The article mentioned Kevin's radio show on KFI, but sadly it was canceled months ago. It was a fun show run loosely with guest interviews, call in questions, and general advise. Kevin handcuffed by his not being able to touch computers and such had various co-hosts that would handle the keyboard for him. The show was on around 4am Sunday morning so it wasn't like it was chewing up prime time, but KFI still canceled.
Now KFI is the usual lame ultra conservative crapola, and the computer comedian Jeff Levy. Levy is hilarious to anyone who knows anything about computers. Poor saps who don't know less than Levy call in for help. They are mainly told to reboot, reinstall, and buy my sponsors utilities. Perfect exmaple of the blind leading the blind.
Why are so many people trying to turn Linux into a free version of Windows. What happened to innovation, what happened to being an advanced Unix-like operating system. Everytime you turn around more people are trying to dumb down Linux so you can actract Windows users. Look at the whole push for GUI admin tools. GUI Admin tools have been a target of Windows critism, now Red Hat and others are cranking them out. Everything the Linux community has pointed to as a fault in Windows they are now trying to add to Linux. If you want Windows buy a copy, why reinvent the wheel.
Linux started as a clone of Unix, now it's becoming a Windows clone, is it Linux only knows how to clone things?
The trouble is people want to be free to do what they want so that mean inconsistency. The average Jane and Joe like Mac and Windows because once you learn one app the whole world of app's are now familiar and easy to learn.
The masses like to be dicatated to as long as it makes things easy. Also once they learn something they don't want to learn something new unless they have to. To switch to Linux has a learning curve most aren't interested in going through. The cost of the occasional Windows upgrade is cheap compared to inconvinece of having to learn some thing new. Sure there are some willing to spend the time for assorted reasons, but I'm talking the masses.
Now you also have a catch 22 to deal with. Corporate America is interest in Linux to save licensing fees, but know the time and cost of having to train new employees can exceed licensing fees. Right now you can walk out on any sidewalk and grab people who know Windows and MS Office, no training required. At same timemasses aren't going to learn Linux and Linux app's until more corporations are using it and its a hiring opportunity. Another part of this catch 22 is what Linux window manager to learn, what OSS office suites and other app's to learn.
Linux's freedom is its own enemy at getting deployed in corporate America. Outside Ameriaca is another story.
You need to treat the word Free like the atomic clock and keep checking to make sure you're using the correct Stallman-speak of the moment. It's free as in Stallman definition at that moment in time. It's moving target with him. The BSD license is true freedom in my opinion.
The old saying "You become what you criticize" is ringing loud and clear. Linux is trying to beat Windows by criticizing it while at the same time emulating it to attract Windows users.
John also nailed a MAJOR problem in open source, developers are designing applications. Developers only see things from their perspective, but their view is 180 degrees away from the typical computer user. I ran into this as a Product Manager trying to convince developers to add some features. I had user surveys requesting all asking for a couple specific features and developers say we don't do it that way, so real users don't do it that way. Major mistake, you need to listen to the users your applications (or OS) is targeted for. This is what Linux advocates don't understand. Microsoft product technically are just good enough, but for users they are intuitive and easy to use.
That brings up another problem with open source, intuitive interfaces. Just because you look like Mac or Windows, doesn't mean you are as intuitive or easy to use. Apple and Microsoft spend millions on interface research. Testing ease of use and intuitiveness. Who in open source going to spend the money for that research?
Last thing Dvorak forget to mention is QA and QE. This is an area that only get token effort. It is boring specialized work and few volunteer to do it. Anyone who know anything about real software development know just having a lot of people banging on software isn't real testing. It is also the scary part of open source. They brag about how fast bugs are fixed, but who did all the testing to ensure the fix isn't creating new bugs of its own. Again having lots of people banging on software isn't going to find all the side effects lurking in code.
Oh its true, I can't remember the name of the service at the moment, but many large corporations use it like IBM. They install the agent software while installing their software. Then when connection is being made your connection attempts and pop info are uploaded to a central computer system that generates reports. But if you use Linux don't fear because they only have agent software for Mac and Windows last I heard.
Every time you use a credit card, grocery store discount card, write a check they put through a reader, login to something, and so on and so you're are being profiled. I used to work for the second largest ISP, and everything you connected all your connection attempts and other info was beening uploaded during the connection. Many of the major corporation now run software that monitors your calls, and internet activity. We are being monitored, counted, tracked, profiled, and categoried so much does it even matter. All this is just business, if get into all the tracking the goverment does, and you'll really feel like a specimen under a microscope.
Actually in many way I feel there is safety in numbers. If they were only monitoring a we few people I would be nervous, but when the amount of data being collected we are people just numbers in a statisitc somewhere. Just another brick in the wall.
I wish I could forward the couple hundred pieces of spam I get a day to this guy. Spammers should have to pay to use the internet then take the money to help maintain the internet infrastructure. Truckers and other commericial vehicles have to pay extra fees for using the interstate system of highways to run their business. I don't see have spammers are any different using the internet for business.
I should be able to charge spammers for the percent of my bandwitdh they are using that I have to pay for. I hate junk snail mail, but at least they have to pay postage, that in long run helps pay for running the post office system.
The only time I got Christmas bonuses was in for meaning less jobs before I got into the industry. After getting into the industry yearly bonuses is was what companies would give out based on corporate performance. On Christmas if we got anything it was from our department management, nothing big, but appreciated.
in today's world, the author doesn't receive a royalty everytime someone reads a book from the library. Will they in the future?
Different media means different rules, especially when you are being pirated all the time.
You can't compare to paper books because the media itself is it's own form of copy protection. A paper book is more costly and more of a hassle to copy than its worth. It's cheaper in most cases to just buy another copy of the book. Also sharing the book is not a problem. Again its a bigger hassle than its worth for two people to read the book at one time. So basically only one person at a time can use/read the book. Paper books are their own form of copy and piracy protection.
I worked for Borland many years ago on BC++. Borlands license was as they called it a Paperback book" style license. They didn't worry about the software being copied, they know that would be impossible. So they said treat it like a book and as long as only one copy of the software is in use at one time you are within license.
If a large quanity of people stopped buy computers from companies that refuse to sell without an operating system you would of made a difference by now. Money talks!!!
There are lots of good white box or small computer companies with all classes of equipment that sell computers with no operating system. If there market share was to increase the big vendor well notice, they don't want to lose your money. But as long as you continue to buy from them and only whine about the MS tax they won't change. They will take your money and go to the bank.
As the old saying goes "Money talks and bullshit walks".
Actaully IBM has been wanting to do this for a long-long time. But since a couple key customer was refusing to wean themselves off IBM hung in there.
I've had to develop for and support OS/2 and even work with IBM on projects. I can't stand OS/2 it had a poor architecture, inaccuracies in the API documentation, and I couldn't never see what people liked about the interface. The only thing it had going for it is it wasn't MS. It was the OS the "anything but MS" crowd until Linux caught on. Thank god its finally dead.
Most the people I talk to, and reading many of these replies don't understand the difference between archiving and backup. Before hard drive prices became so cheap both archive and backup were handled the same way, but now you have look at the difference.
Archiving data is usually for business reasons, usually legal like for IRS. So this is data that needs to be able to be restored at some time in the future. For IRS I believe you have to keep business records for ten years minimum. Last place I was at tapes were on a one year rotation cycle, and we made a yearly archive set never touched.
Now backup is usually for safety reasons. So the dumb ass marketing jerk who wipes out the new ad copy due to the printer tomorrow can be saved. This is usually for short term and hard drives doing snapshots are good for this.
I worked for one the major ISP's and email is all stored on NAS storage and they keep about five days worth of snapshots to do restore a mailbox if necessary. Same with web content. This stuff to too dynamic to waste time and money doing tape backup. Tape is only done on business data.
So today to save money and backup-window time you need to design storage systems dividing data in to what needs to be archived vs. backed up.
Also when designing new archive systems don't forget to plan to archive your old backup server and tape library. What good are tapes if you don't have the software and hardware that can read them to do restores.
Actually MS has a spec' for non-Windows versions of.NET. This is what is to be used for the FreeBSD and Mac versions of.Net that MS is backing alreay. It is a subset of the CLR that needs to be supported.
Actually part of MS trouble in the beginning is they didn't play the political game enough, and the anti-trust trial force them to start playing the game more.
The the article mentions Orin Hatch and MS not wanting to sit next to him. Well maybe because he was already in the pocket of Ray Noorda of Novell and Caldera fame. Bottom line politians represent their voters interest. Some just let voters with fists full of money grab their attention more than others. Republications have a more obvsious bias towards money/business, but they all are guilty.
Its always been that way, it always will and it all governments around the world. So I say...
One of the main reason Windows and Mac gained popularity was they had human interface guidelines that developers with asked to follow. IBM had a guideline for awhile called SSA that was horrible and luckly never caught on. I remember one of the most frustrating thing when I first started using Linux in '95 there was no consistency in the human interface for applications. Scroll bars on the left or on the right, menu items in no particular order, every developer did what they liked and most of it was bad.
Today OSS has calmed down and there is some consistency in human interface, but an standard set of guidelines needs to be developed and encoursage developer to follow.
Free software is only about economics. Will free software help open society in China NO! Will it ever NO! But will it help curb costs and help China and other countries compete in the global marketplace YES! Free software will help governments improve their place in the global food chain, but it isn't going to change how they treat their people. The quality of life may improve if the country's government cuts cost, but even that isn't guaranteed.
Even business isn't going to have that much need for 64-bits. Very few people have a need for 64-bits of precision in doing calculations, scientific applications mainly. Then very large database could use the extra memory addressing. But we're talking the databases John Ashcroft wants to build to track every person in the U.S.
People don't have a need for a 64_bit CPU. I believe it was here are/. last week on how computer sales are down because people are realizing these new faster CPU are buying them much. Business and home users are just updating some componets in their systems and not going for the latest 2.n barn burner system. Only gamers and high end multi-media artists are going for the faster and faster systems.
AMD better look for a side business their 64-bit isn't going to keep them afloat. Because even with the 64-bit systems, you need software that take advantage of 64-bit.
Like Bond I'm a man of the world and enjoy a burger at Mickey D's as well as a fine ethinc meal. Being open minded I have more to base my opinion on. Now you can go back to being tragically hip.
Solaris was so dam boring I walked out after 45 minutes and reget I stayed that long. Bond is a known quanity and it was entertaining. Bond kept my interest, well Jinx kept my interest along with the cool gadget and such.
So Bond I got my moneys worth. Solaris was a waste of money.
In many ways it is the direction many have predicted for the last couple years. That computers both desktop and server are going to become more like appliances. The large hardware companies have been talking about it in briefings I've been to. Make computers even servers like tinker toys. Buy the applicances you need, wire, and configure and done. web based administration that can be centralized. Plug and play for small business and departmental systems. Same thing for the desktop will become oversized PDA's.
Sure some people will want more control to tinker, but for the masses computers are just tools and they want them to as easy to use as possible.
The worst thing about MS Tablet PC is I don't make a dime off of them. All I get is people asking me for my opinon. Anyone want to buy some old copies of my demo software. HEY do any of you even know I created the spreadsheet!
You are right it is naive to think commercal software publishers are going to freely open up code. Opening up code is giving whatever secret or tricks to your competition. Also you are now cutting your own market because others will steal your code and go into business for themselve. Even with patients and copyrights they will do it because they can make money until being dragged into court. Then some code is just too ugly to release. I worked for one of the large software publishers who did release some source. People kept asked for other pieces, even after we kill off the product. Main reason it was never releaed because it was so dam ugly and imbarassing. It would of been to big a project to clean up or rewrite so it was never opened up like other bits.
Bottom line for me it is all about choice. People shouldn't be forced to open up source if they don't want to. I feel the GPL is a virus, and prefer BSD style license for things I work on. So choice is all that matters.
Slashdot Mirror
The article mentioned Kevin's radio show on KFI, but sadly it was canceled months ago. It was a fun show run loosely with guest interviews, call in questions, and general advise. Kevin handcuffed by his not being able to touch computers and such had various co-hosts that would handle the keyboard for him. The show was on around 4am Sunday morning so it wasn't like it was chewing up prime time, but KFI still canceled.
Now KFI is the usual lame ultra conservative crapola, and the computer comedian Jeff Levy. Levy is hilarious to anyone who knows anything about computers. Poor saps who don't know less than Levy call in for help. They are mainly told to reboot, reinstall, and buy my sponsors utilities. Perfect exmaple of the blind leading the blind.
Why are so many people trying to turn Linux into a free version of Windows. What happened to innovation, what happened to being an advanced Unix-like operating system. Everytime you turn around more people are trying to dumb down Linux so you can actract Windows users. Look at the whole push for GUI admin tools. GUI Admin tools have been a target of Windows critism, now Red Hat and others are cranking them out. Everything the Linux community has pointed to as a fault in Windows they are now trying to add to Linux. If you want Windows buy a copy, why reinvent the wheel.
Linux started as a clone of Unix, now it's becoming a Windows clone, is it Linux only knows how to clone things?
The trouble is people want to be free to do what they want so that mean inconsistency. The average Jane and Joe like Mac and Windows because once you learn one app the whole world of app's are now familiar and easy to learn.
The masses like to be dicatated to as long as it makes things easy. Also once they learn something they don't want to learn something new unless they have to. To switch to Linux has a learning curve most aren't interested in going through. The cost of the occasional Windows upgrade is cheap compared to inconvinece of having to learn some thing new. Sure there are some willing to spend the time for assorted reasons, but I'm talking the masses.
Now you also have a catch 22 to deal with. Corporate America is interest in Linux to save licensing fees, but know the time and cost of having to train new employees can exceed licensing fees. Right now you can walk out on any sidewalk and grab people who know Windows and MS Office, no training required. At same timemasses aren't going to learn Linux and Linux app's until more corporations are using it and its a hiring opportunity. Another part of this catch 22 is what Linux window manager to learn, what OSS office suites and other app's to learn.
Linux's freedom is its own enemy at getting deployed in corporate America. Outside Ameriaca is another story.
Yes-yes! You are making great points.
You need to treat the word Free like the atomic clock and keep checking to make sure you're using the correct Stallman-speak of the moment. It's free as in Stallman definition at that moment in time. It's moving target with him. The BSD license is true freedom in my opinion.
The old saying "You become what you criticize" is ringing loud and clear. Linux is trying to beat Windows by criticizing it while at the same time emulating it to attract Windows users.
John also nailed a MAJOR problem in open source, developers are designing applications. Developers only see things from their perspective, but their view is 180 degrees away from the typical computer user. I ran into this as a Product Manager trying to convince developers to add some features. I had user surveys requesting all asking for a couple specific features and developers say we don't do it that way, so real users don't do it that way. Major mistake, you need to listen to the users your applications (or OS) is targeted for. This is what Linux advocates don't understand. Microsoft product technically are just good enough, but for users they are intuitive and easy to use.
That brings up another problem with open source, intuitive interfaces. Just because you look like Mac or Windows, doesn't mean you are as intuitive or easy to use. Apple and Microsoft spend millions on interface research. Testing ease of use and intuitiveness. Who in open source going to spend the money for that research?
Last thing Dvorak forget to mention is QA and QE. This is an area that only get token effort. It is boring specialized work and few volunteer to do it. Anyone who know anything about real software development know just having a lot of people banging on software isn't real testing. It is also the scary part of open source. They brag about how fast bugs are fixed, but who did all the testing to ensure the fix isn't creating new bugs of its own. Again having lots of people banging on software isn't going to find all the side effects lurking in code.
They will have to change their name to the Fee Sofrware Foundation.
Guess Stallman finally wants a taste of the good life. Now Stallman can pay the course fee for that round of golf with McNeally and Gates.
Oh its true, I can't remember the name of the service at the moment, but many large corporations use it like IBM. They install the agent software while installing their software. Then when connection is being made your connection attempts and pop info are uploaded to a central computer system that generates reports. But if you use Linux don't fear because they only have agent software for Mac and Windows last I heard.
Every time you use a credit card, grocery store discount card, write a check they put through a reader, login to something, and so on and so you're are being profiled. I used to work for the second largest ISP, and everything you connected all your connection attempts and other info was beening uploaded during the connection. Many of the major corporation now run software that monitors your calls, and internet activity. We are being monitored, counted, tracked, profiled, and categoried so much does it even matter. All this is just business, if get into all the tracking the goverment does, and you'll really feel like a specimen under a microscope.
Actually in many way I feel there is safety in numbers. If they were only monitoring a we few people I would be nervous, but when the amount of data being collected we are people just numbers in a statisitc somewhere. Just another brick in the wall.
I wish I could forward the couple hundred pieces of spam I get a day to this guy. Spammers should have to pay to use the internet then take the money to help maintain the internet infrastructure. Truckers and other commericial vehicles have to pay extra fees for using the interstate system of highways to run their business. I don't see have spammers are any different using the internet for business.
I should be able to charge spammers for the percent of my bandwitdh they are using that I have to pay for. I hate junk snail mail, but at least they have to pay postage, that in long run helps pay for running the post office system.
The only time I got Christmas bonuses was in for meaning less jobs before I got into the industry. After getting into the industry yearly bonuses is was what companies would give out based on corporate performance. On Christmas if we got anything it was from our department management, nothing big, but appreciated.
in today's world, the author doesn't receive a royalty everytime someone reads a book from the library. Will they in the future?
Different media means different rules, especially when you are being pirated all the time.
You can't compare to paper books because the media itself is it's own form of copy protection. A paper book is more costly and more of a hassle to copy than its worth. It's cheaper in most cases to just buy another copy of the book. Also sharing the book is not a problem. Again its a bigger hassle than its worth for two people to read the book at one time. So basically only one person at a time can use/read the book. Paper books are their own form of copy and piracy protection.
I worked for Borland many years ago on BC++. Borlands license was as they called it a Paperback book" style license. They didn't worry about the software being copied, they know that would be impossible. So they said treat it like a book and as long as only one copy of the software is in use at one time you are within license.
If a large quanity of people stopped buy computers from companies that refuse to sell without an operating system you would of made a difference by now. Money talks!!!
There are lots of good white box or small computer companies with all classes of equipment that sell computers with no operating system. If there market share was to increase the big vendor well notice, they don't want to lose your money. But as long as you continue to buy from them and only whine about the MS tax they won't change. They will take your money and go to the bank.
As the old saying goes "Money talks and bullshit walks".
Actaully IBM has been wanting to do this for a long-long time. But since a couple key customer was refusing to wean themselves off IBM hung in there.
I've had to develop for and support OS/2 and even work with IBM on projects. I can't stand OS/2 it had a poor architecture, inaccuracies in the API documentation, and I couldn't never see what people liked about the interface. The only thing it had going for it is it wasn't MS. It was the OS the "anything but MS" crowd until Linux caught on. Thank god its finally dead.
Most the people I talk to, and reading many of these replies don't understand the difference between archiving and backup. Before hard drive prices became so cheap both archive and backup were handled the same way, but now you have look at the difference.
Archiving data is usually for business reasons, usually legal like for IRS. So this is data that needs to be able to be restored at some time in the future. For IRS I believe you have to keep business records for ten years minimum. Last place I was at tapes were on a one year rotation cycle, and we made a yearly archive set never touched.
Now backup is usually for safety reasons. So the dumb ass marketing jerk who wipes out the new ad copy due to the printer tomorrow can be saved. This is usually for short term and hard drives doing snapshots are good for this.
I worked for one the major ISP's and email is all stored on NAS storage and they keep about five days worth of snapshots to do restore a mailbox if necessary. Same with web content. This stuff to too dynamic to waste time and money doing tape backup. Tape is only done on business data.
So today to save money and backup-window time you need to design storage systems dividing data in to what needs to be archived vs. backed up.
Also when designing new archive systems don't forget to plan to archive your old backup server and tape library. What good are tapes if you don't have the software and hardware that can read them to do restores.
Actually MS has a spec' for non-Windows versions of .NET. This is what is to be used for the FreeBSD and Mac versions of .Net that MS is backing alreay. It is a subset of the CLR that needs to be supported.
Actually part of MS trouble in the beginning is they didn't play the political game enough, and the anti-trust trial force them to start playing the game more.
The the article mentions Orin Hatch and MS not wanting to sit next to him. Well maybe because he was already in the pocket of Ray Noorda of Novell and Caldera fame. Bottom line politians represent their voters interest. Some just let
voters with fists full of money grab their attention more than others. Republications have a more obvsious bias towards money/business, but they all are guilty.
Its always been that way, it always will and it all governments around the world. So I say...
Oh duh!
How is this off topic??????
One of the main reason Windows and Mac gained popularity was they had human interface guidelines that developers with asked to follow. IBM had a guideline for awhile called SSA that was horrible and luckly never caught on. I remember one of the most frustrating thing when I first started using Linux in '95 there was no consistency in the human interface for applications. Scroll bars on the left or on the right, menu items in no particular order, every developer did what they liked and most of it was bad.
Today OSS has calmed down and there is some consistency in human interface, but an standard set of guidelines needs to be developed and encoursage developer to follow.
Free software is only about economics. Will free software help open society in China NO! Will it ever NO! But will it help curb costs and help China and other countries compete in the global marketplace YES! Free software will help governments improve their place in the global food chain, but it isn't going to change how they treat their people. The quality of life may improve if the country's government cuts cost, but even that isn't guaranteed.
You are correct sir!
/. last week on how computer sales are down because people are realizing these new faster CPU are buying them much. Business and home users are just updating some componets in their systems and not going for the latest 2.n barn burner system. Only gamers and high end multi-media artists are going for the faster and faster systems.
Even business isn't going to have that much need for 64-bits. Very few people have a need for 64-bits of precision in doing calculations, scientific applications mainly. Then very large database could use the extra memory addressing. But we're talking the databases John Ashcroft wants to build to track every person in the U.S.
People don't have a need for a 64_bit CPU. I believe it was here are
AMD better look for a side business their 64-bit isn't going to keep them afloat. Because even with the 64-bit systems, you need software that take advantage of 64-bit.
Like Bond I'm a man of the world and enjoy a burger at Mickey D's as well as a fine ethinc meal. Being open minded I have more to base my opinion on. Now you can go back to being tragically hip.
Solaris was so dam boring I walked out after 45 minutes and reget I stayed that long. Bond is a known quanity and it was entertaining. Bond kept my interest, well Jinx kept my interest along with the cool gadget and such.
So Bond I got my moneys worth. Solaris was a waste of money.
In many ways it is the direction many have predicted for the last couple years. That computers both desktop and server are going to become more like appliances. The large hardware companies have been talking about it in briefings I've been to. Make computers even servers like tinker toys. Buy the applicances you need, wire, and configure and done. web based administration that can be centralized. Plug and play for small business and departmental systems. Same thing for the desktop will become oversized PDA's.
Sure some people will want more control to tinker, but for the masses computers are just tools and they want them to as easy to use as possible.
The worst thing about MS Tablet PC is I don't make a dime off of them. All I get is people asking me for my opinon. Anyone want to buy some old copies of my demo software. HEY do any of you even know I created the spreadsheet!
Can you say Visicalc???
I'm a legend dam it!!!
You are right it is naive to think commercal software publishers are going to freely open up code. Opening up code is giving whatever secret or tricks to your competition. Also you are now cutting your own market because others will steal your code and go into business for themselve. Even with patients and copyrights they will do it because they can make money until being dragged into court. Then some code is just too ugly to release. I worked for one of the large software publishers who did release some source. People kept asked for other pieces, even after we kill off the product. Main reason it was never releaed because it was so dam ugly and imbarassing. It would of been to big a project to clean up or rewrite so it was never opened up like other bits.
Bottom line for me it is all about choice. People shouldn't be forced to open up source if they don't want to. I feel the GPL is a virus, and prefer BSD style license for things I work on. So choice is all that matters.