I keep running into projects that claim to be open-source, but the only way to get the source is to "join" the team. In other words, register, provide reasons why they should admit you, wait for approval, then you can download the project source.
These aren't company sites
Now, I really hate the idea of the "Release Unfinished Code to the Wild" and call it "released" when all you have is a few methods and a lot of place-holders describing what could go there and the code still does nothing. But calling something open when you require registration, membership approval, etc. is not really open, its just less closed.
.NET/SharePoint developer in the Green Zone of Bahgdad, working as a contractor for the Multi-National Infrastructure Rebuild team. I turned this one down (if I were single I'd go).
BLM (Bureau of Land Management) - GIS positions. These are cool, I almost took one that was based out of Boise, ID. You're in an office part of the year, programming and maintaining equipment for the field GIS applications. When fire season starts, you go out and support field operation, one of the requirements listed was Must feel comfortable camping for long periods of time.
Look for IT support for University based ocean or geology teams. Had a friend that sits in a boat that goes between Bermuda and Cuba tracking turtles. (Has disappeared yet).
Who are you, Gorak, the prehistoric ice man from 1996??! How long have you been frozen in a cave, if you're just getting over the impression that XML is the latest fad? What was it like having Steve Irwin jam his thumb up your butthole?
Z O O M ! ! !
The sound you heard was a passing, way over your head.
And you sound a bit on the angry side as well. Need a hug?
Is Latest-Fad-Tech-Widget-Buzzword-Laden related to Osama-bin-Laden at all?:)
Sir, this is the Bush Regime...er, Department of State Security...uh,Secret Police....no, Department of Homeland Security. We understand that you have posted about Osama Bin Laden. Are you related to him? Would you mind coming with us so we can discuss this? Do you know where he is? Because we'd really like to talk with him. No, sir, he's not in trouble, we just have a few questions.
Oh, you were posting on/., well that's another matter. We'll just charge you with Anti-American crimes. But, look on the bright side, you won't need cold weather gear where we are sending you.
Wow, I guess I'm going to have start thinking of XML as a serious technology instead of a Latest-Fad-Tech-Widget-Buzzword-Laden curiousity. Well, I've still got the ol' fall back, WWW.
These same chimps also have a complete IT staff and developers working on a Linux distro called CHIMPUX.
The Head of the Chimpux architecture team said, "We'd like to see Linux evolve to something useable. Since chimps are one step higher than your typical linux geek on the evolutionary ladder, who better than us to bring it to the masses."
Chimpux International is in trouble on several fronts for their company motto, "Chimpux for the rest of us, So easy a caveman can use it." Riled Apple and GEICO execs are considering action. The cavemen are torn, they'd really like to see a useable form of Linux so they don't want to stir Chimpux's pot.
I can tell you without having looked at it that it will not run most serious grade Visual Basic applications. Part of why VB didn't fall into the 'toy' language category was the very easy mechanism for calling native operating system DLL's. VB is nothing more than a very light language that's tied heavily ito the OLE / COM systems of Windows, which is why it's a porting nightmare.
You are really describing VB and not VB.NET. The article headline is wrong, and thus, for those still hanging onto old ideas, supersticions, and prejudices, it can be confusing. But, that's the Editor's job to correct if the Submitter got it wrong.
I use VB6 daily, and it would be great if that ran smoothly under Linux
VB (up to 6) and VB.NET are completely different animals. Mono is.NET basically for the rest of us.
Now, there are good reasons why VB6 code can't be migrated to.NET, but in most cases, where the environment allows, move the code over. Outside of WINE, I don't think you'll ever really get legacy VB to work on Linux in any meaningful way.
MS supports running Linux on Virtual Server 2005 R2...
Right, but you have to have a full Windows Server 2003 loaded with IIS (if I'm not mistaken) to run VS 2005.
VMWare runs a very light weight linux OS, with a few specialized tools, freeing up as much CPU, RAM, and storage as possible to the VM's.
Now, if I was at Microsoft, designing their new virtualization app, I'd build the next Virtual Server AS the OS. And follow through with letting it run any OS in the virtualized environment. Hell, given the right CPU, let it emulate any CPU, free the OS from the hardware.
This will work fine if all the servers you want to run on a given machine are MS. I like VMWare for the fact that you can load Windows on one VM, Linux on another, and Solaris on yet another. The folks at PACCAR are running massive numbers of systems on a single Blade.
What I would like MS to give us is a Virtual Platform OS, much like VMWare's ESX server. Give me an extremely lightweight OS geard towards Virtualizing the HW layer, then let me load anything into each VM.
As far as I know, VMWare is the only one doing that.
... And have the UN come crashing down hard on charges of crimes against humanity, use of WMD's, etc. While the UN may not have the military might to slap the USA around, its member countries, collectively
Thats a fun mastabatory game you are playing there.
Do you seriously think that?
While not a fan of our current policies and actions, if the U.S. decided to tell the U.N. to take a flying-f*ck at the moon, absolutely nothing, aside from a vote to tell the U.S. that other people are peeved at us, would happen. Why?
Like it or not, we are still the big boys on the block; Economically and Militarily.
Do you know how many of those countries that take political pot shots at the U.S. are receiving huge chunks of cash and economic incentives to play nice with us on the economic side of the house? If other countries decided to put the money screws to the U.S. (and economic is arguably the biggest persuader in the arsenal) the U.S. could wreak more havok on them. Yes, it would be difficult for us, but in the long run, we'd come out of that game on top as well.
This is like those old samurai movies. Zatoichi, is attacked by a mob of sword weilding henchmen. The first few guys get cut down fast and horribly. A few more try to rush him and end up dead or maimed. Finally, the big ones, the ones that talk the toughest, take off running, trying to figure out how they can make a deal with him. (Also note: It's always the tough bosses in the movies that send the little guys in.) To finish, the U.N. will talk tough, Venezuela and a few others will take economic action, the U.S. will cut them off. And the French, Germans, Russians, Japanese, Italians, Polish, and Indians will still have their teams in the U.S. making trade deals and wrangling for the U.S. dollar and market.
You see, when the average household makes and spends in a month what 3 Indian families do in a year, and your country depends on the availability of that market, thats too big of risk.
Perhaps that's why the 5th column in the U.S. is so busy trying to wreck the U.S.
Seriously, I know Microsoft is supposed to be evil and all, but even Disney does this. Just about every one, corporate, individual, government, does this type of thing when faced with a lawsuit. I'm not saying its right, but I think the only reason this one made Slashdot was because it was Microsoft and there is, admittedly, a hefty anti-Microsoft Knee-Jerk element here.
Not really news, but geez, guys, this really is pandering.
Commie Convinces Other Commies to Go With Commie Software
D U H!!!!
Well, this should totally kill their economy. One bad idea for another. But, I bet you the medical equipment hooked up to ol' Fidel is still run by Closed Sourced Commericial God Bless America Money Making Software.
You're going to Hell
Wait, that's a religious concept and we know all religious people are conservatives and therefor wrong. Thus, God does not exist because He is a Republican concept, and George Bush is a Republican, so since the nation has voted the Republican's out of power in the congress, God no longer rules, and Hell has been repealed. So, when Fidel dies (hoping that we have some sort of software switch the CIA can throw on the Closed-Sourced-Commericial-God-Bless-America-Money -Making-Software controlling his life-support equipment) he will not go to Hell, he'll go to Berkely, which has their own version of Hell, People's Park which is worse than Hell, even Satan wouldn't hang out there. But, Berkley is liberal, and have a version Hell, that must mean Religion exists, and God is back. Whew, and for a second there, I thought the Universe was going to wink out of existance.
Now, why the Hell is this discussion on Slashdot?
Oh, right! Commies!
Run, everyone, the Commies are coming, God help us, the Commies are coming!
Man, I wish I had my earlier mod point, I'd have given you an "atta-boy" for that. Too bad you posted anonymous.
Seriously, this is separate from the Linux discussion, but, from a human rights point of view, Cuba has to be one of the worst. Next stop, Burma, err, Myanmar.
From a PR perspective, RMS in Cuba is not fantastic. I think the move is not motivated by any love for Cuba on his part, but I could be wrong. I think he's still trying to tweak people and Cuba is a convenient way to do the tweaking.
My sister-in-law, living in Oakland, CA, all of 59 years old still thinks like a teen-ager and she likes coming to Thanksgiving dinner talking (tweaking) about the countries she's visited that are not friendly to the U.S. and tells us how their systems are better than the U.S. model, and how she works with those communities of their expats that are here in the U.S. (? There's a reason those people are expat from their glorious countries.) She doesn't understand, she says, why some of them don't say much to her when she says she visited their home country and loves it and thinks its better than her U.S.A.
The fun thing, she loves those countries where one isn't allowed to own property or businesses, and she owns her house, and owns her own side-business (while working for the City of Oakland) and is crowing about how much she is going to make when she turns around and sells her house.
i think this could be a good thing for linux globally,
Are you trolling for a "funny" mod?
Cuba has what, 3 PC's capable of running Linux?
Who in the world didn't figure this was going to happen. Every copy of XP in Cuba is probably pirated (that's right Fidel, sue me for libel and slander). They haven't been able to get updates and can't afford Vista. So, free is the only answer. And the obviousness of adopting a quasi-socialist model for software is not that surprising a step.
In fact, now that I think about it, the question has to be:
Wiki TP, great idea, you can have roles with articles. High grade for verified content, low grade, wood chunks for all the errant and marketing placed articles.
A release in the OSS world in no way means that the software is ready for use by consumers. If you don't release it, it isn't actually open source, since the only one available to develop your project is you.
I understand your point, but a lot of stuff is released this way and never worked on, and proclaimed "finished" at the point of "release".
The reason why I'm going to take issue with this is the view point of the user, the PHB, the non-developer. When an OSS app lands on their machine, they don't know that you meant to release for further development only. But, what they see is a barely functioning system, sometimes without even a single function fully implemented.
As a developer, you make 2 reputations, and they can vary greatly. You have a reputation amongst other developers, and you have a reputation amongst the end users.
You have an app that has tight code, but unfinished:
Developers fall at your feet for such clean, tight, maybe innovative code - Reputation is solid
Users thing you aren't ready, because your app isn't ready - Reputation sullied
You have an app READY for release, but the code is wild and loose:
Developers sympathize with you, but whisper behind your back that they could do it faster, tighter, and cleaner - Reputation sullied
The UI is tight, the app works, the user loves you - Reputation solid, the PHB gives you the raise, Microsoft wants to hire you
Maybe the solution here is to create a new category of release that is descriptive enough. Call it, "Code Release for Development". A CRD would have the major features of the app wired up to work as a proto-type, with enough documentation so other coders can work on it. It would also have a clear and understandable directive that binaries should not be released to users until X number of features are fully implemented, and key features for minimal release configuration would be A, B, C, & D, and have clear metrics for what determines "properly working".
Releasing software to fellow developers is an essential step for all open source projects. No one knows about unreleased software sitting on some guys private hard drive, and thus, no other developers can help developing it.
Other developers working on it is not a requirement for OSS, it facilitates it. A release, into the wild, should either be a functional binary, or a clearly defined CRD.
If everyone followed your advice, there wouldn't be any open source software around.
If everyone released horrid, non-finished apps into the wild, OSS will soon be viewed as nothing more than a poor sub-culture. To draw a parallel, they would be worse than the garage-bound Nirvana tribute band with one guy who knows 3 chords and another guy who has a keyboard, and a mom who won't let them plug the amps in.
I think its a case of "bad apples" spoiling the good ones.
Whether fair or not, a lot of open source projects come across as being incomplete, UI nightmares, geek-tool-only, and large organization unfriendly because of support issues.
Not every open-source project is that way, but when I worked at HP that was the case. You mentioned open-source and managers would run to update your file as a trouble maker. When you got a manager to approve a demo, you'd have to work twice as hard to explain why this was a good alternative, why the weird UI wasn't an issue, and how the tool was self supporting or support could be done easily "in house". However, if you hadn't told the manager that it was "open source" and that it was "off the shelf", you could get by without the massive sales job.
Why?
Because too many open source projects are:
Too geek centric ("screw the user", "RTM", "VI is the only way")
The UI is too far afield of the normal MAC/PC (win) style the user is familiar with (remember, "screw the user")
Incomplete - perpetual beta or worse, perpetual alpha (when it's complete it is going to be so much better than office)
Another monster without a support agreement - (Well thats a value add, but then most OSS don't have support plans you can purchase)
It's a perception problem. No matter the platform, OSS has an image problem that may be rightly deserved.
I know what the response will be, but one of the good things about patents is...
They allow companies to charge licensing fees for products based on their discoveries, which in turn provides money and further incentive to find new compounds and uses for existing compounds. Generating more money for more...
Without the money motivation and OWNERSHIP, we would rely upon government to be the source of all research money. Then you'd have to wrangle with desk-bound government boobs and politicians (the ones in power at the moment) to get your funding.
The current U.S. government, as headed by GWB has pulled all government funding for certain types of research. That leaves private funds. Do you really want to give the next President, or the next one, or the next, complete control over your research purse strings? Sure, we might get one that is totally cool, but history shows, we'll elect an asshole afterwards.
Yes, I know, in an ideal world, we wouldn't need patents, people would discover for the fun of it and donate it all for the betterment of the world. But, we don't live in that fairy-tale world, and it won't happen in our lifetime.
Patents expire, medicine gets cheaper, and we all get our purple and blue pills at lower cost, eventually.
To paraphrase: U.S. patents are the worst thing going, except for all the other systems.
Slashdot Mirror
I keep running into projects that claim to be open-source, but the only way to get the source is to "join" the team. In other words, register, provide reasons why they should admit you, wait for approval, then you can download the project source.
These aren't company sites
Now, I really hate the idea of the "Release Unfinished Code to the Wild" and call it "released" when all you have is a few methods and a lot of place-holders describing what could go there and the code still does nothing. But calling something open when you require registration, membership approval, etc. is not really open, its just less closed.
Some really cool jobs, out there right now:
You get the picture.
They're going to fire Al Gore ?
Damn, too bad I can't mod this discussion, I'd give you a "Funny". That was good. Dry and good. Wonder if anyone else got it.
Z O O M ! ! !
The sound you heard was a passing, way over your head.
And you sound a bit on the angry side as well. Need a hug?
Looking at the moderators, I believe chimps are capable of laughing at themselves, but Linux geeks are not. More evidence.
Sir, this is the Bush Regime...er, Department of State Security...uh,Secret Police....no, Department of Homeland Security. We understand that you have posted about Osama Bin Laden. Are you related to him? Would you mind coming with us so we can discuss this? Do you know where he is? Because we'd really like to talk with him. No, sir, he's not in trouble, we just have a few questions.
Oh, you were posting on /., well that's another matter. We'll just charge you with Anti-American crimes. But, look on the bright side, you won't need cold weather gear where we are sending you.
Wow, I guess I'm going to have start thinking of XML as a serious technology instead of a Latest-Fad-Tech-Widget-Buzzword-Laden curiousity. Well, I've still got the ol' fall back, WWW.
These same chimps also have a complete IT staff and developers working on a Linux distro called CHIMPUX.
The Head of the Chimpux architecture team said, "We'd like to see Linux evolve to something useable. Since chimps are one step higher than your typical linux geek on the evolutionary ladder, who better than us to bring it to the masses."
Chimpux International is in trouble on several fronts for their company motto, "Chimpux for the rest of us, So easy a caveman can use it." Riled Apple and GEICO execs are considering action. The cavemen are torn, they'd really like to see a useable form of Linux so they don't want to stir Chimpux's pot.
You are really describing VB and not VB.NET. The article headline is wrong, and thus, for those still hanging onto old ideas, supersticions, and prejudices, it can be confusing. But, that's the Editor's job to correct if the Submitter got it wrong.
VB (up to 6) and VB.NET are completely different animals. Mono is .NET basically for the rest of us.
Now, there are good reasons why VB6 code can't be migrated to .NET, but in most cases, where the environment allows, move the code over. Outside of WINE, I don't think you'll ever really get legacy VB to work on Linux in any meaningful way.
I love it. The list of choices is growing and growing. The fact that Mono can do this, and after having struggled with WINE, this is a massive leap.
This will get more .NET developers over to Linux. Then, it will get more .NET developers too look a other ways of doing things.
There are those will decry this as bad, but think about the possibilities.
Right, but you have to have a full Windows Server 2003 loaded with IIS (if I'm not mistaken) to run VS 2005.
VMWare runs a very light weight linux OS, with a few specialized tools, freeing up as much CPU, RAM, and storage as possible to the VM's.
Now, if I was at Microsoft, designing their new virtualization app, I'd build the next Virtual Server AS the OS. And follow through with letting it run any OS in the virtualized environment. Hell, given the right CPU, let it emulate any CPU, free the OS from the hardware.
This will work fine if all the servers you want to run on a given machine are MS. I like VMWare for the fact that you can load Windows on one VM, Linux on another, and Solaris on yet another. The folks at PACCAR are running massive numbers of systems on a single Blade.
What I would like MS to give us is a Virtual Platform OS, much like VMWare's ESX server. Give me an extremely lightweight OS geard towards Virtualizing the HW layer, then let me load anything into each VM.
As far as I know, VMWare is the only one doing that.
Thats a fun mastabatory game you are playing there.
Do you seriously think that?
While not a fan of our current policies and actions, if the U.S. decided to tell the U.N. to take a flying-f*ck at the moon, absolutely nothing, aside from a vote to tell the U.S. that other people are peeved at us, would happen. Why?
Like it or not, we are still the big boys on the block; Economically and Militarily.
Do you know how many of those countries that take political pot shots at the U.S. are receiving huge chunks of cash and economic incentives to play nice with us on the economic side of the house? If other countries decided to put the money screws to the U.S. (and economic is arguably the biggest persuader in the arsenal) the U.S. could wreak more havok on them. Yes, it would be difficult for us, but in the long run, we'd come out of that game on top as well.
This is like those old samurai movies. Zatoichi, is attacked by a mob of sword weilding henchmen. The first few guys get cut down fast and horribly. A few more try to rush him and end up dead or maimed. Finally, the big ones, the ones that talk the toughest, take off running, trying to figure out how they can make a deal with him. (Also note: It's always the tough bosses in the movies that send the little guys in.) To finish, the U.N. will talk tough, Venezuela and a few others will take economic action, the U.S. will cut them off. And the French, Germans, Russians, Japanese, Italians, Polish, and Indians will still have their teams in the U.S. making trade deals and wrangling for the U.S. dollar and market.
You see, when the average household makes and spends in a month what 3 Indian families do in a year, and your country depends on the availability of that market, thats too big of risk.
Perhaps that's why the 5th column in the U.S. is so busy trying to wreck the U.S.
Seriously, I know Microsoft is supposed to be evil and all, but even Disney does this. Just about every one, corporate, individual, government, does this type of thing when faced with a lawsuit. I'm not saying its right, but I think the only reason this one made Slashdot was because it was Microsoft and there is, admittedly, a hefty anti-Microsoft Knee-Jerk element here.
Not really news, but geez, guys, this really is pandering.
Oh, No! A corporation wrangles, delays, misplaces, obfuscates in the face of a lawsuit. Heaven's, what is the world coming to?
Microsoft must be the very first to EVER do this.
You're going to Hell
Wait, that's a religious concept and we know all religious people are conservatives and therefor wrong. Thus, God does not exist because He is a Republican concept, and George Bush is a Republican, so since the nation has voted the Republican's out of power in the congress, God no longer rules, and Hell has been repealed. So, when Fidel dies (hoping that we have some sort of software switch the CIA can throw on the Closed-Sourced-Commericial-God-Bless-America-Money -Making-Software controlling his life-support equipment) he will not go to Hell, he'll go to Berkely, which has their own version of Hell, People's Park which is worse than Hell, even Satan wouldn't hang out there. But, Berkley is liberal, and have a version Hell, that must mean Religion exists, and God is back. Whew, and for a second there, I thought the Universe was going to wink out of existance.
Now, why the Hell is this discussion on Slashdot?
Oh, right! Commies!
Run, everyone, the Commies are coming, God help us, the Commies are coming!
Man, I wish I had my earlier mod point, I'd have given you an "atta-boy" for that. Too bad you posted anonymous.
Seriously, this is separate from the Linux discussion, but, from a human rights point of view, Cuba has to be one of the worst. Next stop, Burma, err, Myanmar.
From a PR perspective, RMS in Cuba is not fantastic. I think the move is not motivated by any love for Cuba on his part, but I could be wrong. I think he's still trying to tweak people and Cuba is a convenient way to do the tweaking.
My sister-in-law, living in Oakland, CA, all of 59 years old still thinks like a teen-ager and she likes coming to Thanksgiving dinner talking (tweaking) about the countries she's visited that are not friendly to the U.S. and tells us how their systems are better than the U.S. model, and how she works with those communities of their expats that are here in the U.S. (? There's a reason those people are expat from their glorious countries.) She doesn't understand, she says, why some of them don't say much to her when she says she visited their home country and loves it and thinks its better than her U.S.A.
The fun thing, she loves those countries where one isn't allowed to own property or businesses, and she owns her house, and owns her own side-business (while working for the City of Oakland) and is crowing about how much she is going to make when she turns around and sells her house.
I think Stallman might be her neighbor.
Are you trolling for a "funny" mod?
Cuba has what, 3 PC's capable of running Linux?
Who in the world didn't figure this was going to happen. Every copy of XP in Cuba is probably pirated (that's right Fidel, sue me for libel and slander). They haven't been able to get updates and can't afford Vista. So, free is the only answer. And the obviousness of adopting a quasi-socialist model for software is not that surprising a step.
In fact, now that I think about it, the question has to be:
What, they weren't on this already?
Wiki TP, great idea, you can have roles with articles. High grade for verified content, low grade, wood chunks for all the errant and marketing placed articles.
You want wikipedia to survive, you have several choices:
Your choice, what is more tolerable?
I understand your point, but a lot of stuff is released this way and never worked on, and proclaimed "finished" at the point of "release".
The reason why I'm going to take issue with this is the view point of the user, the PHB, the non-developer. When an OSS app lands on their machine, they don't know that you meant to release for further development only. But, what they see is a barely functioning system, sometimes without even a single function fully implemented.
As a developer, you make 2 reputations, and they can vary greatly. You have a reputation amongst other developers, and you have a reputation amongst the end users.
You have an app that has tight code, but unfinished:
You have an app READY for release, but the code is wild and loose:
Maybe the solution here is to create a new category of release that is descriptive enough. Call it, "Code Release for Development". A CRD would have the major features of the app wired up to work as a proto-type, with enough documentation so other coders can work on it. It would also have a clear and understandable directive that binaries should not be released to users until X number of features are fully implemented, and key features for minimal release configuration would be A, B, C, & D, and have clear metrics for what determines "properly working".
Other developers working on it is not a requirement for OSS, it facilitates it. A release, into the wild, should either be a functional binary, or a clearly defined CRD.
If everyone released horrid, non-finished apps into the wild, OSS will soon be viewed as nothing more than a poor sub-culture. To draw a parallel, they would be worse than the garage-bound Nirvana tribute band with one guy who knows 3 chords and another guy who has a keyboard, and a mom who won't let them plug the amps in.
I think its a case of "bad apples" spoiling the good ones.
Whether fair or not, a lot of open source projects come across as being incomplete, UI nightmares, geek-tool-only, and large organization unfriendly because of support issues.
Not every open-source project is that way, but when I worked at HP that was the case. You mentioned open-source and managers would run to update your file as a trouble maker. When you got a manager to approve a demo, you'd have to work twice as hard to explain why this was a good alternative, why the weird UI wasn't an issue, and how the tool was self supporting or support could be done easily "in house". However, if you hadn't told the manager that it was "open source" and that it was "off the shelf", you could get by without the massive sales job.
Why?
Because too many open source projects are:
It's a perception problem. No matter the platform, OSS has an image problem that may be rightly deserved.
I know what the response will be, but one of the good things about patents is...
They allow companies to charge licensing fees for products based on their discoveries, which in turn provides money and further incentive to find new compounds and uses for existing compounds. Generating more money for more...
Without the money motivation and OWNERSHIP, we would rely upon government to be the source of all research money. Then you'd have to wrangle with desk-bound government boobs and politicians (the ones in power at the moment) to get your funding.
The current U.S. government, as headed by GWB has pulled all government funding for certain types of research. That leaves private funds. Do you really want to give the next President, or the next one, or the next, complete control over your research purse strings? Sure, we might get one that is totally cool, but history shows, we'll elect an asshole afterwards.
Yes, I know, in an ideal world, we wouldn't need patents, people would discover for the fun of it and donate it all for the betterment of the world. But, we don't live in that fairy-tale world, and it won't happen in our lifetime.
Patents expire, medicine gets cheaper, and we all get our purple and blue pills at lower cost, eventually.
To paraphrase: U.S. patents are the worst thing going, except for all the other systems.