Have they really had these since November? I wouldn't be surprized if you're right but if you have evidence I'd be interested in seeing it. Even some good juicy rumours would be cool.
You're certainly right about them holding back product to keep profits up. I'm sure they could release some 1Ghz parts now, but the yields wouldn't be great and it would kill the market for lower speed chips (where the yield is decent).
Some have said they should release their fastest stuff right away to grab market share, but that would be costly. Intel (or Microsoft) can to that - and it's not a bad strategy - but when you've been losing money for so long you need to worry about short term profit or your investors will lose confidence.
It seems to me they're playing it just about right. If the demand for Athlons suddenly took off they probably wouldn't be able to supply them. This way the supply is probably in line with the demand, Intel is looking like a poor cousin, and everybody is happy.
Intel announces their faster CPUs during the holidays and AMD announces _availability_ of their 800 MHz CPU in the first week back from holidays.
Is it just me, or does it seem like they had these things sitting in the warehouse waiting for an Intel announcement. I bet if Intel had announced 850 MHz AMD would have matched that too.
Before Corel there was no distribution (as far as I know - I haven't tried all of them) that focused on desktop users. Narrowing the scope allowed them to serve this market better.
Since Corel software is aimed at the desktop, Corel would find it critically important that the desktop market is well served.
I think this is a great thing - especially since it's based on Debian. I'd like to see more virtical market distributions for specific applications. Perhaps aimed at the music industry, graphics, point-of-sale, whatever. Basing your specialized distro. on Debian gives the user ultimate flexibility. Limiting your scope allows you to serve a specific market really well. I don't see any down side.
Two very important gadgets. I don't have any special insight into the history of exploration, but I would bet that the Europeans couldn't have conquered so much of the globe without these.
When do CIOs ever do anything in large numbers? These people seem to think that Linux "happened" in 1999 and that, if it doesn't take over the world by 2000 it's "failed". I suppose this comes from following commercial efforts that need to generate a certain number of sales before they run out of venture capital.
1999 will be remembered as the year that Linux gained credibility as a server OS. Commercial vendors of server software have started producing Linux versions. The adoption of Linux in the data center has now gotten some momentum, but it will take a few years before we see Linux everywhere. Even NT didn't infiltrate companies over night.
2000 will be known for the year that Linux gained credibility as a desktop OS. GNOME and KDE will release new, more polished versions. Corel will release it's desktop suite. A bunch of other vendors will release versions of their end-user software for Linux. You're still not going to see massive adoption, but it'll be enough to continue the growth curve that's been going for the last nine years.
Remember the cause and effect => Linux growth caused the hype (not the other way around). Obviously the hype can't last forever, but there's nothing to indicate that the growth rate will decline.
In addition to Bruce's comment about the code being open, I think it's important that the process is (usually) open too.
A typical closed source product gets developed behind closed doors and then unleashed on the public - we don't really know how decisions were made about what problems to fix. It's easy to imagine (even if it's not true) that people behind closed doors might conspire to conceal problems rather than fixing them.
An Open Source project typically has a public mailing list where problems are reported and discussed. Somebody might still make a decision to release the product with known problems - but there's no question of it being a secret.
I make it a practice to subscribe to development lists for products that are important to me. It allows me to get a great sense of how the product is doing - even if I have no intention of modifying the code. I would think that any company large enough to have a few million dollars worth of damages should be able to have somebody follow the development of essential software.
Obviously this thing runs Wince, but whoever wrote the article seems to have talked to somebody who implemented Linux on the thing. So...
1. Linux was implemented first and now they' re switching to Wince, or
2. Wince was implemented first and now they're switching to Linux, or
3. They have two versions, one Linux and one Wince.
Choice three seems unlikely - why would you support two operating systems for an embedded device? Sadly, choice 1 seems the most likely based on the flashing "New Windows CE" text on their web site.
Can somebody who actually speaks Italian or is associated with the company clear this up?
I'm not sure how 'code bloat' gets into this. The support for a given platform is compiled in only for that platform so it doesn't really matter how many platforms are supported.
'Spreading ourselves too thin' might appear to be a valid critisism, except that the same people aren't maintaining all the ports. HP wants a port to their hardware, so they're paying people to do it. The burden on the core developers is minimal, PLUS the HP (actually Puffin Group) staff might find solutions to problems that could benefit everybody.
The beauty of having lots of platforms is that we can move easily from one 'commodity' platform to another as the economics change. ia32 hardware may provide a nice price point today, but if AMD or Transmeta or Sam's Chip Factory comes up with a fast, cheap platform, we know the transition will be easy and smooth.
I suspect that the ia64 port would have been far more difficult had 64-bit support not already been in place for Alpha. Similarly, changes introduced for ia64 will probably be good for Alpha, Sparc64, and HP. I just don't see the down side that you you're worried about.
Corel is using Wine to port their applications to Linux. I've always assumed (perhaps wrongly) that they weren't interested in Windows emulation, just porting their own apps using the Wine API.
GraphOn produces networking products, not Windows emulation. This is basically a Windows version of X-Windows.
So:
To port Corel Office to Linux -> Wine
To run Windows apps remotely with the display on a Linux box -> GraphOn
To run Windows apps locally on a Linux box -> Wine
Borland, as the copyright holder for their compiler, can compile it and sell it on anything, for anything they want. Legality doesn't come into play.
The Digi drivers are GPL and distributing them with BSD would 'infect' BSD. In other words, if Apple (or anybody who used BSD as the basis for their OS) shipped the Digi drivers as part of their OS, they would be compelled by the GPL to release the source to the entire OS (including proprietary modifications).
I'm a GPL biggot myself, so I would be fine with this, but the BSD folks are proud of their license and would refuse to encumber their OS in this way.
Note that if the Digi drivers are written and maintained entirely by Digi, they could change the license to BSD and (I believe) the code would be useable in either operating system. Of course this would leave the door open for other companies to appropriate the Digi drivers without contributing changes back to the community - that's why some people prefer the GPL.
You're buying into the idea that multiple competing flavours of the operating system is bad. This 'fracturing' of the Unix market has lead to an extremely competitive and fast moving market.
Sure the vendors innovate to try to get the edge on the competition, but they can't stray too far from 'standard' Unix. Features that really take off are eventually adopted by all players and become part of the 'standard'.
The standards themselves are a combination of 'de-facto' standards and industry standards controlled by a standards body. In a competitive environment, you can expect industry associations to start setting 'Windows' standards with input from the various players.
Everybody does "Embrace and Extend". If the extension is bogus, it will generally die off. If the extension is useful, it will give the innovator a competitive advantage for a year or so. Microsoft's monopoly allows them to "Embrace, Extend, and Destroy" - basically they break their implementation of the standard at an appropriate time in order screw the other people who have adopted it. That's only possible as long as one party dominates the market.
Even without SGI, Linux is becoming more scalable with each release. Now SGI is investing real money in the Linux kernel. They're working on projects aimed at implementing the best features of Irix under Linux. It won't happen overnight, but it won't be that long either.
It makes a whole lot of sense financially (especially for a company that needs to cut costs). They can let the Linux community take care of all the mainstream features that every OS must have, and SGI can focus on the handful of things that are really important to their particular market. Even if SGI ends up being the only maintainer of ccNUMA for Linux, it's still cheaper than having to maintain the entire OS.
The other exciting thing about Linux is the mainstream applications that are emerging. I know people don't buy an SGI box to run spreadsheets, but it's nice to know that you don't have to keep a Windows PC around just for the odd time you want to run an office productivity application. Linux lets SGI ride the wave of new mainstream developments while still catering to their niche market.
They can't have a full test suite of every app. but certainly they should cover the basics. Lotus Notes is a common application among business users - the same business users who are the target audience for NT Workstation.
I don't know if this was deliberate (I kind of doubt it), but if it's not deliberate it betrays an incredible degree of incompetance on Microsoft's part.
One of the reasons NT is so expensive is the heavy duty testing that goes into the product. Are we really to beleive that MS didn't notice that they broke a major application?
If they didn't notice, they deserve to be lynched for gross incompetance. If they did notice, they should have either 1/ fixed the service pack, or 2/ notified Lotus well before the release so Lotus could issue a patch.
I teach Unix courses (on Linux) and in the first class I try to give an idea of where Unix is used.
I always say "the fastest computers in the world run Unix", but I'd rather be able to say "480 of the top 500 computers run Unix" - it sounds more impressive. The problem is that, although I can identify most of the operating systems on the list quite easily, I'm not sure about some of the more esoteric ones. Does anybody know exactly what all these systems are running?
So Redhat pays for Alan (and Gnome?), Corel supports WINE, and Suse pays for file systems.
Open Source has always been good at producing excellent, relatively small and self-contained components. We haven't been so great (with a few very notable exceptions, the kernel being one) at producing large projects. If it's a lot of effort with no quick return, the coders get tired of it.
Now the commercial companies are funding the big stuff in an attempt to gain mindshare ("we must know what we're doing, we've got Alan"). This really complements the existing strengths of Open Source.
Probably the most immediate and tangible effect this will have on Microsoft is in employee turnover.
As I understand it, MS doesn't really pay that well, except employees get rich on the stock options. Suddenly those stocks aren't so attractive. MS will have trouble holding on to its talent, or hiring new staff.
Anybody know how much it would cost Microsoft to pay market rates for it's staff?
IE hasn't won the war. They won a huge battle and have a lot of marketshare, but Mozilla has a better chance in the long term:
1/ Non MS platforms are going to become more important. Linux, Mac, Pamltops, Set-tops. Mozilla/Netscape 5.0 will dominate these markets. Windows may never go away, but it's days of 90% market share are numbered.
2/ AOL will push Netscape on it's user base. They can't afford to let MS embrace and extend the Internet, so you can bet that 20M or so AOL users will be using Netscape by the end of 2001.
3/ Mozilla will be technically superior to IE. That's why it's taken so long. Try the browser - it's fast, standards complient, and Open Source. It might have taken a while to get rolling, but individuals and companies outside of Netscape are starting to add features and use components for their own projects.
I don't know if Netscape will ever get back their dominent position, but that doesn't really matter. What does matter is that there will be a robust, cross-platform, standards complient alternative to IE with considerable market share (at least 35%). That's all that we need to keep MS honest and be able to surf effectively from our favourite OS.
Assuming a lot more people start looking at Solaris code, what will the impact be on Linux from a legal perspective?
It could really help Linux to have access to Sun drivers and perhaps also to glean ideas from other parts of the OS. Does anybody with a legal/intellectual property background know what the pitfalls are? Under what circumstances is it bad to have intimate knowledge of a competing product?
I'm pretty sure automotive engineers are allowed to fiddle with competitor's engines, but chip manufacturers seem to think you need to be "uncontaminated" by a competing product. Who's right and under what circumstances?
Good point ... what's possession?
on
Dear Mr. Straw
·
· Score: 2
If I keep all my encrypted files on my ISP and access them remotely (though ssh), am I in possession of them?
The people who set these kinds of policies are costing their companies money and should be fired. Mac users, in particular, form a significant share of the home market.
Keeping the setup procedure standard would 1/ reduce development costs (why customize the browser?) 2/ reduce support costs (users who know their way around a standard installation wouldn't have to call for help), 3/ increase revenue (10% is actually a whole lot of revenue when you figure their infrastructure costs are more-or-less fixed - most of the 10% would be straight profit).
Nobody is saying their customer service has to support every OS in the world, but making it easier for anybody to connect (with any operating system) is good business.
I get really annoyed when Dilbertesque executives display their incompetance so clearly.
Slashdot Mirror
This IS part of the official Mozilla status report. Nice to see it get some widespread publicity though.
http://www.mozilla.org/statusHave they really had these since November? I wouldn't be surprized if you're right but if you have evidence I'd be interested in seeing it. Even some good juicy rumours would be cool.
You're certainly right about them holding back product to keep profits up. I'm sure they could release some 1Ghz parts now, but the yields wouldn't be great and it would kill the market for lower speed chips (where the yield is decent).
Some have said they should release their fastest stuff right away to grab market share, but that would be costly. Intel (or Microsoft) can to that - and it's not a bad strategy - but when you've been losing money for so long you need to worry about short term profit or your investors will lose confidence.
It seems to me they're playing it just about right. If the demand for Athlons suddenly took off they probably wouldn't be able to supply them. This way the supply is probably in line with the demand, Intel is looking like a poor cousin, and everybody is happy.
Intel announces their faster CPUs during the holidays and AMD announces _availability_ of their 800 MHz CPU in the first week back from holidays.
Is it just me, or does it seem like they had these things sitting in the warehouse waiting for an Intel announcement. I bet if Intel had announced 850 MHz AMD would have matched that too.
Before Corel there was no distribution (as far as I know - I haven't tried all of them) that focused on desktop users. Narrowing the scope allowed them to serve this market better.
Since Corel software is aimed at the desktop, Corel would find it critically important that the desktop market is well served.
I think this is a great thing - especially since it's based on Debian. I'd like to see more virtical market distributions for specific applications. Perhaps aimed at the music industry, graphics, point-of-sale, whatever. Basing your specialized distro. on Debian gives the user ultimate flexibility. Limiting your scope allows you to serve a specific market really well. I don't see any down side.
Two very important gadgets. I don't have any special insight into the history of exploration, but I would bet that the Europeans couldn't have conquered so much of the globe without these.
When do CIOs ever do anything in large numbers? These people seem to think that Linux "happened" in 1999 and that, if it doesn't take over the world by 2000 it's "failed". I suppose this comes from following commercial efforts that need to generate a certain number of sales before they run out of venture capital.
1999 will be remembered as the year that Linux gained credibility as a server OS. Commercial vendors of server software have started producing Linux versions. The adoption of Linux in the data center has now gotten some momentum, but it will take a few years before we see Linux everywhere. Even NT didn't infiltrate companies over night.
2000 will be known for the year that Linux gained credibility as a desktop OS. GNOME and KDE will release new, more polished versions. Corel will release it's desktop suite. A bunch of other vendors will release versions of their end-user software for Linux. You're still not going to see massive adoption, but it'll be enough to continue the growth curve that's been going for the last nine years.
Remember the cause and effect => Linux growth caused the hype (not the other way around). Obviously the hype can't last forever, but there's nothing to indicate that the growth rate will decline.
In addition to Bruce's comment about the code being open, I think it's important that the process is (usually) open too.
A typical closed source product gets developed behind closed doors and then unleashed on the public - we don't really know how decisions were made about what problems to fix. It's easy to imagine (even if it's not true) that people behind closed doors might conspire to conceal problems rather than fixing them.
An Open Source project typically has a public mailing list where problems are reported and discussed. Somebody might still make a decision to release the product with known problems - but there's no question of it being a secret.
I make it a practice to subscribe to development lists for products that are important to me. It allows me to get a great sense of how the product is doing - even if I have no intention of modifying the code. I would think that any company large enough to have a few million dollars worth of damages should be able to have somebody follow the development of essential software.
With all the Linux hype lately, they might find that the Microsoft marketing hype isn't as useful as it was a year ago.
A prominant Tux logo might actually do more for sales than a 'Windows Powered' logo.
Obviously this thing runs Wince, but whoever wrote the article seems to have talked to somebody who implemented Linux on the thing. So...
1. Linux was implemented first and now they' re switching to Wince, or
2. Wince was implemented first and now they're switching to Linux, or
3. They have two versions, one Linux and one Wince.
Choice three seems unlikely - why would you support two operating systems for an embedded device? Sadly, choice 1 seems the most likely based on the flashing "New Windows CE" text on their web site.
Can somebody who actually speaks Italian or is associated with the company clear this up?
I didn't know this. Do you have a reference?
I'm not sure how 'code bloat' gets into this. The support for a given platform is compiled in only for that platform so it doesn't really matter how many platforms are supported.
'Spreading ourselves too thin' might appear to be a valid critisism, except that the same people aren't maintaining all the ports. HP wants a port to their hardware, so they're paying people to do it. The burden on the core developers is minimal, PLUS the HP (actually Puffin Group) staff might find solutions to problems that could benefit everybody.
The beauty of having lots of platforms is that we can move easily from one 'commodity' platform to another as the economics change. ia32 hardware may provide a nice price point today, but if AMD or Transmeta or Sam's Chip Factory comes up with a fast, cheap platform, we know the transition will be easy and smooth.
I suspect that the ia64 port would have been far more difficult had 64-bit support not already been in place for Alpha. Similarly, changes introduced for ia64 will probably be good for Alpha, Sparc64, and HP. I just don't see the down side that you you're worried about.
Corel is using Wine to port their applications to Linux. I've always assumed (perhaps wrongly) that they weren't interested in Windows emulation, just porting their own apps using the Wine API.
GraphOn produces networking products, not Windows emulation. This is basically a Windows version of X-Windows.
So:
To port Corel Office to Linux -> Wine
To run Windows apps remotely with the display on a Linux box -> GraphOn
To run Windows apps locally on a Linux box -> Wine
Borland, as the copyright holder for their compiler, can compile it and sell it on anything, for anything they want. Legality doesn't come into play.
The Digi drivers are GPL and distributing them with BSD would 'infect' BSD. In other words, if Apple (or anybody who used BSD as the basis for their OS) shipped the Digi drivers as part of their OS, they would be compelled by the GPL to release the source to the entire OS (including proprietary modifications).
I'm a GPL biggot myself, so I would be fine with this, but the BSD folks are proud of their license and would refuse to encumber their OS in this way.
Note that if the Digi drivers are written and maintained entirely by Digi, they could change the license to BSD and (I believe) the code would be useable in either operating system. Of course this would leave the door open for other companies to appropriate the Digi drivers without contributing changes back to the community - that's why some people prefer the GPL.
You're buying into the idea that multiple competing flavours of the operating system is bad. This 'fracturing' of the Unix market has lead to an extremely competitive and fast moving market.
Sure the vendors innovate to try to get the edge on the competition, but they can't stray too far from 'standard' Unix. Features that really take off are eventually adopted by all players and become part of the 'standard'.
The standards themselves are a combination of 'de-facto' standards and industry standards controlled by a standards body. In a competitive environment, you can expect industry associations to start setting 'Windows' standards with input from the various players.
Everybody does "Embrace and Extend". If the extension is bogus, it will generally die off. If the extension is useful, it will give the innovator a competitive advantage for a year or so. Microsoft's monopoly allows them to "Embrace, Extend, and Destroy" - basically they break their implementation of the standard at an appropriate time in order screw the other people who have adopted it. That's only possible as long as one party dominates the market.
Even without SGI, Linux is becoming more scalable with each release. Now SGI is investing real money in the Linux kernel. They're working on projects aimed at implementing the best features of Irix under Linux. It won't happen overnight, but it won't be that long either.
It makes a whole lot of sense financially (especially for a company that needs to cut costs). They can let the Linux community take care of all the mainstream features that every OS must have, and SGI can focus on the handful of things that are really important to their particular market. Even if SGI ends up being the only maintainer of ccNUMA for Linux, it's still cheaper than having to maintain the entire OS.
The other exciting thing about Linux is the mainstream applications that are emerging. I know people don't buy an SGI box to run spreadsheets, but it's nice to know that you don't have to keep a Windows PC around just for the odd time you want to run an office productivity application. Linux lets SGI ride the wave of new mainstream developments while still catering to their niche market.
They can't have a full test suite of every app. but certainly they should cover the basics. Lotus Notes is a common application among business users - the same business users who are the target audience for NT Workstation.
I don't know if this was deliberate (I kind of doubt it), but if it's not deliberate it betrays an incredible degree of incompetance on Microsoft's part.
One of the reasons NT is so expensive is the heavy duty testing that goes into the product. Are we really to beleive that MS didn't notice that they broke a major application?
If they didn't notice, they deserve to be lynched for gross incompetance. If they did notice, they should have either 1/ fixed the service pack, or 2/ notified Lotus well before the release so Lotus could issue a patch.
I teach Unix courses (on Linux) and in the first class I try to give an idea of where Unix is used.
I always say "the fastest computers in the world run Unix", but I'd rather be able to say "480 of the top 500 computers run Unix" - it sounds more impressive. The problem is that, although I can identify most of the operating systems on the list quite easily, I'm not sure about some of the more esoteric ones. Does anybody know exactly what all these systems are running?
So Redhat pays for Alan (and Gnome?), Corel supports WINE, and Suse pays for file systems.
Open Source has always been good at producing excellent, relatively small and self-contained components. We haven't been so great (with a few very notable exceptions, the kernel being one) at producing large projects. If it's a lot of effort with no quick return, the coders get tired of it.
Now the commercial companies are funding the big stuff in an attempt to gain mindshare ("we must know what we're doing, we've got Alan"). This really complements the existing strengths of Open Source.
Probably the most immediate and tangible effect this will have on Microsoft is in employee turnover.
As I understand it, MS doesn't really pay that well, except employees get rich on the stock options. Suddenly those stocks aren't so attractive. MS will have trouble holding on to its talent, or hiring new staff.
Anybody know how much it would cost Microsoft to pay market rates for it's staff?
I don't know if I like this. I use WordPerfect 8 for Linux and like it, but it's not up to the standard of WP8 for Windows.
I'm afraid 20 million people will try Linux with the old WordPerfect and get a bad impression.
I'd feel much better if they'd wait until WP9 for Linux is available and shipped that.
IE hasn't won the war. They won a huge battle and have a lot of marketshare, but Mozilla has a better chance in the long term:
1/ Non MS platforms are going to become more important. Linux, Mac, Pamltops, Set-tops. Mozilla/Netscape 5.0 will dominate these markets. Windows may never go away, but it's days of 90% market share are numbered.
2/ AOL will push Netscape on it's user base. They can't afford to let MS embrace and extend the Internet, so you can bet that 20M or so AOL users will be using Netscape by the end of 2001.
3/ Mozilla will be technically superior to IE. That's why it's taken so long. Try the browser - it's fast, standards complient, and Open Source. It might have taken a while to get rolling, but individuals and companies outside of Netscape are starting to add features and use components for their own projects.
I don't know if Netscape will ever get back their dominent position, but that doesn't really matter. What does matter is that there will be a robust, cross-platform, standards complient alternative to IE with considerable market share (at least 35%). That's all that we need to keep MS honest and be able to surf effectively from our favourite OS.
Assuming a lot more people start looking at Solaris code, what will the impact be on Linux from a legal perspective?
It could really help Linux to have access to Sun drivers and perhaps also to glean ideas from other parts of the OS. Does anybody with a legal/intellectual property background know what the pitfalls are? Under what circumstances is it bad to have intimate knowledge of a competing product?
I'm pretty sure automotive engineers are allowed to fiddle with competitor's engines, but chip manufacturers seem to think you need to be "uncontaminated" by a competing product. Who's right and under what circumstances?
If I keep all my encrypted files on my ISP and access them remotely (though ssh), am I in possession of them?
The people who set these kinds of policies are costing their companies money and should be fired. Mac users, in particular, form a significant share of the home market.
Keeping the setup procedure standard would 1/ reduce development costs (why customize the browser?) 2/ reduce support costs (users who know their way around a standard installation wouldn't have to call for help), 3/ increase revenue (10% is actually a whole lot of revenue when you figure their infrastructure costs are more-or-less fixed - most of the 10% would be straight profit).
Nobody is saying their customer service has to support every OS in the world, but making it easier for anybody to connect (with any operating system) is good business.
I get really annoyed when Dilbertesque executives display their incompetance so clearly.