at least the UN doesn't have real power
on
UN Attacks Free Speech
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· Score: 4, Insightful
When are the democracies of the world going to realize that political and economic freedom plus human rights are not protected by a body that gives equal voice to dictatorships and theocracies?
I work for IBM, but don't speak for them in an official capacity. Open source is customer driven and not vendor driven. There is little incentive for anyone outside your company to push open source software because it reduces their profit. Ask your vendors to come up with solutions that use open alternatives, otherwise they are just going to push what makes them money. Software margins are high and ISV's are bribed to push it. I think MS gives 6% kickback to vendors that sells a license, which is a revenue stream lost when open source is used. Ask your vendors to present an open alternative alongside their proprietary ones. Same support that management demands, but less risk.
http://www.k12openminds.org/
and
http://community.k12opensource.com/
Open Source in schools is a great cost saver, but you need to support it and not just throw it over the wall. Look at K12LTSP/K12Linux or virtualized desktops. There is a good chance that e-rate funding will cover 90% of the install costs. Watch out for Education ISV's, you are taking food out of their mouths.
Don't forget Moodle.
I'd like to see this, but the economics would be difficult. The Apple store is more like a marketing tool than a profit center (even through it does very well). The MS stores would likely be similar. Open source is customer driven. Once a consumer or business finds and embraces it, they get an excellent, competitive experience. The problem is there is little to no financial incentive for ISV's or retail to push it.
Moonlight is a neat project and Silverlight looks interesting, Flash works. But why can't an open, rich experience, open standards solution for building web sites emerge? Surely that would be better for web site developers and consumers.
An aircraft carrier cost about 10-15 billion to build and equip with planes. A new light rail line in my home town is projected to cost 2 billion. With a third of this being tax cuts (and tax credits/welfare) and some going to extend unemployment/medical care, where does the other 500 odd billion go? All this did was cut about 100 billion of pork the senators tried to tie onto the bill. What return will we get from a 500 billion dollar investment? Better services, better infrastructure? We haven't rebuilt the world trade center site yet, so infrastructure projects won't create jobs for years.
It is easy to show voters the bridge, highway or transit money you got for your state or district. It is hard to show off rural broadband, or a new federal hybrid car as creating jobs for your locality. The school funding was lost because it likely was only going to fill coffers depleted by property tax drops. Hard to stand in front of something they were likely going to build anyway and claim credit.
Before everyone that has an XO goes crazy and start dumping on Sugar, please remember the target market. Put it in front of an elementary age student and see how easily they take to it. Of course, I've noticed that they take to even inefficient desktops pretty quickly also. It is old people (like teenagers) that can't handle having an icon moved.
As long as they don't restrict the product to less developed nations the uptake will happen. It can be argued that OLPC started the netbook category, when ASUS and Intel saw the outpouring of support. If they create a product, allow it to be sold world wide, and the developed nations will create demand and volume for the charity work.
CEO's are just part of the same thought elite recycling old ideas. Even ones that run technical companies. Stuff like this is only news when real reformers like RMS get cabinet appointments.
Let the company pay what they want and put a tariff on the good. The most likely effect is it will stop the trade and force the job offshore. At least until we start putting tariffs on imported data. Looks like a new can of worms just got opened.
Personally, I think the US should take advantage of being able to import skilled workforce. Most H1B holders are the types of people we want living and innovating in our country. In the long run as citizens, they would likely create more jobs than they "steal". I'm all for granting the opportunity to become a citizen to anyone that graduates from an accredited US university graduate program (maybe limited to science and math, but ok with all). Leverage our leadership in university education to create a larger pool of domestic talent.
The problem with technology in school isn't the tech, but how it is shoehorned into the existing teaching atmosphere. Cramming technology in the traditional monolithic classroom doesn't gain very much. Since every child learns differently, the most effective method is one teacher/mentor per child. That doesn't fit into any public school budget, but effective use of technology can mimic that effect. Online courses, built on an open system like Moodle, can leverage your teachers time. The example of student centric teaching from "Disrupting Class" by Christensen,Johnson and Horn is a good read. While a large number of desktop/laptops is desirable, the real key to success is turning your teachers into coach/mentors that give one on one help while capturing their repetitive activities like lecturing, quiz giving, and administration and automating them. The infrastructure and the way you teach is far more important that what they use as a desktop interface.
Open source is pervasive already in large companies and government. Not as pervasive as Windows, but a significant and growing proportion of their infrastructure. The real weak target markets are small and medium businesses and governments, where open source adoption requires a zealot like champion. The main problem here is ISV's which have a great deal of influence over solutions and have no incentive to deploy open source. In fact they get a revenue stream from licensing proprietary software. For example Microsoft gives a 12% kickback for selling their products and a 6% renewal. Most other software companies have similar arrangements. So any open source solution an ISV may present reduces said ISV's profit margin on the deal unless it is made up on increased service fees. But as we all know, Linux and most open source software has a bad tendency to just work and has a lower need for staff than many proprietary solutions. So the only way open source gets into a small or medium organization is if it is customer driven.
Most independent book stores are gone. B&N went though a bankruptcy and Borders is for sale. But books have good margins if you control inventory. I remember a decade ago, the large bookstores had huge sections devoted to tech books, but it has deteriorated (because of poor sales and rapid obsolescence) to a couple of book cases. In many ways it is just like the science and engineering section. Limited and focused demand of a small base for quality books and a shrinking base of noobs needing books. While O'Reilly is the gold standard, the market isn't there in depth anymore and the book market is being disrupted by online purchases (long tail, smaller runs, marketing issues), electronic delivery (cheaper but the cost savings are not passed on), and alternative sources of information (many technical solutions are a search away and seldom require the depth of a book).
I've seen RHDS (paid support version of FDS, but basically the same code) scale to millions of users. I've had a clustered pair running on blades handling 250K records easily. AD doesn't scale as well, requires tons of supporting software and locks you in to a funky LDAP-like format. If you want to move from RHDS to Novell, or OpenLDAP or even AD all you have to do is dump to ldif. Try going from AD to anything else without a great deal of pain.
If Google can win this lawsuit, then any action by Government can be challenged by the same basis. High taxes in California has caused a number of companies to move, and more importantly, a number of individuals. If not being able to hire talent because of gender based marriage gets legal protection, then taxes, school systems, real estate costs.... wow. Maybe I hope they don't win.
The question should be: Does a move away from traditional ways of serving news, mean the end of journalism? This is more hand wringing by print media about their waning fortunes. In fact TV, newspapers and news magazines didn't realize we were in a recession, because their revenue stream (advertising) was enhanced by the high spending presidential election. More and more stories are broken outside traditional media. The real story is how do journalists continue to do their job without the structure of a newspaper or wire service.
It could be, that like most lawyers, he doesn't actually believe in the RIAA cause and just wants their money. Murderers and rapists need lawyers that just have to be advocates in court and not true believers in their client's innocence. That being said, when you set your expectations higher than the gutter (especially in politics) there is a chance you'll be disappointed.
What benefit does man space travel provide? The space program has created a number of sparks in scientific results that have lead directly to tax producing products in the consumer market. Not the mention the non-tangible results of spawning hopes and dreams. For those old enough to remember, that was critical in the USA in 68/69. How many of today's scientist and engineers were inspired by the space program? It wasn't all Star Trek doing that. The manned space program more than pays for itself. In fact, cutting social security benefits by $5 dollars a month would pay for the entire space program, and we'd get more benefit back.
A two year old is going to have a hard time manipulating the keyboard and touch pad of any netbook. Consider one of the Fisher Price things you hook to a regular TV. If you are insisting on a real computer, the XO-1 from OLPC is available on Amazon for $400 ($200 tax break for the G1G1 program). Sugar bothers most adults but my five year old (now six) took to it well, and it has lots of interesting software. For the less adventuresome, the Classmate from Intel (distributed by CTL) is also available on Amazon. It uses a modified Edubuntu build so has a lot of educational applications. Unless your kid is some kind of bio mechanical freak, that can handle mice, keyboards and touch pads at two, I'd suggest buying something designed for that age and holding off on the netbook for a couple of years.
You said it very well. It is really just the convergence of the cell phone and PC. I'd prefer the mostly open hardware and software flexibility of the PC wins over the locked down "just works" option of the cell phone. If we want to grow the netbook up from a phone maybe the OpenMoko platform would be a better bet?
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.amazon.com/ROYAL-NAVY-VERSUS-SLAVE-TRADERS/dp/1844156338/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238674338&sr=8-12 The book is a deeper analysis of the issue.
When are the democracies of the world going to realize that political and economic freedom plus human rights are not protected by a body that gives equal voice to dictatorships and theocracies?
I work for IBM, but don't speak for them in an official capacity. Open source is customer driven and not vendor driven. There is little incentive for anyone outside your company to push open source software because it reduces their profit. Ask your vendors to come up with solutions that use open alternatives, otherwise they are just going to push what makes them money. Software margins are high and ISV's are bribed to push it. I think MS gives 6% kickback to vendors that sells a license, which is a revenue stream lost when open source is used. Ask your vendors to present an open alternative alongside their proprietary ones. Same support that management demands, but less risk.
http://www.k12openminds.org/ and http://community.k12opensource.com/ Open Source in schools is a great cost saver, but you need to support it and not just throw it over the wall. Look at K12LTSP/K12Linux or virtualized desktops. There is a good chance that e-rate funding will cover 90% of the install costs. Watch out for Education ISV's, you are taking food out of their mouths. Don't forget Moodle.
I'd like to see this, but the economics would be difficult. The Apple store is more like a marketing tool than a profit center (even through it does very well). The MS stores would likely be similar. Open source is customer driven. Once a consumer or business finds and embraces it, they get an excellent, competitive experience. The problem is there is little to no financial incentive for ISV's or retail to push it.
Moonlight is a neat project and Silverlight looks interesting, Flash works. But why can't an open, rich experience, open standards solution for building web sites emerge? Surely that would be better for web site developers and consumers.
Pirates of the Indian Ocean were asking for multi-millions. 10 million zombie PC's are worth more than $250K. Dig deeper MS.
An aircraft carrier cost about 10-15 billion to build and equip with planes. A new light rail line in my home town is projected to cost 2 billion. With a third of this being tax cuts (and tax credits/welfare) and some going to extend unemployment/medical care, where does the other 500 odd billion go? All this did was cut about 100 billion of pork the senators tried to tie onto the bill. What return will we get from a 500 billion dollar investment? Better services, better infrastructure? We haven't rebuilt the world trade center site yet, so infrastructure projects won't create jobs for years.
It is easy to show voters the bridge, highway or transit money you got for your state or district. It is hard to show off rural broadband, or a new federal hybrid car as creating jobs for your locality. The school funding was lost because it likely was only going to fill coffers depleted by property tax drops. Hard to stand in front of something they were likely going to build anyway and claim credit.
Before everyone that has an XO goes crazy and start dumping on Sugar, please remember the target market. Put it in front of an elementary age student and see how easily they take to it. Of course, I've noticed that they take to even inefficient desktops pretty quickly also. It is old people (like teenagers) that can't handle having an icon moved.
As long as they don't restrict the product to less developed nations the uptake will happen. It can be argued that OLPC started the netbook category, when ASUS and Intel saw the outpouring of support. If they create a product, allow it to be sold world wide, and the developed nations will create demand and volume for the charity work.
CEO's are just part of the same thought elite recycling old ideas. Even ones that run technical companies. Stuff like this is only news when real reformers like RMS get cabinet appointments.
Let the company pay what they want and put a tariff on the good. The most likely effect is it will stop the trade and force the job offshore. At least until we start putting tariffs on imported data. Looks like a new can of worms just got opened.
Personally, I think the US should take advantage of being able to import skilled workforce. Most H1B holders are the types of people we want living and innovating in our country. In the long run as citizens, they would likely create more jobs than they "steal". I'm all for granting the opportunity to become a citizen to anyone that graduates from an accredited US university graduate program (maybe limited to science and math, but ok with all). Leverage our leadership in university education to create a larger pool of domestic talent.
The problem with technology in school isn't the tech, but how it is shoehorned into the existing teaching atmosphere. Cramming technology in the traditional monolithic classroom doesn't gain very much. Since every child learns differently, the most effective method is one teacher/mentor per child. That doesn't fit into any public school budget, but effective use of technology can mimic that effect. Online courses, built on an open system like Moodle, can leverage your teachers time. The example of student centric teaching from "Disrupting Class" by Christensen,Johnson and Horn is a good read. While a large number of desktop/laptops is desirable, the real key to success is turning your teachers into coach/mentors that give one on one help while capturing their repetitive activities like lecturing, quiz giving, and administration and automating them. The infrastructure and the way you teach is far more important that what they use as a desktop interface.
Open source is pervasive already in large companies and government. Not as pervasive as Windows, but a significant and growing proportion of their infrastructure. The real weak target markets are small and medium businesses and governments, where open source adoption requires a zealot like champion. The main problem here is ISV's which have a great deal of influence over solutions and have no incentive to deploy open source. In fact they get a revenue stream from licensing proprietary software. For example Microsoft gives a 12% kickback for selling their products and a 6% renewal. Most other software companies have similar arrangements. So any open source solution an ISV may present reduces said ISV's profit margin on the deal unless it is made up on increased service fees. But as we all know, Linux and most open source software has a bad tendency to just work and has a lower need for staff than many proprietary solutions. So the only way open source gets into a small or medium organization is if it is customer driven.
Most independent book stores are gone. B&N went though a bankruptcy and Borders is for sale. But books have good margins if you control inventory. I remember a decade ago, the large bookstores had huge sections devoted to tech books, but it has deteriorated (because of poor sales and rapid obsolescence) to a couple of book cases. In many ways it is just like the science and engineering section. Limited and focused demand of a small base for quality books and a shrinking base of noobs needing books. While O'Reilly is the gold standard, the market isn't there in depth anymore and the book market is being disrupted by online purchases (long tail, smaller runs, marketing issues), electronic delivery (cheaper but the cost savings are not passed on), and alternative sources of information (many technical solutions are a search away and seldom require the depth of a book).
I've seen RHDS (paid support version of FDS, but basically the same code) scale to millions of users. I've had a clustered pair running on blades handling 250K records easily. AD doesn't scale as well, requires tons of supporting software and locks you in to a funky LDAP-like format. If you want to move from RHDS to Novell, or OpenLDAP or even AD all you have to do is dump to ldif. Try going from AD to anything else without a great deal of pain.
Most people are hopeful that the right thing will be done. They will be disappointed, unless someone puts out a louder voice than the telecoms.
If Google can win this lawsuit, then any action by Government can be challenged by the same basis. High taxes in California has caused a number of companies to move, and more importantly, a number of individuals. If not being able to hire talent because of gender based marriage gets legal protection, then taxes, school systems, real estate costs.... wow. Maybe I hope they don't win.
The question should be: Does a move away from traditional ways of serving news, mean the end of journalism? This is more hand wringing by print media about their waning fortunes. In fact TV, newspapers and news magazines didn't realize we were in a recession, because their revenue stream (advertising) was enhanced by the high spending presidential election. More and more stories are broken outside traditional media. The real story is how do journalists continue to do their job without the structure of a newspaper or wire service.
It could be, that like most lawyers, he doesn't actually believe in the RIAA cause and just wants their money. Murderers and rapists need lawyers that just have to be advocates in court and not true believers in their client's innocence. That being said, when you set your expectations higher than the gutter (especially in politics) there is a chance you'll be disappointed.
What benefit does man space travel provide? The space program has created a number of sparks in scientific results that have lead directly to tax producing products in the consumer market. Not the mention the non-tangible results of spawning hopes and dreams. For those old enough to remember, that was critical in the USA in 68/69. How many of today's scientist and engineers were inspired by the space program? It wasn't all Star Trek doing that. The manned space program more than pays for itself. In fact, cutting social security benefits by $5 dollars a month would pay for the entire space program, and we'd get more benefit back.
A two year old is going to have a hard time manipulating the keyboard and touch pad of any netbook. Consider one of the Fisher Price things you hook to a regular TV. If you are insisting on a real computer, the XO-1 from OLPC is available on Amazon for $400 ($200 tax break for the G1G1 program). Sugar bothers most adults but my five year old (now six) took to it well, and it has lots of interesting software. For the less adventuresome, the Classmate from Intel (distributed by CTL) is also available on Amazon. It uses a modified Edubuntu build so has a lot of educational applications. Unless your kid is some kind of bio mechanical freak, that can handle mice, keyboards and touch pads at two, I'd suggest buying something designed for that age and holding off on the netbook for a couple of years.
You said it very well. It is really just the convergence of the cell phone and PC. I'd prefer the mostly open hardware and software flexibility of the PC wins over the locked down "just works" option of the cell phone. If we want to grow the netbook up from a phone maybe the OpenMoko platform would be a better bet?