Archives
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SCO says it will show code in Linux dispute
"Friday May 30, 5:31 pm ET By Ben Berkowitz LOS ANGELES, May 30 (Reuters) - SCO Group Inc. (NasdaqSC:SCOX - News), in a dispute with IBM and others over claims its intellectual property rights to the Unix operating system have been violated by competing software, on Friday said it will begin to open its code in a bid to show it has been improperly used."
[Yahoo Finance] -
New Skin (Part II)
With a little of his own enginuity, Dan has come up with a standards compliant tweak of my reskinning trick. Cool stuff.
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Real Talent
You thought your kid was talented. You thought he was going places. Then, this guy showed up:
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New Skin
Took a little enginuity and unconventional thinking...but I made my own skin (got tired of the plain old look). I wish there was a built in way to do this with the .netweblogs config stuff... but till then, I have my own solution :-).
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As Promised: My Response to Dr. Edgar
1. Free access to public information by the citizen.
2. Permanence of public data.
3. Security of the State and citizens.
As we all know, #1 has nothing to do with whether the software is open source or not or whether you must pay for the software (In the end, the government has to build the apps in which their data is stored, regardless of whether the original software is open source or not... and that will cost significantly more than the software packages they using). However, as Edgar correctly points out:
"To guarantee the free access of citizens to public information, it is indespensable that the encoding of data is not tied to a single provider. The use of standard and open formats gives a guarantee of this free access, if necessary through the creation of compatible free software."
Which is a interesting point, though I would suggest that it isn't a valid one. The file formats themselves in most of these cases have little to do with anything. For one, the Office apps can just about all save in XML now (documented and standardized...even if it is a proprietary standard). However, lets talk databases now. Who the hell is going to reverse engineer the format of a SQL server database to get their data out when T-SQL is already a standardized way to get that data in and out? Even if the information on the file format was available, it would be a rediculous suggestion that someone should write their own raw data reader. Yes, you are going to face migration costs if you move to another platform, but using open source tools doesn't solve this. If you want to move from MySQL to PostgreSQL, you face the same issues as moving from MySql to MS SQL.
The suggestion that the government might one day create it's own "compatible" word processors and sql servers is really astonishing. Maybe the Dr. isn't that familiar with the software development process... or maybe he takes the fact that the copy of Word he used to type his response took hundreds of developers thousands of man years to develop.
"To guarantee the permanence of public data, it is necessary that the usability and maintenance of the software does not depend on the goodwill of the suppliers, or on the monopoly conditions imposed by them. For this reason the State needs systems the development of which can be guaranteed due to the availability of the source code."
Fortunately, the usability of the software is determined by the market, not the suppliers. However, the maintenance issue is another interesting point. I guess that their is a very small possibility that Microsoft will all of the sudden decide it doesn't want to make any more copies of Word or SQL Server and it will just drop the product line all-together. Don't see this happening any time soon though, and it is hardly something to waste much time worrying about.
"To guarantee national security or the security of the State, it is indispensable to be able to rely on systems without elements which allow control from a distance or the undesired transmission of information to third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible to the public are required to allow their inspection by the State itself, by the citizens, and by a large number of independent experts throughout the world. Our proposal brings further security, since the knowledge of the source code will eliminate the growing number of programs with *spy code*."
The first part of this statement has nothing to do with OpenSource vs. Non-OpenSource, but the line about the state itself having to inspect the source code is pretty lame. Like any group of less than 10,000 people is going to be able to look over the millions of lines of code in an operating system like Windows to make sure it meets their code requirements. Ahh...you might say, but this is why OpenSource is good: anyone can look at the source. Yah, but who actually does? If anything, giving your code out to the world does nothing to increase your security, unless you trust that the good guys are smarter and more properly funded than the bad guys. This usually isn't the case. This is like posting your network map up on your web site for all the hackers to take a look and drool over. It is like the army broadcasting the current position of all their troops to the enemy and saying, "just don't bomb these red dots, because that would cripple our ground forces." Not very rational to me, but some people think with different metaphors... A solution like Microsoft's Shared Source is much more preferable, because it is like sharing your network map with a group of your network consultants or sharing your information about your troop locations and movements with your allies, rather than the world.
"Furthermore, the Bill *stimulates* competition, since it tends to generate a supply of software with better conditions of usability, and to better existing work, in a model of continuous improvement."
Yah, right. So, this "continuous improvement model" (a la "OpenSource") has generated a lot of more usuable software... like... umm? what? Yah, it betters existing work, but making a pile of crap smell nicer doesn't change the fact that it is still a pile of crap. Look at GIMP. Look at OpenOffice. Look at KDE. Then, come back and tell me with a straight face that they are easier to use than the proprietary equivalents (PhotoShop, Word, Windows). Some pundits might argue, "but those projects are still a lot younger." Yah, your point? If they aren't ready for prime time, then neither is a bill which supposes they are.
"In respect of the jobs generated by proprietary software in countries like ours, these mainly concern technical tasks of little aggregate value; at the local level, the technicians who provide support for proprietary software produced by transnational companies do not have the possibility of fixing bugs, not necessarily for lack of technical capability or of talent, but because they do not have access to the source code to fix it. With free software one creates more technically qualified employment and a framework of free competence where success is only tied to the ability to offer good technical support and quality of service, one stimulates the market, and one increases the shared fund of knowledge, opening up alternatives to generate services of greater total value and a higher quality level, to the benefit of all involved: producers, service organizations, and consumers."
Yes, and this is exactly the point. You create jobs in the service sector and never allow any decent sized commercial software companies to grow up. As a result, companies in your country are faced with two options:
1) Buy the software from company X based in some other country.
or
2) Use some free software and pay for support from company X based in some other country.
Yah, the possibility exists that you might have some linux based consulting companies spring up, but as soon as the market becomes big enough, RedHat sweeps in and provides better support and takes the money back to home base, somewhere else. You probably don't even get many new jobs in your economy now, since the support is shipped off to some call center in another location anyway and those little startups that did manage to stick around can no longer survive.
Of course, this isn't even to mention that the potential revenue per hour from a killer app (or even a decent selling app) is much greater than the providing services, since the revenue growth is exponential, not linear.
"But it is also well-known that the bugs in free software are fewer, and are fixed much more quickly, than in proprietary software"
Or commonly assumed. However, as we know, last year there were more linux security advisories than MS advisories (http://www.wininformant.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=27428). Maybe some day people will stop believing the linux FUD?
"the inclusion of the intellectual property of others in works claimed as one's own is not a practice that has been noted in the free software community"
uhh.... ever heard of SCO? (http://www.linuxworld.com/2003/0310.barr.html). A congress person resorting to implied ad homenim attacks? Can you imagine that :-).
"Now the use of free software contributes significantly to reduce the remaining life-cycle costs. This reduction in the costs of installation, support etc. can be noted in several areas: in the first place, the competitive service model of free software, support and maintenance for which can be freely contracted out to a range of suppliers competing on the grounds of quality and low cost. This is true for installation, enabling, and support, and in large part for maintenance. In the second place, due to the reproductive characteristics of the model, maintenance carried out for an application is easily replicable, without incurring large costs (that is, without paying more than once for the same thing) since modifications, if one wishes, can be incorporated in the common fund of knowledge. Thirdly, the huge costs caused by non-functioning software ("blue screens of death", malicious code such as virus, worms, and trojans, exceptions, general protection faults and other well-known problems) are reduced considerably by using more stable software; and it is well-known that one of the most notable virtues of free software is its stability. "
Yah right. Installation (not even to touch on uninstallation) is NOT easier for any open source product I have used. Yes, it is getting better, but it aint window's installer. Support isn't going to be any cheaper either. And let's talk about matinence for a while. You ever tried to change some of these "standardized","open format" config files on a linux system? Time to break out your text editor and search through a couple gigs of howto's. Wouldn't be as bad if there was something like MSDN for linux... but it is still a pain in the arse when all your config files use some random format that the 13 year old who wrote that part of the operating system decided upon (ok, that is ad hominem, I admit... but it might be the truth). Just because linux doesn't doesn't give you a blue screen when it goes down doesn't mean it doesn't go down. We recently had a hell of a time with a "non-windows" box over here which randomly decided to overwrite a config file with HTML. The only solution support could give us was to reinstall the OS, because that was when the file was created and it wasn't easy to restore.
"Let us analyze your stament in two parts. Your first argument, that migration implies high costs, is in reality an argument in favour of the Bill. Because the more time goes by, the more difficult migration to another technology will become; and at the same time, the security risks associated with proprietary software will continue to increase. In this way, the use of proprietary systems and formats will make the State ever more dependent on specific suppliers. Once a policy of using free software has been established (which certainly, does imply some cost) then on the contrary migration from one system to another becomes very simple, since all data is stored in open formats. On the other hand, migration to an open software context implies no more costs than migration between two different proprietary software contexts, which invalidates your argument completely."
Let us analyze your statement in two parts. Your first argument is that migration will become more and more expensive. The goal here is not to migrate, that is what things like webservices are for. But, if the time comes where you need to migrate, proprietary products generally have great support for this, since they depend on it in order to generate revenue. Look at the document support in every major commercial word processor vs. that of every open source word processor and you will know what I mean. StarOffice is perhaps the only package that somewhat decent support there... but the importer architecture is horrible and is currently being reworked, because it is too tightly bound to the rest of the Star Office code. I thought the "everyone gets to see this" model was supposed to eliminate that type of thing...? Well, it doesn't, because everyone takes a look at horrible it is (the German comments and variable names don't help much), and then walks away to work on something cooler, so it takes 4 years to rework the architecture and then another 4 to rebuild the plugins on top of it.
"The second argument refers to "problems in interoperability of the IT platforms within the State, and between the State and the private sector" This statement implies a certain lack of knowledge of the way in which free software is built, which does not maximize the dependence of the user on a particular platform, as normally happens in the realm of proprietary software. Even when there are multiple free software distributions, and numerous programs which can be used for the same function, interoperability is guaranteed as much by the use of standard formats, as required by the bill, as by the possibility of creating interoperable software given the availability of the source code. "
Your response indicates a lack of knowledge of the way free software is built. It is notoriously difficult to interoperate with. The prefered method of using most widely used open source components (zlib, libjpeg, etc.) is to statically link them with your program (the standard GPL license reflects this to a wide degree). This ain't exactly interoperability. Moving on, where is the web service support in the linux OS? Sun is working on some webservice stuff, but MS was first there. The MS value proposition is built upon a component based model, this is something that, outside of the java community, most of the linux world misses (see Miguel de Icaza's "Let's Make Linux not Suck" paper for more on that).
The final statement goes something like this:
"Now, software deals with information and is itself information. Information in a special form, capable of being interpreted by a machine in order to execute actions, but crucial information all the same because the citizen has a legitimate right to know, for example, how his vote is computed or his taxes calculated. And for that he must have free access to the source code and be able to prove to his satisfaction the programs used for electoral computations or calculation of his taxes."
So, my final question would be, what the hell does that have to do with whether or not the government's tax program runs on top of Windows / .NET vs. Linux / php?
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Congressman's Response to BillG's Letter
Peruvian Congressman responds to
BillG'sJuan Alberto González's (MSFT) letter to congress. -
Video Games are Good for You
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ETCON2003 videos
You kind find a few taped sessions from ETCON2003 here:
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Let the Games Begin
Novell:
"Importantly, and contrary to SCO's assertions, SCO is not the owner of the UNIX copyrights. Not only would a quick check of U.S. Copyright Office records reveal this fact, but a review of the asset transfer agreement between Novell and SCO confirms it. To Novell's knowledge, the 1995 agreement governing SCO's purchase of UNIX from Novell does not convey to SCO the associated copyrights. We believe it unlikely that SCO can demonstrate that it has any ownership interest whatsoever in those copyrights. Apparently, you share this view, since over the last few months you have repeatedly asked Novell to transfer the copyrights to SCO, requests that Novell has rejected."1 -
Down Market
The VSM article brings up something I've been hearing a lot lately, that this is a "Down Market" time. Maybe things are different out in the Midwest, but it has definately not been a down-market time for us. Revenues have doubled over the past year (ok, we are a start-up, so that isn't saying as much as if it was MS doubling their revenues, but it ain't too shabby either) and we have more work that we could ever hope to get done. And this is a down market? I don't even want to know what the "up market" looks like, we don't get enough sleep as it is...
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C# Developers Earn More (Part 2)
"Quite a few readers and more than a few Web sites questioned the results published in our most recent salary survey, "2003 Salary Survey: How Do Your Earnings Stack Up?" by Susannah Pfalzer [VSM June 2003]. They told us that C# developers can't really command significantly more money than VB.NET developers, when the languages are so similar.
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IPV6
Nice little tip from the VS.NET 1.1 (final) installer.
"To enable IPv6 for a particular client or Web application, you must make the following changes to your Application configuration file (app.config) or your Web configuration file (web.config):
<configuration>
<system.net>
<settings>
<!-- The following entry enables IPv6 support in the System.Net classes. IPv6 support is predicated on availability of an IPv6 WinSock provider. -->
<ipv6 enabled="true" />
</settings>
</system.net>
</configuration>" -
Speech Enabled
MSDN has posted upgraded versions of two ASP.NET reference applications which support speech based interfaces using the Microsoft.NET Speech SDK (IBuySpy and FM Stocks).
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How Sexy am I?
"Jesse, you're Chic 'n' Sexy
Armani, Prada, Diesel, Sean John — they've got nothing on you. Wherever you go, trends follow — that's just the way it is. Your style precludes anything else you do, and that's what sets you apart from the crowd. You're a chameleon of sorts when it comes to sexy — able to change your shade to match the right mood, event, or setting. Careful, don't hurt yourself on that cutting edge. You're so fashion forward that you can hang with the sharpest people around. But you know what they say, you can take a fashionista to 5th Avenue, but you can't make them look as good as you. " -
Tablet PC OS Woes
So, I have the OS installed now. But, due either to the botched MSDN iso's or some installation glytch, a mess of device drivers got crapped up, and I can't install any new devices either. Wouldn't be a big deal if it was just a sound card or something (I can live without that for a while), but TCP/IP is broken along with my network adapters, which means IIS won't run either. I am working with PSS to resolve the issue, and they are extremely good with customer service, but know suprisingly little about the Tablet PC OS. I guess they don't get to many Tablet PC calls yet (they didn't even know that the Tablet OS was built on top of XP, they seemed to think it was some type of CE device)...
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Metadata
"A lot of our habits are left over from a small-memory world. There was a time when you couldn't get the whole program in memory. So it became important to discard the names used in a program when the program is done. I take issue with the idea that you don't have to call things what they are. And I take issue with the notion that the program will get done. Any program that's being used isn't done. The notion that it'll be done, and we can forget about it, is the biggest lie that we've founded our practices on."
[Infoworld] -
Tablet PC OS / SDK
So, in case I find some time to do some Tablet dev, I installed the Tablet PC SDK. Very cool stuff. Automatically, it ink enables your PC (even if it isn't a Tablet), so you can actually develop some Tablet apps on your PC. Of course, if you need to take advantage of the standard MS text recognition engines, you have to install the Tablet PC OS on your PC. Interestingly, you can install the Tablet OS on any PC, not just a Tablet. A handful of features will be disabled, of course, if your device does not support them, but Ink and recognition are not any of those features.
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Winning Stuff
"Apparently I just won a Tablet PC! Wow! I never win anything. And with just about 8 significant lines of code... apparently I've been trying too hard, all my life. ;-)
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Reducing the Noise
I've added a special ENT based filter option to the .NET Weblogs archive. For example:
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More on SForce
"Marc Benioff is out to prove that the current crop of enterprise applications is destined for the scrap heap. During a Face to Face interview, Benioff told ZDNet's Dan Farber that his mission is to destroy enterprise software as it exists today. So far, the 38-year-old former Oracle executive and Larry Ellison protege hasn't destroyed the traditional software model, but the company he founded four years ago as a utility-like, on demand software service is gaining converts. "
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Royale With Cheese
Interesting comments:
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SForce WebServices
"Salesforce probably gets too many requests for special changes," said Sheryl Kingstone, an analyst at the Yankee Group. "It's really a business case. They can't build in all the one-off customer features that everyone wants, so the best alternative is to give the customers the tools to build it themselves."
[ZDNET] -
Prototypes
"I've basically given up on software prototypes. If the prototype can do everything the product can do, it might as well be the product, and if it can't, it's not much use. Luckily, there's a much better idea: paper prototypes, which neatly solve this problem and the iceberg problem in one fell swoop. Even luckier, Carolyn Snyder has just written a great new book, Paper Prototyping, on the subject. This is an essential reference for anyone designing user interfaces, and it's well written to boot."
[Joel on Software] -
Matrix Revolutions
If you didn't stay for the credits, you probably missed this.
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.NET Weblogs Archive
Made some changes to the .NET Weblogs Archives tonight per the request of Luke. The archiver should now understand the Last Modified header and act appropriately, so that the archiver doesn't use your bandwidth unless there are actually new items. If you support the header on your feed, please give it a check and let me know if it isn't functioning properly. The code looks fine to me and appears to be working, but appearances can be deceiving :-).
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Matrix Reloaded Comments
1. It is a very different movie.
2. It is a very cool movie. -
Why not Stored Procs?
"But just as the leading database makers conquer the technological challenges of complicated jobs, they are getting a deflating new message from customers who have taken such performance for granted: Buyers also want database software that's more reliable, easier to manage and cheaper to maintain."
[ZDNET] -
Matrix
Matrix Reloaded. Tonight. 10:00 PM CST. That's 8:00 for all you Redmondites. :-P
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Bug Tracking
"Jesse is working on a bug tracking system in 100% managed code. Scott has posted an awesome article on the Myth of .NET Purity. Given that I agree with Scott, you might think I'd disagree with Jesse avoiding other system on the basis that they "aren't .NET based". However, Jesse isn't just building a stand alone system - it's integrated with VS.NET. Also, the way you can build bug tracking directly into your production app is very cool. I wonder if Jesse is inspired at all by "Production Debugging for .NET Applications".
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VS.NET
Does you bug tracking system do this?
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MS ISV Tour
If you are work for an ISV, you may be interested in Microsoft's ISV tour. If you register before the 18th, you get in free.
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WS-Crapper
"ON MONDAY, three representatives for the software giant told news agencies, including The Associated Press, that an April 30 news release trumpeting the “iLoo” was a hoax and apologized for “any confusion or offense.” But on Tuesday, the company reversed itself, saying the iLoo was real but now has been killed.
“We jumped the gun basically yesterday in confirming that it was a hoax, and in fact it was not,” said Lisa Gurry, MSN group product manager. “Definitely, we’re going to be taking a good look at our communication processes internally.”
[MSNBC] -
Stack Traces
Just when you think you know all the cool stuff the framework does, something like System.Diagnostics.StackTrace pops up. Try this:
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Bug Tracking
I don't know of any really good bug tracking packages for .NET. There is FogBugz (which I would like to use), but it isn't .NET based, so it is out of the picture for our projects which are generally 100% managed code.
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No Wired Outhouses this year
"The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant said on Monday that news that MSN UK was creating the iLoo, a portable lavatory that was supposedly going to be tested at music festivals in Great Britain this summer, was an elaborate ruse. "I can confirm it was an April Fools' joke," said Nouri Bernard Hasan, a Microsoft spokesman in the United States, told CNET News.com on Monday. "
[ZDNET News] -
RIAs
Sean Corfield points out this interview with Sean Neville, a Macromedia Architect, about RIAs.
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Programers as Artists
"...If you want to make money at some point, remember this, because this is one of the reasons startups win. Big companies want to decrease the standard deviation of design outcomes because they want to avoid disasters. But when you damp oscillations, you lose the high points as well as the low. This is not a problem for big companies, because they don't win by making great products. Big companies win by sucking less than other big companies..."
[Paul Graham] -
Prizes
I am now blogging with my ViewSonic 15" flat screen, courtisy of the VS.NET launch team :-P Gotta love the prizes...
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Mono Updates
Another Mono has been released 152 less bugs. :-)
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Meet Chris Sells
If you are going to be in or around, Beaverton, OR on the 29th, SoftwareLegends is holding a meet Chris Sells event. Stop by and check out the his borg implants, just watch your back while you are there...you might be asymilated.
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MS Innovation
Well, looks like the media engine is just starting to warm up. Lots of very, very cool stuff coming out of Microsoft in the next couple years. With all this cool stuff coming to a desktop near you, I am sure of one thing. Some of us will be very happy that we are on the winning side :-).
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Interesting... and they say MS is bad?
"You see, JBoss isn't a "Qualified Not-for-Profit" organization. Sun's "Java Specification Participation Agreement" says they've got to "qualify" if they wish to license the TCK free of charge. They can't qualify while Fleury is in the driver's seat and his company controls the fate of the JBoss project.
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Me Too!
"How utterly polite. When I Visited Mark Pilgram's blog today, It let me know that my browser may be infected with a parasitic virus, and led me to instructions on cleaning my system. Now, if only the anti-virus program that I have were as smart as Mark's blog... or, maybe if the browser that I run were as smart as Mark's blog...
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Dot Net Rocks
"Russ Fustino is the Principal Technology Specialist for Microsoft in the New England district, USA. He produces and delivers a quarterly free event called Russ' ToolShed at all Microsoft offices in New England, at which he gives local developers (mostly Visual Basic) how-to knowledge and usually a peek at the latest and greatest technology for programmers.
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ServicedComponents vs EJBs
TC brings up a good point...
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Serviced Component Woes (Part II)
"Like any COM object, Transaction Server objects can maintain internal state across multiple interactions with a client. An object that has this behavior is stateful. Transaction Server objects can also be stateless, which means the object doesn't hold an intermediate state while waiting for the next call from a client.