bITs and blogs

no 11 indicator = producing inane documents and comments like this

Thanks apotheon and contributors to educating us newbies; I hope I have not committed any of the aformentioned sins, but I will definitly adjust my awarness to such. And now I will go check my profile to see if anything important is missing!?!

I've got a few things for you to ponder, "Consultant-1":

1. It's funny how you react as though I'm the zealot with the axe to grind, and yet you invaded my
   weblog to start spouting off in defense of your chosen OS, or at least
   in offense to an OS you dislike. Perhaps I should have said "Operating
   system OS's" [sic]. Next, you'll be saying "software programs" or
   "softwares" or using some other common half-literate malformation of a
   standard software industry term.
2. Nice name, "Consultant-1". consultant (n.): 1. gainfully unemployed
3. When dealing with clients/employers (I've had both ? yes, I've been
   a consultant too), I give them the lowdown on technical and financial
   considerations first, and other considerations only if there's time and
   interest. Unlike you, apparently, I'm able to both be a professional
   and have opinions outside the immediate, pressing concerns of the
   profession.
4. People will be a lot nicer to you if you grow a sense of humor and
   don't take everything personally. Why do you act so offended? I'm
   guessing you didn't even understand the point about Tech Locksmith and
   jdclyde, being something of a newbie yourself, and thought it was an
   anti-Microsoft point.

JCitizen: Take it all with a grain of salt, and welcome to TR.

Glad you got all that off your chest.  Must feel wonderful to unload.  If much more space is devoted to the topic however, we all might slide back across the line - - heaven forbd it!

Thanks Consultant-1,
I wondered what I was doing wrong; now with your great info I'll look for a OS to run windows ("but don't regard Operating system OS's as some sort of religion"). I can't tell you how much of a help you've been! "Or maybe you can help one of my clients to edit a config file with VI in their applicance's IPSO." Am I wrong or have I mistaken cli as well.

I agree with almost everything you've said.

However I feel what is missing is the flip side.

You've done an excellent job of pointing out where we are fallible, now go the other and point in the right direction.

How "Does" one ask a Linux question without inadvertently starting a war.? I am not being snarky here. ;)

When I ask or disagree, I'm not looking for a fight, nor am I a zealot for either side, I just want the answer in order to clarify something.

Part of the problem is that too many times in the past, whenever someone would ask a question re Linux, it seemed like it was a heads up for going to war and some of the most vitriolic comments would emanate from the posts.

I am a Windows XPPro user who has been musing the idea of getting involved with Linux, however, naturally I am reluctant to ask as it might be misinterpreted and the first thing you know, I have an argument on my hands instead of an intelligent back and forth conversation.

As previously stated, you've done an excellent job, now lead us down the right track. You've told us what we do wrong fair enough, now tell us what can we do right. This would be most helpful.

You would be doing us a favor by telling us how to act appropriately so as not to offend. I am serious here.

And I'm sorry, but I' too have been a member for a very long time, and, Jacky is male, Jackie,Jacki etc are "usually", female so I must confess that for all of this time, I thought Jacki was a female. Now I feel like a damn fool.

My apologies Jacki. ;)

Excellent Blog

Thank you

Warmest Regards

Aaron  :)

I'm a newbie (Feb 2006) and I've committed some of the above mentioned crimes. I've posted Tech Q&A in Discussion Forums (only because I couldn't figure out how to post a Tech. Q&A) and my profile isn't filled out. But I have to agree with Aaron.

Why do you either have to be a Linux or a MS user? Why can't you be both or at least respect the others position? I am 22 years old and will barely have my first degree in June (A.S. in Computer Networks) so that should explain my ignorance but it is a serious question. It's hard to find good technical websites and I like TR. In the hacker (not cracker) community MS is bashed because it is closed source and because of its "vulnerabilities" but in the corporate world it's the OS the majority of companies use so an IT professional should know it's capabilities and limits. It's really not a choice in the corporate world because most people are used to Word, Excel, and Outlook and aren't willing to move into openoffice.

Those are just my thoughts and I will probably receive alot of criticism but I am trying to understand the real IT world and am open to criticism.

The Newbie

to Aaron and Joshua

Believe it or not, it's easy to ask a question relating to Linux that isn't a troll for a flame war. The problem is that it's difficult to keep the trolls out of the discussion. The same goes for Windows-related discussions.

Reasonable Linux users have a tendency to want to correct misconceptions. This means that when someone makes an ignorant comparison between Linux and Windows from a Windows perspective, they tend to respond. Sometimes the tone can be harsh, but the intent is usually honorable. There are exceptions, of course: the Linux community has its trolls just like every other major online community.

Because Windows users tend to view Windows as the "default", any mention of Linux is likely to catch their attention as being out of the ordinary. Mentioning Linux can get one attacked for being "off topic", can get defensive Windows users counterattacking when there really wasn't any "attack" intended in the first place, and so on. Additionally, there are people like rickk, who just seem to thrive on strife and have a clear favorite OS, so they go around agitating while playing innocent.

Meanwhile, many Linux users, aware that most Windows users never consider any non-Windows solution without having it force-fed to them because it's just not the "default", will mention Linux as a potential solution to a Windows problem when it seems appropriate. This often gets mistaken for trolling, and again, the flame war is off.

Then, of course, there are the genuine Linux trolls. They do exist. I've seen a couple here at TR though, frankly, I've seen more Windows trolls that stick around for more than one or two posts.

Just understand the mindsets of the people you're addressing, and understand that on both sides of the line there's something of a siege mentality. Windows users feel insulted when "their" OS is denigrated in any way, and Linux users feel like there's just no way to say anything to a Windows user without getting accused of zealotry.

If you can construct your questions so that they avoid hitting the sore spots on both sides, you can stave off flame wars for a reasonable period. Of course, the trolls do eventually find the discussions most of the time, but maybe you can get some real discussion done before that point.

Truthfully, if you want information about Linux without FUD, flak, and a free-for-all, the easiest way to get it is to ask in a place where Windows advocacy is considered something of a faux pas. Also, of course, follow Eric Raymond's advice on asking questions intelligently. The Linux community tends to be very friendly and helpful when you ask questions intelligently and leave your biases at the door. If you come into a LUG meeting and say "I'm a complete Linux newbie, I've been using Windows for fifteen years, and I want to learn how to do this stuff — please help," I'd bet money someone will offer to give up a weekend, or equivalently bend over backwards, just to give you a helping hand. Almost every single Linux expert I've seen at TR allows complete strangers to contact them through their profiles and has, at one time or another, said in a discussion something to the effect of "If you, or anyone else, want to contact me directly for more information, please feel free."

One big piece of advice, though: Don't ever say something like "Well, crap, this is so much easier in Windows! Why can't Linux just do this like Windows does?" The truth of the matter is that when Linux does something differently from the way Windows does it, there's generally a Very Good Reason, and asking a question that implies Linux is "broken" like that is going to touch on Linux users' "Windows Persecution" instincts. You'll find yourself on the receiving end of an in-depth explanation of why Linux isn't Windows, why your question isn't the brightest one you could have asked, and maybe a "Go use Windows, then!" instead of a helpful answer. The reason, of course, is that you didn't ask a helpful question. You complained, and you blamed Linux for your lack of understanding.

Here's another important link for you: Linux is Not Windows. I recommend you read it before you start asking, or commenting, about how Linux is "harder" than Windows, or something to that effect.

Oh, and if you have any questions you want to ask off the discussions: feel free to use that link on my profile for contacting me directly. I've ignored a couple requests in the past when they were essentially incomprehensible, or were clearly a case of someone wanting me to do homework for them, but I help people when I can, even if it's not a Linux-related question (though sometimes my help consists of a link or some ideas for how to search Google for help). Hell, I helped someone set up a Windows system for data security via private email from TR not too long ago. I may not like Windows or Microsoft, but that doesn't mean I'll tell you where to stick it if you want a little help with something.

... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

"If you come into a LUG meeting and say "I'm a complete Linux newbie,
I've been using Windows for fifteen years, and I want to learn how to
do this stuff ? please help,""

or even:
"looking for an AMD Duron: 1-1.4 GHz would be nice, to pop in a MS-6340M from MSI. Any out there that
people are willing to part with for a reasonable price?"

the reply:
"I have a Duron @ 700 MHz kicking around. I recently ran it, and it
wasn't stable when it reached a temp of 42 C, but I'm not sure if it's
the CPU or the board it was on that was the cause of the instability.

I also have a 600 MHz celeron kicking around.

either or both are free to anyone that wants them."

from local LUG mailing list.

Hi all and everyone,

I am also a newbie of sorts.  newbie to TR, but not to forums concerning all things IT.  Alot of times, we newbies do make some silly mistakes, do to being in a rush, or just not pressing the shortcut key for the spell checker(windows based pc's). I am a user that uses or trys to use both OS's and I dont prefer on over the other, it is just a matter of using the one that is best suited for the work that is needed to be done.  and also, you should never assume a person's gender due to their nick.  you might end up with a nasty surprise.

viper

Some newbie advice from a TR newbie.

Another mistake that newbies make when entering a new discussion (no matter what forum) is the assumption of familiarity.  Somebody that has been part of that particular community can get away with making a statement that a newbie will get totally thrashed for making.  This is because the "long timer" has made statements in the past which moderate the apparent underlying opinion of this new statement.  The other long timers will already know what each other mean.  All too often, newbies only join in to vent their emotionally (not technically) biased point of view without any regard for the thought that went into the long-timer's point.

Oddly enough, it can also be easy to start an argument by agreeing with somebody too emphatically.  They may have been conceding a minor point to opposition or actually saying the opposite of what they meant (using irony).  This would be the example of not reading carefully.

PLEASE watch your language.  It sounds trite but there are a lot of professionals here that have been in the field since before computers could fit inside a small room.  Try to phrase your responses or questions as if you were speaking to a respected member of the community.  Don't try to match them in tone, they have probably earned the right to speak frankly in the forum.  You have not.

In a forum YOU ARE WHAT YOU SAY.  Nobody knows what you look like or the sound of your voice or where you pause in the sentence.  We only know you by the words you choose, the words you don't spell correctly, the grammer you butcher and how much your writing looks like song titles on a Prince (TAFKAP?) album.

You could probably find these and other very useful points in jdclyde's post (mentioned earlier in this thread) but since I am a newbie to TR, I didn't know where to find it.  :)

And just to add a philosophical note that won't make much sense in this context: Don't assume that knowing how to do something means you have any better grasp of why you should (or should not) do it.

I am a newbie to TR, but not to forums. One of the really neat features that I have found on most sites is "Search". I generally attempt to find an answer by searching the forum first, then ask questions if it yields no results. I do this for two reasons:

1. I am in a hurry, and I find that using a search engine with the broadest of terms will sometimes yield up the answer I am seeking.
2. I can reduce the times when I am singled out for scorn for not reading the previous postings.

Also, I have found that with all but the crudest of forum engines, I have the ability to modify my original posting or to remove it completely. I try to maintain my own postings if:

• I find that the answer is worded in some obscure way in another thread
• I later find the answer to my question through external research.

If I have no responses to my question, and I find the information in another thread, I will attempt to remove my posting (why start a new thread on an already answered question). If I cannot remove my posting, then I will respond to my posting and attempt to point anyone who reads the thread to the answer in the other thread.

If I find the answer externally, I will usually post an answer to my question. I figure that if I ask the question, then someone else will also be looking for the answer at some time. Why not help them out by giving them the answer.

But, then again, I am a newbie ? :)

Apotheon & Co.

Just found the blog - sorry for the late post.  Thank you, everyone, for such a delightful topic/blog (even Consultant 1).  I am a confessed n00b in many different areas of tech, not just blogging, but hope I am catching on ok ;-) .  As I went down your list checking off the ones I'm guilty of with WhiteOut...(it's only thing I can make check marks with on the screen), I found that I may have been the culprit of some.  You didn't actually use just MY posts to make your list did you?  Just checking!  Of course now I have to do a search for blogs also mentioned here so I can really bone up. 

Thanks for the humor.  I just try to remember..."if you can't laugh at yourself, there will always be plenty who will".

Now, off to search for the jdclyde blog - what nu members should NO...

Thanks again.

This all seems a little intimidating. Although I've been coming to TR for over five years, I have submitted very few posts to the TR forums. After reading through the top ten, it makes me more apprehensive about ever asking a question lest in my ignorance I might offend someone.

I understand some of the points you have made, but not all, and based on the tone of your top ten list, I'm afraid to ask what some of these mean, lest I be flamed for not knowing!

PapaWhiskey: Don't worry about it. This list of indicators was meant to be somewhat tongue in cheek anyway. All you really have to remember, about almost any online community, is that until you're a long-time participant that is well-known and you know the nuances of the community, you should avoid making any assumptions. Don't assume you know someone's personality or level of knowledge without long exposure to the person, or long exposure to the community to the point that you know this person is new and can't possibly know what (s)he is talking aobut. Don't assume you have the solution to everyone else's problem without having interacted with them enough to understand where they're coming from. Don't always assume that your brilliant insight hasn't already been seen and adressed many times. Et cetera.

The truth is, there's nothing wrong with being a "newbie". Just don't act like you know better than everyone else while you are a newbie — whether it's a newbie to the community or just to active participation in it. Usually, a good rule of thumb is to ask questions for a while before making statements, when questions are appropriate.

I always try to get the lay of the land a bit in a new community before I start asserting myself. I ease my way in by commenting on those things with which I agree and questioning those things with which I don't agree, rather than making bold statements myself and bold denouncements of someone else. That is, I do so at first: as many of my posts at TR must make clear, I eventually start making bold statements and denouncements when I'm sure I understand the context.

It all comes back to assumptions. Avoid them where possible, and think about everything you see before reacting, because you might discover that you're making an assumption.

For instance, with point one in the list, if you say "Firefox is only safer than IE because it's not as popular!" you're going to get your ass handed to you by someone more versed in principles of software security — or even by someone who has just been reading what is posted by others more versed in software security. On the other hand, if you ask "Isn't at least some of IE's insecurity compared with Firefox due to its widespread use?" then you'll likely get a kinder, more helpful response, complete with an explanation for why that's an at least partly fallacious bit of reasoning, so that you'll know more what you're talking about in the future.

Seriously, don't worry about asking questions — as long as your "questions" aren't just thinly veiled attacks, of course.

thanks for the links apotheon

I have been really impressed with TR and how the "senior" or more active members are kind to the newbies. I hope to learn from alot from this community and already have. Hopefully in the future I'll be able to make some contributions to other members and newbies.

is this you?

http://www.twsbiz.com/twbiz/industrynews/article/0,21214,1102369,00.html

Nope. That's the other world-famous Chad Perrin. This is me: Chad Perrin

There's been some discussion of programming languages to use for the new browser development project I've proposed. One thing we all seem to agree on is that we should avoid Java like the plague ("like the plague it is," some might say). Other than that, there hasn't been a whole lot of distinct [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

The following is an email I received from the SETI@home project:
(Donate to SETI@home at http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/donate.php)
Dear apotheon,
SETI@home needs your help. But before we tell you why - and how you can
help - Dan and I would like to thank you for your role in the SETI@home
success story.
We would first like to thank you for your participation [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

Item: As of today, you will have to register to be able to post comments to weblog entries here at SOB.
The reason for this is simple — I've been getting a lot of comment spam this month, and every time I have to delete seven friggin' spam comments when I get up in the [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

I read Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and a substantial chunk of God Emperor of Dune in high school. I started on the first book of the series and continued reading, one right after the other, until I burned out on Dune and decided I needed a break. I put down the [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

In the 1920s and early ’30s, the United States suffered under a nationwide ban on drinking alcohol. This was known as the Prohibition Era. After decades of demonstrations and lobbying, temperance groups managed to sway Congress to enact the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. It was ratified [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

If my memory of the bottle before I started drinking is any kind of accurate, I've had more than a third of a bottle of junmai daiginjyo-shu since a little beofre midnight. This stuff is incredible. It is, bar none, the best sake I've ever had in my life.
Oddly enough, the bottle recommends [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

A recent posting to the GoLUG mailing list caught my eye, and it begs to be shared with the wider world (edited, with permission, for clarity):

With all the negative reports I've seen about what is presently going on affecting free software, I have been having trouble sleeping. Last night I dreamt I saw the [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

I started getting a lot of blog spam a little while ago. I started using the automatic post moderation feature that sends posts into moderation if they contain too many links. This worked for a little while, though I still had to delete the posts from the moderation queue myself. Better that [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

I've decided to cobble together a sort of Frankenstein's Monster entry from a number of different comments I've made elsewhere in debates relating to ODF vs. OpenXML file formats. I've expanded upon the original phrasing a little, and I've tried to clarify my statements and suit them to this venue, but otherwise it's pretty [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

In discussion on a Perl mailing list, the subject of munging the Reply-To: headers on a mailing list came up. There's a fair bit of disagreement on the subject.
One side of the debate consists of people who don't want their common-case email replies to the mailing list to involve different, and more surprising, behavior [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

Note to self (so I don't forget my own brilliance this morning):
People who live in houses made of Windows shouldn't throw stones. I'm glad Linux was built from reinforced concrete.

This post originally appeared on an external website

In a recent SOB entry, titled glass houses, I posted what I have arrogantly decided to call Perrin's Principle of Inclusion. It goes a little something like this:
The strength of any system is directly proportional to the power of the tools it provides for the general public.
This is a principle that seems generally applicable [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

This may not always be about programming, but it is mostly aimed that way right now, with Part One. There'll probably be a Part Two before long.
There are a lot of programmers out there who just don't know that they suck. Maybe this will help illuminate them a bit.

Arbitrary Limits: When you create [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

There's a rule of thumb that is peddled in some (many?) circles of programming that goes a little something like this:
No function should have more than one return.
I'm not sure I understand why that's an effective rule of thumb. As far as I am aware, this rule of thumb was invented during the "structured [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

I just composed about 95% of what would have been a lengthy post about fascism, socialism, a book called The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, intellectual property law, and sociopolitical systems in general. It was probably in the range of 1500 words of text before I accidentally middle-clicked to paste some text just about [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

As reported by ZDNet in an article titled EC: Software is not patentable, the European Commission seems to have reversed its position on software patents. Previously, the European Parliament's decision favoring the invalidation of software patents was ignored by the European Commission, which issued statements suggesting it would use the upcoming Community Patent legislation [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

Do I have any expert Perl hackers in the audience today?
I've been rereading some of what Jonathan Rees has to say about the object oriented programming menu. I've only read this stuff about a half-dozen times before, and I've been reading about the Perl object model recently, so I decided to get another look [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

A discussion of the "whitespace problem" of Python occurred in another venue, and some of what was said there got me thinking. It starts with a complaint about the way Python eschews punctuation, and snowballs from there.
One particular point that came up was the assertion by Pythonistas that using significant whitespace instead of punctuation [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

I went to sleep at about four-thirty in the morning last night. I was in bed a few minutes before that, but I did a little reading about Perl's canonical object model, using the bless() function and all that nifty built-in class hierarchy stuff. It got me thinking about lexical closures in Perl [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

In another online venue (TechRepublic, to be exact), I often get embroiled in technical discussions gone wonderfully awry. I'm a common counteractant to FUD there, and there are a few others with whom I regularly interact who stalk the discussions to provide the same public service. Then, of course, there are the trolls [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

The IBM Model M keyboard, introduced circa 1984, was the very pinnacle of keyboard construction technology. They are characterized by buckling-spring switch keys with swappable keycaps, a satisfying clicky sound and easily recognizable-by-touch contact threshold, a heavy steel backplate, and enough heft to fell an ox with a single blow coupled with the durability to [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

A man named Larry Elder, sometimes known as "the sage from South Central", and sometimes called "the Antichrist" — and often called any of a number of things between, including "the Oreo" — wrote a book titled The Ten Things You Can't Say In America. Of course, the title is slightly misleading: the word [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

Sterling, aka "Chip", posted an interesting challenge/exercise to his weblog earlier this month. Because I'm a slacker, I haven't gotten around to reading that weblog entry until last night. I do this sort of thing regularly: I "forget" to read much of my regular online reading material for a couple weeks, then I [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

This story is about Windows, not Linux. You won't see any mention of any unixy OSes in this entry, after this. If you didn't already know I use Linux pretty much exclusively at this point, you'd never get that from this entry.
I started with stuff not related to Microsoft. Some old pre-DOS [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

Quotes of Stephen Hawking's recent commentary on the importance of space colonization to the survival of the human race has been making the rounds in the news, in the thousands of weblogs that have taken notice, and in pseudo-intellectual coffee shop banter. The Associated Press wire first carried news of this back on 14 [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

In an entry at Chip's Quips, Sterling discusses the various approaches to software development planning (or not) that have occupied him recently. From his presentation of others' (un)common practices, I get this as a good way to handle things, complete with euphemistic jargon that could cover your arse (aka leverage a common contextual linguistic [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

Last night, I was elected to the Larimer County Libertarian Party Board of Directors. Being on a board of directors isn't a requirement for being old, but I think being old is a requirement for being on a board of directors. I'm now officially old.
Apparently, the board meetings now take place in a [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

What's all this Web 2.0 nonsense about?
I give it about another three years before the term "Web 2.0″ is nearly meaningless. It's already at the "powerful buzzword" phase, which means it's probably just about cresting before heading screaming downhill. That's not to say that it won't enjoy a few more years of increasing [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

• Windows finally gets cron without the cygwin unix emulator. It's about time. The Windows Task Scheduler has always been a subpar solution at best, and more often has actually been actively problematic. One of the worst Windows NT vulnerabilities I've ever seen in my life was a result of the necessary conditions for running the Windows Task Scheduler for NT domains. It even looks like the thing is a pretty excellent piece of software. Unfortunately, the free version of this relentlessly proprietary utility is limited to a 45 day trial period and to get a license that is even reasonably useful in a small network will cost you an two limbs and your firstborn child. Luckly, you get to choose which limbs to give up. As such, if I ever need to set up scheduled tasks from a Windows machine again, I'll be looking into doing it from Cygwin instead. I'm not keen on doing any major system admnistration tasks on a server that doesn't support OpenSSH anyway, so that's my best bet.
• OpenVPN is getting a reasonably good treatment here at TR. It can be a useful approach to secure, encrypted remote access, particularly if you want to take the "users are to be kept in the dark" approach to offsite network security. It can also be reasonably easy to set up and monitor, and provides some administrative hand-holding for setup. It's a bit fatter a solution than I tend to prefer, however. As hinted above, I'm a fan of OpenSSH, which is highly versatile, lightweight, and extremely secure. It can be used for protocol tunneling to encrypt the connection necessary for basically any network protocol you want to protect, and a savvy administrator can make it do backflips on a high wire if need be.

Many a Windows system administrator is learning about the Windows Genuine Advantage software on the job, much to their annoyance. It is one of the latest in a long series of ever-more intrusive, restrictive, and overbearing measures Microsoft is employing in its fight against "unauthorized" use of Microsoft Windows operating systems. WGA has [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

I was inspired to follow an ad link related to blogging as business on Sterling's weblog, Chip's Quips, earlier today. Ultimately, where it led me was to some graphical representations of the weblog ecosystem, sometimes known by that too-hip term "blogosphere". The overview of digital social networking that emerges from these graphical networking [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

I got a perfect score on this quiz of my Web 2.0 jargon knowledge. How will you do?
By the way — learn to touch type. Trust me on this. No master uber leet ninja hunt-n-peck skillzzz will compare to the benefits of touch typing.
When you're done with the quiz I'll tell you [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

The Tour starts tomorrow today. For those of you who are not terribly familiar with it, the Tour de France is a twenty-stage bicycle race that takes place in the month of July every year, wherein (ideally) 198 men on 22 teams try to get their team leaders to put in the best showing [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

The Tour starts tomorrow today. For those of you who are not terribly familiar with it, the Tour de France is a twenty-stage bicycle race that takes place in the month of July every year, wherein (ideally) 198 men on 22 teams try to get their team leaders to put in the best showing [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

Hey, h3st! It looks like a Norwegian won the Tour de France's Prologue!
George Hincapie, formerly Lance Armstrong's right-hand man on the Discovery team, came in a close second (only 0.73 seconds slower than Hushovd). It's pretty much a given that any "graduate" of Lance's team over the last few years is going to [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

You may recall my recent mention of graphical representations of the weblog ecosystem, or what some call the "blogosphere". The originator of the images, a weblogger named Matthew Hurst posting under the title Data Mining, took notice of some comments made by me and Teresa Valdez Klein. Shortly thereafter, I was credited, via [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

I thought it unlikely that there'd be too much to report about today's stage — Stage 1 is usually not the most exciting. There was the usual jockeying for sprinting points and for the stage win, of course. George Hincapie got a two second time bonus in the middle of the stage for [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

It's not easy to find free/libre/open source software these days that is licensed other than GPL, I'm finding. There are major projects with other licenses (Apache, X Windows, and the various *BSD operating systems come to mind), but it's simply not as easy as I'd like to live GPL-free without going entirely the other [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

You've gotta love the hypocrisy of some people — or at least hate it with some humor. These guys couldn't find their own asses with a map and a flashlight. Thus the title.
As requoted from Slashdot in an OPEN . . . post entitled RMS on DRM, Richard Stallman said of the difference between Free Software [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

As my friend Anna put it:
Happy 4th! 'Cause everyone needs a summer holiday that's an excuse to pig out, blow shit up and take off work.
Of course, I spent a chunk of today rewriting contact page mailing scripts, so I'm not so sure I made use of the opportunity to "take off work". [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

I've created, and made available on the Web, the ARChive: Apotheonic Resource Collection. It includes the essay Humanity's Launch Window, previously referenced in the SOB post titled Movin' On Up: the necessity of space colonization, as some of the more astute of you might have noticed if you remembered the URL for it.
New, with [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

What a mess — what a bunch of high school drama queen nonsense this is.
Rocketboom blew up. There's a gen-u-ine he-said/she-said set of (apparently) incompatible statements being made by Amanda Congdon and Andrew Baron (the apparent 49% and 51%, respectively, owners of Rocketboom). Amanda and Rocketboom are separating.
I've never watched a Rocketboom video [...]

This post originally appeared on an external website

Making revenues from free & open source software is one of the most frequently asked questions these days. While there have been a few successful examples of companies (like MySQL, Red Hat etc) which are making money, I?d surmise that these are still very early days for open source revenue & profit models.

While open source as an operational paradigm certainly has been having exceptional success against proprietary and closed-software models in the recent past, in my opinion, a lot more thought need to be given and experimentations done before the emergence of viable revenue models for the free & open source models that can successfully compete with the current proprietary software revenue model. Some specifics of the business models are emerging fast, but it will take a few years for the market to test each of these out and hopefully, the fittest will survive.

A site that focuses exclusively on revenue models from free, open source software is Follars.com ? Free, Open-source Dollars - http://www.follars.com !

Ec @ IT, Software Database @ http://www.eit.in