1 - In order to get paid for something you have to be able to withhold whatever is that's being paid for. You can't say, "I'll give this to you for $100 or for $0 and expect many people to pay you.
2 - Businesses require money to survive. Duh...
This makes Open Source Business Model seem a little stupid. I know that there are companies doing well out there in the Open Source arena but they are not selling software! This is where the distrobution companies seem to get trapped. They have to put together a great distribution which is expensive but they really have to sell services which are expensive. Most of them suck at the service part ie. tech support, update services, etc which is the only place they can really make money. Caldera thought they got the idea when they changed their licensing but they are trying to sell something that anybody can get for free or so it seems.
The bottom line is all important to a company. I suspect that all of the distros will die except one or two within the next 18 months. The few remaining will either have some great support or update service that will drive the business or they will be supported by the likes of IBM in the pursuit of hardware sales (never free like beer). Debian of course is mostly imune to all of this which is the beauty of it really.
Microsoft would also have to monitor all changes it makes to all versions of Windows and track any alterations that would slow down or "degrade the performance of" any third-party application such as Internet browsers, e-mail client software, multimedia viewing software, instant messaging software and voice recognition software.
This is huge because it not only levels the windows apps playing field it creates even more work for the OS team. Keep in mind that MS achieved dominance to a great degree because Windows has been a moving target. MS apps are often more stable (if you can beleive that) because MS by design breaks everybody else's stuff - anybody at Borland, Corel, Novel, Sun, etc want to back me up on this?
I think that the truely fitting remedy in this area would be to GPL critical portions of the OS and API and make them use SourceForge (the free service even) to manage the project.
I've been supporting office apps since WordPerfect 5.2. My needs are the same as they were in 1990.
1 - A word processor that doesn't crash and can read and write everybodies pretty docs quickly and easily.
2 - A spreadsheet that doesn't crash that can read and write everybodies large, complex spreadsheets quickly and easily.3 - An email application that doesn't crash that can read, write and query everybodies mail and attachments.
4 - A database that doesn't crash that easily reads, writes and manipulates everybodies data formats.
Anything else is gravy and I can only take so much gravy (I'm sure someone will disagree with me on this one).
Meanwhile, there's a study circulating saying that people don't and won't purchase heavily restricted music online at higher prices for a less useful item. This is apparently a revelation to the music industry.
This has been understood by the music industry all along. They are just playing dumb to the matter. The music industry is starving off as much online activity as possible and why not? They have an extremely lucrative monopoly on music distribution and broadcast. Any change from the norm, no matter how positive for the consumer, is nothing but a threat to this money machine.
Since IANAMIG (I am not a music industry guru) I sit back and wonder why more independant music isn't free on the Internet. Like free software it may be the best way to get noticed when another product dominates the commercial market eg. Gimp. I don't know if current laws prevent such distribution or if there are too few artists unwilling to give their work away or if I just haven't been looking in the right places. I have to look at the Grateful Dead policy toward recording concerts (you can record and distribute but you can't profit from the music - you can charge for media, shipping etc.) and wonder why this isn't more prevalent. Are most like my musician friends from high school - just waiting to make millions when they are discovered by a big recording label?
IBM wants to spend one tenth as much for development of an OS that isn't tied to Microsoft that it can give away (which got them in trouble before) with its hardware (which is its real business). Why would this surprise anyone?
Two more points.
1 - Linux isn't AIX and has a ways to go. Same with OS/400, etc.
2 - IBM doesn't want to control Linux as long as it can do what they need. They got in trouble for giving their OS away before. Giving away somebody else's OS I assume is OK though.
Hey Taco, it sounds like your notebook was nabbed by the shipping company. Is this Dell's fault? What are the terms of the agreement? Ever wonder what FOB is? Check your contract for details. Then ask yourself who you would rather believe - the shipping company or some college kid. Yea, I know - it's a toss up. Which benefits Dell most? There's your answer.
As for the dropping of Linux, this is a no-brain decision for Dell. I bet that less than one tenth of one percent of their notebooks and desktops go out with Linux. It's not worth their time. Can we punish them for dropping Linux? I doubt we could make an impact that would affect change until Linux really is ready for the desktop or until some truely killer app (no, not Emacs) requires it.
2 - He's lamenting over the lack of funds available to his company as opposed to Ximian who seems to have a broken business model.
3 - Ximian should thank him for pointing this out.
Don't get me wrong. I like what Ximian has done and I love the whole GNOME project but GNOME != a business model. That doesn't mean it's not a great project.
1 - I'm impressed with the business model. Finally someone realizes that giving away desktop software doesn't make money. You either sell it or do it because you love it.
2 - I like that they give away the infrastructure and sell add-ons. This benefits everyone it seems. I do wonder what happens if competition pops up. I mean, what happens if I make better Kivio stencils than TheKompany? Do they continue to enhance Kivio and thus benefit me or do they break the infrastructure a la Microsoft?
3 - I actually hope they don't get a flood of seed money. There are way too many good companies that are ruined by seed money. It's like taking a strong young cyclist and pumping him full of steroids and asking him to ride the Tour De France. Some will adapt and survive while most will quit and never ride again. I guarantee that venture kapital will make working at TheKompany !fun. Growing a company is fun. Growing a company at the speed that venture capitalists expect is almost impossible - and rather painful.
> And why should the people who want to program them all have to be obsessed gaming maniacs who have no balance in their lives?
The reason is simple. People love games. I know people who stay up all night playing games. Their lives revolve around games. This excitement permeates the industry and it's seen in what it has produced. How much innovation in hardware and software has originated in the gaming industry lately? Quite a bit.
Your point is well taken. I think that most industries can and will support a reasonable lifestyle but the industries that are _really_fun_ or perceived as such are different. Sure there are exceptions to the rule but look at any industry that's considered fun. It's either really competitive or next to impossible to make a living. I worked in adventure travel. It's tough to make a living at that because people do it simply because they love it. When was the last time you stayed up all night playing with your copier or fax machine? Does this mean that your industry doesn't do good work? No, but it may mean that there aren't as many wild technological leaps being made there.
I had a similar requirement about 18 months ago. I checked out Jinfonet and it seemed pretty nice. I had no budget so I instead used PHP, and LaTeX and some TeX to PDF converter. It was nice since I could offer the option to output to a printer, view a couple pages in HTML, view the whole thing in PDF or export to CSV. I used the largetable macro in LaTeX I think. The output was quite nice but I didn't have time to mess with formatting very much. It wouldn't have been too hard to create several templates. Now I'm stuck with an NT system using Crystal Reports. It's quite nice to design in but not as fast or fun as before.
I am not in the gaming industry but I have read enough articles to make me think that those who survive that industry are those who are totally consumed by it. If you can't stop thinking about games and programming and optimization and graphics then maybe this is the industry for you. If you consume everything you can get your hands on - books, source code, games then you likely know what to do next. If this just sounds cool then you will likely be competing with people more dedicated than yourself.
At first this seemed ironic in that a media company was suing another media company (which also happened to be an ISP) in what would definitely be viewed as a ground breaking case. Then I remembered that one way to bolster the strength of a legal position is to win a court case based on that position. I think that if AOL were purely an ISP it would have thrown everything it had at this case because it set a dangerous precedent, but since AOL is a media company it benefits more from the strengthening of copyright case law. Why isn't anyone sueing the blank CDR manufacturers for the same thing, facilitating the illegal transfer of copyrighted materials? Because that case can't be won just yet.
All conspiracy theories aside, doesn't it bother anyone that the DoD is spending $72 million to "clean up" someone else's mess? Isn't this essentially hazardous waste and as such subject to the laws that govern hazardous waste? Those who created this mess should not be allowed to simply walk away from it.
I finally got it through my head that the business world sees the internet as nothing more than virtual real estate. These new TLDs are nothing more than an attempt at creating some new prime real estate. It's not that unlike finding a cheap space out in some remote mountain range and building a ski resort. Will people come? I won't holding my breath.
The companies behind the new TLDs will reap rewards from the companies that feel they must cover their bases and register within all TLDs. Whether new names are started within the new TLDs will depend on whether the TLD actually provides some value. If a TLD offers legitimacy to a site then people will use it but I suspect greed will prevail and the real value won't surface.
Novell rears its ugly head - again.
on
Is Novell Doomed?
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· Score: 1
I heard from a reliable source that Microsoft once again thinks that Novell is a threat to its income stream. Whether it's the ASP market, directory market or the other miscellaneous products that give them this distinction I'm not sure, but they are on the MS radar again.
The antitrust case is irrevalent. This is because the case will take so long that MS will be done with Windows and IE before anything is decided. This is evident from MS's continued brazen behavior.
What I wish Novell would do is figure out a little bit about marketing. This is where they have always sucked. MS has often been technologically inferior to Novell but the MS marketing department makes Novell look like idiots time after time. This has to change. Novell also has to have a long term stategy again. They spent too many years focusing on this quarters earnings instead of long term goals.
What I could really use from Novell is NDS for small companies. I would love to see a package that would allow me to administer my Windows and Linux servers and clients from a single system - especially one that can scale like NDS. I don't know why I can't log onto the CompUSA website and purchase a 25 user pack for NDS that will easilly install on all my current systems. What a concept, "I could sell what I've already developed." Instead I think Novell is only selling NDS to large corporations that got into bed with Novell in the Netware 2.x and 3.x days. That's not selling. That's slow death.
1 - What do people need from IPv6? What can we do to make this a bigger need or a need exclusive to us?
2 - Can I embrace and extend?
3 - What does this cost me? Support? Development resources?
4 - Can I release just before a crisis (remember Y2K? - oh maybe just after the crisis) to force an upgrade? Most consumers haven't even heard of IPv6 yet. Thus no economic value.
Actually I think that this release is more genuine than most people think. MS _has_ to remain compatible with the rest of the market at least to a basic degree. Remember all the articles about the companies, including MS, that use something other than NT for their web servers? They aren't stupid. They would not make their OSs incompatible with half of The Net.
Hey, maybe they're waiting until all their web servers are NT based. This could take a while...
You make it sound like a gift. It's his employer not his parents. He supposedly offers something of equal value in return.
On the patent issue, there is a question of whether it can be defended. If it's really lucrative and the company business model is sound then there's a chance the patent will hold up just because it's well funded. When the patent is challenged, which side do you want to be chearing for? If the patent holds up, would you rather be rich and ashamed or at another job and bitter? If the patent dies, would you rather be poor and ashamed or at another job and pleased?
I say "at another job" because you say "they" are beyond listening. Obviously "they" see this differently than you do.
I think that MP3.com has a sound business model here. The lawsuits may kill it but I still think the recording industry is mad only because they didn't think of it first. If MP3.com survives and everyone but Universal is on board then how stupid will Universal feel?
Seeing a correlation between dot-coms and lawsuits doesn't make dot-coms "bad". The Internet has created a new playing field. New companies have jumped in to define this new game. The establishment plays best on the old field and is resisting _any_ change. The same thing happened when records, tapes, radio, etc were created. It's just unfortunate that the establishment has enough power to erase what technology has made possible. If it doesn't make the rich and powerful more rich and more powerful then it won't happen. Right or wrong doesn't matter.
MP3.com is a perfect example. Here is a well funded company trying to provide a real benefit to the customers of the big record companies. It's easy to argue that MP3.com creates sales for record companies. If I buy a CD and use MP3.com then I get more for the same price. The record company gets a nice chunk of cash and MP3.com gets tenths of cents from advertising. Sounds like a big win for everyone except MP3.com. Sounds like the record companies are doing the "cut off the nose thing" here.
My guess is that pressure will only increase around this issue. Then some big CEO will say something equevalent to "Let them eat cake." and all hell will break loose. People will wake up to the fact that way too much money and power is going to these companies for something that has an incremental cost close to $0.
Most industries continuously deliver more value for less price. Why not here? Why not look at that statistic?
This is a bit flattering for what appears to be a computer that uses genetic algorithms and a prototyping machine to create machines that move (once they are assembled by humans). I'm not saying it isn't cool. It's quite a feat. It's just not "offspring" - not even close...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm going to make 2 assertions:
1 - In order to get paid for something you have to be able to withhold whatever is that's being paid for. You can't say, "I'll give this to you for $100 or for $0 and expect many people to pay you.
2 - Businesses require money to survive. Duh...
This makes Open Source Business Model seem a little stupid. I know that there are companies doing well out there in the Open Source arena but they are not selling software! This is where the distrobution companies seem to get trapped. They have to put together a great distribution which is expensive but they really have to sell services which are expensive. Most of them suck at the service part ie. tech support, update services, etc which is the only place they can really make money. Caldera thought they got the idea when they changed their licensing but they are trying to sell something that anybody can get for free or so it seems.
The bottom line is all important to a company. I suspect that all of the distros will die except one or two within the next 18 months. The few remaining will either have some great support or update service that will drive the business or they will be supported by the likes of IBM in the pursuit of hardware sales (never free like beer). Debian of course is mostly imune to all of this which is the beauty of it really.
This is huge because it not only levels the windows apps playing field it creates even more work for the OS team. Keep in mind that MS achieved dominance to a great degree because Windows has been a moving target. MS apps are often more stable (if you can beleive that) because MS by design breaks everybody else's stuff - anybody at Borland, Corel, Novel, Sun, etc want to back me up on this?
I think that the truely fitting remedy in this area would be to GPL critical portions of the OS and API and make them use SourceForge (the free service even) to manage the project.
I've been supporting office apps since WordPerfect 5.2. My needs are the same as they were in 1990.
1 - A word processor that doesn't crash and can read and write everybodies pretty docs quickly and easily.
2 - A spreadsheet that doesn't crash that can read and write everybodies large, complex spreadsheets quickly and easily.3 - An email application that doesn't crash that can read, write and query everybodies mail and attachments.
4 - A database that doesn't crash that easily reads, writes and manipulates everybodies data formats.
Anything else is gravy and I can only take so much gravy (I'm sure someone will disagree with me on this one).
This has been understood by the music industry all along. They are just playing dumb to the matter. The music industry is starving off as much online activity as possible and why not? They have an extremely lucrative monopoly on music distribution and broadcast. Any change from the norm, no matter how positive for the consumer, is nothing but a threat to this money machine.
Since IANAMIG (I am not a music industry guru) I sit back and wonder why more independant music isn't free on the Internet. Like free software it may be the best way to get noticed when another product dominates the commercial market eg. Gimp. I don't know if current laws prevent such distribution or if there are too few artists unwilling to give their work away or if I just haven't been looking in the right places. I have to look at the Grateful Dead policy toward recording concerts (you can record and distribute but you can't profit from the music - you can charge for media, shipping etc.) and wonder why this isn't more prevalent. Are most like my musician friends from high school - just waiting to make millions when they are discovered by a big recording label?
Thank you. It's somewhat rare that I belly laugh at my computer. ;-)
IBM wants to spend one tenth as much for development of an OS that isn't tied to Microsoft that it can give away (which got them in trouble before) with its hardware (which is its real business). Why would this surprise anyone?
Two more points.
1 - Linux isn't AIX and has a ways to go. Same with OS/400, etc.
2 - IBM doesn't want to control Linux as long as it can do what they need. They got in trouble for giving their OS away before. Giving away somebody else's OS I assume is OK though.
Magnetic Fish
They're really cool until you realize it's not raining outside and that the tapping noise is coming from your "aquarium".
Hey Taco, it sounds like your notebook was nabbed by the shipping company. Is this Dell's fault? What are the terms of the agreement? Ever wonder what FOB is? Check your contract for details. Then ask yourself who you would rather believe - the shipping company or some college kid. Yea, I know - it's a toss up. Which benefits Dell most? There's your answer.
As for the dropping of Linux, this is a no-brain decision for Dell. I bet that less than one tenth of one percent of their notebooks and desktops go out with Linux. It's not worth their time. Can we punish them for dropping Linux? I doubt we could make an impact that would affect change until Linux really is ready for the desktop or until some truely killer app (no, not Emacs) requires it.
1 - He's right.
2 - He's lamenting over the lack of funds available to his company as opposed to Ximian who seems to have a broken business model.
3 - Ximian should thank him for pointing this out.
Don't get me wrong. I like what Ximian has done and I love the whole GNOME project but GNOME != a business model. That doesn't mean it's not a great project.
1 - I'm impressed with the business model. Finally someone realizes that giving away desktop software doesn't make money. You either sell it or do it because you love it.
2 - I like that they give away the infrastructure and sell add-ons. This benefits everyone it seems. I do wonder what happens if competition pops up. I mean, what happens if I make better Kivio stencils than TheKompany? Do they continue to enhance Kivio and thus benefit me or do they break the infrastructure a la Microsoft?
3 - I actually hope they don't get a flood of seed money. There are way too many good companies that are ruined by seed money. It's like taking a strong young cyclist and pumping him full of steroids and asking him to ride the Tour De France. Some will adapt and survive while most will quit and never ride again. I guarantee that venture kapital will make working at TheKompany !fun. Growing a company is fun. Growing a company at the speed that venture capitalists expect is almost impossible - and rather painful.
> And why should the people who want to program them all have to be obsessed gaming maniacs who have no balance in their lives?
The reason is simple. People love games. I know people who stay up all night playing games. Their lives revolve around games. This excitement permeates the industry and it's seen in what it has produced. How much innovation in hardware and software has originated in the gaming industry lately? Quite a bit.
Your point is well taken. I think that most industries can and will support a reasonable lifestyle but the industries that are _really_fun_ or perceived as such are different. Sure there are exceptions to the rule but look at any industry that's considered fun. It's either really competitive or next to impossible to make a living. I worked in adventure travel. It's tough to make a living at that because people do it simply because they love it. When was the last time you stayed up all night playing with your copier or fax machine? Does this mean that your industry doesn't do good work? No, but it may mean that there aren't as many wild technological leaps being made there.
Try http://www.jinfonet.com/
I had a similar requirement about 18 months ago. I checked out Jinfonet and it seemed pretty nice. I had no budget so I instead used PHP, and LaTeX and some TeX to PDF converter. It was nice since I could offer the option to output to a printer, view a couple pages in HTML, view the whole thing in PDF or export to CSV. I used the largetable macro in LaTeX I think. The output was quite nice but I didn't have time to mess with formatting very much. It wouldn't have been too hard to create several templates. Now I'm stuck with an NT system using Crystal Reports. It's quite nice to design in but not as fast or fun as before.
If you have to ask then it's not for you.
I am not in the gaming industry but I have read enough articles to make me think that those who survive that industry are those who are totally consumed by it. If you can't stop thinking about games and programming and optimization and graphics then maybe this is the industry for you. If you consume everything you can get your hands on - books, source code, games then you likely know what to do next. If this just sounds cool then you will likely be competing with people more dedicated than yourself.
Cool. I can attach the patch to an e-mail, modify the mime headers and send to everyone in my company. That should do it...
At first this seemed ironic in that a media company was suing another media company (which also happened to be an ISP) in what would definitely be viewed as a ground breaking case. Then I remembered that one way to bolster the strength of a legal position is to win a court case based on that position. I think that if AOL were purely an ISP it would have thrown everything it had at this case because it set a dangerous precedent, but since AOL is a media company it benefits more from the strengthening of copyright case law. Why isn't anyone sueing the blank CDR manufacturers for the same thing, facilitating the illegal transfer of copyrighted materials? Because that case can't be won just yet.
Beware. I have seen too many times where a temporary situation is the defacto permanent situation.
All conspiracy theories aside, doesn't it bother anyone that the DoD is spending $72 million to "clean up" someone else's mess? Isn't this essentially hazardous waste and as such subject to the laws that govern hazardous waste? Those who created this mess should not be allowed to simply walk away from it.
I finally got it through my head that the business world sees the internet as nothing more than virtual real estate. These new TLDs are nothing more than an attempt at creating some new prime real estate. It's not that unlike finding a cheap space out in some remote mountain range and building a ski resort. Will people come? I won't holding my breath. The companies behind the new TLDs will reap rewards from the companies that feel they must cover their bases and register within all TLDs. Whether new names are started within the new TLDs will depend on whether the TLD actually provides some value. If a TLD offers legitimacy to a site then people will use it but I suspect greed will prevail and the real value won't surface.
Telecommuting finally for "manual" laborers.
I heard from a reliable source that Microsoft once again thinks that Novell is a threat to its income stream. Whether it's the ASP market, directory market or the other miscellaneous products that give them this distinction I'm not sure, but they are on the MS radar again.
The antitrust case is irrevalent. This is because the case will take so long that MS will be done with Windows and IE before anything is decided. This is evident from MS's continued brazen behavior.
What I wish Novell would do is figure out a little bit about marketing. This is where they have always sucked. MS has often been technologically inferior to Novell but the MS marketing department makes Novell look like idiots time after time. This has to change. Novell also has to have a long term stategy again. They spent too many years focusing on this quarters earnings instead of long term goals.
What I could really use from Novell is NDS for small companies. I would love to see a package that would allow me to administer my Windows and Linux servers and clients from a single system - especially one that can scale like NDS. I don't know why I can't log onto the CompUSA website and purchase a 25 user pack for NDS that will easilly install on all my current systems. What a concept, "I could sell what I've already developed." Instead I think Novell is only selling NDS to large corporations that got into bed with Novell in the Netware 2.x and 3.x days. That's not selling. That's slow death.
1 - What do people need from IPv6? What can we do to make this a bigger need or a need exclusive to us?
2 - Can I embrace and extend?
3 - What does this cost me? Support? Development resources?
4 - Can I release just before a crisis (remember Y2K? - oh maybe just after the crisis) to force an upgrade? Most consumers haven't even heard of IPv6 yet. Thus no economic value.
Actually I think that this release is more genuine than most people think. MS _has_ to remain compatible with the rest of the market at least to a basic degree. Remember all the articles about the companies, including MS, that use something other than NT for their web servers? They aren't stupid. They would not make their OSs incompatible with half of The Net.
Hey, maybe they're waiting until all their web servers are NT based. This could take a while...
"they pay your bills"
You make it sound like a gift. It's his employer not his parents. He supposedly offers something of equal value in return.
On the patent issue, there is a question of whether it can be defended. If it's really lucrative and the company business model is sound then there's a chance the patent will hold up just because it's well funded. When the patent is challenged, which side do you want to be chearing for? If the patent holds up, would you rather be rich and ashamed or at another job and bitter? If the patent dies, would you rather be poor and ashamed or at another job and pleased?
I say "at another job" because you say "they" are beyond listening. Obviously "they" see this differently than you do.
I think that MP3.com has a sound business model here. The lawsuits may kill it but I still think the recording industry is mad only because they didn't think of it first. If MP3.com survives and everyone but Universal is on board then how stupid will Universal feel?
Seeing a correlation between dot-coms and lawsuits doesn't make dot-coms "bad". The Internet has created a new playing field. New companies have jumped in to define this new game. The establishment plays best on the old field and is resisting _any_ change. The same thing happened when records, tapes, radio, etc were created. It's just unfortunate that the establishment has enough power to erase what technology has made possible. If it doesn't make the rich and powerful more rich and more powerful then it won't happen. Right or wrong doesn't matter.
MP3.com is a perfect example. Here is a well funded company trying to provide a real benefit to the customers of the big record companies. It's easy to argue that MP3.com creates sales for record companies. If I buy a CD and use MP3.com then I get more for the same price. The record company gets a nice chunk of cash and MP3.com gets tenths of cents from advertising. Sounds like a big win for everyone except MP3.com. Sounds like the record companies are doing the "cut off the nose thing" here.
My guess is that pressure will only increase around this issue. Then some big CEO will say something equevalent to "Let them eat cake." and all hell will break loose. People will wake up to the fact that way too much money and power is going to these companies for something that has an incremental cost close to $0.
Most industries continuously deliver more value for less price. Why not here? Why not look at that statistic?
This is a bit flattering for what appears to be a computer that uses genetic algorithms and a prototyping machine to create machines that move (once they are assembled by humans). I'm not saying it isn't cool. It's quite a feat. It's just not "offspring" - not even close...