Novell isn't just another distro, Novell is selling products ON TOP of their distro.
And Suse Linux Enterprise Server is a very well supported distro in the enterprise environment. 3th party vendors are usually only offering two options to run their products on (in a supported way): Novell SLES or Redhat.
Quote: "Not to forget that the reason Novell helps Linux so much is because it gives them a free platform where they can build the MONO dependent OS they would love to see."
The reason Novell created Mono is for the following: - It allows code to be written once for windows in C# and it is then binary compatible with Linux through Mono; - Novell offers the same products (ZENworks/eDirectory/Groupwise/etc.) for Windows / Linux and Netware, so it is VERY important for them to be able to run the same code on multiple platforms.
I see all these Linux-minded people only looking at Suse and thinking it's all Novell is selling. But in fact Novell is actually selling most of their products on top of Suse. As soon as you start looking at their other (proprietary) products their whole strategy makes perfect sense and they're not out there to screw Linux over.
Also, they day that Novell started their Linux business was a big momentum for the Linux platform and it got Linux a lot of recognition. Thanks to Novell I've been able to implement more Linux servers in our company than ever. I fail to see how Novell is hurting Linux in any way.
Laptops are still a nightmare as there is no standard docking station, power supply format, and OS images have to be customised to each hardware type. Our company has all kind of different HP PC/laptop models, we just purchase whatever suits our needs. We're using Universal Imaging Utility in combination with Zenworks to solve the 'different images' problem. Works great for us, since we can image (almost) any brand/model PC/Laptop/Workstation in 30 minutes.
Quote: "Maybe it's because your services are so reliable that management sees no need to invest any more money. Why fix something that isn't broken?"
Very good point, this had been the case too in our company. See how your live improves as more stuff fails. You might even get a raise when your services fail more often. Seems like the utility guys already found this out.
Something just has to go wrong before things will get improved.
You happily forget that the blocking rules are 90% of the time the rules of the company and not those of the IT department. So why not just tell the director what you think about it?
Further more, you're blaming the comment of your boss and the service problem of your bank to the IT department, which isn't really fair.
As for your work hours, explain it to your boss in writing and ask him to contact the head of IT (or the boss of the Head of IT) to have the block removed for your computer. Blocks can be removed, but only if you follow the proper procedure. So don't go calling the help desk and be surprised if they don't follow up on your request, as the have been INSTRUCTED not to remove any blocks.
What would be the point of sending someone to mars who can't return?? He or she would just go crazy in all loneliness and starve to death. Then, what would we have accomplished? Nothing, we already know how it looks like!
If they can't make a round-trip now, then they'd better wait until they can instead of wasting all that money on killing someone. It has nothing to with 'shocking' in my opinion, it's just dumb and wasteful on resources that could have been spend in a more useful way.
Quote: IIRC, that matters to people trying to report a bug: if your kernel isn't GPLONLY, then you will have a much harder time trying to get anyone to do anything about a crash."
I don't believe you really have a point there. If I were to download and load a random GPL module in my kernel and it would crash, it's not like anyone will be running to fix it for me. So basically, you're on your own anyway. Therefore, I believe they're just overreacting concerning this NDISWrapper issue.
And loading the NVidia driver also voids the GPL only status of the kernel, so why is this NDISWrapper thing such an issue?
In my experience, Cisco warranty is rather limited compared to the price you're paying. I've personally never seen any of their equipment having lifetime warranty. (Although I might be wrong on this!) In contrast to the HP Procurve equipment, which is sold with next business day lifetime warranty at no additional charge.
The problem is that software patents mostly patent ideas instead of ready to use building blocks. Take the Blackberry/RIM case as an example, the other company just patented 'wireless e-mail' instead of a usable documented working prototype.
Thus: all kinds of theoretic or obvious ideas are being patented, just waiting for someone to build them and then sue the hell out of them.
Microsoft WILL comply, or the consequences will be enormous. The fines will just keep increasing until they can't afford not to comply. And if they don't pay, bank accounts will be frozen etc etc. If that doesn't do it, the company will eventually be declared bankrupt and their assets will be sold to the highest bidders.
In contrast to what the MS fanboys say about the subject, they will not get away with non compliance as they did in the US. EU politicians *cannot* be bought and they will not be scared by threats of MS leaving Europe. Not that I believe MS would make such a threat, which would be extremely stupid and would make all of their customers run.
I strongly believe that MS will just pay the fines and start complying and everyone will just be happy in the end.:)
Quote: "There is however a Moonlight project by the Mono guys to bring Silverlight to those operating systems."
It isn't usable at this point, it isn't even included in Gentoo (or any other distro). I looked at installing it, but the install procedures were so complex (involves lots of patches) that I didn't bother. It would take me at least a few hours to install it and I have 10+ years of Linux experience and Mono already installed. Also, Moonlight is incompatible with some MS Demo applet's.
So basically, Silverlight support for Linux is non-existent at this point except for the most determined user.
However, Mono is amazingly compatible with C#/.net, so this gives some good hope for Moonlight in the future. Even though it might just be a matter of time before MS does a 180 again and screws everyone...
Then Pepsi would have made a ton of money. Since these bottle-openers tend to break every 3 to 4 years, so you'll have to buy a new one.
Also, Pepsi will just make them more expensive over time so you'll have to pay even more to drink that free government soda! And when other people create a compatible bottle-opener so they can compete, Pepsi will quickly change the design of the bottle-opener to render the other ones useless!
Quote: "I'd say (in my own opinion) that the EU regulations have basically turned Europe into a loss leader for us for the next several years."
What are you talking about? Providing decent documentation that should have been provided in the first place is now called a loss? A win for your customers should also be a win for your company, but apparently you don't see it that way.
It's still raining absurd amounts money for Microsoft. It's only a good thing to make a bit less and provide some proper documentation and interoperability that should have been provided in the first place!
And it's a damn shame Microsoft had to be forced by law and fines in order to do business in an ethical way.
I still know the days we were talking about a 1% market share of firefox. Then people started to talk about 5% and later 10% Today it's on 15% (perhaps more?) already, which is quite a lot. And virtually any website created today supports firefox correctly.
Also, back in the days MS had about 99% of the OS market, now I see you mentioning 90%. Not even to mention the server market, in which Linux is making some very good progress.
10+ years ago when I started working with Linux nobody even knew what it was. Today a lot of (non-tech) people know what Linux is, so that is some real progress.
Don't forget the fact that the numbers start growing more and more rapidly as the market share increases. If the current trend progresses in about 10 years we'll be at around 50% or something. (Please correct me if I'm wrong)
Quote: "A lot of people use the example of Exchange Server as a reason that open source will not displace MS in the business world."
The reason it isn't working is because there are too many open-source exchange like projects. Therefore, none of them gets all of the features which are needed. To succeed, they should bundle all forces and create ONE solution.
When we were looking for a Groupware solution, I have tried several open source solutions. They all failed in one of the following: - Open source Outlook connector isn't working properly; - PDA synchronization is poor (of doesn't support a lot of devices); - No windows client exists; - Features were missing.
In the end, they all failed the pilot. So we ended up with Novell Groupwise (through Novell Open Workgroup suite), which I have become a great fan of. It also made me see the immaturity of the open source projects. Groupwise includes -any- feature our users are asking for, while the open source solutions lacked a lot of things. Also, with Groupwise Mobile Server it is possible to synchronize mail, contacts, appointments with any smartphone over GPRS. (A feature we are using very intensively, since it's actually a complete blackberry alternative for no additional cost)
If you look at the development model of Groupwise you can clearly see why open source can't succeed. For one, Groupwise has been developed for at least 10 years. Also, Novell purchases all kinds of company's or additional products to quickly add a lot of extra features in the standard package they sell.
Since the open source movement has to develop everything themselves and didn't have such a large head-start, it is almost impossible for them to succeed.
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I only buy drives with at least 5 year warranty, and are designed for 24/7 operation.
If the manufacturer doesn't have so much faith in their product, then why should I?
Novell isn't just another distro, Novell is selling products ON TOP of their distro.
And Suse Linux Enterprise Server is a very well supported distro in the enterprise environment. 3th party vendors are usually only offering two options to run their products on (in a supported way): Novell SLES or Redhat.
Quote: "Not to forget that the reason Novell helps Linux so much is because it gives them a free platform where they can build the MONO dependent OS they would love to see."
The reason Novell created Mono is for the following:
- It allows code to be written once for windows in C# and it is then binary compatible with Linux through Mono;
- Novell offers the same products (ZENworks/eDirectory/Groupwise/etc.) for Windows / Linux and Netware, so it is VERY important for them to be able to run the same code on multiple platforms.
I see all these Linux-minded people only looking at Suse and thinking it's all Novell is selling. But in fact Novell is actually selling most of their products on top of Suse. As soon as you start looking at their other (proprietary) products their whole strategy makes perfect sense and they're not out there to screw Linux over.
Also, they day that Novell started their Linux business was a big momentum for the Linux platform and it got Linux a lot of recognition. Thanks to Novell I've been able to implement more Linux servers in our company than ever. I fail to see how Novell is hurting Linux in any way.
I really ought to read TFA more often. The reserve turns out to be true, didn't see that one coming..
I guess that people having more fun in their life have better results!
I hope that this article doesn't result in more alcoholics though..
It may be destroyed by some (relatively) cheap explosive, but lives are saved because nobody was in it.
So I guess it's worth the money.
In my experience, the system actually feels more responsive when there isn't a rattling noise of a harddisk filling up to wait times.
Quote: "Simply naming something Open Office XML"
They even got you confused. It's "Office Open XML" from Microsoft.
Quote: "Maybe it's because your services are so reliable that management sees no need to invest any more money. Why fix something that isn't broken?"
Very good point, this had been the case too in our company.
See how your live improves as more stuff fails. You might even get a raise when your services fail more often.
Seems like the utility guys already found this out.
Something just has to go wrong before things will get improved.
You happily forget that the blocking rules are 90% of the time the rules of the company and not those of the IT department.
So why not just tell the director what you think about it?
Further more, you're blaming the comment of your boss and the service problem of your bank to the IT department, which isn't really fair.
As for your work hours, explain it to your boss in writing and ask him to contact the head of IT (or the boss of the Head of IT) to have the block removed for your computer.
Blocks can be removed, but only if you follow the proper procedure. So don't go calling the help desk and be surprised if they don't follow up on your request, as the have been INSTRUCTED not to remove any blocks.
What would be the point of sending someone to mars who can't return??
He or she would just go crazy in all loneliness and starve to death.
Then, what would we have accomplished? Nothing, we already know how it looks like!
If they can't make a round-trip now, then they'd better wait until they can instead of wasting all that money on killing someone.
It has nothing to with 'shocking' in my opinion, it's just dumb and wasteful on resources that could have been spend in a more useful way.
Quote: IIRC, that matters to people trying to report a bug: if your kernel isn't GPLONLY, then you will have a much harder time trying to get anyone to do anything about a crash."
I don't believe you really have a point there. If I were to download and load a random GPL module in my kernel and it would crash, it's not like anyone will be running to fix it for me.
So basically, you're on your own anyway. Therefore, I believe they're just overreacting concerning this NDISWrapper issue.
And loading the NVidia driver also voids the GPL only status of the kernel, so why is this NDISWrapper thing such an issue?
In my experience, Cisco warranty is rather limited compared to the price you're paying. I've personally never seen any of their equipment having lifetime warranty. (Although I might be wrong on this!)
In contrast to the HP Procurve equipment, which is sold with next business day lifetime warranty at no additional charge.
The problem is that software patents mostly patent ideas instead of ready to use building blocks.
Take the Blackberry/RIM case as an example, the other company just patented 'wireless e-mail' instead of a usable documented working prototype.
Thus: all kinds of theoretic or obvious ideas are being patented, just waiting for someone to build them and then sue the hell out of them.
They can't stall this, they already have to pay the fine.
Also, in TFA you'll see that the fines keep increasing.
The EU has already launched new investigations and will keep doing so.
Non-compliance will result in increasingly higher fines.
Quote: "The amazing thing is that the EU now expects Microsoft to comply and 'close a dark chapter' in their history."
How can this be considered *amazing*?
It's the only option they have. They've played their cards and lost, now is the time to just pay the fine, comply with the ruling and move on.
Microsoft WILL comply, or the consequences will be enormous.
:)
The fines will just keep increasing until they can't afford not to comply. And if they don't pay, bank accounts will be frozen etc etc. If that doesn't do it, the company will eventually be declared bankrupt and their assets will be sold to the highest bidders.
In contrast to what the MS fanboys say about the subject, they will not get away with non compliance as they did in the US.
EU politicians *cannot* be bought and they will not be scared by threats of MS leaving Europe. Not that I believe MS would make such a threat, which would be extremely stupid and would make all of their customers run.
I strongly believe that MS will just pay the fines and start complying and everyone will just be happy in the end.
Quote: "There is however a Moonlight project by the Mono guys to bring Silverlight to those operating systems."
It isn't usable at this point, it isn't even included in Gentoo (or any other distro).
I looked at installing it, but the install procedures were so complex (involves lots of patches) that I didn't bother. It would take me at least a few hours to install it and I have 10+ years of Linux experience and Mono already installed. Also, Moonlight is incompatible with some MS Demo applet's.
So basically, Silverlight support for Linux is non-existent at this point except for the most determined user.
However, Mono is amazingly compatible with C#/.net, so this gives some good hope for Moonlight in the future. Even though it might just be a matter of time before MS does a 180 again and screws everyone...
Then Pepsi would have made a ton of money. Since these bottle-openers tend to break every 3 to 4 years, so you'll have to buy a new one.
Also, Pepsi will just make them more expensive over time so you'll have to pay even more to drink that free government soda!
And when other people create a compatible bottle-opener so they can compete, Pepsi will quickly change the design of the bottle-opener to render the other ones useless!
Quote: "I'd say (in my own opinion) that the EU regulations have basically turned Europe into a loss leader for us for the next several years."
What are you talking about? Providing decent documentation that should have been provided in the first place is now called a loss? A win for your customers should also be a win for your company, but apparently you don't see it that way.
It's still raining absurd amounts money for Microsoft. It's only a good thing to make a bit less and provide some proper documentation and interoperability that should have been provided in the first place!
And it's a damn shame Microsoft had to be forced by law and fines in order to do business in an ethical way.
I still know the days we were talking about a 1% market share of firefox.
Then people started to talk about 5% and later 10%
Today it's on 15% (perhaps more?) already, which is quite a lot. And virtually any website created today supports firefox correctly.
Also, back in the days MS had about 99% of the OS market, now I see you mentioning 90%.
Not even to mention the server market, in which Linux is making some very good progress.
10+ years ago when I started working with Linux nobody even knew what it was. Today a lot of (non-tech) people know what Linux is, so that is some real progress.
Don't forget the fact that the numbers start growing more and more rapidly as the market share increases.
If the current trend progresses in about 10 years we'll be at around 50% or something. (Please correct me if I'm wrong)
Quote: "A lot of people use the example of Exchange Server as a reason that open source will not displace MS in the business world."
The reason it isn't working is because there are too many open-source exchange like projects. Therefore, none of them gets all of the features which are needed.
To succeed, they should bundle all forces and create ONE solution.
When we were looking for a Groupware solution, I have tried several open source solutions.
They all failed in one of the following:
- Open source Outlook connector isn't working properly;
- PDA synchronization is poor (of doesn't support a lot of devices);
- No windows client exists;
- Features were missing.
In the end, they all failed the pilot.
So we ended up with Novell Groupwise (through Novell Open Workgroup suite), which I have become a great fan of. It also made me see the immaturity of the open source projects.
Groupwise includes -any- feature our users are asking for, while the open source solutions lacked a lot of things.
Also, with Groupwise Mobile Server it is possible to synchronize mail, contacts, appointments with any smartphone over GPRS. (A feature we are using very intensively, since it's actually a complete blackberry alternative for no additional cost)
If you look at the development model of Groupwise you can clearly see why open source can't succeed.
For one, Groupwise has been developed for at least 10 years.
Also, Novell purchases all kinds of company's or additional products to quickly add a lot of extra features in the standard package they sell.
Since the open source movement has to develop everything themselves and didn't have such a large head-start, it is almost impossible for them to succeed.
But then, when a successful artist dies in an airplane crash their wife and kids will be bankrupt very soon.
Perhaps you would have been better off by investing in some protection caps ;)