The first couple of Fedoras I found a bit rocky. 3-7 have worked quite well for me, as a day after day business machine. But this is just swapping anecdotes. I suppose it comes down to the environment. I know of several situations where I wouldn't deploy it.
There have been several posts now that want a free enterprise OS again, or the return of a boxed desktop OS. Red Hat is in good financial shape because they made the tough choices--like getting rid of the boxed software that was losing money. I don't see the wisdom in their going back to business tactics that have failed for them in the past.
So far as not thinking that CentOS contributes to the Red Hat name, or providing a support revenue stream, I have to disagree. Everybody knows CentOS is based on Red Hat. It doesn't take a Shadowman logo to keep the Red Hat name in my mind. And you can buy an entitlement for a system running CentOS.
WTF is this doing +5 Insightful? Poster needs to be more accurate with quotes. Whitehurst didn't say either of these things. The first quote, while not actually a quote, could at least be considered a paraphrase. The relevant para is:
"When I look at the quality of our existing technology, and the incredible brand that we have and the markets we play in, we should be a $5 billion company or more. If you just look at operating systems and middleware--that's nearly a $100 billion business. We're a $500 million business. We have barely scratched the surface."
The second quote, "It's a question of operational excellence and on focusing on its core businesses," is simply absent from the article. Operational excellence is mentioned twice: 1) "I will focus on operational excellence, but Red Hat is still Red Hat. That's not going to change." 2) "Our last quarter with JBoss was quite strong, but we can do better and my emphasis is on operational excellence, with JBoss getting a lot of my attention."
This is worse than paraphrasing, and calling it a quote. The poster is taking phrases that were never connected in the original article, and telling us his opinion of the meaning of a statement that was never made.
Well, he did mention making sure that the support organization was firing on all cylinders. He claims the OS/middleware market is $100 billion. So Red Hat has a half percent of it, and he thinks it should be more. I agree with him.
You're responding to some very selective quoting. The man also said, "We need to figure out what our "fair share" of each market should be and aggressively go after it. We need to make sure we nail the markets we're already in. I'm not saying we won't go broader, but we really need to ensure we're building our presence in our core markets and technologies. Perhaps we need to set our ambitions a bit higher."
There are other places they could go in the application server stack. With the Oracle relationship having tilted over into 'hostile' anyway, I'd like to see them bring back the Red Hat Database. That would leave, what, load ballancers, perhaps, to give them a soup-to-nuts stack?
I believe they also do a significant business in the telecom space. Perhaps there are additional opportunities there as well. I'm only guessing, having never worked in that industry.
I'm in complete agree with you about Red Hat not doing self promotion well, BTW. They could generate a fair amount of good will, which often leads to revenues, if they got better at that one thing. Plus, it would be handy to to have a summary page page to link to, next time someone moans about Red Hat being an Evil Corporation here on Slashdot.;) So there's a win for everyone.
Good arguments. Far be it from me claim that Torvalds wouldn't go trolling. As I said, I probably wouldn't like the guy, if I met him.
I'm *assuming* that he talks to Gnome users, or installs Gnome now and then, and kicks the tires. Yes, I know the old adage about assuming.:) I don't install it much any more, myself, being steered by popular articles, etc. So, in a sense I'm arguing that he's probably doing something I don't do myself. In my case, it's lack of time, of which he may have less. So I presented a flawed argument.
However, my overall impression is that the Gnome folk are most interested in things being simple for mass users. That impression was probably first formed with Spatial Browsing, which seemed *to me* more useful to people who didn't have a large need to maintain a deep file hierarchy. I've also heard a lot of complaints about config options delivered directly through the GUI going away. In my experience, KDE has remained fairly constant in that regard.
OK, WTF is that opinion worth? Maybe nothing. To answer your question about my take on why I think market share numbers, I think it's about decisions that major distros made some time ago. History and inertia, more than a current state of affairs. For instance, HP once loudly announced that HP-UX would go with Gnome, vice the age-old CDE. They were silent when they bagged the idea. Sun have done the same, but stayed with Gnome. But commercial Unices can't switch desktop support on short notice. They have to provide support, training, etc.
I see Red Hat, for instance, as being in the same position. When you're advertising seven years of support, changing desktops is a Big Deal. There was a moment in time when Novell bought SuSE, but went all Gnome. I think part of that was that KDE was German in origin, there were issues with the Qt libs, etc. At about the same point, HP and Sun were just climbing on the non-proprietary bandwagon, and announcing Gnome.
Be reminded that this is just my opinion, which is what you were asking about. Someday, a historian will probably lay out a timeline, and do things like lay out when the Evolution crew were acquired, and form conclusions about what effect that may have had. I just hope they do a better job than Eric Raymond and others did in announcing the death of MPE (a retarded time-sharing OS) well before it's official EOL, when it was still running large financial systems, handling (literally) billions of dollars in transactions, and supported to the level of four hours until a service engineer appears on-site.
Raymond from _The Art of Unix Programming_ (2003) "Most (Multics, IS, DTSS, TOPS-10, TOPS-20, MTS, GCOS, MPE, and perhaps a dozen others) are so long dead that they are fading from the collective memory of the computing field."
MPE EOL was originally announced to be 12/31/2006, and it was promulgated well before Raymond wrote his bit. Limited support now looks like being available until 2015. So there's one clueless historian.
Sometimes you get things wrong, even if you're trying to pay attention. But IMHO, GNOME seems most interested in adoption by the mass (as opposed to the traditional Linux technical) market, major vendors are trapped into supporting this by previous support commitments, and wouldn't change if they could, as they see it as a possible mass-market play. The one play I see Gnome making in the technical market is about capturing developer mindshare with de Icaza's fixation with.NET. Which, IMHO, which I do not regard as a good idea, even if you disregard his relationship with Novell, and the Novell/Microsoft partnership.
"This, I find kind of odd. If he feels so strongly that KDE is the best, why attack Gnome incessantly?"
Uh, maybe because he "feels so strongly that KDE is the best," if I accepted how you're framing the question. Unfortunately, I can't. I'm aware of a couple of comments he made, over a time span of several years, about his desktop of choice (and most people will make an occasional remark of that type, that started a retarded uproar on Slashdot. What's the man supposed to do, never make a comment on the desktop he sees for long periods, every day? Would you accept that sort of restriction, or feel a bit chaffed? It seems to me that he has the same right to an opinion as anyone. Sniping at him about it sounds like you expect him to STFU, develop kernels, and say nothing negative about some random user's desktop of choice. You might have some basis for that expectation if you were signing his paycheck. But you're not.
"Why should he try to make Gnome into KDE when KDE already exists? I guess this is a turf battle and he's pissed that Gnome has more market-share. He seems kind of ambitious beyond the scope of merely making his Kernel the best it can be."
I don't see it as a turf battle. He's not a desktop developer. Last time I did a comparison, KDE was better for *what I needed to do*. I thought Gnome was dumbed down. So I tend to agree with his post, as shown in your first link, which apparently got you all fired up.
Other users will have other opinions. Some people will find minor points of annoyance in either system, configure their way around it as far as possible, and write extensions via.Desktop files to take care of at least some of the rest. For instance, I needed cryptographic hashes from the file manager. Done, and should be portable. I've my own opinions about why market share numbers look the way they do. They'd probably bother you, and are beside the point, in any case. But I'd be the first to agree that there is room for both KDE and Gnome.
The really *annoying* bit was, "He seems kind of ambitious beyond the scope of merely making his Kernel the best it can be."
I've no problem with ambition. I do have a large problem with your definition of 'mere', unless you've demonstrated more ability on a project of equal scope. I'd also doubt that Torvalds regards the kernel as 'his', though I wouldn't presume to speak for him.
This isn't a fanboy thing. I don't do 'fan', and I'm way too old to be a 'boy'. I've never personally met Torvalds, and have no desire to, as I suspect I wouldn't much like him. I just think you're wrong.
May still be the best|only alternative to sendmail. It does scale, at least well enough for Qwest, and I'd imagine other large ISPs. If I were running it because I needed an MTA that was proven in terms of volume, I'd stay with it. You don't change a large-scale MTA because of a license, unless it's restrictive, which this isn't. Duh.
LISA is sponsored by USENIX and SAGE. Talented people will be there, and talking about this. Realistically, large installations aren't going to change much at all for a couple of years, minimum. If I were in a position where I had to worry about a large MTA installation--this wouldn't be issue I'd sweat. I'd keep track of news, as part of the normal course of events, and plan on being on the next couple of conferences. Which I'd be doing, anyway. Again, as part of the normal course of events.
You can tell you're on Slashdot because professional organizations such as USENIX, SAGE, etc., don't get a mention. Instead, hordes of people (some of whom will be running a single Linux consumer box from home, with no further experience) will go straight to religious wars on licensing, or parrot whatever random crap they've heard about Bernstein.
The author first delivers two links to his site, then a link to a Slashdot Developer article, which points to the only real reference in the entire mess, which would be the 'Some thoughts on security after ten years of qmail 1.0' PDF, referenced from http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/06/0131227&tid=172
Then he goes on to mention that Bernstein has 'recently come under attack' as if the guy hasn't *always* be controversial, gives us a link to a Google video, and ends with an obligatory (for Slashdot authors) question, with which he hopes to stir some controversy. Since this is a bogus article pumping a somewhat real article, I won't repeat his dumb-ass question about licensing.
Seriously, folks, just go read http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/06/0131227&tid=172 and the PDF if you really care about qmail and Berstein's thoughts (agree or disagree) about security. Of course, this being Slashdot, maybe 10% will actually read the referenced PDF.
Most will argue BSD v GPL2 v GPL3 v PD v vi v emacs. The up side is that 1% of those will be some smart sonsabitches, who just couldn't let some really stupid licensing post pass, and I'll learn something about BSD v GPL2 v GPL3 v PD v vi v emacs. But that's a really hit or miss way to do business. In the end, we'd conserve a lot of energy if we just dragged Zonk out of his cave and beat him with keyboards.
I'm not prepared to argue the point. Too much time has gone by, I'm doing a long Thanksgiving weekend, and the thread is too hard to chase. You tend to have good instincts about this sort of thing, so I'm willing to go with that viewpoint.
"Not really applicable here. The equipment is the same either way. It's not like buying a laptop versus a desktop, where one is carefully (and expensively) optimized and the other one isn't. The same pizza boxes/blades are going in the racks either way, whether it's in a traditional data center or in a cargo container."
People, and corporations, do different things with computers. I use a very carefully selected desktop. OTOH, I regard a laptop as an inherently unergonomic, flimsy, slow, POS. It's only advantage is portability, which isn't that valuable to me, *for what I need to do*. As long as the drive is encrypted, I regard a laptop as disposable. My cow-orkers regard them in pretty much the same way--burn through one a year, and who freaking cares?
So far as pizza boxes and blades--yet again, there's a bit more to computing than you seem to have seen, as you seem to think that all workloads scale out. FLASH! Some workloads only economically scale up. Hence large SMP machines. If you need 64 CPUs, and an interconnect that runs on the order of 200GB/S, to run an app that won't benefit from parallelization, what do you do? Punt? Address the need with your "carefully (and expensively) optimized" laptop?
How about hot spots, where you end up with too many people on one server, because you can't persist logins? That's a problem with some distributed enterprise apps, even where the application server layer may be ten systems. But SMP systems do dynamic load balancing, and make that problem go away.
I would truly love to see you design a data center, and "get rid of all the on-site installation and configuration, all the raised flooring and cabling." So would everyone else who's ever worked in a data center. It would be pretty sweet to never have to install and config another system. I'm not sure how you do away with cabling, though. Wouldn't that tend to leave you with a collection of standalone boxes, as in Before There Were Networks?
I'm totally at a loss about how you plan to cool the damned thing. That's probably the single trickiest bit of Sun's effort. The rest is just that cabling inconvenience you write off. Magically transport power and connectivity to the systems, and all you need on the other side of the wall is a fat network pipe, and a much fatter power pipe. Cooling, though, will be a bitch. Duct work is going to be relatively fixed, and critical. You've gotten rid of raised flooring, and I imagine dropped ceilings as well. Very cunning! Hope you have The One True Data Center Plan, and never have to change it. Because you can't readily do it.
Luckily, data centers that have never had a floor plan change are common as dirt. Of the very few that have, it's always been a cheap and easy thing to do. It's not as if systems (and their power, connectivity, and cooling requirements) ever change, after all.
It's been fun, but I have to run. A tube seems to have failed in my UNIVAC (UNIVersal Automatic Computer). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_I. While I'm gone, please feel free to STFU about data centers.
"if it is big enough of a project, there is going to be forks,"
I don't see that. OK, CentOS, white box linux from RHEL, but I can't call that a fork, which would imply taking the code in a new direction, not just stripping out some branding.
The only serious forks I've seen have been in the security space--vulnerability scanners and such. As a security guy, that hits close to home. But still, that's a very small piece of the puzzle, in the overall scheme of things. If you were to include innumerable small PHP projects which litter the mailing lists with endless brain-dead vulnerabilities, I might go along with the idea that there have been a lot of forks. But real forks (not two guys getting pissed off, declaring a fork, and writing 6 LOC between them), in major projects? Nah. I ain't buying it, unless you can give some examples.
I very much doubt you can give a good example of a credible fork from Debian because it wasn't free enough. That's a fairly alien concept. Maybe the username Webmaster404 explains it all. In my experience, when 'Web developers' start sounding off, I generally find that these 'developers' haven't even read the basic professional texts of their purported profession, such as O'Reilly's HTTP The Definitive Guide.
I do know a couple that are scary smart. It happens. It just didn't happen in your case.
"IMPORTANT NOTE: When installing the Tru-Tone Duplex Cover, the screw should be loosened about One Full Turn from the point when it is nearly tight. To avoid cracking the Tru-Tone Duplex Cover material, the screw should not be overtightened at any time."
Which sounds like the old mechanic's joke, "Tighten it until it strips, then back off half a turn."
Only $99 for a set of four, in a special package deal which covers their suggested baseline install.
Duh! My bad. Come to think of it, you could also alternate sides of the hammock (or use a dual-beer methodology) to maintain circulation in *both* arms. Your solution provides an advantage from the workout perspective as well. The wider range of motion makes the 12 ounce curl even more effective than it already is!
"This situation shows one of the strongest arguments for open source."
But everyone should also bear in mind that that argument also has limits. In TFA, you see a reference to Linux having problems with it's PRNG. That was a semi-big deal a couple of years ago. From that reference (http://eprint.iacr.org/2006/086.pdf, for your convenience)"
"Why reverse-engineering the LRNG is not easy. The LRNG is part of an open source project and therefore one might assume that its source code is available for public scrutiny and that its security can be easily analyzed (or at least, is not based on security by obscurity). However, the LRNG is not well documented and there is no clear description of the implemented algorithm. The LRNG is composed of about 2500 lines of code, and in addition, hundreds of code patches were applied to the code during the last ve years (and consequently, the available documentation does not always reect the current code). One example of the complexity of the LRNG code is the fact that for 17 months the LRNG code included a bug in which entropy addition used a vector of size 4 × n instead of n. We also note that throughout our analysis we were not helped by any of the LRNG authors."
That last sentence was overly harsh. The LKML thread is at: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=114772953214912&w=2 Posts from Ted T'so in that thread cover his design thoughts, etc. Interesting read. I remember looking at that code, back when, and thinking, WTF? So yes, it's Open Source. OTOH, it was very much a WTF moment.
Then early this month, another PRNG flaw was found on kernels before 6.2.22. I guess I should drag the code back out, have another look, and hope that it's now been cleaned up. A *lot*.
So, I'm right there with you on your "Trust no one" comment. I wouldn't personally run, or professionally deploy, anything but Open Source, except firmware that I can't avoid, and a couple of binary blob drivers I have installed on a home workstation. And I don't like even that.
But I hope there aren't newbies out there thinking this Open Source thing is a panacea. It's a lot better than binaries-only, as witness the huge problem with Win2k's PRNG also published (by almost the same crowd as the paper above) back around the beginning of the month, and which has quite possibly been around since the release of the OS. http://eprint.iacr.org/2007/419.pdf But it's not a panacea.
"I really don't understand all of the bad press about Novell." It's all about Novell getting into bed with Microsoft, and Novell management making some statements that were really problematic to the Linux community. The main disconnect is probably patents. Novell seems to be making a separate peace with Microsoft, and much of the Linux community rejects that approach. That concern is justified by recent events, such as Ballmer making vague threats which are clearly FUD, as the community has said many times that if specific issues are brought out, they'll be fixed. But no answers have been forthcoming from Microsoft--just more FUD.
Novell is in financial trouble, and more or less has to capitalize on this. Being threatened with de-listing from NASDAQ (corporate death) due to not being able to present accurate financial statements is an added cause for concern. They had to re-state because they were busted by the SEC for ripping off their own shareholders via stock options dating. And they are financially week, so potentially open to influence. Especially given the ethically-challenged management team and board. They are burning the good press they garnered in the SCO fight. Many people regard them as the next SCO.
I don't know that I would go that far, but I'm keeping an eye on them. I no longer trust Novell.
I can appreciate how they've benefited you, having been a systems admin myself, and still unofficially doing some of that, day-to-day. But there are valid reasons for people being all pissed off at Novell.
The sad part is that they could be a community hero tomorrow morning, if they would change their ways. Or maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, on that score. But there are some things that I think that they're approaching more correctly than their competition. I dearly hope for a near-term investor revolt, but I don't think it will happen, and think that there's at least some chance of Novell becoming the next SCO.
Final comment: don't troll. Or at least get basic terminology straight.
OEM, for those that don't know, means Original Equipment Manufacturer. We're not talking hardware here, but software. Perhaps you meant 'vendor', and are claiming that Microsoft is now the largest Linux sales organization. On the strength of a claimed $300 million in sales, which wouldn't remotely support that claim, even if all coupons were used, which isn't remotely proven, and Microsoft could buy them out of petty cash, with no intention of ever using them. You'd also have to deny the existence of Red Hat, IBM, etc.
I'll leave it to the community to decide on an appropriate amusement level for that one.
Assuming you aren't trolling, here's some breaking news: sales people don't always tell you the complete truth.
In their last annual report, page 20, linked from http://www.novell.com/company/ir/annrpts.html, they state, "...NetWare and OES combined license and maintenance revenue of our business declined by $49.4 million or 18% in fiscal 2006, excluding the impact of favorable foreign exchange rates."
This implies that the business had been worth $274.4M. I doubt that this is all of the Netware revenue stream, as there's probably some additional consulting, etc., involved, but it's probably most of it. So what the Microsoft deal did was more or less replace the losses in this area. But who thinks that their Netware revenue will do anything but decline in future? I don't know where these products are on the life-cycle graph, but 18% in a year sounds pretty extreme.
They do other things, such as directory, and various security offerings. Some of these are relatively new products, and such things as laying off the AppArmor team make me a bit nervous. I was never an AppArmor fan, as path-based security leaves a lot to be desired. But at least part of their overall security strategy seems to be in something of a state of flux.
I wasn't able to find any information specific to business from their eDirectory product. I suspect, though, that you were incorrect in saying, "...most of that revenue is still from NetWare and directory products." eDirectory (and related) revenue would have to be between one and two hundred million.
They also mention that they grew their Linux business by 26%. This is pre-deal, so that's encouraging.
The next couple of quarters will be interesting, and I'll probably listen to their next couple of conference calls, though I won't be buying any stock. They were one of the companies that ripped off their own shareholders by improperly dating stock options. So I have another reason to regard their management team (and board), as ethically-challenged.
What I'm curious about is: a) How their Linux business is growing, as compared to their other products. b) What percentage of that Linux business is dependent on Microsoft. c) How many of those 70,000 coupons are being used (some percentage will generate recurring and less MS-dependent revenue).
None of this is *evidence* that Novell is a source of future submarine patents, future attempted FUD, etc. But given that I already don't trust them, and suspect that they're becoming increasingly dependent upon Microsoft, I'll be watching their numbers, and forming my own conclusions.
Notice the Q2 '07 pop. This must have been when Microsoft paid up. But that income wasn't recognized as the usual license, maintenance, subscription, etc. fees that show up in the quarterly reports as "Total net revenue." Those numbers (in thousands) for the past few quarters are:
In short, they're doing pretty much as they were doing before the Microsoft deal. Including losses from operations, quarter after quarter. All of this is indicative of why NOVL is a $7 stock. Their management team simply isn't up to it.
Also, when this story broke back in February,"...Microsoft will annually purchase as part of a resale arrangement approximately 70,000 coupons, with a mix of priority and standard support, for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server maintenance subscriptions." See "Microsoft and Novell: Fox marries chicken, both move into henhouse" at: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gardner/index.php?p=2369
So once a year Novell can get a revenue pop, but it looks as if they've been unable to translate this into service agreements that *aren't* through Microsoft. Certainly not to the point of remotely compensating for the damage they've done to themselves in the community. If they can't succeed in that, (and we don't know what percentage of those 70K coupons are actually being used) then Microsoft has a potentially large amount of control over Novell's bottom line.
Given Novell's lack of growth, I imagine some investors are unhappy anyway. Novell are about a $1.2B/yr company. If MS were to threaten to take their revenue down 20-30% when this agreement expires in 2012, which they could do simply by allowing the agreement to lapse, I wonder just what they might force Novell to go along with?
MS has a history of treating 'partners' the way we'd treat a Kleenex, and of some very unethical business practices. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with a couple of ways this could end in tears. If it's only Novell doing the weeping, I could care less. They knew the history of partnering with Microsoft when they did the deal. But I don't trust Microsoft at all, and now I don't trust Novell, either, due to them having done the deal to begin with, and now as a possible hostage.
"Why don't isp's implement firewalls at their end that effectively eliminate all traffic except those protocols demanded by the user."
At ISP scale, the vast majority of common ports are used for legitimate traffic by someone. That's what makes them common ports.:)
"It would be relatively simple to create a web page that could enable/disable these protocols... the page would know which IP, as you would be connecting from it, and could be protected by a simple captcha or password to make it difficult for malware to enable these protocols itself."
Why would you want to move this functionality from equipment under your control to something under the ISP's control? This is available on tons of broadband routers now, either cable modem, or DSL.
If you've never seen this, perhaps you have older gear, and you might want to call your ISP. I know some of them are always trying to get customers to upgrade, because the newer gear gives them more of an opportunity to sell more expensive services, whether that be higher speed, or whatever. Who knows, you might be able to upgrade at no cost. It can't hurt to check.
Doesn't piss me off at all. Your reference to "99% of slashdotters" as "you guys" rather makes me think you're a 1 percenter (or like to think of yourself that way) with an axe to grind.
Sure SuSE can claim some client wins. So can Red Hat, as their current agreements with Amazon show. That sort of thing is annecdotal noise. Novell's earning per share haven't changed a cent from four quarters ago, as stated in SEC filings. They're exactly what they were a year ago, when the agreement was made. Red Hat's are up 17%. In your words, "Know that."
BTW, in the reference you cite, the *only* specific technology that was mentioned by name was Microsoft's User Interface Automation specification. Which the article went on to say, "The Redmond giant added that it will not assert any patents necessary to implement the specification against anyone, regardless of platform, in the open source and proprietary software communities." So amongst the corporate PR platitudes, the only specific item mentioned provides no business advantage to SuSE.
Yes, this agreement probably will continue. Until SuSE's board come to their senses. It hasn't been good for Linux or SuSE's investors. The only winner has been Microsoft. IOW, it's been the same story as the vast majority of all partnerships with Microsft.
Re:Where are the authoritative SHA1 values?
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Fedora 8 Released
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· Score: 1
It would be quickly detected. By people who take a bit of extra care, and check their downloads against authoritative hashes. Which would seem obvious, but clearly mystifies you.
Slashdot Mirror
Dozens of landing patterns where airliners fly below the vertical height, and within 200 horizontal feet of a skyscraper? Riiiight.
More CPU, more RAM, now more drugs?! Where will it end!
The first couple of Fedoras I found a bit rocky. 3-7 have worked quite well for me, as a day after day business machine. But this is just swapping anecdotes. I suppose it comes down to the environment. I know of several situations where I wouldn't deploy it.
There have been several posts now that want a free enterprise OS again, or the return of a boxed desktop OS. Red Hat is in good financial shape because they made the tough choices--like getting rid of the boxed software that was losing money. I don't see the wisdom in their going back to business tactics that have failed for them in the past.
So far as not thinking that CentOS contributes to the Red Hat name, or providing a support revenue stream, I have to disagree. Everybody knows CentOS is based on Red Hat. It doesn't take a Shadowman logo to keep the Red Hat name in my mind. And you can buy an entitlement for a system running CentOS.
Please change what I said previously about you 'responding to selective quoting', to 'responding to bogus quoting'. I've just posted regarding that at http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=406430&cid=21921586
We've been trolled.
WTF is this doing +5 Insightful? Poster needs to be more accurate with quotes. Whitehurst didn't say either of these things. The first quote, while not actually a quote, could at least be considered a paraphrase. The relevant para is:
"When I look at the quality of our existing technology, and the incredible brand that we have and the markets we play in, we should be a $5 billion company or more. If you just look at operating systems and middleware--that's nearly a $100 billion business. We're a $500 million business. We have barely scratched the surface."
The second quote, "It's a question of operational excellence and on focusing on its core businesses," is simply absent from the article. Operational excellence is mentioned twice:
1) "I will focus on operational excellence, but Red Hat is still Red Hat. That's not going to change."
2) "Our last quarter with JBoss was quite strong, but we can do better and my emphasis is on operational excellence, with JBoss getting a lot of my attention."
This is worse than paraphrasing, and calling it a quote. The poster is taking phrases that were never connected in the original article, and telling us his opinion of the meaning of a statement that was never made.
Well, he did mention making sure that the support organization was firing on all cylinders. He claims the OS/middleware market is $100 billion. So Red Hat has a half percent of it, and he thinks it should be more. I agree with him.
;) So there's a win for everyone.
You're responding to some very selective quoting. The man also said, "We need to figure out what our "fair share" of each market should be and aggressively go after it. We need to make sure we nail the markets we're already in. I'm not saying we won't go broader, but we really need to ensure we're building our presence in our core markets and technologies. Perhaps we need to set our ambitions a bit higher."
There are other places they could go in the application server stack. With the Oracle relationship having tilted over into 'hostile' anyway, I'd like to see them bring back the Red Hat Database. That would leave, what, load ballancers, perhaps, to give them a soup-to-nuts stack?
I believe they also do a significant business in the telecom space. Perhaps there are additional opportunities there as well. I'm only guessing, having never worked in that industry.
I'm in complete agree with you about Red Hat not doing self promotion well, BTW. They could generate a fair amount of good will, which often leads to revenues, if they got better at that one thing. Plus, it would be handy to to have a summary page page to link to, next time someone moans about Red Hat being an Evil Corporation here on Slashdot.
Then by all means continue to celebrate the narrowest of all possible viewpoints.
Good arguments. Far be it from me claim that Torvalds wouldn't go trolling. As I said, I probably wouldn't like the guy, if I met him.
:) I don't install it much any more, myself, being steered by popular articles, etc. So, in a sense I'm arguing that he's probably doing something I don't do myself. In my case, it's lack of time, of which he may have less. So I presented a flawed argument.
.NET. Which, IMHO, which I do not regard as a good idea, even if you disregard his relationship with Novell, and the Novell/Microsoft partnership.
I'm *assuming* that he talks to Gnome users, or installs Gnome now and then, and kicks the tires. Yes, I know the old adage about assuming.
However, my overall impression is that the Gnome folk are most interested in things being simple for mass users. That impression was probably first formed with Spatial Browsing, which seemed *to me* more useful to people who didn't have a large need to maintain a deep file hierarchy. I've also heard a lot of complaints about config options delivered directly through the GUI going away. In my experience, KDE has remained fairly constant in that regard.
OK, WTF is that opinion worth? Maybe nothing. To answer your question about my take on why I think market share numbers, I think it's about decisions that major distros made some time ago. History and inertia, more than a current state of affairs. For instance, HP once loudly announced that HP-UX would go with Gnome, vice the age-old CDE. They were silent when they bagged the idea. Sun have done the same, but stayed with Gnome. But commercial Unices can't switch desktop support on short notice. They have to provide support, training, etc.
I see Red Hat, for instance, as being in the same position. When you're advertising seven years of support, changing desktops is a Big Deal. There was a moment in time when Novell bought SuSE, but went all Gnome. I think part of that was that KDE was German in origin, there were issues with the Qt libs, etc. At about the same point, HP and Sun were just climbing on the non-proprietary bandwagon, and announcing Gnome.
Be reminded that this is just my opinion, which is what you were asking about. Someday, a historian will probably lay out a timeline, and do things like lay out when the Evolution crew were acquired, and form conclusions about what effect that may have had. I just hope they do a better job than Eric Raymond and others did in announcing the death of MPE (a retarded time-sharing OS) well before it's official EOL, when it was still running large financial systems, handling (literally) billions of dollars in transactions, and supported to the level of four hours until a service engineer appears on-site.
Raymond from _The Art of Unix Programming_ (2003) "Most (Multics, IS, DTSS, TOPS-10, TOPS-20, MTS, GCOS, MPE, and perhaps a dozen others) are so long dead that they are fading from the collective memory of the computing field."
MPE EOL was originally announced to be 12/31/2006, and it was promulgated well before Raymond wrote his bit. Limited support now looks like being available until 2015. So there's one clueless historian.
Sometimes you get things wrong, even if you're trying to pay attention. But IMHO, GNOME seems most interested in adoption by the mass (as opposed to the traditional Linux technical) market, major vendors are trapped into supporting this by previous support commitments, and wouldn't change if they could, as they see it as a possible mass-market play. The one play I see Gnome making in the technical market is about capturing developer mindshare with de Icaza's fixation with
"This, I find kind of odd. If he feels so strongly that KDE is the best, why attack Gnome incessantly?"
.Desktop files to take care of at least some of the rest. For instance, I needed cryptographic hashes from the file manager. Done, and should be portable. I've my own opinions about why market share numbers look the way they do. They'd probably bother you, and are beside the point, in any case. But I'd be the first to agree that there is room for both KDE and Gnome.
Uh, maybe because he "feels so strongly that KDE is the best," if I accepted how you're framing the question. Unfortunately, I can't. I'm aware of a couple of comments he made, over a time span of several years, about his desktop of choice (and most people will make an occasional remark of that type, that started a retarded uproar on Slashdot. What's the man supposed to do, never make a comment on the desktop he sees for long periods, every day? Would you accept that sort of restriction, or feel a bit chaffed? It seems to me that he has the same right to an opinion as anyone. Sniping at him about it sounds like you expect him to STFU, develop kernels, and say nothing negative about some random user's desktop of choice. You might have some basis for that expectation if you were signing his paycheck. But you're not.
"Why should he try to make Gnome into KDE when KDE already exists? I guess this is a turf battle and he's pissed that Gnome has more market-share. He seems kind of ambitious beyond the scope of merely making his Kernel the best it can be."
I don't see it as a turf battle. He's not a desktop developer. Last time I did a comparison, KDE was better for *what I needed to do*. I thought Gnome was dumbed down. So I tend to agree with his post, as shown in your first link, which apparently got you all fired up.
Other users will have other opinions. Some people will find minor points of annoyance in either system, configure their way around it as far as possible, and write extensions via
The really *annoying* bit was, "He seems kind of ambitious beyond the scope of merely making his Kernel the best it can be."
I've no problem with ambition. I do have a large problem with your definition of 'mere', unless you've demonstrated more ability on a project of equal scope. I'd also doubt that Torvalds regards the kernel as 'his', though I wouldn't presume to speak for him.
This isn't a fanboy thing. I don't do 'fan', and I'm way too old to be a 'boy'. I've never personally met Torvalds, and have no desire to, as I suspect I wouldn't much like him. I just think you're wrong.
May still be the best|only alternative to sendmail. It does scale, at least well enough for Qwest, and I'd imagine other large ISPs. If I were running it because I needed an MTA that was proven in terms of volume, I'd stay with it. You don't change a large-scale MTA because of a license, unless it's restrictive, which this isn't. Duh.
This is sure to come up in the next couple of LISA (Large Installation System Administrator) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=LISA_(conference)&oldid=157638900 conferences.
LISA is sponsored by USENIX and SAGE. Talented people will be there, and talking about this. Realistically, large installations aren't going to change much at all for a couple of years, minimum. If I were in a position where I had to worry about a large MTA installation--this wouldn't be issue I'd sweat. I'd keep track of news, as part of the normal course of events, and plan on being on the next couple of conferences. Which I'd be doing, anyway. Again, as part of the normal course of events.
You can tell you're on Slashdot because professional organizations such as USENIX, SAGE, etc., don't get a mention. Instead, hordes of people (some of whom will be running a single Linux consumer box from home, with no further experience) will go straight to religious wars on licensing, or parrot whatever random crap they've heard about Bernstein.
The author first delivers two links to his site, then a link to a Slashdot Developer article, which points to the only real reference in the entire mess, which would be the 'Some thoughts on security after ten years of qmail 1.0' PDF, referenced from http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/06/0131227&tid=172
Then he goes on to mention that Bernstein has 'recently come under attack' as if the guy hasn't *always* be controversial, gives us a link to a Google video, and ends with an obligatory (for Slashdot authors) question, with which he hopes to stir some controversy. Since this is a bogus article pumping a somewhat real article, I won't repeat his dumb-ass question about licensing.
Seriously, folks, just go read http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/06/0131227&tid=172 and the PDF if you really care about qmail and Berstein's thoughts (agree or disagree) about security. Of course, this being Slashdot, maybe 10% will actually read the referenced PDF.
Most will argue BSD v GPL2 v GPL3 v PD v vi v emacs. The up side is that 1% of those will be some smart sonsabitches, who just couldn't let some really stupid licensing post pass, and I'll learn something about BSD v GPL2 v GPL3 v PD v vi v emacs. But that's a really hit or miss way to do business. In the end, we'd conserve a lot of energy if we just dragged Zonk out of his cave and beat him with keyboards.
I'm not prepared to argue the point. Too much time has gone by, I'm doing a long Thanksgiving weekend, and the thread is too hard to chase. You tend to have good instincts about this sort of thing, so I'm willing to go with that viewpoint.
"Not really applicable here. The equipment is the same either way. It's not like buying a laptop versus a desktop, where one is carefully (and expensively) optimized and the other one isn't. The same pizza boxes/blades are going in the racks either way, whether it's in a traditional data center or in a cargo container."
People, and corporations, do different things with computers. I use a very carefully selected desktop. OTOH, I regard a laptop as an inherently unergonomic, flimsy, slow, POS. It's only advantage is portability, which isn't that valuable to me, *for what I need to do*. As long as the drive is encrypted, I regard a laptop as disposable. My cow-orkers regard them in pretty much the same way--burn through one a year, and who freaking cares?
So far as pizza boxes and blades--yet again, there's a bit more to computing than you seem to have seen, as you seem to think that all workloads scale out. FLASH! Some workloads only economically scale up. Hence large SMP machines. If you need 64 CPUs, and an interconnect that runs on the order of 200GB/S, to run an app that won't benefit from parallelization, what do you do? Punt? Address the need with your "carefully (and expensively) optimized" laptop?
How about hot spots, where you end up with too many people on one server, because you can't persist logins? That's a problem with some distributed enterprise apps, even where the application server layer may be ten systems. But SMP systems do dynamic load balancing, and make that problem go away.
I would truly love to see you design a data center, and "get rid of all the on-site installation and configuration, all the raised flooring and cabling." So would everyone else who's ever worked in a data center. It would be pretty sweet to never have to install and config another system. I'm not sure how you do away with cabling, though. Wouldn't that tend to leave you with a collection of standalone boxes, as in Before There Were Networks?
I'm totally at a loss about how you plan to cool the damned thing. That's probably the single trickiest bit of Sun's effort. The rest is just that cabling inconvenience you write off. Magically transport power and connectivity to the systems, and all you need on the other side of the wall is a fat network pipe, and a much fatter power pipe. Cooling, though, will be a bitch. Duct work is going to be relatively fixed, and critical. You've gotten rid of raised flooring, and I imagine dropped ceilings as well. Very cunning! Hope you have The One True Data Center Plan, and never have to change it. Because you can't readily do it.
Luckily, data centers that have never had a floor plan change are common as dirt. Of the very few that have, it's always been a cheap and easy thing to do. It's not as if systems (and their power, connectivity, and cooling requirements) ever change, after all.
It's been fun, but I have to run. A tube seems to have failed in my UNIVAC (UNIVersal Automatic Computer). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_I. While I'm gone, please feel free to STFU about data centers.
"if it is big enough of a project, there is going to be forks,"
I don't see that. OK, CentOS, white box linux from RHEL, but I can't call that a fork, which would imply taking the code in a new direction, not just stripping out some branding.
The only serious forks I've seen have been in the security space--vulnerability scanners and such. As a security guy, that hits close to home. But still, that's a very small piece of the puzzle, in the overall scheme of things. If you were to include innumerable small PHP projects which litter the mailing lists with endless brain-dead vulnerabilities, I might go along with the idea that there have been a lot of forks. But real forks (not two guys getting pissed off, declaring a fork, and writing 6 LOC between them), in major projects? Nah. I ain't buying it, unless you can give some examples.
I very much doubt you can give a good example of a credible fork from Debian because it wasn't free enough. That's a fairly alien concept. Maybe the username Webmaster404 explains it all. In my experience, when 'Web developers' start sounding off, I generally find that these 'developers' haven't even read the basic professional texts of their purported profession, such as O'Reilly's HTTP The Definitive Guide.
I do know a couple that are scary smart. It happens. It just didn't happen in your case.
Your post needs to be modded up. That URL was great. I particularly enjoyed the power outlet covers at http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina44.htm.
"IMPORTANT NOTE: When installing the Tru-Tone Duplex Cover, the screw should be loosened about One Full Turn from the point when it is nearly tight. To avoid cracking the Tru-Tone Duplex Cover material, the screw should not be overtightened at any time."
Which sounds like the old mechanic's joke, "Tighten it until it strips, then back off half a turn."
Only $99 for a set of four, in a special package deal which covers their suggested baseline install.
Q-Ray bracelets provide us another means of visually identifying idiots. What's not to like?
Duh! My bad. Come to think of it, you could also alternate sides of the hammock (or use a dual-beer methodology) to maintain circulation in *both* arms. Your solution provides an advantage from the workout perspective as well. The wider range of motion makes the 12 ounce curl even more effective than it already is!
But then I'd need some sort of hammock-side sling for a beer. Which would probably wouldn't be ergonomic.
"This situation shows one of the strongest arguments for open source."
But everyone should also bear in mind that that argument also has limits. In TFA, you see a reference to Linux having problems with it's PRNG. That was a semi-big deal a couple of years ago. From that reference (http://eprint.iacr.org/2006/086.pdf, for your convenience)"
"Why reverse-engineering the LRNG is not easy. The LRNG is part of an open source project and therefore one might assume that its source code is available for public scrutiny and that its security can be easily analyzed (or at least, is not based on security by obscurity). However, the LRNG is not well documented and there is no clear description of the implemented algorithm. The LRNG is composed of about 2500 lines of code, and in addition, hundreds of code patches were applied to the code during the last ve years (and consequently, the available documentation does not always reect the current code). One example of the complexity of the LRNG code is the fact that for 17 months the LRNG code included a bug in which entropy addition used a vector of size 4 × n instead of n. We also note that throughout our analysis we were not helped by any of the LRNG authors."
That last sentence was overly harsh. The LKML thread is at: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=114772953214912&w=2
Posts from Ted T'so in that thread cover his design thoughts, etc. Interesting read. I remember looking at that code, back when, and thinking, WTF? So yes, it's Open Source. OTOH, it was very much a WTF moment.
Then early this month, another PRNG flaw was found on kernels before 6.2.22. I guess I should drag the code back out, have another look, and hope that it's now been cleaned up. A *lot*.
So, I'm right there with you on your "Trust no one" comment. I wouldn't personally run, or professionally deploy, anything but Open Source, except firmware that I can't avoid, and a couple of binary blob drivers I have installed on a home workstation. And I don't like even that.
But I hope there aren't newbies out there thinking this Open Source thing is a panacea. It's a lot better than binaries-only, as witness the huge problem with Win2k's PRNG also published (by almost the same crowd as the paper above) back around the beginning of the month, and which has quite possibly been around since the release of the OS. http://eprint.iacr.org/2007/419.pdf But it's not a panacea.
Jeez, what is it with PRNGs this month?
"I really don't understand all of the bad press about Novell."
It's all about Novell getting into bed with Microsoft, and Novell management making some statements that were really problematic to the Linux community. The main disconnect is probably patents. Novell seems to be making a separate peace with Microsoft, and much of the Linux community rejects that approach. That concern is justified by recent events, such as Ballmer making vague threats which are clearly FUD, as the community has said many times that if specific issues are brought out, they'll be fixed. But no answers have been forthcoming from Microsoft--just more FUD.
Novell is in financial trouble, and more or less has to capitalize on this. Being threatened with de-listing from NASDAQ (corporate death) due to not being able to present accurate financial statements is an added cause for concern. They had to re-state because they were busted by the SEC for ripping off their own shareholders via stock options dating. And they are financially week, so potentially open to influence. Especially given the ethically-challenged management team and board. They are burning the good press they garnered in the SCO fight. Many people regard them as the next SCO.
I don't know that I would go that far, but I'm keeping an eye on them. I no longer trust Novell.
I can appreciate how they've benefited you, having been a systems admin myself, and still unofficially doing some of that, day-to-day. But there are valid reasons for people being all pissed off at Novell.
The sad part is that they could be a community hero tomorrow morning, if they would change their ways. Or maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, on that score. But there are some things that I think that they're approaching more correctly than their competition. I dearly hope for a near-term investor revolt, but I don't think it will happen, and think that there's at least some chance of Novell becoming the next SCO.
Final comment: don't troll. Or at least get basic terminology straight.
OEM, for those that don't know, means Original Equipment Manufacturer. We're not talking hardware here, but software. Perhaps you meant 'vendor', and are claiming that Microsoft is now the largest Linux sales organization. On the strength of a claimed $300 million in sales, which wouldn't remotely support that claim, even if all coupons were used, which isn't remotely proven, and Microsoft could buy them out of petty cash, with no intention of ever using them. You'd also have to deny the existence of Red Hat, IBM, etc.
I'll leave it to the community to decide on an appropriate amusement level for that one.
Assuming you aren't trolling, here's some breaking news: sales people don't always tell you the complete truth.
In their last annual report, page 20, linked from http://www.novell.com/company/ir/annrpts.html, they state, "...NetWare and OES combined license and maintenance revenue of our business declined by $49.4 million or 18% in fiscal 2006, excluding the impact of favorable foreign exchange rates."
This implies that the business had been worth $274.4M. I doubt that this is all of the Netware revenue stream, as there's probably some additional consulting, etc., involved, but it's probably most of it. So what the Microsoft deal did was more or less replace the losses in this area. But who thinks that their Netware revenue will do anything but decline in future? I don't know where these products are on the life-cycle graph, but 18% in a year sounds pretty extreme.
They do other things, such as directory, and various security offerings. Some of these are relatively new products, and such things as laying off the AppArmor team make me a bit nervous. I was never an AppArmor fan, as path-based security leaves a lot to be desired. But at least part of their overall security strategy seems to be in something of a state of flux.
I wasn't able to find any information specific to business from their eDirectory product. I suspect, though, that you were incorrect in saying, "...most of that revenue is still from NetWare and directory products." eDirectory (and related) revenue would have to be between one and two hundred million.
They also mention that they grew their Linux business by 26%. This is pre-deal, so that's encouraging.
The next couple of quarters will be interesting, and I'll probably listen to their next couple of conference calls, though I won't be buying any stock. They were one of the companies that ripped off their own shareholders by improperly dating stock options. So I have another reason to regard their management team (and board), as ethically-challenged.
What I'm curious about is:
a) How their Linux business is growing, as compared to their other products.
b) What percentage of that Linux business is dependent on Microsoft.
c) How many of those 70,000 coupons are being used (some percentage will generate recurring and less MS-dependent revenue).
None of this is *evidence* that Novell is a source of future submarine patents, future attempted FUD, etc. But given that I already don't trust them, and suspect that they're becoming increasingly dependent upon Microsoft, I'll be watching their numbers, and forming my own conclusions.
Here are the last four quarters of Novell revenue, as per SEC filings, in Ugly Slashdot Table Format:
Q4 2006 Q1 2007 Q2 2007 Q3 2007
10/31/06 01/31/07 04/30/07 07/31/07
244,905 224,596 463,752 243,135 (in thousands)
Notice the Q2 '07 pop. This must have been when Microsoft paid up. But that income wasn't recognized as the usual license, maintenance, subscription, etc. fees that show up in the quarterly reports as "Total net revenue." Those numbers (in thousands) for the past few quarters are:
Q1/06 242,294
Q2/06 193,086
Q3/06 236,271
Q4/06 244,905
Q1/07 244,905
Q2/07 197,433
Q3/07 243,135
In short, they're doing pretty much as they were doing before the Microsoft deal. Including losses from operations, quarter after quarter. All of this is indicative of why NOVL is a $7 stock. Their management team simply isn't up to it.
All of this is in Novell's quarterly reports at: http://www.novell.com/company/ir/qresults/
Also, when this story broke back in February,"...Microsoft will annually purchase as part of a resale arrangement approximately 70,000 coupons, with a mix of priority and standard support, for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server maintenance subscriptions." See "Microsoft and Novell: Fox marries chicken, both move into henhouse" at: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gardner/index.php?p=2369
So once a year Novell can get a revenue pop, but it looks as if they've been unable to translate this into service agreements that *aren't* through Microsoft. Certainly not to the point of remotely compensating for the damage they've done to themselves in the community. If they can't succeed in that, (and we don't know what percentage of those 70K coupons are actually being used) then Microsoft has a potentially large amount of control over Novell's bottom line.
Given Novell's lack of growth, I imagine some investors are unhappy anyway. Novell are about a $1.2B/yr company. If MS were to threaten to take their revenue down 20-30% when this agreement expires in 2012, which they could do simply by allowing the agreement to lapse, I wonder just what they might force Novell to go along with?
MS has a history of treating 'partners' the way we'd treat a Kleenex, and of some very unethical business practices. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with a couple of ways this could end in tears. If it's only Novell doing the weeping, I could care less. They knew the history of partnering with Microsoft when they did the deal. But I don't trust Microsoft at all, and now I don't trust Novell, either, due to them having done the deal to begin with, and now as a possible hostage.
"Why don't isp's implement firewalls at their end that effectively eliminate all traffic except those protocols demanded by the user."
:)
At ISP scale, the vast majority of common ports are used for legitimate traffic by someone. That's what makes them common ports.
"It would be relatively simple to create a web page that could enable/disable these protocols... the page would know which IP, as you would be connecting from it, and could be protected by a simple captcha or password to make it difficult for malware to enable these protocols itself."
Why would you want to move this functionality from equipment under your control to something under the ISP's control? This is available on tons of broadband routers now, either cable modem, or DSL.
If you've never seen this, perhaps you have older gear, and you might want to call your ISP. I know some of them are always trying to get customers to upgrade, because the newer gear gives them more of an opportunity to sell more expensive services, whether that be higher speed, or whatever. Who knows, you might be able to upgrade at no cost. It can't hurt to check.
Doesn't piss me off at all. Your reference to "99% of slashdotters" as "you guys" rather makes me think you're a 1 percenter (or like to think of yourself that way) with an axe to grind.
It's difficult for many companies to admit they've made a horrible mistake. Look at a one year stock price chart of RHAT v NOVL http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=1y&s=RHT&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=novl
Sure SuSE can claim some client wins. So can Red Hat, as their current agreements with Amazon show. That sort of thing is annecdotal noise. Novell's earning per share haven't changed a cent from four quarters ago, as stated in SEC filings. They're exactly what they were a year ago, when the agreement was made. Red Hat's are up 17%. In your words, "Know that."
BTW, in the reference you cite, the *only* specific technology that was mentioned by name was Microsoft's User Interface Automation specification. Which the article went on to say, "The Redmond giant added that it will not assert any patents necessary to implement the specification against anyone, regardless of platform, in the open source and proprietary software communities." So amongst the corporate PR platitudes, the only specific item mentioned provides no business advantage to SuSE.
Yes, this agreement probably will continue. Until SuSE's board come to their senses. It hasn't been good for Linux or SuSE's investors. The only winner has been Microsoft. IOW, it's been the same story as the vast majority of all partnerships with Microsft.
It would be quickly detected. By people who take a bit of extra care, and check their downloads against authoritative hashes. Which would seem obvious, but clearly mystifies you.