered episodes are broadcast versions from Australia, which had bits censored out of them."
Are you kidding me? Please pay attention that I come from a country with a dictatorship back then. Are you truly telling me there were something to be censored out of a Dr. Who episode from the sixties!? I think even Franco would be surprised to know.
"It isn't an argument against the fact that disbelief needs as much faith as belief."
Except that it is. It doesn't require faith to disbelieve what hasn't been seen, can't be reproduced and can't be articulated into a coherent theory. Saying that believing that there's somewhere an almighty though invisible flying spaghetti monster is no more an act of faith than not believing it is the same kind of argument than saying that not collecting stamps is a hobby. But, anyway, it's an analogy so if you don't think it to be a proper one, good for you, I don't give a damn.
"Then please explain why over half of all scientists are in fact religious?"
Cognitive dissonance produced by early exposition to young brains.
"what's not to like about the ten commandments and loving one's neighbor?"
This is twice a non-sequitur. On what hand, what has to do the virtues of the ten commandments with the fact that the god that the bible describes is a reality or not? On the other hand, what has this to do with the fact that a theist religion is the supreme argument by authority which is the absolute opposite to anything acceptable by science?
"Science asks and answers "how.""
But not every path to find the answers is a valid one for science and the path of "this is so because god told me and command it to be that way" is absolutly out of scope.
"What's the point in living if that's all there is to life?"
That's the trade of the philosopher and I for one don't find a satisfactory answer to be "god knows".
"I will admit that there is one thing wrong with all religions -- slimeballs who pretend to be religious"
Why does this seem to me so much like the "true scotchman" fallacy?
"A aerial reconnaissance is not an attack, much less a first strike by any definition."
An aerial incursion into the sovereign space of a foreign nation is certainly much of an attack. It might not be a casus belli but it is still an attack.
How else would you consider Iranian military drones flying over New York?
"But of course, this would imply a corporation with the ability to see beyond the tip of its own nose, which is rare."
The problem is not only corporate culture but societal.
Say Big Corp A has in fact the ability to see beyond the tip of its own nose and then spares efforts to prepare for the next decade which, of course, impacts its bottom line for this quarter. At the same time, Big Corp B doesn't see beyond the tip of its own nose and this quarter's results look better than that from Big Corp A. Then, all of a sudden, everybody, *you included*, sell their stocks from Big Corp A to buy stocks from Big Corp B which makes Big Corp B even bigger while Big Corp A is not a big corp any more.
Which, ironically, makes Big Corp B to be the one with the ability to see beyond the tip of its own nose because since Big Corp A is a big corp no more, its investment for the future is now moot and shouldn't have been done to start with.
That's exactly why you see from time to time companies exploding basically out of nothing (say Google or Facebook) despite of the fact that other Big Corps near the business niche have much more than enough muscle to crunch them -their stockholders wouldn't allow for the investment. And that's exactly way you see those Big Corps investing much more in rising the bars for new entries with lawyers, IP, patents and lobying legislators than in real R&D.
"Because the real problem is in fact employee turnover."
That's not as much a problem as a reality you'd better learn to live with.
Look: there's only two ways for an employer-employee relationship to end up: either the company closes business or the employee goes out. Since the company as an entity isn't so interested on the afterthoughts of its own end, there's only an interesting case to consider: the employee will go away. That's as valid for the janitor as is for the general manager.
So it is not "anyone can be replaced" but "anyone *will* be replaced".
"So due to the transaction costs, it is not better for society"
It seems you are implying that when the risk is in the side of the producer there're not costs for society. Bad news: the costs are exactly the same since a failed project is a failed project anyway.
But the basis of marketplace-like capitalism is that both producers and consumers are perfectly informed of their options which is less the case when there are production efforts that are invisible for the consumer. Add to this that the "trick" for license-based business is that while the production costs are bounded, benefits are not. That's what allowed to the owners of the software giants from the eighties-nineties to become some of the richest people of the world in record time spans. Whenever you see net benefits going well over 100% you can bet capitalism is not working as expected and society as a whole has a worse deal.
"You could for instance tie up someone with rope, deprive them from being able to listen to their favourite music cd. That would not be stealing would it?"
Of course not, are you kidding? Never in the whole History has been kidnapping or illegal retention equated to stealing.
"Taking something that is not yours without permission or consent is stealing."
No, it is not. It is obviously not. For once, it is not the "it doesn't belong to me" the part that defines stealing but "it does belong to someone else". Or did the one that registered a new mine steal something? Because the mine wasn't him prior to claim rights, was it?
On the other hand, it is not enough for stealing to get possesion of something that belonged to someone else, the first one has to be effectively deprived of the thing and of its fair usage and it has to be done without his authorization. Lacking just one of these elements (prior belonging, deprivation and unauthorization) it can't be stealing. And not, a hoped future benefit is not deprivation, and not, public communication makes not yours all future instances of the published thing.
"Are you actually trying to claim, that if it takes me 5 years to produce a software product"
I won't go into what the other poster meant but I do mean that if you are going to spend five years of your effort you'd better have *in advance* a deal to monetize it. You could, for instance, have a talk to all those people you are going to save money for so they start paying you *now*. When your product is done, they'll get it and it's all done. Of course since they can replicate it virtually for free, you won't see a dime from then on. If you want to earn more money you'll have to work for it.
That's not only what most of the people already do, but it's overall better for society since equates the cost for society to the cost of production without siphoning it more than needed. Perfect Adam Smith capitalism.
"How is it sane to rip artists off and never pay them for their work?"
I always pay for what I ask for whatever I negotiated with the one I asked to. I never asked your artist to do nothing.
"What if your boss decided not to give you a paycheck for code you wrote?"
I already have a deal with my boss for which code I have to write and he pays me for the job he asked me to do. You probably will be very surprised to know that my boss won't pay me, say, for the job involved in writing this post. Do you know why? Because he never asked me to do it.
Another think you probably will be very surprised to know is that a boss I had a few years ago is not paying me nothing *now* for the code I wrote for him back *then*. If I want to be payed this month I have to work this month.
Slashdot Mirror
There's always more than one way to tell a story. In example:
By choosing a Windows based software you already agreed (albeit implicitly) to have your system rebooted after automatic security patches, since that's the vendor stated best practices. If that's unacceptable to you, you should have to choose a different solution. But you wanted to have your cake and eat it too, didn't you? Well, sorry, it doesn't work that way.
"Given the attitudes and mores of the time"
Well, for once, it was not the attitude of the time to focus on civilian targets; that was more the WWII attitude.
"Anyone with half a brain knows that these services were created for the purpose of sharing copyrighted material."
Everything not in the public domain is copyrighted. On one hand this doesn't mean is not intended to be shareable (obvious example being code copyrighted under the GPL), on the other, Spanish legislation is crystal clear: just sharing copyrighted material is perfectly legal (while the entertainment lobby is pressing hard to change this).
I've been in the army. You don't impress me.
"is it the Spanish or the French pronunciation (they're different) which is correct?"
The Spanish one since (AFAIK) RMS took the word from this language (in an intent of making clear the difference between free as in free beer vs free as in free speech).
"I would have hoped that any non trivial network (more than 2 or 3 switches) would have STP enabled for just this reason."
A non-managed entry level 24 ports gigabit switch costs about 100$, a managed one about 1000$.
It's probably the case the IT manager suggested the managed ones but failed about making a business case for expending 10x appart from answering the question of "what does this 10x equipment that the cheaper one doesn't?" with "nothing you can understand".
On the other hand, once we get into the business case, even for a 500 people office the unmanaged ones can work as good as the more expensive ones *provided* there's a more or less savvy tech and people plays by the rules so why throw money at a problem that can be solved with sane policies and common sense?
" IT should report into IT steering committees that are tasked with making sure IT meets corporate goals."
I don't know of a *single* IT company head that won't wholeheartedly agree with you.
Now you just need to convince the board of directors about this to be the case.
Once you are there, the second half will be easier: that such a comitee is there not only to make sure IT meets corporate goals but that IT adds up as much value as it can by allowing it to stand what can and can't be done and where are the new opportunities that technology opens for the company, that they are a key element to stablish those corporate goals.
"Far too frequently IT departments don't fully understand"
Far too frequently IT departments are left absolutly in the blind by the powers that be despite of the fact that they are the best positioned to know the ins and outs of the company.
"IT departments don't get billed for lost productivity"
Neither they are bonused for the gains of productivity they afford. Just try to return to pen and paper and see what happens.
"It might be cheaper net to do the security study in tandem with other parts of the project at 3, 4, 5x the cost to get the system out 75 days earlier."
Truly so. And it is the IT people the ones that usually are the best suited to come with such a claim, make such a study and reach such a conclusion. But then, do you know why they are expending "an extra 90 days"? Because nobody involved them in the early phases of the project when this would have been obvious but the last possible day -on the evening.
Just for an example: IT, and I mean here just plain old IT, nothing fashionable involving innovation, is the most achievable vector for cost cuts through mere automation: you just intelligently increase IT budget by a 10% and you gain a 10% savings all along the company (of course, numbers are made up here). But then, what do you see? "those are hard days, so we all have to make sacrifices: all departments get their budget cut by 10%" What kind of stupid company leaders don't understand the basic and easy to grasp truth that cutting IT budget is the easiest path to *increase* costs all throughout the company and that to cut costs you *need* to increase IT expenditures?
"Or maybe you need to try and figure out what unmet business need is driving the desire for a new device"
Filling the expenditure sheets is a hindrance that takes time from other more productive tasks no matter how advanced the system in place is. Now, good luck telling the beancounters that you ain't going to fill them but still you expect your expenses reimbursed.
Just an example. But the point is that the beancounters know a bit more than you and me about counting beans and about what has to be done for the company to have sane accounts so regarding counting beans, it is the way of the beancounters or no way. Basically the same can be said about any other department of the company.
Except IT, it seems.
"He's quite good at it, too - he actually does make our jobs easier"
Each case has to be evaluated on its own.
But I can tell I've seen my portion of the "penny wise, dollar fool" version of "making jobs easier". It's very easy to seem proactive and facilitating by putting off fires instead of avoiding problems to start with. And yes, so very many times real productivity advancements come by saying "no" when it is "no" instead of supporting a chaotic non-infrastructure becoming part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
But one thing is true: the one taking the decisions is the one taking the decision. If it is not the "the IT guy" the one appointed to make these kind of decisions (despite of the fact of probably being the most capable to do so), then he better don't do it, no matter how well meant, or he certainly will be "out of job in a week". Please note the this won't make the one making the decisions any more right by itself, it's just the he has the authority, even to fail.
"RH doesn't sell software, it sells services."
But then, nobody sells software.
They sell either usage licenses, or developing services, or services of a different nature, because what does "selling software" means, to start with?
"Hell sometimes you have to educate the vendor's minion's on what their product is supposed to do!"
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt -literally!
"Right. Because file sharing policy is the sole dictate of where I should live."
You can add a longer life expectancy too, for instance.
But we were talking about sharing content on the Internet, weren't we? And then again, what part of *saner* did you find so cumbersome?
"The recovered episodes are broadcast versions from Australia, which had bits censored out of them."
Are you kidding me? Please pay attention that I come from a country with a dictatorship back then. Are you truly telling me there were something to be censored out of a Dr. Who episode from the sixties!? I think even Franco would be surprised to know.
"Those who care about their reputation will just use other locations"
Or better yet, they will live in a saner country where sharing contents is legally supported.
"It isn't an argument against the fact that disbelief needs as much faith as belief."
Except that it is. It doesn't require faith to disbelieve what hasn't been seen, can't be reproduced and can't be articulated into a coherent theory. Saying that believing that there's somewhere an almighty though invisible flying spaghetti monster is no more an act of faith than not believing it is the same kind of argument than saying that not collecting stamps is a hobby. But, anyway, it's an analogy so if you don't think it to be a proper one, good for you, I don't give a damn.
"Then please explain why over half of all scientists are in fact religious?"
Cognitive dissonance produced by early exposition to young brains.
"what's not to like about the ten commandments and loving one's neighbor?"
This is twice a non-sequitur. On what hand, what has to do the virtues of the ten commandments with the fact that the god that the bible describes is a reality or not? On the other hand, what has this to do with the fact that a theist religion is the supreme argument by authority which is the absolute opposite to anything acceptable by science?
"Science asks and answers "how.""
But not every path to find the answers is a valid one for science and the path of "this is so because god told me and command it to be that way" is absolutly out of scope.
"What's the point in living if that's all there is to life?"
That's the trade of the philosopher and I for one don't find a satisfactory answer to be "god knows".
"I will admit that there is one thing wrong with all religions -- slimeballs who pretend to be religious"
Why does this seem to me so much like the "true scotchman" fallacy?
"Athiesm takes as much of a leap of faith as belief in a diety or dieties"
Yes. And not collecting stamps is as much of a hobby as collecting them.
"It's sad how so many athiests think religion is anti-science"
Maybe because, well, it is. While science can't accept the 'argumentum ad auctoritatem', it is the only valid one for (theist) religion.
"if they don't believe in a diety why do they even mention one?"
It might be because people like you don't stop talking about it.
"A aerial reconnaissance is not an attack, much less a first strike by any definition."
An aerial incursion into the sovereign space of a foreign nation is certainly much of an attack. It might not be a casus belli but it is still an attack.
How else would you consider Iranian military drones flying over New York?
"But of course, this would imply a corporation with the ability to see beyond the tip of its own nose, which is rare."
The problem is not only corporate culture but societal.
Say Big Corp A has in fact the ability to see beyond the tip of its own nose and then spares efforts to prepare for the next decade which, of course, impacts its bottom line for this quarter. At the same time, Big Corp B doesn't see beyond the tip of its own nose and this quarter's results look better than that from Big Corp A. Then, all of a sudden, everybody, *you included*, sell their stocks from Big Corp A to buy stocks from Big Corp B which makes Big Corp B even bigger while Big Corp A is not a big corp any more.
Which, ironically, makes Big Corp B to be the one with the ability to see beyond the tip of its own nose because since Big Corp A is a big corp no more, its investment for the future is now moot and shouldn't have been done to start with.
That's exactly why you see from time to time companies exploding basically out of nothing (say Google or Facebook) despite of the fact that other Big Corps near the business niche have much more than enough muscle to crunch them -their stockholders wouldn't allow for the investment. And that's exactly way you see those Big Corps investing much more in rising the bars for new entries with lawyers, IP, patents and lobying legislators than in real R&D.
"Because the real problem is in fact employee turnover."
That's not as much a problem as a reality you'd better learn to live with.
Look: there's only two ways for an employer-employee relationship to end up: either the company closes business or the employee goes out. Since the company as an entity isn't so interested on the afterthoughts of its own end, there's only an interesting case to consider: the employee will go away. That's as valid for the janitor as is for the general manager.
So it is not "anyone can be replaced" but "anyone *will* be replaced".
"So due to the transaction costs, it is not better for society"
It seems you are implying that when the risk is in the side of the producer there're not costs for society. Bad news: the costs are exactly the same since a failed project is a failed project anyway.
But the basis of marketplace-like capitalism is that both producers and consumers are perfectly informed of their options which is less the case when there are production efforts that are invisible for the consumer. Add to this that the "trick" for license-based business is that while the production costs are bounded, benefits are not. That's what allowed to the owners of the software giants from the eighties-nineties to become some of the richest people of the world in record time spans. Whenever you see net benefits going well over 100% you can bet capitalism is not working as expected and society as a whole has a worse deal.
"You could for instance tie up someone with rope, deprive them from being able to listen to their favourite music cd. That would not be stealing would it?"
Of course not, are you kidding? Never in the whole History has been kidnapping or illegal retention equated to stealing.
"Taking something that is not yours without permission or consent is stealing."
No, it is not. It is obviously not. For once, it is not the "it doesn't belong to me" the part that defines stealing but "it does belong to someone else". Or did the one that registered a new mine steal something? Because the mine wasn't him prior to claim rights, was it?
On the other hand, it is not enough for stealing to get possesion of something that belonged to someone else, the first one has to be effectively deprived of the thing and of its fair usage and it has to be done without his authorization. Lacking just one of these elements (prior belonging, deprivation and unauthorization) it can't be stealing. And not, a hoped future benefit is not deprivation, and not, public communication makes not yours all future instances of the published thing.
"Are you actually trying to claim, that if it takes me 5 years to produce a software product"
I won't go into what the other poster meant but I do mean that if you are going to spend five years of your effort you'd better have *in advance* a deal to monetize it. You could, for instance, have a talk to all those people you are going to save money for so they start paying you *now*. When your product is done, they'll get it and it's all done. Of course since they can replicate it virtually for free, you won't see a dime from then on. If you want to earn more money you'll have to work for it.
That's not only what most of the people already do, but it's overall better for society since equates the cost for society to the cost of production without siphoning it more than needed. Perfect Adam Smith capitalism.
"Completely ignoring the rights of artists will only discourage people from further creating such works..."
It's only that History has absolutly demonstrated this not to be the case once and again.
How can be modded "informative" *a question*?
"How is it sane to rip artists off and never pay them for their work?"
I always pay for what I ask for whatever I negotiated with the one I asked to. I never asked your artist to do nothing.
"What if your boss decided not to give you a paycheck for code you wrote?"
I already have a deal with my boss for which code I have to write and he pays me for the job he asked me to do. You probably will be very surprised to know that my boss won't pay me, say, for the job involved in writing this post. Do you know why? Because he never asked me to do it.
Another think you probably will be very surprised to know is that a boss I had a few years ago is not paying me nothing *now* for the code I wrote for him back *then*. If I want to be payed this month I have to work this month.
WTF!? First post and the linked article is already slashdotted?