Having recently switched from XP to Ubuntu (dual booting) on my home pc there are other problems when considering OSS for business applications.
This will probably get modded trollbait, but hey.
1) Attitude - asking setup and developmental questions on the online forums (several that I've tried) gets you largely flamed as a noob/newb, or accused of leeching with little actual support. Additional to this is the very defensive attitute the community at large has regarding OSS when dealing with actual criticism.
2) Consistency of formats - I guess that this is often seen as a feature of OSS, however in a business sense it is a barrier to OSS in the normative workplace (ie: not just IT Industries) - this problem even seems to go down the the file systems - ext2, ext3, as opposed to a single NTFS. Yes, there are apps that can overcome it, IF you are able to locate them amoungst thousands of wierd little 'fun' abbreviations. Processing addins is another problem with this - rpm vs deb etc. I'm always having to go back to the root tarballs and compiling from there. Not every business has a tech that knows how to compile handy just for processing an update.
3) Hardware support - configuring network printers is just a pain, however may the Almightly help you if you need to install a PCI dialup modem (especially Conexant). It's one of the reasons my home pc is a dual boot. Even Linuxant doesn't have dialup drivers built for the amd_64 builds.
4) Learning curve - most business are reasonably adept at managing systems and processes via windows, where the majority of configuration work is via a GUI, rather than having to learn all the different parameter options and run them through a shell or terminal system. There is a good start from what I've seen on GUI's (Ubuntu, Red Hat, Knoppix), however there is still a lot of work to do.
Also, an observation - everyone enjoys sniping at MS, and yes, some of it's business practices are somewhat arrogant, however the advantage of being a single ivory tower is that everything (software apps) in that tower does actually talk to each other reasonably well. Dealing with *nix is lots of ivory towers, or a tower of Babel, where nothing talks to each other without an interpreter.
Reading the article seems like reading a sales pitch.
Whilst the article bemoans a perceived security flaw in system design, it end with offering the device of a "digital vault", and indicating that it's the platform-independant miracle cure.
What you've described is normal behaviour for security-wise systems area. Whilst the company might have a policy where staff work their last fortnight, most computer-info areas I know of do as described above - whilst *you* can be trusted not to do nasty stuff on the way out, procedurally they can't take that chance, in case a departing sysadmin does hold a grudge.
That said, my last outfit my admin accesses to database systems (SQL) are still open via web of all things. Have written to people about it, but am ignored. I was expecting to be shut off and paid out early, however to my surprise, not only did they keep my accesses, they never got a replacement... and now they wonder why their systems are in such disrepair.
Truly a Dilbert moment.
FWIW: The internet was never invented by Americans. The internet was actually invented by CERN, a Swiss multi-national european research group. They have moved off this and are now actually making antimatter.
No, really, they are. See: http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Welcome.html
Nice idea, however it is sorta redundant in Aus. Most of the 'Australian' telemarketers are rung out of either calcutta or mumbai in india. Hence they have NO idea of legal requirements in Aus, also existing National Privacy Principles (NPP) at http://www.privacy.gov.au/publications/npps01.html > have no effect outside Aus borders. This is probably also similar to US law, however I'm a bit fuzzier there.
I know this as ironically enough I'm a database admin for an Australian university alumni & development (read: fundraising) office.
However, whilst we can't touch the telemarketers, we can target their clients.
Earlier this year, we had a spate of nerfherders ringing us for all sorts of things from market surveys to 'please change your home loan to us at 25%pa interest' (no kidding).
So I started asking them questions similar to another post in this thread - their name, organisation, which organisation that they are calling on behalf of, who their client contact person is etc.
Sometimes the more intelligent callers hang up at this point.
If they are still on the line, then I start asking them how they got this number, or how they got the list that my number was on. Even though I am in the whitepages, this usually makes them pause. Then I casually mention to them that this phone call breaches several specific clauses of the NPP, and that they are potentially causing their clients to be fined up to around $100K per offence.
That 'per offence' usually gets them. They apologise profusely and hang up.
After about a month of this, we've stopped getting any calls, hence we seem to have been blacklisted. Darn shame that.
Another useful trick is whenever you buy something refuse to provide any details for local 'mailing lists' - virtually every store these days either wants a mailing address / phone number or at least a postcode. This is for both list building and basic demographics - the latter is used for bulk junk mail drops (threshold is usually 100 instances of a particular postcode) and the lists ARE sold to marketers.
cheers
R.
C'mon - if the government of the day didn't leave us any rights to abuse now, what are they doing to do next year? Next disaster? It's their hobby - they can't deprive themselves all at once - or else what are they doing to do? Vote themselves a pay rise?
As an aside, Nice sig!
''Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.''
Amusing. But can firefox make a nice dinner for you? No. Not even a USB toy for that one yet...
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Having recently switched from XP to Ubuntu (dual booting) on my home pc there are other problems when considering OSS for business applications.
This will probably get modded trollbait, but hey.
1) Attitude - asking setup and developmental questions on the online forums (several that I've tried) gets you largely flamed as a noob/newb, or accused of leeching with little actual support. Additional to this is the very defensive attitute the community at large has regarding OSS when dealing with actual criticism.
2) Consistency of formats - I guess that this is often seen as a feature of OSS, however in a business sense it is a barrier to OSS in the normative workplace (ie: not just IT Industries) - this problem even seems to go down the the file systems - ext2, ext3, as opposed to a single NTFS. Yes, there are apps that can overcome it, IF you are able to locate them amoungst thousands of wierd little 'fun' abbreviations. Processing addins is another problem with this - rpm vs deb etc. I'm always having to go back to the root tarballs and compiling from there. Not every business has a tech that knows how to compile handy just for processing an update.
3) Hardware support - configuring network printers is just a pain, however may the Almightly help you if you need to install a PCI dialup modem (especially Conexant). It's one of the reasons my home pc is a dual boot. Even Linuxant doesn't have dialup drivers built for the amd_64 builds.
4) Learning curve - most business are reasonably adept at managing systems and processes via windows, where the majority of configuration work is via a GUI, rather than having to learn all the different parameter options and run them through a shell or terminal system. There is a good start from what I've seen on GUI's (Ubuntu, Red Hat, Knoppix), however there is still a lot of work to do.
Also, an observation - everyone enjoys sniping at MS, and yes, some of it's business practices are somewhat arrogant, however the advantage of being a single ivory tower is that everything (software apps) in that tower does actually talk to each other reasonably well. Dealing with *nix is lots of ivory towers, or a tower of Babel, where nothing talks to each other without an interpreter.
FWIW, the ponytails and almost sandals WERE the suits of the times back then...
This is old hat. http://vivisimo.com/ has been doing this for ages. I guess that this is only 'new's to those that won't, or can't look beyond google.
Reading the article seems like reading a sales pitch.
Whilst the article bemoans a perceived security flaw in system design, it end with offering the device of a "digital vault", and indicating that it's the platform-independant miracle cure.
What you've described is normal behaviour for security-wise systems area. Whilst the company might have a policy where staff work their last fortnight, most computer-info areas I know of do as described above - whilst *you* can be trusted not to do nasty stuff on the way out, procedurally they can't take that chance, in case a departing sysadmin does hold a grudge. That said, my last outfit my admin accesses to database systems (SQL) are still open via web of all things. Have written to people about it, but am ignored. I was expecting to be shut off and paid out early, however to my surprise, not only did they keep my accesses, they never got a replacement... and now they wonder why their systems are in such disrepair. Truly a Dilbert moment.
Modded me 100% Overrated? Why? Because I corrected a mistaken 'american' assumption?
FWIW: The internet was never invented by Americans. The internet was actually invented by CERN, a Swiss multi-national european research group. They have moved off this and are now actually making antimatter. No, really, they are. See: http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Welcome.html
Nice idea, however it is sorta redundant in Aus. Most of the 'Australian' telemarketers are rung out of either calcutta or mumbai in india. Hence they have NO idea of legal requirements in Aus, also existing National Privacy Principles (NPP) at http://www.privacy.gov.au/publications/npps01.html > have no effect outside Aus borders. This is probably also similar to US law, however I'm a bit fuzzier there.
I know this as ironically enough I'm a database admin for an Australian university alumni & development (read: fundraising) office.
However, whilst we can't touch the telemarketers, we can target their clients.
Earlier this year, we had a spate of nerfherders ringing us for all sorts of things from market surveys to 'please change your home loan to us at 25%pa interest' (no kidding).
So I started asking them questions similar to another post in this thread - their name, organisation, which organisation that they are calling on behalf of, who their client contact person is etc.
Sometimes the more intelligent callers hang up at this point.
If they are still on the line, then I start asking them how they got this number, or how they got the list that my number was on. Even though I am in the whitepages, this usually makes them pause. Then I casually mention to them that this phone call breaches several specific clauses of the NPP, and that they are potentially causing their clients to be fined up to around $100K per offence.
That 'per offence' usually gets them. They apologise profusely and hang up.
After about a month of this, we've stopped getting any calls, hence we seem to have been blacklisted. Darn shame that.
Another useful trick is whenever you buy something refuse to provide any details for local 'mailing lists' - virtually every store these days either wants a mailing address / phone number or at least a postcode. This is for both list building and basic demographics - the latter is used for bulk junk mail drops (threshold is usually 100 instances of a particular postcode) and the lists ARE sold to marketers.
cheers
R.
C'mon - if the government of the day didn't leave us any rights to abuse now, what are they doing to do next year? Next disaster? It's their hobby - they can't deprive themselves all at once - or else what are they doing to do? Vote themselves a pay rise?
As an aside, Nice sig! ''Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'' Amusing. But can firefox make a nice dinner for you? No. Not even a USB toy for that one yet...