In the open source world, a lot of people who provide support by replying to messages on forums, responding to bug reports, etc. actually aren't in a position to know about all changes that have been made to a project. If you're lucky, there is at least one person somewhere working on the project who is, and if not, well maybe there's only a vague changelog to work with.
Of course, I should add, for those who haven't figured it out --
Token Ring is dead -- D-E-A-D -- dead. It has lost the war. As I said, cheap smart Ethernet switches make TR's advantages irrelevant.
If you're seriously wondering whether TR is used for new LANs, please put down that crack pipe. You do not have to be the Tivo owner that starts VHS vs. Beta arguments; you can salvage what little dignity you have left and move along.
>And we did get the 100Mb token ring switches, which was truly one of the more absurd things I have ever seen IT money spent on. I still don't have a clear idea how this was a good thing: you got a 100Mb token ring switch, which would create a ring on each port. Then you could plug exactly one device into each port, as long as it had a 100Mb token ring adapter.
As you say, it's a bit absurd to use expensive TR switches like that (instead of cheap Ethernet switches) -- since in a single-NIC-per-port arrangement there's no chance for collisions in any case, so TR's main advantage is meaningless.
Still, it made sense to migrate to TR switches -- but by having small rings of clients share switch ports, and dedicating a port to a single system only for real bottleneck systems such as file servers. If you ask me, the real reason to stick with TR would have been that switching to Ethernet would meant either replacing everything at once (prohibitive in labour cost and downtime) or a potentially messy gradual transition either with routers (and a whole lot of reconfiguration of systems) or translational bridging (here be dragons).
There's no connection between "online videogame TV" and the podcast stats in the linked story, other than the fact that they got the author thinking about his media habits...
And there are no actual stats about "online videogame TV"...
And the author wasn't dismissing all "online videogame related video" like the poster suggests -- "I pull up gigabytes of game videos"...
I can only conclude that the poster didn't actually read the story, and that the slashdot editors are too busy smoking crack to notice... But what else is new? =)
Look it up, dingus. There's no reason that every web browser should behave exactly like IE out of the box. That's what the extension feature is for. =)
I think Linus is just saying that some kind of "you can't put me in DRM" clause in a creative commons license would make a lot more practical sense for the kind of stuff under those licenses than a 'Don't-use-me-as-DRM' clause in a license for software.
I don't think Linus is saying that GPLed software isn't worth a "you can't put me in DRM" clause or something like that.
But first of all, most people read the current GPL as preventing any kind of source-code-DRM shenanigans (DRMed source code just wouldn't be "machine-readable source code" in the "preferred form of the work for making modifications to it".) And secondly, it's just not a huge deal, pragmatically speaking; there aren't any DRM systems for source code out there (Hmm... how would that work, exactly?... Fnord.)
That's not to say that some don't-put-me-in-DRM shoring up isn't a good thing... I especially like the current draft GPLv3's laying down of the smack on distribution of software "for modes of distribution that deny users that run covered works the full exercise of the legal rights granted by this License".
Anyway, I think most of the DRM-related fuss is over not that stuff but instead the I-am-not-a-technological-protection-measure section. This doesn't really go as far in the don't-use-me-as-DRM direction as people seem to think... It seems to be just a minimal incantation necessary to dispel DMCA anti-circumvention effects and no more. But still, it's getting dangerously close to stepping over the ethic against adding use conditions that RMS seems normally to support.
Questions? Comments?
I keep accidentally typing "Linus" with an 'x' on the end. What's up with that?;)
Ooh! Some random terminology fresh from the blender... =)
Time for a friendly game of pick-apart-the-post.
> You're an engineer.
Sorry to stop so soon, but you've inferred out of nowhere that this guy is an engineer, and since we're not talking about making toasters, a software engineer. So you should probably know that the distinguishing feature of software engineers is that they concentrate on delivering quality software on time and under budget that fulfills the customers needs (i.e. the responsibilities of a software engineer) first, and the other interests of their employer second. Was that what you meant?
> You don't deal with customers on anything other than the purely technical level.
The usual view is that technical decisions on a project are the responsibility of the development team. So, other than finding out if the customer has any technical requirements (because of technologies the customer is already using), developers don't talk to customers about technical issues. They talk to them about functionality (i.e. non-technical requirements). That's the opposite of what you're saying.
> What you were doing --- making estimates, adding functionality --- was making business decisions.
That sentence makes so little sense I'm not even sure whose "business decisions" you're talking about. Making estimates doesn't involve decisions, it involves using the available information to make an educated guess how long something will take. And adding functionality involves making technical decisions, but not business ones.
Obviously adding functionality is what the programmers were hired for in the first place. And programmers should be in a position to make estimates about how long tasks will take them (as it is usually their responsibility). Nothing out of line there.
>You got away with it this time but you were running the risk of seriously screwing up any business relationships your company was participating in.
Do you just mean that the company isn't making as much off a customer during a particular project as it could be?
Delivering the customer minimal services at maximum prices is the key to many things, but a sustainable customer relationship is not one of them: The company keep having to abandon its customers when they a) catch on and demand lower prices or b) go bankrupt due to their own stupidity.
>For example, in the business with the estimate, what would have happened had the customer insisted on going by your estimate and not your manager's (doubled) estimate? At a stroke you would have halved the company's billable hours. Not good.
On the other hand, if the double estimate was too high, and the company had started by giving the customer that? The customer would have said "no thanks", and gone somewhere else. And then, the company doesn't get to bill for any hours, fraudulent or otherwise.
Basically, the way that manager is operating, they better hope that there are so many patsies that competition will never be an issue.
>The only way they could have gotten out of that is by telling the customer that you'd spoken out of turn, which would probably have led to you being told to find another job.
In which case, good riddance, and the guy would have a great contact to take to his new job.
>First rule of dealing with customers: find out exactly what your responsibility is, and don't overstep it. If the customer asks about a new feature, say, "That sounds feasible, but of course I'll have to run it by X first," where X is your business contact. Or even better, say, "You'll have to talk to X about that, I'm afraid." This is the kind of thing management is for; use it...
With that approach, the business contact always has to make the decision, even when they don't have the information to make it properly.
Whoever modded this probable post 'Interesting' gets a big hug and a free membership in the amateur psychologists' guild.
And in case I'm wrong, and the post wasn't actually intended as a troll:
>Doesn't the plane know it has lost cabin pressure?
No. It's a plane.
>If it's on autopilot why can't it reduce altitude so the people can regain consciousness?
Because it's on autopilot. The captain set the autopilot's target altitude, turned it on, and then keeled over. The autopilot held the altitude as long as it could.
>Hell, why can't it just declare an emergency and automatically land at the nearest airport after receiving an OK signal from the airport that it's safe to land[?]
And if it has to crash land, it can go for a nice long trip to the plane hospital, and maybe the plane doctor will give it a nice lollipop! Yeah, that sounds good.
>Regardless, the person who forwarded these emails to external parties should be fired because company emails shouldn't be forwarded to unintended recipients without original author's consent.
Why? Was that in the company's acceptable use policy (AUP)? NO?
Many companies have yet to effectively leverage the online employee comportment solutions that are available in the idea marketplace. In the online world, synergies for mitigation of "water cooler" discussions can be harnessed LIKE NEVER BEFORE!
Does your company's AUP need dusting off? Is the disused lavatory that houses the locked Employee Manual filing cabinet just not recieving the foot traffic it deserves because the door is missing its 'Beware of the Leopard' sign? ACT NOW!
Check out some of the quality AUP elements that are at work on my own personal mailbox sender storage space use policy:
- Senders must grant unlimited reproduction, modification, and distrubution of their message contents
- Senders agree to have all AUP-related feedback handled by the on-line erectile disfunction medication retailer that I've received the most spam from this week (currently instant-pharmacy.net, in case you're interested)
Remember: It's quality outsourcing possibilities like these that let me keep my service levels up! Imagine how dissappointed I would be if my customer service workload made me LOSE OUT on the EXCELLENT FREE KARMA available by forwarding little Johnny's request for postcards out to 20 of my BESTEST FRIENDS (who judging by my inbox contents are all direct e-mail marketers)! Now that would just be plain sad.
(Apologies to the late Mr. Adams for blatant fair use of the leopard bit.)
Slashdot Mirror
In the open source world, a lot of people who provide support by replying to messages on forums, responding to bug reports, etc. actually aren't in a position to know about all changes that have been made to a project. If you're lucky, there is at least one person somewhere working on the project who is, and if not, well maybe there's only a vague changelog to work with.
This post is a classic... Master teh bad english and jam on the 1 key FTW!
puff, puff, pass...
>Interestingly, they also use BNC-coax cabling for their TR.
Er... how? TR only has standard for twisted pair and fiber.
Can you give us the book's title and author, so I can recommend it to my enemies? =)
Seriously, has TR _ever_ been more widely used than Ethernet?
Of course, I should add, for those who haven't figured it out --
Token Ring is dead -- D-E-A-D -- dead. It has lost the war. As I said, cheap smart Ethernet switches make TR's advantages irrelevant.
If you're seriously wondering whether TR is used for new LANs, please put down that crack pipe. You do not have to be the Tivo owner that starts VHS vs. Beta arguments; you can salvage what little dignity you have left and move along.
>And we did get the 100Mb token ring switches, which was truly one of the more absurd things I have ever seen IT money spent on. I still don't have a clear idea how this was a good thing: you got a 100Mb token ring switch, which would create a ring on each port. Then you could plug exactly one device into each port, as long as it had a 100Mb token ring adapter.
As you say, it's a bit absurd to use expensive TR switches like that (instead of cheap Ethernet switches) -- since in a single-NIC-per-port arrangement there's no chance for collisions in any case, so TR's main advantage is meaningless.
Still, it made sense to migrate to TR switches -- but by having small rings of clients share switch ports, and dedicating a port to a single system only for real bottleneck systems such as file servers. If you ask me, the real reason to stick with TR would have been that switching to Ethernet would meant either replacing everything at once (prohibitive in labour cost and downtime) or a potentially messy gradual transition either with routers (and a whole lot of reconfiguration of systems) or translational bridging (here be dragons).
There's no connection between "online videogame TV" and the podcast stats in the linked story, other than the fact that they got the author thinking about his media habits...
And there are no actual stats about "online videogame TV"...
And the author wasn't dismissing all "online videogame related video" like the poster suggests -- "I pull up gigabytes of game videos"...
I can only conclude that the poster didn't actually read the story, and that the slashdot editors are too busy smoking crack to notice... But what else is new? =)
I think someone's been snorting too much GV Red Cola (or perhaps GV Blue Cola?)
My favourite saying is relevant here:
100% of people who don't know the difference between correlation and causation EVENTUALLY DIE!
Sounds like you need to find a third option...
Amen, brother!
1. Annoy Starfleet.
2. ???
3. Profit.
The Clone Window extension.
Look it up, dingus. There's no reason that every web browser should behave exactly like IE out of the box. That's what the extension feature is for. =)
I think Linus is just saying that some kind of "you can't put me in DRM" clause in a creative commons license would make a lot more practical sense for the kind of stuff under those licenses than a 'Don't-use-me-as-DRM' clause in a license for software.
... Fnord.)
;)
I don't think Linus is saying that GPLed software isn't worth a "you can't put me in DRM" clause or something like that.
But first of all, most people read the current GPL as preventing any kind of source-code-DRM shenanigans (DRMed source code just wouldn't be "machine-readable source code" in the "preferred form of the work for making modifications to it".) And secondly, it's just not a huge deal, pragmatically speaking; there aren't any DRM systems for source code out there (Hmm... how would that work, exactly?
That's not to say that some don't-put-me-in-DRM shoring up isn't a good thing... I especially like the current draft GPLv3's laying down of the smack on distribution of software "for modes of distribution that deny users that run covered works the full exercise of the legal rights granted by this License".
Anyway, I think most of the DRM-related fuss is over not that stuff but instead the I-am-not-a-technological-protection-measure section. This doesn't really go as far in the don't-use-me-as-DRM direction as people seem to think... It seems to be just a minimal incantation necessary to dispel DMCA anti-circumvention effects and no more. But still, it's getting dangerously close to stepping over the ethic against adding use conditions that RMS seems normally to support.
Questions? Comments?
I keep accidentally typing "Linus" with an 'x' on the end. What's up with that?
Too reliable. The mean time between fires is too low (even after we redirected the halon system to the beer fridge.
Hooked up directly to a SCSI port?
Why not just use SCSI and skip the bridge?
I don't understand why you would get a prompt in firefox... does ff have its own wmf parser?
What, due to the obligatory double post (complete with even-more-misleading headline?)
Sounds like something Mr. Burns would say... about his shoes.
(i.e. So what?)
Yeah... Audiophiles always sound a little whiny to me. ;)
Ooh! Some random terminology fresh from the blender... =)
Time for a friendly game of pick-apart-the-post.
> You're an engineer.
Sorry to stop so soon, but you've inferred out of nowhere that this guy is an engineer, and since we're not talking about making toasters, a software engineer. So you should probably know that the distinguishing feature of software engineers is that they concentrate on delivering quality software on time and under budget that fulfills the customers needs (i.e. the responsibilities of a software engineer) first, and the other interests of their employer second. Was that what you meant?
> You don't deal with customers on anything other than the purely technical level.
The usual view is that technical decisions on a project are the responsibility of the development team. So, other than finding out if the customer has any technical requirements (because of technologies the customer is already using), developers don't talk to customers about technical issues. They talk to them about functionality (i.e. non-technical requirements). That's the opposite of what you're saying.
> What you were doing --- making estimates, adding functionality --- was making business decisions.
That sentence makes so little sense I'm not even sure whose "business decisions" you're talking about. Making estimates doesn't involve decisions, it involves using the available information to make an educated guess how long something will take. And adding functionality involves making technical decisions, but not business ones.
Obviously adding functionality is what the programmers were hired for in the first place. And programmers should be in a position to make estimates about how long tasks will take them (as it is usually their responsibility). Nothing out of line there.
>You got away with it this time but you were running the risk of seriously screwing up any business relationships your company was participating in.
Do you just mean that the company isn't making as much off a customer during a particular project as it could be?
Delivering the customer minimal services at maximum prices is the key to many things, but a sustainable customer relationship is not one of them: The company keep having to abandon its customers when they a) catch on and demand lower prices or b) go bankrupt due to their own stupidity.
>For example, in the business with the estimate, what would have happened had the customer insisted on going by your estimate and not your manager's (doubled) estimate? At a stroke you would have halved the company's billable hours. Not good.
On the other hand, if the double estimate was too high, and the company had started by giving the customer that? The customer would have said "no thanks", and gone somewhere else. And then, the company doesn't get to bill for any hours, fraudulent or otherwise.
Basically, the way that manager is operating, they better hope that there are so many patsies that competition will never be an issue.
>The only way they could have gotten out of that is by telling the customer that you'd spoken out of turn, which would probably have led to you being told to find another job.
In which case, good riddance, and the guy would have a great contact to take to his new job.
>First rule of dealing with customers: find out exactly what your responsibility is, and don't overstep it. If the customer asks about a new feature, say, "That sounds feasible, but of course I'll have to run it by X first," where X is your business contact. Or even better, say, "You'll have to talk to X about that, I'm afraid." This is the kind of thing management is for; use it...
With that approach, the business contact always has to make the decision, even when they don't have the information to make it properly.
Did you get your parents' permission before posting on this forum? If not, why not?
(or, to put it another way: why would your parents have a right to control what you do/see/hear/say/think/etc. ?)
Whoever modded this probable post 'Interesting' gets a big hug and a free membership in the amateur psychologists' guild.
And in case I'm wrong, and the post wasn't actually intended as a troll:
>Doesn't the plane know it has lost cabin pressure?
No. It's a plane.
>If it's on autopilot why can't it reduce altitude so the people can regain consciousness?
Because it's on autopilot. The captain set the autopilot's target altitude, turned it on, and then keeled over. The autopilot held the altitude as long as it could.
>Hell, why can't it just declare an emergency and automatically land at the nearest airport after receiving an OK signal from the airport that it's safe to land[?]
And if it has to crash land, it can go for a nice long trip to the plane hospital, and maybe the plane doctor will give it a nice lollipop! Yeah, that sounds good.
-aT
>Regardless, the person who forwarded these emails to external parties should be fired because company emails shouldn't be forwarded to unintended recipients without original author's consent.
Why? Was that in the company's acceptable use policy (AUP)? NO?
Many companies have yet to effectively leverage the online employee comportment solutions that are available in the idea marketplace. In the online world, synergies for mitigation of "water cooler" discussions can be harnessed LIKE NEVER BEFORE!
Does your company's AUP need dusting off? Is the disused lavatory that houses the locked Employee Manual filing cabinet just not recieving the foot traffic it deserves because the door is missing its 'Beware of the Leopard' sign? ACT NOW!
Check out some of the quality AUP elements that are at work on my own personal mailbox sender storage space use policy:
- Senders must grant unlimited reproduction, modification, and distrubution of their message contents
- Senders agree to have all AUP-related feedback handled by the on-line erectile disfunction medication retailer that I've received the most spam from this week (currently instant-pharmacy.net, in case you're interested)
Remember: It's quality outsourcing possibilities like these that let me keep my service levels up! Imagine how dissappointed I would be if my customer service workload made me LOSE OUT on the EXCELLENT FREE KARMA available by forwarding little Johnny's request for postcards out to 20 of my BESTEST FRIENDS (who judging by my inbox contents are all direct e-mail marketers)! Now that would just be plain sad.
(Apologies to the late Mr. Adams for blatant fair use of the leopard bit.)
-aT