Just because they could have been selling a shrink-wrapped soup-to-nuts solution like Sun and Apple, there's still a difference... with Linux, anybody could do the same. That's competition. That's the open source revolution. What Compaq's reverse-engineering of the IBM bios did for the PC revolution (creating open hardare), Linux does for the next revolution.
Corel, who specializes in applications, could have been playing the same game as Apple, Sun, or Microsoft -- and control the distribution around their applications, rather than chasing the OS maker's tail, and living/dying at the whim of the OS maker.
They could have done Microsoft one better, as Apple and Sun do, by controlling the hardware underneath their distribution and providing a a single source for service -- just like Apple & Sun.
They can have their cake (a soup-to-nuts solution) and eat it to (open hardware and software).
When you understand this, you'll leave your Mac behind!
The official announcement is here.
they're dumping their distribution on someone even less likely to make it profitable (remember the Netwinder?). Although they took a great deal of flack from the Linux
community, their aim was to broaden Linux into the less technically savvy market. There failure was their inability to partner
with a name brand OEM (like Dell, Compaq, Gateway, etc...) who could address the general desktop user's desire for a shrink-wrapped, pre-installed, integrated system, with one-stop technical support. They are keeping control of their apps, worsening the dis-integration.
From their announcement...
> The company's expanding vision for Linux includes providing customers with a bundled solution that minimizes the total cost of ownership and eliminates integration issues.
So, they are trying to create integrated Linux solutions?...
> To realize its Linux vision and to increase the value of its Linux equity for both customers and shareholders, Corel is actively pursuing opportunities to allow it to spin off the Linux Distribution element of its Linux division
..integrate by dis-integrating!
> while retaining an interest in the new prospective company. Corel will continue to develop brand name applications for the Linux operating system including WordPerfect Office for Linux and CorelDRAW for Linux.
I.e.: they didn't want to disclose their applications source to their new
"partner"... and so their only remaining market will be techies who
need a GUI word-processor or drawing program.
Java based Corel Draw, the Netwinder, an integrated desktop Linux
distribution for non-techies. Three great ideas, all ahead of their
time, all fouled up in the execution.
Chris
Open source does for software what reverse engineering the IBM bios did for the PC:
A level playing field where anybody can build software with the same information about the OS, like anyone can build PC hardware (except for the CPU, kinda) with open hardware standards.
Jobs and McNeally play the same game: build finely integrated proprietary OS atop expensive proprietary hardware, and let others write the apps. Gates does them one better: proprietary OS atop open hardware -- only Microsoft can build the apps.
Open source is a different paradigm. It's not the same game that the others are playing... it only looks the same because we have to stoop down to their level and offer "compatibility" in order for the consumer to make the switch.
There are a slew of lawyers that make a great deal of money friviously suing claiming securities violations.
Many of the companies I own stock in are being sued likewise (Corel, Plug Power, and Citrix).
Although these suits are without merit, they hurt the companies stock prices dramtically: look at each of the above company's history, and see the biggest dip the day after the suit starts (none have recovered).
Often, these suits end if the company can pay the lawyers enough money to "end the suit without predjudice", meaning, the shareholders can continue the suit (if they want), but the lawyers got their money and will run.
There was an article in Forbes a few months back detailing one lawyer who does busines this way (worth over $10B).
The companies and the shareholders (including the plaintifs) will all loose a great deal of money over these suits. The only winners (ever) are the lawyers.
I just bought a neat portable player for xmas. It doesn't do DVD's, but it's a portable that does regular CD's, MP3 CD's (gtoaster works great), and VCD's. It says it will do CD-RW, but I haven't tested that. I got mine at:
http://store.yahoo.com/cyberpower/napprotmppla.h tm l
But pricewatch will show 10 vendors selling it at $110.
The time has never been better for making your own VCD's. Iomega's Buz is the best price/performance capture card: it creates mjpeg frames in the hardware (so your processor speed doesn't matter). Iomega's quit making them, and there's no WIN2K drivers for them, they sold them as just "home video editing" hardware -- they're getting dumped at Ebay for cheap. And, they dual as a scsi card too.
Nobody outside the open source community realizes their potential.
The Linux driver can be found at:
http://www.munich-vision.de/buz/driver.html
You need lavrec to pull the mjpeg frames out of the video. Then, the mjpeg needs to be split into audio & video, those two streams need to be converted to mpeg, and the resulting streams need to be recombined. The complete tool set can be found at:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?gr ou p_id=5776
To make a VCD, take the reulting stream from above and process it with vcdimager, found at the CVS archive of the mjpeg tools at the sourceforge:
https://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=5776
(the previous link was to the downloads: vcdimager is only in their CVS archive, not in the current distribution... but the current distribution is easier to build than the piecemeal approach of the CVS archive.)
You can also use the VCD image generator from vcdtools:
http://www.munich-vision.de/vcd/
To view the images as a file, use MPEGplayer. To view VCD's in Linux, try MTV (not open source). "cdrdao" is a good VCD burner (the VCD image makers listed above auto-create the cdrdao toc file). MPEGplayer, MTV, and cdrdao can all be found at freshmeat.
If you want to buy, rather than make your own VCD's, you won't pay more than $13 per title at places like:
I agree 100% -- it was a great idea poorly executed, just like their java and netwinder.
The correct execution would have included partnering with Dell or Compaq, integrating their software on their partners hardware, for a soup-to-nuts business solution. A single point of contact for all hardware and software problems.
Microsoft couldn't have beaten that (they don't due hardware, they just blame all their problems on the hardware).
My question is: what did they sell? The distribution or the applications?
If this new group is just a distribution vendor, then they're too little too late. If they get the applications, then do the get the Draw & Wordperfect source code too?
Furthermore, just what does the new company intend to do with it? If they try to sell it as a box at CompUSA, they'll fail as miserably as Corel did.
Does the new company have the resources for a soup-to-nuts solution? Do they have the clout to team with a big PC OEM like Compaq?
Anybody know of any linux based group calendar management programs?
Our head office recently migrated from Netscape Calandar to Micro$oft Exchange. Trouble is, our office is exclusively Linux based, so we're left looking for a Calendar program we can use.
Cliff wrote:
>I've found at least 42 (hey- there's that magic number again) toolbar or menu options that will take you to netscape.com
Note that you cannot find any reference to "support" on any netscape.com web page.
It's got so many features that outclass the old netscape... reliability isn't one of them.
Initially, it started using ~/.netscape/*, then, between some rapid crashes, it quit using that in favor of ~/.mozilla/* (i.e. I lost all my bookmarks and preferences, and have no idea how to set it back again).
Mangu said:
>There are two points on which I concede MS-Windows is superior to Linux. The first is hardware support.
Agreed. As long as Microsoft can coerse the hardware vendors to continue to not write Linux drivers, and not give driver information to those trying to write the drivers for free, then WinDoh's will have better hardware support.
> The second is installation ease. Which is easier, to follow the procedure you mentioned, or to double-click on "setup.exe"?
Way off. If machines came installed with Linux, as they do WinDoh's, then, at worst, it would be a toss up.
Try installing WinDoh's on a raw machine. I tried recently, Linux won hands down.
What's easier: clicking setup.exe and answering stupid questions for an hour, or pointing rsync to your distribution site?
Bush: Back in my drinkin' days I remember seeing asteroids fallin'... when the wife gave me the "booze or her" ultimatum, they stopped. I'd say, have the wife give 'em the ultimatum! This is what I mean about simple, cost effective solutions!
It's thought that had the DMCA been law in the 80's, Compaq would never have been able to clean-room reverse-engineer the IBM bios, which many believe started the PC revolution.
In what ways would you modify the "fair use" clauses in the DMCA?
Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of
the Internet and to promote and support its development.
No one person or even small group of persons exclusively "invented"
the Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration
among people in government and the university community. But as the
two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols
that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's
contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President.
No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater
contribution over a longer period of time.
Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on
his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress
I took the initiative in creating the Internet". We don't think,
as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented"
the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that
while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and
beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the
matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long
before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our
perspective.
As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high
speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and
the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected
official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have
a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and
scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was
an unproven and controversial concept. Our work on the Internet
started in 1973 and was based on even earlier work that took place
in the mid-late 1960s. But the Internet, as we know it today, was
not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early
stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual
leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of
high speed computing and communication. As an example, he sponsored
hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas
like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural
disasters and other crises.
As a Senator in the 1980s Gore urged government agencies to
consolidate what at the time were several dozen different and
unconnected networks into an "Interagency Network". Working in a
bi-partisan manner with officials in Ronald Reagan and George Bush's
administrations, Gore secured the passage of the High Performance
Computing and Communications Act in 1991. This "Gore Act" supported
the National Research and Education Network (NREN) initiative that
became one of the major vehicles for the spread of the Internet beyond
the field of computer science.
As Vice President Gore promoted building the Internet both up and out,
as well as releasing the Internet from the control of the government
agencies that spawned it. He served as the major administration
proponent for continued investment in advanced computing and
networking and private sector initiatives such as Net Day. He was and
is a strong proponent of extending access to the network to schools
and libraries. Today, approximately 95% of our nation's schools are
on the Internet. Gore provided much-needed political support for the
speedy privatization of the Internet when the time arrived for it to
become a commercially-driven operation.
There are many factors that have contributed to the Internet's
rapid growth since the later 1980s, not the least of which has been
political support for its privatization and continued support for
research in advanced networking technology. No one in public life has
been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for
a thriving Internet than the Vice President. Gore has been a clear
champion of this effort, both in the councils of government and with
the public at large.
The Vice President deserves credit for his early recognition of the
value of high speed computing and communication and for his long-term
and consistent articulation of the potential value of the Internet to
American citizens and industry and, indeed, to the rest of the world.
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You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use
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Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 12:07:53 -0700
>From: Phil Agre
To: "Red Rock Eater News Service"
Subject: [RRE]campaign lunacy
[clip]
The mother of all "Gore's tendency to exaggerate" factoids, of course,
is his supposed claim to have invented the Internet. This factoid is
just plain flat-out false. Gore made a perfectly accurate statement
taking credit for his legislative work on the Internet, and the
Internet's inventors back him up on it. Even Newt Gingrich backs him
up on it! But still the claim is endlessly repeated by the Republican
candidates and the media. For more examples, see:
Why isn't it big news that the Internet's inventors speak so heatedly
against the Republican media claim? Where are the headlines about
that? I've enclosed the most recent of many statements, this one from
Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf. Presented with this statement, the Wired News
reporter who originated the false accusation against Gore actually
responded by suggesting that Vint Cerf was speaking in bad faith,
covering Gore for political reasons. These people will say anything,
which of course is the reason why they accuse Al Gore of the same.
Read it here:
A recent article in First Monday also adds some facts to the story by
digging up some of the specifics of Gore's congressional record:
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_10/wiggins/
But this story is defective in two ways. First, it fails to trace
the false claim back to Wired News. And second, more disturbingly,
it accepts, for no clear reason, and despite the massive evidence
to the contrary, the claim that Gore's assertion was false. This is
so strange. It's like we're all in a lunatic asylum. Look: Al Gore,
during his service in the United States Congress, took the initiative
in creating the Internet. This is a plain fact. It sounds like a
wild claim only to people who aren't acquainted with the remarkable
reality of Gore's very early and very extensive work on the issue.
How many judges can use the acronym "API" in a complete sentence?
Whenever we see litigation concerning software, we always find ourself in amazement that judges have such little understanding of software and can come up with such off-the-wall verdicts.
This judge, on the contrary, seems to understand the subject extremely well!
>[for one client, I] maintain several hundred thousand lines of undocumented code... working without a sound-process base is irritating >... >For my other client, we did a formal spec and design, and finished the implementation ahead of schedule and under budget.
Two different projects in two different states of development. I bet there were (or will be) times when both perspectives applied (or will apply) to both projects.
If the second project is lucky enough to live beyond it's initial writers employment, there will be new programmers moaning how poorly the project was built... they'll find hacks, they'll find code that's contrary to the documentation as proof. They'll cast aspersions upon your mother.
Teamwork is important. Was this where the first project failed ("everybody quit or got fired")? If not, I bet when they initially wrote it, there were design & requirement specs and lots of documentation and research; they were probably proud of what they did and how they did it. Have you ever talked to one of the initial programmers about their design? If so, ask them to recall the design phase (not clouded by the day they were fired).
A small amount of documentation and research is important; but my experience is: programmers want to do R delivery is not important. Analyzing the process of analysis (writing a book on requirements) draws attention away from the reality of programming which is (or should be) spent in integration and maintenance (which they don't teach, they just say is a bad thing that can be avoided if you write more requirements and perfect the design on paper).
I've spent many years writing tools to help programmers. I've written CASE systems. I once spent six months in the requirements phase of a to-be-bloated design-by-large-commitee project (I left that company before the design phase even started).
I think every graduate knows they can write a better language.
> 2)Your boss usually wants to keep that code (that he paid for) to themselves. Let's face it, that project probably took 4-5 man years, and cost him (Fully loaded costs), in the order of 1 million dollars. You don't GIVE that to you competition for free, or you go out of business, fast
So, Open Source has no business models?
You need to convince yourself and your boss that software is a service, not a product. Even Balmer said that a few weeks ago (in his "how to eat your golden-egg-laying-goose" speech).
Unless (or, maybe, even if) you're a large company with market share, that code you spent $1M writing will soon be lost forever. You'll have wasted your time and your bosses money.
Name any large, currently popular, application, not written by a large company, whose code dates back over 5 years. Only Open Source lives and evolves, unless you're M$ and your customers will blindly buy whatever you sell.
>If you think requirements are academic, then you haven't been in industry.
Programming in industry for 20 years (since college).
>I've worked at corporations that neglected requirements documents, and those that required them. The difference is night and day.
I used to live this delusion too. When you're old enough to look back, you'll realize that over emphasis on requirements and design cost more than they save.
>Perhaps previous OSS projects were mostly little ones.
It's the other way around: small projects benefit more from over design. Large projects never get finished because of too much emphasis on requirements and design.
I've got to stop replying to all of these now; I realize I've struck a nerve in the youthful programmers who need a conversion of consciousness. I'm afraid experience is the only thing that will help you realize the delusion;)
>But the whole point of Software Engineering is to make maintenance & integration easier!!
Supposed to, but doesn't.
>Suppose you are handed a tarball full of Mozilla or Linux kernel source code. If you have never looked at it before, you would be lost.
The art of integration and maintenance requires a focus on the problem at hand, not wasting time understanding how the whole thing works.
>UML diagrams, design documents, requirements all came around *because* it is so difficult to write huge projects without structure.
Aiding interprogrammer communication within a project is a great goal; I'm skeptical of throwing more software at a software problem: usually you find the "cure" to be buggy enough, or irrelevant enough, to cause more time to be wasted.
>And what if there is no code ready to modify?
There's always a starting point available; it inflates your ego to think you're doing something unique, but don't be a prima donna!
>If you have to start from scratch, you'll be doing to OSS community a huge favour by providing good documents along with your source!
Comments are often irrelevant: they were placed their during initial coding, and over integration hacking will lead you astray. The code is the relevant information.
I realize it seems logical that spending lots of time in requirements and design should benefit the final product. And, to cover your legal a** when designing medical, military, or flight systems you better waste lots of time writing requirements and design.
But, this is software.
The complexity/chaos makes extra work in requirements and design (especially CASE systems) meaningless.
That's been proven over and over again for 20 years. If you're designing "hello whirrled", then extra emphasis in requirements and design can help.
Once you're writing something useful, extra efforts in requirements and design can actually be disastrous.
The problem is, most programmers don't want to do any real work: like you, they want to be rocket scientists. They want to design; they don't want to integrate or maintain, so they come up with silly excuses like yours.
It takes years after college to unlearn this crap. When a programmer comes up to me and says "I'm 90% done", I realize he's done the requirements, the design, and the coding, and he's done some debugging.
He's got the other 90% to go (and that's just the integration; not the other 400% maintenance that he's going to try to squirm out of).
The way to develop software is to find some open source code that does most of what you need, modify it to do the rest!
The problem with any approach that focuses on requirements, design, and style is that it doesn't help those software development lifecycle stages where software spends most of it's time: integration and maintenance.
Another academic approach for rocket scientist wanabees! Nothing to do with practical programming.
Chris
So, how much RAM does $200 get?
on
$200 Linux PCs
·
· Score: 1
The author also didn't disclose how much RAM.
You'd need 10MBytes for an xterminal + 4MBytes of video ram, at least.
I wonder if the price goes down if you throw away the disk?
Linus has often stated that MS is not a concern. The Open Source paradigm is a fundamental change much as PC's were a fundamental change in the 80's.
But, a rivalry can be a good thing: The football team performs better against a cross-town rival. A commune of religious zealots can be more productive than their capitalist counterparts. A group of people perceiving an external threat will decrease the amount of space they normally keep between each other. The world would probably be very peaceful if we all believed aliens were going to attack ("my enemy's enemy is my friend").
As long as we don't take it too far (at the end of the football game, win or loose, don't get in a fight with the other teams fans).
Slashdot Mirror
Closed source + Closed hardware = Mac & Sun
Closed Source + Open Hardware = Microsoft
Open Source + Open Hardware = Linux
Just because they could have been selling a shrink-wrapped soup-to-nuts solution like Sun and Apple, there's still a difference... with Linux, anybody could do the same. That's competition. That's the open source revolution. What Compaq's reverse-engineering of the IBM bios did for the PC revolution (creating open hardare), Linux does for the next revolution.
Corel, who specializes in applications, could have been playing the same game as Apple, Sun, or Microsoft -- and control the distribution around their applications, rather than chasing the OS maker's tail, and living/dying at the whim of the OS maker.
They could have done Microsoft one better, as Apple and Sun do, by controlling the hardware underneath their distribution and providing a a single source for service -- just like Apple & Sun.
They can have their cake (a soup-to-nuts solution) and eat it to (open hardware and software).
When you understand this, you'll leave your Mac behind!
Chris
The official announcement is here. they're dumping their distribution on someone even less likely to make it profitable (remember the Netwinder?). Although they took a great deal of flack from the Linux community, their aim was to broaden Linux into the less technically savvy market. There failure was their inability to partner with a name brand OEM (like Dell, Compaq, Gateway, etc...) who could address the general desktop user's desire for a shrink-wrapped, pre-installed, integrated system, with one-stop technical support. They are keeping control of their apps, worsening the dis-integration. From their announcement... > The company's expanding vision for Linux includes providing customers with a bundled solution that minimizes the total cost of ownership and eliminates integration issues. So, they are trying to create integrated Linux solutions?... > To realize its Linux vision and to increase the value of its Linux equity for both customers and shareholders, Corel is actively pursuing opportunities to allow it to spin off the Linux Distribution element of its Linux division ..integrate by dis-integrating!
> while retaining an interest in the new prospective company. Corel will continue to develop brand name applications for the Linux operating system including WordPerfect Office for Linux and CorelDRAW for Linux.
I.e.: they didn't want to disclose their applications source to their new
"partner"... and so their only remaining market will be techies who
need a GUI word-processor or drawing program.
Java based Corel Draw, the Netwinder, an integrated desktop Linux
distribution for non-techies. Three great ideas, all ahead of their
time, all fouled up in the execution.
Chris
His name is Steven Smith, his email address is stevenator@aspalliance.com .
I forwarded the url in the article (Dagon's anti-NS statement), so he knows what his employees are saying online.
Open source does for software what reverse engineering the IBM bios did for the PC:
A level playing field where anybody can build software with the same information about the OS, like anyone can build PC hardware (except for the CPU, kinda) with open hardware standards.
Jobs and McNeally play the same game: build finely integrated proprietary OS atop expensive proprietary hardware, and let others write the apps. Gates does them one better: proprietary OS atop open hardware -- only Microsoft can build the apps.
Open source is a different paradigm. It's not the same game that the others are playing... it only looks the same because we have to stoop down to their level and offer "compatibility" in order for the consumer to make the switch.
There are a slew of lawyers that make a great deal of money friviously suing claiming securities violations.
Many of the companies I own stock in are being sued likewise (Corel, Plug Power, and Citrix).
Although these suits are without merit, they hurt the companies stock prices dramtically: look at each of the above company's history, and see the biggest dip the day after the suit starts (none have recovered).
Often, these suits end if the company can pay the lawyers enough money to "end the suit without predjudice", meaning, the shareholders can continue the suit (if they want), but the lawyers got their money and will run.
There was an article in Forbes a few months back detailing one lawyer who does busines this way (worth over $10B).
The companies and the shareholders (including the plaintifs) will all loose a great deal of money over these suits. The only winners (ever) are the lawyers.
That's why they do it.
I just bought a neat portable player for xmas. It doesn't do DVD's, but it's a portable that does regular CD's, MP3 CD's (gtoaster works great), and VCD's. It says it will do CD-RW, but I haven't tested that. I got mine at:
h tm l
r ou p_id=5776
http://store.yahoo.com/cyberpower/napprotmppla.
But pricewatch will show 10 vendors selling it at $110.
The time has never been better for making your own VCD's. Iomega's Buz is the best price/performance capture card: it creates mjpeg frames in the hardware (so your processor speed doesn't matter). Iomega's quit making them, and there's no WIN2K drivers for them, they sold them as just "home video editing" hardware -- they're getting dumped at Ebay for cheap. And, they dual as a scsi card too.
Nobody outside the open source community realizes their potential.
The Linux driver can be found at:
http://www.munich-vision.de/buz/driver.html
You need lavrec to pull the mjpeg frames out of the video. Then, the mjpeg needs to be split into audio & video, those two streams need to be converted to mpeg, and the resulting streams need to be recombined. The complete tool set can be found at:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?g
To make a VCD, take the reulting stream from above and process it with vcdimager, found at the CVS archive of the mjpeg tools at the sourceforge:
https://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=5776
(the previous link was to the downloads: vcdimager is only in their CVS archive, not in the current distribution... but the current distribution is easier to build than the piecemeal approach of the CVS archive.)
You can also use the VCD image generator from vcdtools:
http://www.munich-vision.de/vcd/
To view the images as a file, use MPEGplayer. To view VCD's in Linux, try MTV (not open source). "cdrdao" is a good VCD burner (the VCD image makers listed above auto-create the cdrdao toc file). MPEGplayer, MTV, and cdrdao can all be found at freshmeat.
If you want to buy, rather than make your own VCD's, you won't pay more than $13 per title at places like:
http://coolvcd.com/
I believe these are licenced VCD's.
Chris
I agree 100% -- it was a great idea poorly executed, just like their java and netwinder.
The correct execution would have included partnering with Dell or Compaq, integrating their software on their partners hardware, for a soup-to-nuts business solution. A single point of contact for all hardware and software problems.
Microsoft couldn't have beaten that (they don't due hardware, they just blame all their problems on the hardware).
My question is: what did they sell? The distribution or the applications?
If this new group is just a distribution vendor, then they're too little too late. If they get the applications, then do the get the Draw & Wordperfect source code too?
Furthermore, just what does the new company intend to do with it? If they try to sell it as a box at CompUSA, they'll fail as miserably as Corel did.
Does the new company have the resources for a soup-to-nuts solution? Do they have the clout to team with a big PC OEM like Compaq?
Chris
Anybody know of any linux based group calendar management programs?
Our head office recently migrated from Netscape Calandar to Micro$oft Exchange. Trouble is, our office is exclusively Linux based, so we're left looking for a Calendar program we can use.
Any ideas?
Chris
Cliff wrote:
>I've found at least 42 (hey- there's that magic number again) toolbar or menu options that will take you to netscape.com
Note that you cannot find any reference to "support" on any netscape.com web page.
It's got so many features that outclass the old netscape... reliability isn't one of them.
Initially, it started using ~/.netscape/*, then, between some rapid crashes, it quit using that in favor of ~/.mozilla/* (i.e. I lost all my bookmarks and preferences, and have no idea how to set it back again).
Chris
Mangu said:
>There are two points on which I concede MS-Windows is superior to Linux. The first is hardware support.
Agreed. As long as Microsoft can coerse the hardware vendors to continue to not write Linux drivers, and not give driver information to those trying to write the drivers for free, then WinDoh's will have better hardware support.
> The second is installation ease. Which is easier, to follow the procedure you mentioned, or to double-click on "setup.exe"?
Way off. If machines came installed with Linux, as they do WinDoh's, then, at worst, it would be a toss up.
Try installing WinDoh's on a raw machine. I tried recently, Linux won hands down.
What's easier: clicking setup.exe and answering stupid questions for an hour, or pointing rsync to your distribution site?
Chris
Especially at election time, local officials are looking for ways to save money.
Tell your mayor (etc...) about Microsofts heavy hand and the cost to taxpayers just for the inevitable audit.
Then, show them Linux!
Chris
8) Asteroid Defenses
by Ethelred Unraed
Bush: Back in my drinkin' days I remember seeing asteroids fallin'... when the wife gave me the "booze or her" ultimatum, they stopped. I'd say, have the wife give 'em the ultimatum! This is what I mean about simple, cost effective solutions!
It's thought that had the DMCA been law in the 80's, Compaq would never have been able to clean-room reverse-engineer the IBM bios, which many believe started the PC revolution.
In what ways would you modify the "fair use" clauses in the DMCA?
Chris
Al Gore and the Internet
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By Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf
Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of
the Internet and to promote and support its development.
No one person or even small group of persons exclusively "invented"
the Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration
among people in government and the university community. But as the
two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols
that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's
contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President.
No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater
contribution over a longer period of time.
Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on
his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress
I took the initiative in creating the Internet". We don't think,
as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented"
the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that
while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and
beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the
matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long
before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our
perspective.
As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high
speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and
the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected
official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have
a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and
scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was
an unproven and controversial concept. Our work on the Internet
started in 1973 and was based on even earlier work that took place
in the mid-late 1960s. But the Internet, as we know it today, was
not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early
stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual
leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of
high speed computing and communication. As an example, he sponsored
hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas
like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural
disasters and other crises.
As a Senator in the 1980s Gore urged government agencies to
consolidate what at the time were several dozen different and
unconnected networks into an "Interagency Network". Working in a
bi-partisan manner with officials in Ronald Reagan and George Bush's
administrations, Gore secured the passage of the High Performance
Computing and Communications Act in 1991. This "Gore Act" supported
the National Research and Education Network (NREN) initiative that
became one of the major vehicles for the spread of the Internet beyond
the field of computer science.
As Vice President Gore promoted building the Internet both up and out,
as well as releasing the Internet from the control of the government
agencies that spawned it. He served as the major administration
proponent for continued investment in advanced computing and
networking and private sector initiatives such as Net Day. He was and
is a strong proponent of extending access to the network to schools
and libraries. Today, approximately 95% of our nation's schools are
on the Internet. Gore provided much-needed political support for the
speedy privatization of the Internet when the time arrived for it to
become a commercially-driven operation.
There are many factors that have contributed to the Internet's
rapid growth since the later 1980s, not the least of which has been
political support for its privatization and continued support for
research in advanced networking technology. No one in public life has
been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for
a thriving Internet than the Vice President. Gore has been a clear
champion of this effort, both in the councils of government and with
the public at large.
The Vice President deserves credit for his early recognition of the
value of high speed computing and communication and for his long-term
and consistent articulation of the potential value of the Internet to
American citizens and industry and, indeed, to the rest of the world.
Version 1.2
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Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 12:07:53 -0700
>From: Phil Agre
To: "Red Rock Eater News Service"
Subject: [RRE]campaign lunacy
[clip]
The mother of all "Gore's tendency to exaggerate" factoids, of course,
is his supposed claim to have invented the Internet. This factoid is
just plain flat-out false. Gore made a perfectly accurate statement
taking credit for his legislative work on the Internet, and the
Internet's inventors back him up on it. Even Newt Gingrich backs him
up on it! But still the claim is endlessly repeated by the Republican
candidates and the media. For more examples, see:
http://www.speakout.com/Activism/oped/Howlings/09
Why isn't it big news that the Internet's inventors speak so heatedly
against the Republican media claim? Where are the headlines about
that? I've enclosed the most recent of many statements, this one from
Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf. Presented with this statement, the Wired News
reporter who originated the false accusation against Gore actually
responded by suggesting that Vint Cerf was speaking in bad faith,
covering Gore for political reasons. These people will say anything,
which of course is the reason why they accuse Al Gore of the same.
Read it here:
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2000/10/05/gor
A recent article in First Monday also adds some facts to the story by
digging up some of the specifics of Gore's congressional record:
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_10/wiggins/
But this story is defective in two ways. First, it fails to trace
the false claim back to Wired News. And second, more disturbingly,
it accepts, for no clear reason, and despite the massive evidence
to the contrary, the claim that Gore's assertion was false. This is
so strange. It's like we're all in a lunatic asylum. Look: Al Gore,
during his service in the United States Congress, took the initiative
in creating the Internet. This is a plain fact. It sounds like a
wild claim only to people who aren't acquainted with the remarkable
reality of Gore's very early and very extensive work on the issue.
[clip]
It is a repeat already... look 5 stories down for "Public Debate between Valenti and Lessig" -- Lessig is one of the 7 North American candidates.
I had no trouble voting Sunday night.
I was going to buy it without even knowing what it did, just to help support more Linux games.
Too bad it was a hoax.
Chris
How many judges can use the acronym "API" in a complete sentence?
Whenever we see litigation concerning software, we always find ourself in amazement that judges have such little understanding of software and can come up with such off-the-wall verdicts.
This judge, on the contrary, seems to understand the subject extremely well!
Chris
>[for one client, I] maintain several hundred thousand lines of undocumented code... working without a sound-process base is irritating
>...
>For my other client, we did a formal spec and design, and finished the implementation ahead of schedule and under budget.
Two different projects in two different states of development. I bet there were (or will be) times when both perspectives applied (or will apply) to both projects.
If the second project is lucky enough to live beyond it's initial writers employment, there will be new programmers moaning how poorly the project was built... they'll find hacks, they'll find code that's contrary to the documentation as proof. They'll cast aspersions upon your mother.
Teamwork is important. Was this where the first project failed ("everybody quit or got fired")? If not, I bet when they initially wrote it, there were design & requirement specs and lots of documentation and research; they were probably proud of what they did and how they did it. Have you ever talked to one of the initial programmers about their design? If so, ask them to recall the design phase (not clouded by the day they were fired).
A small amount of documentation and research is important; but my experience is: programmers want to do R delivery is not important. Analyzing the process of analysis (writing a book on requirements) draws attention away from the reality of programming which is (or should be) spent in integration and maintenance (which they don't teach, they just say is a bad thing that can be avoided if you write more requirements and perfect the design on paper).
I've spent many years writing tools to help programmers. I've written CASE systems. I once spent six months in the requirements phase of a to-be-bloated design-by-large-commitee project (I left that company before the design phase even started).
I think every graduate knows they can write a better language.
Can they deliver an application?
Chris
> 2)Your boss usually wants to keep that code (that he paid for) to themselves. Let's face it, that project probably took 4-5 man years, and cost him (Fully loaded costs), in the order of 1 million dollars. You don't GIVE that to you competition for free, or you go out of business, fast
So, Open Source has no business models?
You need to convince yourself and your boss that software is a service, not a product. Even Balmer said that a few weeks ago (in his "how to eat your golden-egg-laying-goose" speech).
Unless (or, maybe, even if) you're a large company with market share, that code you spent $1M writing will soon be lost forever. You'll have wasted your time and your bosses money.
Name any large, currently popular, application, not written by a large company, whose code dates back over 5 years. Only Open Source lives and evolves, unless you're M$ and your customers will blindly buy whatever you sell.
Chris
>If you think requirements are academic, then you haven't been in industry.
;)
Programming in industry for 20 years (since college).
>I've worked at corporations that neglected requirements documents, and those that required them. The difference is night and day.
I used to live this delusion too. When you're old enough to look back, you'll realize that over emphasis on requirements and design cost more than they save.
>Perhaps previous OSS projects were mostly little ones.
It's the other way around: small projects benefit more from over design. Large projects never get finished because of too much emphasis on requirements and design.
I've got to stop replying to all of these now; I realize I've struck a nerve in the youthful programmers who need a conversion of consciousness. I'm afraid experience is the only thing that will help you realize the delusion
Chris
>But the whole point of Software Engineering is to make maintenance & integration easier!!
Supposed to, but doesn't.
>Suppose you are handed a tarball full of Mozilla or Linux kernel source code. If you have never looked at it before, you would be lost.
The art of integration and maintenance requires a focus on the problem at hand, not wasting time understanding how the whole thing works.
>UML diagrams, design documents, requirements all came around *because* it is so difficult to write huge projects without structure.
Aiding interprogrammer communication within a project is a great goal; I'm skeptical of throwing more software at a software problem: usually you find the "cure" to be buggy enough, or irrelevant enough, to cause more time to be wasted.
>And what if there is no code ready to modify?
There's always a starting point available; it inflates your ego to think you're doing something unique, but don't be a prima donna!
>If you have to start from scratch, you'll be doing to OSS community a huge favour by providing good documents along with your source!
Comments are often irrelevant: they were placed their during initial coding, and over integration hacking will lead you astray. The code is the relevant information.
Chris
Actually, you're wrong.
I realize it seems logical that spending lots of time in requirements and design should benefit the final product. And, to cover your legal a** when designing medical, military, or flight systems you better waste lots of time writing requirements and design.
But, this is software.
The complexity/chaos makes extra work in requirements and design (especially CASE systems) meaningless.
That's been proven over and over again for 20 years. If you're designing "hello whirrled", then extra emphasis in requirements and design can help.
Once you're writing something useful, extra efforts in requirements and design can actually be disastrous.
The problem is, most programmers don't want to do any real work: like you, they want to be rocket scientists. They want to design; they don't want to integrate or maintain, so they come up with silly excuses like yours.
It takes years after college to unlearn this crap. When a programmer comes up to me and says "I'm 90% done", I realize he's done the requirements, the design, and the coding, and he's done some debugging.
He's got the other 90% to go (and that's just the integration; not the other 400% maintenance that he's going to try to squirm out of).
Chris
The way to develop software is to find some open source code that does most of what you need, modify it to do the rest!
The problem with any approach that focuses on requirements, design, and style is that it doesn't help those software development lifecycle stages where software spends most of it's time: integration and maintenance.
Another academic approach for rocket scientist wanabees! Nothing to do with practical programming.
Chris
The author also didn't disclose how much RAM.
You'd need 10MBytes for an xterminal + 4MBytes of video ram, at least.
I wonder if the price goes down if you throw away the disk?
Is their a built-in NIC on this?
Finally, how fast is the processor?
Chris
Linus has often stated that MS is not a concern. The Open Source paradigm is a fundamental change much as PC's were a fundamental change in the 80's.
But, a rivalry can be a good thing: The football team performs better against a cross-town rival. A commune of religious zealots can be more productive than their capitalist counterparts. A group of people perceiving an external threat will decrease the amount of space they normally keep between each other. The world would probably be very peaceful if we all believed aliens were going to attack ("my enemy's enemy is my friend").
As long as we don't take it too far (at the end of the football game, win or loose, don't get in a fight with the other teams fans).
Chris