Last night, the “corn party” finally happened. Good friends came together and celebrated the bounty of the garden, and the grocery store. Some corn was eaten but a lot of other stuff was shared as well, salads, pickles, meats, and pie. I sent a few jars of pickles home with an elderly aunt. A deer got its share early, taking a big chunk out of one of my “Big Max” pumpkins.
I was reminded of sharing this morning when the little woman asked me to pick some more corn to share with the neighbours. She and my grand daughter are walking over to deliver a bag.
I am thankful my grand daughter lives in a world where it’s OK to share. She doesn’t know that sharing what I have produced is unnatural or that the fruits of my labours should always have a price. All she knows is that it’s good to share and that’s the way it should be.
Shame on the people who come to my blog and pronounce that people who use shared software are parasites or that I or anyone else sharing the fruits of my labour denies anyone a living. Those hypocrites then turn around and claim all the abuse of the markets by monopolists is just business. It’s not. It’s immoral and we should not cooperate with monopolists. To do so will eventually harm someone in a real way, shutting people out of the market, increasing unemployment, maintaining poverty etc. The right way to do everything including IT is with a moral perspective, “Is this the right thing to do?”. If not, it’s all too easy to end up with a disaster like that other OS dominating IT for decades.
It’s better for everyone when people share FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software). It lowers the cost of IT, reduces the barriers to entry of all kinds of businesses and gives the little guy a fair chance in the market.
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“Both HP and Xerox make quality stuff that works with Linux. I recommend customers use either brand for network printing.”
So when they didn’t have Linux drivers, what was their quality?
The last school I was in with Xerox photocopiers was 1980. I did buy Xerox printers for Easterville, however.
Didn’t you say school “is a community of learners and teachers preparing the next generation for life” or something like that? But it’s now suddenly A-OK to turn it into a Xerox’s environment?
The last place I taught, the copier maintenance guy installed a print-server for us to increase our monthly copies instead of the school having to pay for an expensive “remote printing” option. This meant we could junk all those troublesome inkjet printers scattered about.
Says the guy who bought 20 printers for 8 clients each.
Also, Xerox’s environment.
Both HP and Xerox make quality stuff that works with Linux. I recommend customers use either brand for network printing.
http://www.openprinting.org/printers/manufacturer/Xerox/
http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/index.html
Brillo wrote, “Don’t forget to throw out all the photocopiers as well.”
The last school I was in with Xerox photocopiers was 1980. I did buy Xerox printers for Easterville, however. Most schools use the least expensive photocopiers they can find. I have seen lots of Sharp, Konica, Canon and OKI photocopiers in schools but few Xerox. There is lots of competition in the field and the digital copiers with simplified paper-paths seem to be wonderful. I was at one school where there was a shelf near the copier with user-swappable parts and a squad of teachers was shown how to swap any moving part on the machine. Downtime was minutes instead of days. That’s great for fly-in communities. The only downside was that the damned things were so fast a teacher had no break “waiting” for the copier. I could print from my desk and the copies were done by the time I reached the copier. The last place I taught, the copier maintenance guy installed a print-server for us to increase our monthly copies instead of the school having to pay for an expensive “remote printing” option. This meant we could junk all those troublesome inkjet printers scattered about.
“Schools I have worked in have had none of those. So, you’re right. Schools also don’t need that other OS.”
Obviously the school you were at didn’t have a machine shop either, because CNC milling software is pretty much only written for Windows. There is literally no open source alternative, yet I’m sure you’d try and install Debian anyways.
Better the machines didn’t work at all, right? Because why would students want to get their work done when they can know their lathe has finally been purified by your software holy water.
I have worked in have had none of those
Really? Did you ask the contractor responsible for the construction of the school building about the origin of the rebars they used?
Did you also ask the publishers of the textbooks about the printing process they used?
And did you check inside every teacher’s drawers to see if they have sneaked in some naughty Blend 43?
Don’t forget to throw out all the photocopiers as well.
Now you have no excuse at all. Pash; Open source Powershell implementation:
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2008/Apr-07.html
Or do you have Miguel de Icaza too?
Brillo wrote, “You don’t need building materials provided by BHP Billiton, photocopying technology provided by Xerox, color systems provided by Pentone or coffee and chocolate powder provided by Nestle, you know?”
Schools I have worked in have had none of those. So, you’re right. Schools also don’t need that other OS.
A school is not M$’s environment. It is a community of learners and teachers preparing the next generation for life.
You sound like someone who has read Fight Club too many times but just does have the guts to take up Tyler Durden’s nilhilistic life. You don’t need building materials provided by BHP Billiton, photocopying technology provided by Xerox, color systems provided by Pentone or coffee and chocolate powder provided by Nestle, you know? Heck, go the good ol’ Maoist way and have your teachers and students mine their own quarries, hand-copy and illustrate their own textbooks and notes and grow their own cups of joe. Don’t just talk the talk – walk the walk. Can’t do that? Then stop complaining about Windows on school computers, you hypocrite.
Where M$ got in by default, I have never seen an IT system running smoothly.
Not with you around. That’s for sure.
When I installed GNU/Linux, the system ran indefinitely.
That’s strange since it never occurs to me that you have stayed in one place for long – let alone indefinitely.
“Closed-source…..”
I repeat sir, do you, Mr VAR who sells himself as an expert, know Powershell.
Or is your windows expertise limited to cleaning viruses of off desktop systems?
“I don’t have any products of M$ in my home. Don’t need/want ‘em.”
“No daughter of mine is going to marry a black man”. You realize how ignorant you sound, right?
Why not actually evaluate things based on their merit instead of who made them? Being pragmatic ensures you, the user, always get the best possible experience. Being a “fan” of any technology eventually bites you in the ass because you’re too emotionally invested to move on and try anything else.
I know plenty of people who work for GM buy own a Volvo because of proven reliability and safety track records. They’re not going to blindly pick teams when their family’s safety is on the line.
Likewise, I use whatever software works. I don’t care who makes it because I want to actually get work done. I used closed and open source software by Google, Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, JQuery, CoffeeScript, MongoDB, CouchDB, mySQL, Python, Django, Ruby on Rails, Node.js, LESS, etc. etc. etc.
Each has their strengths and weaknesses and to limit myself means I can’t be as successful.
oldman wrote, “You were expected as part of your job to be able to support and maintain. TO me as an IT professional, this means working in the context of what you were provided. You were working in a windows environment, you should have been supporting a windows environment.”
A school is not M$’s environment. It is a community of learners and teachers preparing the next generation for life. M$ need not apply for that role. Where M$ got in by default, I have never seen an IT system running smoothly. When I installed GNU/Linux, the system ran indefinitely. The first place I installed GNU/Linux used those machines another five years and they were already old when I was there. The school at Easterville has had GNU/Linux for six years now and still love it on the same hardware initially installed.
I was in one school where XP/2003 ran pretty well and people were happy with it until SP2 broke apps and disabled the scanner… That school had an itinerant IT guy come by every two weeks to fix things. Schools with GNU/Linux can manage with far less maintenance.
TM wrote, “Is that because you actually tried it, or because it’s made by Microsoft? “
I don’t have any products of M$ in my home. Don’t need/want ‘em.
oldman wrote, “If you are an end user who doesn’t have to manage multiple machines the command IS an antiquated time waster.”
That may be true of that other OS but with GNU/Linux CLI is another universe of opportunities to solve problems effectively using IT. e.g. I have exhibits from US DOJ v M$ on my PC. I used CLI to run tesseract (OCR) over them and can search from the CLI to find stuff even Google has not on the web. CLI is a powerful tool for one or a thousand GNU/Linux PCs.
Oh look a Powershell bug, lets post on Connect.
You mean a bug that was never a bug in the first place but rather someone writing a broken script and expecting it to run correctly?
No wonder you didn’t seem to care about citing any reference.
Reponse: “Patch Accepted to Mainline kernel”
Then wait for it to drip through the repository system.
Re: I’m sure if someone tried to convince you the voice menus of an automated phone-in help desk were better than the command line, you’d laugh too.
I use the Robin App and voice on my Android phone all the time.
Re: PS: I must be a Microsoft zealot as I write this to you on a macbook pro.
No, then your a Apple cultist, that shared the idea that Android would never become as popular as it has much to the chagrin Apple, hence the patent suits.
“Oh look a kernel bug, lets create a patch, test and apply, then post on LKML.”
Can you please link me to all the kernel patches you’ve submitted and had accepted?
“Imagine that, M$ zealots espousing the use of the command line, but with baited breath they tell you the command line is worthless or antiquated.”
I’m sure if someone tried to convince you the voice menus of an automated phone-in help desk were better than the command line, you’d laugh too.
The command is very opaque because it lacks discoverability. If you were put on an unfamiliar terminal in, say, a different language, you’d eventually just get stuck. Meanwhile, even my dad would be able to trip his way through a GUI in a different language because they don’t rely expressly ON that language to operate. You can discover how to use them because the things you need to know are presented to you directly.
Worse still, command lines have become some weird stopgap measure because the Linux API is so unpredictable. Rather than simply have your app talk to the API of the kernel or another application, you have to rely on a HUMAN INTERFACE to pipe raw strings around. This is the command line equivalent of those GUI automation tools that move the mouse for you can click buttons. Like I said, a stopgap measure to make up for bad, or non-existent APIs.
PS: I must be a Microsoft zealot as I write this to you on a macbook pro.
Closed-source
Oh look a Powershell bug, lets post on Connect.
M$ Response: “Won’t Fix – Due to several factors the product team decided to focus it’s efforts on other items.”
Open-source
Oh look a kernel bug, lets create a patch, test and apply, then post on LKML.
Reponse: “Patch Accepted to Mainline kernel”
“Imagine that, M$ zealots espousing the use of the command line, but with baited breath they tell you the command line is worthless or antiquated.”
If you are an end user who doesn’t have to manage multiple machines the command IS an antiquated time waster.
But if you are someone who is supposed who have skills as a system administrator and a lab manager composed of windows systems, you had better know how to do some batching, and since 2007 powershell has been available AND is superior to bash.
Oh BTW Mr. expert – DO YOU know powershell?
Imagine that, M$ zealots espousing the use of the command line, but with baited breath they tell you the command line is worthless or antiquated.
“PowerShell does not work for me”
Is that because you actually tried it, or because it’s made by Microsoft? You’re like a racist patient who refuses treatment because his doctor is black.
“and does nothing about the malware problem which was huge.”
Considering your supposed computer prowess, I would have imagined you’d have been able to set up a safe environment. But I guess the first thing a bad carpenter does is blame his tools, right?
“Hey! Aren’t you the guy who states people use what works for them?”
Yes I did – at the time that you were posting about what you did, it seemed that it was a case of not arguing with what works. Unfortunately I have since come to recognize that you actually seemed as interested in wiping out microsoft as you were in providing a usable computer lab. I should have figured this out when you described how you “moved on”, often fairly quickly, from those schools where you spiel to convert to linux fell on deaf ears.
Am I wrong Robert Pogson?
“PowerShell does not work for me”
Why not? It would have gotten the job done and cost nothing, and you would have tad a better environment for testing and debugging powershell scripts than you ever had for bash scripts. IN fact I would have though with your programming bent you would have taken to Powershell like a duck to water.
But I guess the real problem that it didnt work for you is that it was a windows tool. Am I right Pog?
“and does nothing about the malware problem which was huge.”
That’s true, you would have had to learn how to set up you labs so that the students ran in user mode rather than administrator mode.
I also find it quite humorous to here that an experienced shell script user/writer would have problems with learning another shell scripting language, especially one that makes bash look like the ancient history that it is.
Or is it hat the real problem with powershell was that it would have required you to become more familiar with the OS that you hate?
Thats real professional isn’t it?
“Further, for an OS “ready for the masses” why should I have to learn a bunch of stuff to keep it going? ”
But we are talking about maintaining a group of machines in a laboratory environment. You were expected as part of your job to be able to support and maintain. TO me as an IT professional, this means working in the context of what you were provided. You were working in a windows environment, you should have been supporting a windows environment.
The tools existed, and many of them were free and you were the system administrator in charge. You have a background in a system and tools that require mpore skill to use. One would have though that windows was a piece of cake for you Pog.
But then I suspect that that none of this had to do with skill but with the fact that you were bound and determined not to learn anything more about windows that you absolutely had to while you were working to roll in linux.
oldman wrote, “Perhaps under the situation that WAS the best solution given your apparent lack of ability to learn the requisite techniques”
Hey! Aren’t you the guy who states people use what works for them? PowerShell does not work for me and does nothing about the malware problem which was huge. Further, for an OS “ready for the masses” why should I have to learn a bunch of stuff to keep it going? I was in a fly-in community with no local IT. Any failure of that other OS required shipping PCs out for repair by air, something more costly than buying a new machine which only needed 1-way freight. GNU/Linux machines had the kind of reliability needed with no particular fussing. If the school had bought machines pre-installed with GNU/Linux they would not have needed me at all for IT.
“I have never spoken otherwise on these pages. Why you are seeing it differently I cannot say.”
Because most of your posts are couched in character assassination deliberately designed to provoke. But this sentiment.
There is more than enough room for both approaches to software development. The market will sort things out. We don’t have to worry about it.
Is one that I heartily agree with. Express a few more sentiments like this Mr. K. and you may find to your horror that we agree more than we disagree.
“Well, that says something about how ready for end-users that other OS is.”
Nope, it probably says more about a ” not invented here” attitude on your part about about learning advanced windows administration techniques.
“All machines were fully up to date including Java and I removed all .NET stuff. ”
after ca. 2007 You could have USED the .NET stuff, installed Windows Powershell and would have had the ability to manage an entire lab from one windows host. Powershell 1 & 2 can be retrofitted on top of Windows XP. You would even have had the benefit of a free GUI IDE/Debugger (PowerGUI) to create and test your scripts in.
Before 2007 you have the windows script host and vbScript – all of which was quite well and coherently documented and for which there was even sample code.
“What more should I have done?”
As shown above, plenty. But instead you seem to have taken the easy way out for you. Perhaps under the situation that WAS the best solution given your apparent lack of ability to learn the requisite techniques, but I am beginning to have my doubts as to how much of a “Best solution” it was for your charges.
oldman wrote, ““I remember spending hours per day trying to keep a few dozen PCs running”
The you were not doing it correctly, period.”
Well, that says something about how ready for end-users that other OS is. I had a commercial anti-malware installed yet daily one or more machines would be infected and had to be re-imaged. I did that by swapping machines during office hours because I did not have the keys to the castle. All machines were fully up to date including Java and I removed all .NET stuff. What more should I have done? With GNU/Linux, I installed once and not a single machine went off-line for software problems.
“I remember spending hours per day trying to keep a few dozen PCs running”
The you were not doing it correctly, period.
Phenom wrote, “You can cut a tree down with an axe, and you can cut it down with a chainsaw. There is no need to re-invent the chainsaw.”
You can have a pretty good-sized tree felled with a Swede-saw before you have mixed the fuel, sharpened the chain, installed the chain and tuned the carburetor of a chain-saw. Some technology is just lower-maintenance. GNU/Linux is one such technology when a lot of the maintenance is done by the Debian developers, for instance. They make sure the packages are working well together and all the system administrator has to do is make sure the packages are updated with APT. Compare that with that other OS when the guy has to do something like that with the OS and each application from an ISV. The difference is remarkable. Then there’s malware… I remember spending hours per day trying to keep a few dozen PCs running using that other OS. With GNU/Linux it was trivial and only took a few minutes per day mostly checking that systems were running.
“2) is a good option”
Option 1) is good, too. It saves time, hence money. It makes people more productive.
You can cut a tree down with an axe, and you can cut it down with a chainsaw. There is no need to re-invent the chainsaw. Others already did it, and in 99.99% you can’t do better. Why waste the time and energy? Just buy a chainsaw if the increase productivity will pay back.
@ldman wrote:
“Now it seems that you have a greater grasp on reality that I have given you credit for.”
I have never spoken otherwise on these pages. Why you are seeing it differently I cannot say.
” And no one is berating proprietary developers for writing code under their licenses. There is more than enough room for both approaches to software development. The market will sort things out. We don’t have to worry about it.
You want people to believe that we expect that those who are selling software should suddenly start giving it away? No. Why should we want that when we have FLOSS applications that do the same things?”
Mr. K. to your credit, you have always understood the gift that FOSS is for you. Now it seems that you have a greater grasp on reality that I have given you credit for.
But the issue here is that Pog does not seem to share your views – his posts indicate that he seems to want it all. My comments are a reaction to that very real thread in his posts, nothing more.
@ldman wrote:
“In contrast your blog posts are filled with the sentiment that ALL software should be shared regardless of the wishes of its creators.”
@ldman is writing Robert’s blog posts again. No one is bending the FLOSS developers arms @ldman. They write their software quite willingly. And no one is berating proprietary developers for writing code under their licenses. There is more than enough room for both approaches to software development. The market will sort things out. We don’t have to worry about it.
You want people to believe that we expect that those who are selling software should suddenly start giving it away? No. Why should we want that when we have FLOSS applications that do the same things?
oldman wrote, of software ownership, “It is their right under the law to protect that application and sell licenses for its use on their terms. If it just so happens that that particular application is useful to you, you have exactly two options: 1) accept the vendors terms, or 2) do without the benefits.”
2) is a good option. It saves money and forces people to be creative. That’s a good thing. I have never seen an application which was “essential” meaning nothing could be done without it. Computers are general-purpose mostly and will run any application. If you happen to have a task that one application cannot do another or a combination of others will. The worst case is you will have to write an application yourself or organize a group of like-minded people to make the application. It’s not that hard given enough interested people. Given the scale of IT these days, any useful application is likely to have enough interest users to create an equally or more useful application. Any large business or most national governments certainly can and do. One can sell refrigerators to Innuit but they don’t have to buy them.
Some numbers… Suppose a nifty application is produced that has 1 million potential users. Typically, 1% or more of users will be capable of creating that application. That’s 10K developers. Plenty of great applications have been made by far fewer developers. There are only a few uses of PCs that require applications of that complexity such as office suites and browsers and the FLOSS applications are doing very well. When you get applications with fewer than 10K users it is likely that not a critical mass of FLOSS developers will gather to create such an application. That leaves non-Free software as a niche for very specialized applications. OS and office suites are not that kind of application. A programme to run a particular model of metal-working equipment might be a candidate if machines cost +$1million or so, but then the software would just be part of the hardware. For almost all the rest, any software that is ubiquitous in usage/potential usage can easily be created by FLOSS methods.
Expecting the world to make you rich if you can write software is delusional. The folks who did cash in were to the game early and locked in markets. That’s not going to happen for random app 47,298.
“Shame on the people who come to my blog and pronounce that people who use shared software are parasites or that I or anyone else sharing the fruits of my labour denies anyone a living. ”
Shame on Robert Pogson for twisting what was said.
Let start with a restatement
To be perfectly blunt, I do not give a crap about what you have done. I care about what you have said.
You have also said that you have a right to “Breath free software”.
You have also said that “the world does not owe a few a living”.
You also lecture us at length about the joys of sharing for the betterment of the world, as if such an act is the only way to behave.
Here’s a newsflash Pog. IF a person or a company creates an application that has value, decides that they wish to reap the benefits of that application. It is their right under the law to protect that application and sell licenses for its use on their terms. If it just so happens that that particular application is useful to you, you have exactly two options: 1) accept the vendors terms, or 2) do without the benefits.
Yet you continue to advocate in effect that these people be deprived of their property rights under the law because YOU think that that property should be for the good of all and by extension yourself, by right.
You would in effect, require all software creators to share whether they want to or not. Why? So that you can share the benefits of their work gratis as you do the generosity of FOSS producers.
It is that stated insistence on getting something for nothing that makes you a parasite in my eyes.
Show me where I have said that anything about software voluntarily shared – I did not.
In contrast your blog posts are filled with the sentiment that ALL software should be shared regardless of the wishes of its creators. Whether you like it or not YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO THAT WHICH IS NOT FREELY GIVEN SAVE UNDER THE TERMS PROFFERED – PERIOD.
“To do so will eventually harm someone in a real way, shutting people out of the market, increasing unemployment, maintaining poverty etc. The right way to do everything including IT is with a moral perspective, “Is this the right thing to do?”. ”
Whose morality is it that says you can have something for nothing Robert Pogson. Did your father teach you that? – I doubt it!
“If not, it’s all too easy to end up with a disaster like that other OS dominating IT for decades.”
What disaster Pog? having software that met our needs and which became more sophisticated in function and feature over the years? Yes we had to pay for it, but it was to us money well spent at the time.