| Tuesday, February
13, 2001
We can open with a love letter:
I have been reading your columns off
and on for years. Your writing is generally convoluted and illogical at
best. Most of the time your facts are wrong and your discussions of win2k
server are just plain stupid. You have no idea what you are talking about
with this software. You have this superior attitude that most phd's have
but you fool very few. You should stick to your fiction writing and leave
server topics to people who have done the months of study who don't rely
upon their constantly advertised phd to give them credibility about all
knowledge in the universe like you do.
Sherosky, Rick (R.) [rsherosk@ford.com] Well.
Let us take this seriously. I
will not plead guilty to convoluted: whatever faults I have, I write
clearly, and you can tell what I mean. Many years ago I was on the David
Susskind show with Isaac Asimov. I had known Isaac for years, agreed with
him sometimes and argued about other matters. In the course of the show
Susskind asked Isaac what was the secret of his popularity. "I'm
clear," Isaac said. "I may be wrong but I'm clear about
it." I never forgot that,
and haven't yet. Convoluted? No. Wordy, perhaps, particularly on the web
site where I don't edit to sweat out needless words; and sometimes that
happens in columns. Illogical?
I do not think so, but few people do think they are illogical. Logic is
the act of drawing conclusions from assumptions. The assumptions need not
be true, but in the real world we hope to deduce assumptions (principles)
from observation, and build on that in the hopes of building a picture of
the real world. Of course that implies a number of assumptions about the
nature of the universe and the relationship of our models to it, but this
isn't an essay on epistemology. I do note that 'Illogical at best'
implies that I'm never logical at all, and that is demonstrably untrue.
Q.E.D. As to all knowledge in
the universe, I have often said, if you pretend to know everything you
should be right most of the time, and that implies paying attention when
people correct you. Come to that I got that phrase from Isaac too,
probably about the same time, 1974 or so. I
will agree with one of the points: possession of credentials doesn't prove
much about what you know. A Ph.D. degree demonstrates one certain
characteristic: stamina. It's an obstacle course designed to get you to
quit; the minimum intelligence isn't all that high, but the minimum
determination to finish and get the darned degree is. Ph.D.'s may or may
not be smart, but every darned one of us is stubborn. As
to my knowledge about servers, I cheerfully admit I am not up to the level
of knowledge of some of my readers. Fortunately, I have access to
people who have put in the months of study -- only months? Really? That's
not long at all! I presume Mr. Sherosky meant months of study to learn the
intricacies of servers; he is not, I fear, too clear on that. But I have
readers and editors who know this stuff, and I generally send my columns
to them for sanity checking before the rest of the world sees them. In the
old days of BYTE we had some 30 real experts in Peterborough who went over
everything I wrote. Alas, those glory days are no more, and Rick and Phil
and Tommy and Ken aren't up there as a backup system for me. (Why, by the
way, was I the lead columnist when I cheerfully admit most of the BYTE
technical editors knew more than I did? Because, of course, whatever
faults I have, I am clear. But you knew that.) I
don't have the big BYTE staff any longer but I do have Bob Thompson and
Roland Dobbins and my son Alex and David Em and Eric Pobirs and a bunch of
others available, and beyond them are thousands of readers who don't
hesitate to tell me, with specifics, when I get something wrong. So
I fear I have to reject Mr. Sherosky's charges as at best unproven. Of
course I used his letter largely as a reason to write this bit, but surely
I can be excused for that. Note
that most of my column is built around what I DO, and that "I do all
these silly things so you don't have to." I may do the wrong silly
things but at least I report that. When
someone shows me where I was wrong, I pay attention. Fortunately I don't
get many letters like Mr. Sherosky's, which, I fear, isn't very helpful
because it's not very specific.
"Remember to put these big rocks
in first or you'll never get them in at all." I
can't add much to that.
Sure you can.
F'example, I'll bet your kids turned out to be
bigger rocks than you expected (And even if they didn't, you have readers
for whom they were unexpected big rocks); thus, 1. Save, or be prepared to
make, room for unexpected big rocks; and, 2. Make sure unexpected big
rocks displace gravel, sand, and water, not other big rocks!
Very Respectfullly, Rod McFadden Centreville, VA
Well said. Thanks.
Dr. Jerry:
One of my co-workers came up with an interesting
comment.
One of these days somebody's going to make an email
virus with the title "Virus alert!!" - and get everybody!
Steven Dunn
Yea, verily. I never open
attachments. Well, hardly ever, and then only not only from people I
know, but when an attachment is expected or explained. Random messages,
even those that purport to come from people I regularly work with, do not
get opened nor do attachments; I look at them with an ASCII viewer first.
I was bit by Melissa, but not since.
And a voice from the past:
You might enjoy this one. We seem to have similar
taste games: Free demo at www.battlefront.com
Like chess it is fairly easy to learn but a lifetime to master.
I still remember meeting you at my booth at San
Francisco Computer Faire many eons ago!
Happy Adventuring!
------------<begin signature
block>------------
Say Yoho - Everything spins around and suddenly I'm
elsewhere... M. Scott Adams (Not Dilbert, Adventure!)
http://www.msadams.com
Msadams@msadams.com Scott.Adams@Avistainc.com
Microsoft Games Beta Tester ID: 155880
When your life expectancy is near zero everything is
meaningful - Dr Stephen Hawking When your life expectancy is near full any
little thing can depress you - Dr James Dobson jr When you stop learning
you start dying - M. Scott Adams ------------<end signature
block>------------
Which does in fact look like
interesting game. Thanks.
And in a more serious vein:
Jerry, You were having trouble downloading a copy of
IE that didn't require you to go to the web site each time. Regarding
downloading anything from Microsoft, here's the Corporate Update Site. It
let's you download files and post them to a server for deployment
throughout your Enterprise, instead of each individual desktop having to
download from Microsoft's website. It's especially good if you implement a
policy of limited web access.
http://corporate.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp
Tracy Walters Networking Rocky Mountain Technology
Group "Most computer problems can be solved by a suitable charge of
high explosive."
I have had trouble navigating that
site which seems to change often, but thanks..
Jerry
In "Are We Wearing Out the Guard and the
Reserve?" in the 2/2001 issue of Air Force Magazine, there was a
comment on page 39 that caught my eye: "[T]he Reserve Component
Employment 2005 study . . . suggested that reserve forces were a
particularly good fit for the emerging mission of homeland defense. The
Pentagon has already established 10 Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection
teams-consisting of Army National Guard and ANG [Air National Guard]
personnel-to assist civil authorities in responding to a terrorist attack
involving weapons of mass destruction. The Fiscal 2000 defense bill
authorized the creation of 17 more RAID teams."
I suppose I should be glad they are thinking about
all of this, but the reference to "the emerging mission of homeland
defense" is chilling. I remember the Nike domes around the southern
California of my boyhood. I guess it's coming back to that.
Ed Hume
The Nike bases don't scare me. It's
that defending the homeland is an "emerging mission", while
sticking our noses in everyone else's business all over the world is
natural. Actually, the simplest way to reduce the threat of terrorist
attacks at home is to stop beating on people abroad. I don't think
Switzerland has to greatly expand anti-terrorist forces. There is no power
on earth that can take a drink from the Mississippi without our let and
leave. The United States is under no threat of invasion by anyone. So
who wants us harmed? Perhaps Sudan, whose pharmaceutical plant was
destroyed by US Missiles fired because -- because -- well, just because.
The Democratic Party and former President Clinton assure us it was not
wagging the dog to distract the country from revelations about White House
interns, and sure they are honorable men. There are those in Pakistan who
hate us because US missiles rained down on a convention of religious
Moslem physicians at a meeting in Afghanistan. The Taliban hates us
because the missiles fell on their country, and many Pakistani's are
unhappy because we killed some of their civilian physicians. But
again we are assured it was all necessary, and all, all are honorable men. But
perhaps, now, such actions won't be so necessary? In which case we might
not need so many preparations to combat terrorism? As
a maritime power we need to keep open the sea lanes. We need a Navy. But
keeping the seas free of pirates and enforcing freedom of the seas for all
has seldom generated hatreds sufficient to generate terrorist activities. If
we are a Republic, we have one set of defense requirements. If we are to
impose a New World Order -- which is Imperialism under another name -- we
need another. Rome began with a mission "to protect the weak and make
humble the proud," and that was the beginning of Empire. The end of
the Roman Empire came with the sons of Aurelius; no Emperor after that was
Roman at all. And the Legions soon discovered the dread secret, that
Emperors could be made in places other than Rome. But of course none of
that will ever happen here. The
case for Empire was made by Allbright: what is the good of having a great
and powerful army if we do not use it to right the wrongs of the world? It
is a powerful case: if we can right wrongs, should we not do so? But
in the Sudan they have been butchering and enslaving Christians and racial
minorities (actually religion is closely correlated with tribe there, so
it's hard to tell the difference between religious and racial
persecutions) -- they have done this for decades, and we seem not eager to
do anything about it. Only to bombard their pharmaceutical plant. In
the Balkans we have managed to exchange one set of persecuting thugs for
another. In Kuwait we have restored a Royal Family who fled to the
fleshpots of Europe while we took their country back for them. In Haiti we
have quietly allowed the restoration of the Tonton Macoute under another
name and with different membership, but little has changed. The
US had two highly spectacularly successful imperialist adventures: the
reconstruction of Japan and Germany under proconsuls Douglas Macarthur and
Lucius Clay. Those ventures worked and well. But those days are over. Still,
Allbright had a point: is it moral to stand by and do nothing about the
ills of the world when we obviously have the power to right all wrongs?
And we are then left to argue whether we really have the power that a
large and powerful army seems to imply. Talleyrand told Bonapart
that "you can do anything with a bayonet but sit upon it," a
lesson that few seem to have learned; I would argue that a large and
powerful army is not in fact the means for doing good that Allbright
thought it was. Going
about righting the world's wrongs by direct action is one possible mission
for America. The other is the policy put forth by John Adams and his son
John Quincy Adams: "We are the friends of liberty everywhere, but we
are the guardians only of our own." The purpose of America is to
clean up its own act, be the shining example, the beacon of freedom, and
if need be the arsenal of democracy. That is the other policy; and under
that one we will not need the oppressive measures that a vigorous
anti-terrorism program requires. When
we have a literacy rate to be proud of; when the city of Washington is the
envy of the world as an example of splendid schools, ordered liberty,
clean streets, arts, culture, beauty, no crime and no gangs, tranquil and
productive -- when we have achieved all that, perhaps we can begin to
think of exporting our ordered liberty by force, as we did with Germany
and Japan. But perhaps we will not need to?
In your column, you said...
IBM and Compaq have both made major investments in ensuring their
systems are compatible with Linux; IBM is putting a lot of effort into
developing a Journaling File System, or JFS, for Linux, and even have it
running on their big S/390 and above mainframes (see IBM and Compaq.)! My
guess is that IBM will probably phase out their proprietary UNIX, called
AIX, in favor of Linux across their entire line of hardware. That will
give Linux a real boost.
JFS is the file system used on an AS/400 (or
whatever they are calling it these days, IBM renamed their whole lineup
;-) ). It was ported to Warp Server about two years ago along with
something called LVM or Logical Volume Manager. Then they did something
that, at the time, was shocking. Both are now Open Source. IBM putting
their own technology in the Open Source arena, very shocking.
With LVM and JFS on os/2, you have the ability to
create a single drive letter that spans drives. You can make drives have
any letter you want as well. You can have drive Q, for example, be part of
IDE drive 0, all of IDE drive 1, part of three different scsi drives, and
all of a fourth scsi drive, all in the same system. Another feature is
that if you have a raid for example, and add a drive to it, you can expand
drive Q into that new space..... ON THE FLY, with NO rebooting required.
You will still want to do this in the wee hours as it does slow down the
server while it is doing this (duh). If you somehow crash the server (rare
with OS/2 servers), a check disk of a JFS drive often goes so fast that if
you blink, you will miss it... even for big drives. All it does is replay
the Journal. With HPFS (you still have to boot using it), it can take an
hour for a large drives check disk.
How much of this will wind up on Linux remains to be
seen. Since the source code is avail, someone SHOULD port both to windows
as it too is in bad need of a new file system. The one used on the
consumer OS is nearly as old as MS itself. I hear that NTFS is somewhat
older than HPFS in technology.
David Eckard
------ It's not hard to meet expenses... they're
everywhere. Webmaster http://www.billswoodshed.com Webmaster http://www.ntrnet.net/~swordedg
Fascinating. Thanks.
Jerry:
I've read and enjoyed your columns over the years.
I have been trying to understand the open
source/free software model.
I have read The Cathedral and the Bazaar, by Eric S.
Raymond.
I understand how many developers can advance a
project.
What I do not understand is the ECONOMIC MODEL.
Do the Linux contributors advocate that all software
be free??
Should PhotoShop, SAP, AutoCad, etc. be open
source/free????
This seems so socialist to me.
Why don't other professionals offer their services
for free.....doctors, lawyers, CPA's, etc.???
Can you point me in a direction where I can become
more informed on this subject????
Gregg Gilbert
Well, it's complicated. There are
also many shades of opinion here. And the revenue model varies from one to
another, and is always the central problem: why invest in open source
software companies? How do we get return on investment? What is the
revenue stream? For the views
of the various Linux contributors you will have to go read their own
words. I make no doubt that it won't be long before you see some of them
here. As to "socialist", some perhaps would agree; others would
be shocked since they are not trying to force anyone else to their model.
It's they way they want to operate. And many open source advocates have
day jobs, as professionals, and collect money for consulting. I'll
leave it at that for the moment. As I say, I make no doubt we will hear
more.
From: Steve Setzer <setzer@backfence.net>
Subject:Open Source Economic Models Jerry,
Mr. Gregg Gilbert, and anyone else interested in an
extensive analysis of potential economic models for open source companies,
should read another essay by Eric S. Raymond (ESR) entitled "The
Magic Cauldron."
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/magic-cauldron/magic-cauldron.html
Having read it a few times, I think ESR's basic
analyses of individual economic models is correct, but he is overly
optimistic in thinking that most of them will pan out for a large number
of projects and companies. I think he does not give enough credence to the
unique personalities driving the projects he holds up as examples. It is
nice, clear writing however, with footnotes.
Steve S.
Jerry,
Gregg Gilbert wrote:
> I have read The Cathedral and the
Bazaar, by Eric S. Raymond. > > I understand how many developers can
advance a project. > > What I do not understand is the ECONOMIC
MODEL.
There's more than one economic model. Eric Raymond
mentions some of them in "The Magic Cauldron" (which someone
else mentioned to you as I was writing this).
Linux-related companies are experimenting with many
different economic models - ranging from pure open source (selling CDs
(for the convenience of those without fat pipes) and/or selling services -
like Red Hat and Ximian) to pure proprietary (expensive licenses for
little shrinkwrapped boxes - like Computer Associates) . Some will
succeed, and some will fail.
IBM appears to going the "services" route
(mostly). That's not too surprising, since they seem to make most of their
profits on services in general (while losing a boatload of cash on
hardware sales).
> Do the Linux contributors advocate that
all software be free??
Some do (Richard Stallman), and some don't. We don't
all speak with one voice, ya know. And even Eric Raymond has told some
companies that it didn't make sense to open source their software (like
log-cutting programs at a lumber mill).
BTW - the issue is free as in "free
speech", not "free beer" (though low/no cost certainly has
its attractions).
My own preference is for open source software - both
for its price AND its fixability.
On the other hand, when Mom wanted a better way to
maintain the Dodge Family website (www.dodgefamily.org), I suggested IBM's
Top Page (now Home Page) for Linux (yep, commercial software). (Front Page
had been choking often - I know you're familiar with THAT, Jerry)
On the third hand, it turns out Home Page wasn't
really designed to cope with 6000+ files (lots of people in the family
tree) totalling 130 megabytes. IBM suggests that we shell out hundreds of
dollars for their commercial-grade stuff (not to mention a server to run
it on).
THAT'S the sort of artificial limitation which would
be frowned on in the open source world, so I'm back to preferring open
source software.
> Should PhotoShop, SAP, AutoCad, etc. be
open source/free????
That's up to their respective owners - I wouldn't
insist on them taking that route.
But I've had enough trouble with proprietary
software (my day job is occupied almost entirely by Microsoft Access) that
I'll always lean toward the open alternatives.
> This seems so socialist to me.
Errr ... no. Socialism is when someone from the
government points a gun at you and says "hand it over, or ELSE".
> Why don't other professionals offer
their services for free.....doctors, lawyers, CPA's, etc.???
Actually, some do - after their day jobs are done,
or during vacations or sabbaticals.
Calvin Dodge
Gregg Gilbert wonders whether the Linux contributors
advocate that all software should be free.
Some of them do; most do not. They are a diverse
group, and not easily lumped together.
I think most of the Linux contributors would agree
that people can charge money for software. However, as you noted, for a
variety of reasons they are willing to contribute code that will be given
away.
Companies like IBM are willing to contribute to
Linux because Linux is making them money, and they forsee even more money
if Linux gets even better.
Some people add features they, themselves, wish for.
That's why you sometimes see odd little features added before big,
important ones; you get the features that people write and donate, not
necessarily the ones you wish for. -- Steve R. Hastings "Vita est"
steve@hastings.org http://www.blarg.net/~steveha
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