* A Customer's Request For Open Source Software @ 2003-08-21 12:35 Marin David Condic 2003-08-21 12:46 ` Stephane Richard ` (3 more replies) 0 siblings, 4 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-21 12:35 UTC (permalink / raw) Someone pointed me at the foloowing article: http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html?tag=lh Its an interesting conversation with the CEO of Ernie Ball - the guitar string manufacturer. Apparently they totally dumped Micro$oft in favor of open source software after getting sued for license infringements. The interesting part for Ada is that the CEO is identifying some major holes in the "Open Source" world that he thinks need to be filled. It would be wise to listen to a successful business customer who might pick up on something written in Ada and start using it if it were available... From the article: ------------------------------------------------------------------- You've pretty much gotten by with off-the-shelf software. Was it tough to find everything you needed in the open-source world? Yeah, there are some things that are tough to find, like payroll software. We found something, and it works well. But the developers need to start writing the real-world applications people need to run a business...engineering, art and design tools, that kind of stuff...They're all trying to build servers that already exist and do a whole bunch of stuff that's already out there...I think there's a lot of room to not just create an alternative to Microsoft but really take the next step and do something new. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 12:35 A Customer's Request For Open Source Software Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-21 12:46 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 12:32 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-21 20:46 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-21 12:46 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2539 bytes --] Food for Though indeed. :-)....he's not wrong...as in orientation wise....there's plenty of people working on the servers/datbases/programming languages etc etc....there's OpenOffice which is a good start for the business world....but as far as payroll, inventory control, acounting, receivables etc etc...aint much done in those fields as far as open source goes.... -- St�phane Richard Senior Software and Technology Supervisor http://www.totalweb-inc.com For all your hosting and related needs "Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message news:3F44BC65.4020203@noplace.com... > Someone pointed me at the foloowing article: > > http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html?tag=lh > > Its an interesting conversation with the CEO of Ernie Ball - the guitar > string manufacturer. Apparently they totally dumped Micro$oft in favor > of open source software after getting sued for license infringements. > > The interesting part for Ada is that the CEO is identifying some major > holes in the "Open Source" world that he thinks need to be filled. It > would be wise to listen to a successful business customer who might pick > up on something written in Ada and start using it if it were available... > > From the article: > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > You've pretty much gotten by with off-the-shelf software. Was it tough > to find everything you needed in the open-source world? > Yeah, there are some things that are tough to find, like payroll > software. We found something, and it works well. But the developers need > to start writing the real-world applications people need to run a > business...engineering, art and design tools, that kind of > stuff...They're all trying to build servers that already exist and do a > whole bunch of stuff that's already out there...I think there's a lot of > room to not just create an alternative to Microsoft but really take the > next step and do something new. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > MDC > -- > ====================================================================== > Marin David Condic > I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ > My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ > > Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g > > "In general the art of government consists in taking as > much money as possible from one class of citizens to give > to the other." > > -- Voltaire > ====================================================================== > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 12:46 ` Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-22 12:32 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-22 13:38 ` David Holm 2003-08-30 5:58 ` Adrian Hoe 0 siblings, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-22 12:32 UTC (permalink / raw) That's why I suggested it as an opportunity to establish some major market sector as belonging to Ada. An open source accounting system - with add-ons for things like payroll, inventory, etc., would be a market niche that is not adequately addressed in the Linux/Open Source world. All you've got to do is figure out how to make it pay so its worth someone's time to do the development. MDC Stephane Richard wrote: > Food for Though indeed. :-)....he's not wrong...as in orientation > wise....there's plenty of people working on the servers/datbases/programming > languages etc etc....there's OpenOffice which is a good start for the > business world....but as far as payroll, inventory control, acounting, > receivables etc etc...aint much done in those fields as far as open source > goes.... > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 12:32 ` Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-22 13:38 ` David Holm 2003-08-22 14:33 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-23 13:05 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-30 5:58 ` Adrian Hoe 1 sibling, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: David Holm @ 2003-08-22 13:38 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1740 bytes --] Place a paypal donation button on the page and strongly advice commercial users to donate as much as they can afford. If there is commercial interest in such an application, which there seems to be, I believe some companies would support it. Of course, this would require having a somewhat usable application first. //David Holm On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 12:32:58 GMT Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote: > That's why I suggested it as an opportunity to establish some major > market sector as belonging to Ada. An open source accounting system - > with add-ons for things like payroll, inventory, etc., would be a market > niche that is not adequately addressed in the Linux/Open Source world. > All you've got to do is figure out how to make it pay so its worth > someone's time to do the development. > > MDC > > Stephane Richard wrote: > > Food for Though indeed. :-)....he's not wrong...as in orientation > > wise....there's plenty of people working on the servers/datbases/programming > > languages etc etc....there's OpenOffice which is a good start for the > > business world....but as far as payroll, inventory control, acounting, > > receivables etc etc...aint much done in those fields as far as open source > > goes.... > > > > > -- > ====================================================================== > Marin David Condic > I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ > My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ > > Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g > > "In general the art of government consists in taking as > much money as possible from one class of citizens to give > to the other." > > -- Voltaire > ====================================================================== > [-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 13:38 ` David Holm @ 2003-08-22 14:33 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 16:40 ` David Holm 2003-08-22 16:46 ` Larry Kilgallen 2003-08-23 13:05 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-22 14:33 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 443 bytes --] Indeed it would...the corporate expects OpenSource to do it all first..sell later? :-)... Or so I've noticed in my career. Maybe somekidn of ransomware is in order as far as comemrcialware goes? -- St�phane Richard Senior Software and Technology Supervisor http://www.totalweb-inc.com For all your hosting and related needs "David Holm" <david@realityrift.com> wrote in message news:20030822153839.5ec5c918.david@realityrift.com... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 14:33 ` Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-22 16:40 ` David Holm 2003-08-23 13:18 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-22 16:46 ` Larry Kilgallen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: David Holm @ 2003-08-22 16:40 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 904 bytes --] The problem is that when you are forced to pay for something you expect much more out of it than you normally would. If it's an opensource development that is carried out in peoples free time then you can not expect the same things to happen in the same timeframe as you would for a commercial application. //David Holm On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 14:33:46 GMT "Stephane Richard" <stephane.richard@verizon.net> wrote: > Indeed it would...the corporate expects OpenSource to do it all first..sell > later? :-)... Or so I've noticed in my career. Maybe somekidn of > ransomware is in order as far as comemrcialware goes? > > > -- > Stéphane Richard > Senior Software and Technology Supervisor > http://www.totalweb-inc.com > For all your hosting and related needs > "David Holm" <david@realityrift.com> wrote in message > news:20030822153839.5ec5c918.david@realityrift.com... > > [-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 16:40 ` David Holm @ 2003-08-23 13:18 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-25 8:27 ` Preben Randhol 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-23 13:18 UTC (permalink / raw) Absolutely. Volunteer projects will move very slowly and will likely not be nearly as spiffy as something you can buy off the shelf in a shrink-wrap box. (Like Quicken or other commercial products) They are also far more likely to appear "organically grown" than "designed". All of which is an incentive to go use what you can purchase commercially rather than wait for some volunteer freeware to show up. Or, one could imagine that there is a good commercial potential here and figure out if its worth doing as a business venture. It would potentially produce jobs programming in Ada and profits for the people who put in the sweat equity of developing the initial software. It would almost certainly get done sooner and with a more "professional" look if a team of for-profit minded developers were working on it. MDC David Holm wrote: > The problem is that when you are forced to pay for something you expect much more out of it than > you normally would. If it's an opensource development that is carried out in peoples free time > then you can not expect the same things to happen in the same timeframe as you would for a > commercial application. > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-23 13:18 ` Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-25 8:27 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-25 20:50 ` Chad R. Meiners 2003-08-30 17:33 ` A Customer's Request For Open Source Software Jan Kroken 0 siblings, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-25 8:27 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > Absolutely. Volunteer projects will move very slowly and will likely not > be nearly as spiffy as something you can buy off the shelf in a > shrink-wrap box. (Like Quicken or other commercial products) They are > also far more likely to appear "organically grown" than "designed". All > of which is an incentive to go use what you can purchase commercially > rather than wait for some volunteer freeware to show up. The notion that something that looks nice and shiny on the cover is a better product is a foolish thought. Alas it is widespread. Remember once in an expo an experiment was done. A new computer with normal design was displayed (it was in the 80's so it wasn't so common as today) and beside it an very elegant new computer cache design that contained nothing inside was put next to it. The customers were mostly all interested in the latter even if it didn't contain the computer. Whether organically grown is a bad thing can be discussed. I have see too many articles in the newspapers of big software projects that failed and had to be scrapped because the design didn't fit with the usage. Sure a good design is a good thing and it saves a lot of work, but are you quite sure that the requirements won't change? In science one design ones experiments, but one do redesign them after examining the results to delve deeper into the problem. I would say one would need both a good design and organic growth of the software. But why would one necessarily think that the shrink-wrapped commercial version is better designed? > Or, one could imagine that there is a good commercial potential here > and figure out if its worth doing as a business venture. It would > potentially produce jobs programming in Ada and profits for the people > who put in the sweat equity of developing the initial software. It > would almost certainly get done sooner and with a more "professional" > look if a team of for-profit minded developers were working on it. If you want to write open source software in the free time it must be for either of two reasons: 1) You are making the software for yourself, but don't mind sharing it with others. 2) You are making the software with an intent to one day perhaps be able to make a professional version you can sell with a support license. At any rate the project is your "baby" and you will need to care for it to grow. If your work is to make a system you don't need to care so much just get the job done so you earn your pay. -- �I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet. So who am I to judge.� - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radioplay) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-25 8:27 ` Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-25 20:50 ` Chad R. Meiners 2003-08-26 1:28 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-30 17:33 ` A Customer's Request For Open Source Software Jan Kroken 1 sibling, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Chad R. Meiners @ 2003-08-25 20:50 UTC (permalink / raw) "Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message news:slrnbkji2n.2kg.randhol+abuse@kiuk0152.chembio.ntnu.no... > The notion that something that looks nice and shiny on the cover is a > better product is a foolish thought. I think Marin was saying that products should be both shiney and useful ;-) I think that we all can agree that a useful program becomes better with a nicer interface; therefore, GNU business software could benifit nicely from a group of people that would put time and effort into making the software easy to use. -CRM ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-25 20:50 ` Chad R. Meiners @ 2003-08-26 1:28 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-26 9:27 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-26 12:51 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-26 1:28 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2256 bytes --] "Chad R. Meiners" <crmeiners@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:bidssm$12sr$1@msunews.cl.msu.edu... > > "Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message > news:slrnbkji2n.2kg.randhol+abuse@kiuk0152.chembio.ntnu.no... > > The notion that something that looks nice and shiny on the cover is a > > better product is a foolish thought. > > I think Marin was saying that products should be both shiney and useful ;-) > I think that we all can agree that a useful program becomes better with a > nicer interface; therefore, GNU business software could benifit nicely from > a group of people that would put time and effort into making the software > easy to use. > > -CRM > > And to that, I have to agree. A good user interface (in today's business world) is just as important than good functionality. Let's face it, business users today just dont want to have to do Shift-Ctrl-Alt-F4 to get something to print. they wanna click the file menu, then print. Or they want to push that little button with the Printer drawn on it. It's been my professional experiences. Some hard core users like to have that complicate key combo. To me it's a question of balancing the two. You can't give 600 features on a screen because the screen gets cluttered beyond usability. If you take these 600 and split them into Tabs (which looks quite nice) then other users will complain there's just too many steps to getting at the end. so do you cut 600 features down to 400? Other users will complain that it lacks features then. :-)...It's hard to balance the functional / usability ratio but I think it can still be done....First of my example is exagerated, 600 features is a lot for a screen of any design. At that point you can usually put part of that into somekind of preferences that can be setup during the installation for example so they still have it, but dont havfe to bother with it unless then want to change it permanently. I give whatever I develop a good try, usually if I think a certain part takes too many steps, or is just to harsh to read, too cluttered, chances are the users will think so too. -- St�phane Richard Senior Software and Technology Supervisor http://www.totalweb-inc.com For all your hosting and related needs ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-26 1:28 ` Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-26 9:27 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-26 17:06 ` Chad R. Meiners 2003-08-26 12:51 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-26 9:27 UTC (permalink / raw) Stephane Richard wrote: > And to that, I have to agree. A good user interface (in today's business > world) is just as important than good functionality. Let's face it, > business users today just dont want to have to do Shift-Ctrl-Alt-F4 to get > something to print. they wanna click the file menu, then print. Or they > want to push that little button with the Printer drawn on it. It's been my > professional experiences. Some hard core users like to have that complicate > key combo. Well. Consider this. You have a nice shiny GUI and you have 200 new student that should be registered in a database. You have gotten a file of names and ids etc... So what do you do? Yes you print the file and sit and click-i-click for a couple of days to get them all in. Wereas if you had a non GUI interface you could easily script it to take 5 min. What I'm saying is that a GUI is everything and it is certainly not the best interface always. As to the printing; you need both! You need both a shortcut and a icon/menu. Because using the keyboard is much faster than reaching for the mouse all the time. I mean consider making a program for editing text without Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V or equivalent shortcuts and you get my meaning. > To me it's a question of balancing the two. You can't give 600 features on > a screen because the screen gets cluttered beyond usability. If you take > these 600 and split them into Tabs (which looks quite nice) then other users > will complain there's just too many steps to getting at the end. so do you > cut 600 features down to 400? Other users will complain that it lacks > features then. :-)...It's hard to balance the functional / usability ratio > but I think it can still be done....First of my example is exagerated, 600 > features is a lot for a screen of any design. At that point you can usually > put part of that into somekind of preferences that can be setup during the > installation for example so they still have it, but dont havfe to bother > with it unless then want to change it permanently. A really good GUI interface (I have seen some of these lately) should have these choices: I'm a computer illiterate I'm a normal user I'm an expert user. If you choose the first you get simple menus and a limit set of options that are most useful. As you choose a higher level more options are presented. -- �I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet. So who am I to judge.� - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radioplay) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-26 9:27 ` Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-26 17:06 ` Chad R. Meiners 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Chad R. Meiners @ 2003-08-26 17:06 UTC (permalink / raw) "Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message news:slrnbkm9uv.29i.randhol+abuse@kiuk0152.chembio.ntnu.no... > Well. Consider this. You have a nice shiny GUI and you have 200 new > student that should be registered in a database. You have gotten a file > of names and ids etc... So what do you do? Yes you print the file and > sit and click-i-click for a couple of days to get them all in. Wereas if > you had a non GUI interface you could easily script it to take 5 min. > What I'm saying is that a GUI is everything and it is certainly not the > best interface always. Agreed, you have an additional CLI tool for scripting purposes. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-26 1:28 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-26 9:27 ` Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-26 12:51 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-26 18:25 ` Wes Groleau 2003-08-27 10:05 ` Dave Head 1 sibling, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-26 12:51 UTC (permalink / raw) Yes, user interface is important. But also a lot of other usability factors. Many "Open Source" things out there might have some marvelous functionality but you have to download them, then all the pieces they rely on and maybe you have to compile them. Perhaps you then discover there are subtle differences in your system versus the author's system and you're trying to figure out what switch settings or environment variables you have to tweak, etc. Whereas with a typical application bought from a commercial company, one expects to insert the disk, click on "Install", answer "Yes" to everything and see the app come up and work. It had better have either really easy to understand features on its face or it had better have really good documentation - or both. If it doesn't look good in these and other respects, the company will be out of business soon. Whereas your typical freebie download "Open Source" project can easily afford to say "If you don't like it, go pile sand! I'm a *volunteer* and you're getting it *free*." That's basically what I meant about an "Open Source" project needing to meet up with certain quality expectations people will have in the business world. Not all Open Source projects are going to be a pile of defication and not all commercial products are going to be amazing wonders. But if one wants to make an Open Source product that is going to draw users away from shrink-wrapped packages from commercial vendors, one had better look at the market's expectations and what the competition is doing *right* in meeting with them. Commercial software users are not "geeks". They don't find great pleasure in tinkering with an app or marveling at how wonderfully it was constructed internally. They want to take it out of the box and use it to get a job done. That's what "Open Source" has to deal with if it wants to overcome Microsoft's market dominance. MDC Stephane Richard wrote: > > And to that, I have to agree. A good user interface (in today's business > world) is just as important than good functionality. Let's face it, > business users today just dont want to have to do Shift-Ctrl-Alt-F4 to get > something to print. they wanna click the file menu, then print. Or they > want to push that little button with the Printer drawn on it. It's been my > professional experiences. Some hard core users like to have that complicate > key combo. -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-26 12:51 ` Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-26 18:25 ` Wes Groleau 2003-08-27 10:05 ` Dave Head 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2003-08-26 18:25 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > factors. Many "Open Source" things out there might have some marvelous > functionality but you have to download them, then all the pieces they > rely on and maybe you have to compile them. Perhaps you then discover > there are subtle differences in your system versus the author's system Like 'c2ada' Installation: 1. Get Python. ______ is the URI it was at when we stopped supporting this. 2. etc. :-) -- Wes Groleau http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau/Wes ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-26 12:51 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-26 18:25 ` Wes Groleau @ 2003-08-27 10:05 ` Dave Head 2003-08-27 12:11 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-27 19:45 ` [off-topic] military medicine Wes Groleau 1 sibling, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Dave Head @ 2003-08-27 10:05 UTC (permalink / raw) This is correct. Anything that doesn't have a transfer of money or other consideration has no incentive for the provider to be concerned with the consumer's satisfaction. Its like socialized medicine. Anyone can get a taste of that if they join the military. I was about as sick as I'd ever been, fever, etc. and went to the doctor in Ft. Monmouth, NJ. Got aspirin, nothing else. Now, it may have been a virus and there was no real treatment for it, but they didn't bother to explain that. That's the real difference. Like all other "free" services, or goods, that was not a concern of theirs. Dave Head On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 12:51:44 GMT, Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote: >Yes, user interface is important. But also a lot of other usability >factors. Many "Open Source" things out there might have some marvelous >functionality but you have to download them, then all the pieces they >rely on and maybe you have to compile them. Perhaps you then discover >there are subtle differences in your system versus the author's system >and you're trying to figure out what switch settings or environment >variables you have to tweak, etc. > >Whereas with a typical application bought from a commercial company, one >expects to insert the disk, click on "Install", answer "Yes" to >everything and see the app come up and work. It had better have either >really easy to understand features on its face or it had better have >really good documentation - or both. If it doesn't look good in these >and other respects, the company will be out of business soon. Whereas >your typical freebie download "Open Source" project can easily afford to >say "If you don't like it, go pile sand! I'm a *volunteer* and you're >getting it *free*." > >That's basically what I meant about an "Open Source" project needing to >meet up with certain quality expectations people will have in the >business world. Not all Open Source projects are going to be a pile of >defication and not all commercial products are going to be amazing >wonders. But if one wants to make an Open Source product that is going >to draw users away from shrink-wrapped packages from commercial vendors, >one had better look at the market's expectations and what the >competition is doing *right* in meeting with them. > >Commercial software users are not "geeks". They don't find great >pleasure in tinkering with an app or marveling at how wonderfully it was >constructed internally. They want to take it out of the box and use it >to get a job done. That's what "Open Source" has to deal with if it >wants to overcome Microsoft's market dominance. > > >MDC > > >Stephane Richard wrote: >> >> And to that, I have to agree. A good user interface (in today's business >> world) is just as important than good functionality. Let's face it, >> business users today just dont want to have to do Shift-Ctrl-Alt-F4 to get >> something to print. they wanna click the file menu, then print. Or they >> want to push that little button with the Printer drawn on it. It's been my >> professional experiences. Some hard core users like to have that complicate >> key combo. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-27 10:05 ` Dave Head @ 2003-08-27 12:11 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-27 19:45 ` [off-topic] military medicine Wes Groleau 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-27 12:11 UTC (permalink / raw) Keep in mind that an "Open Source" project can still involve the transfer of money. (Depending on what your definition of "Open Source" is). I see no reason one couldn't write a business application and sell it to a customer along with the source code and give them the right to install it on any machines they own. That's still "Open Source" - they got the source code and they can modify it if they like - or hire someone to do that. Its just that if the project is not commercialized in some manner, people will have very little incentive to want to make it a better, more customer-satisfying tool. Exceptions exist, but usually they're just being driven by a different "customer". (e.g. I build some tool for internal use within my business and I release it to the world because I don't want to commercialize it myself, but I still keep making upgrades because of my internal users.) MDC Dave Head wrote: > This is correct. Anything that doesn't have a transfer of money or other > consideration has no incentive for the provider to be concerned with the > consumer's satisfaction. > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* [off-topic] military medicine 2003-08-27 10:05 ` Dave Head 2003-08-27 12:11 ` Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-27 19:45 ` Wes Groleau 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2003-08-27 19:45 UTC (permalink / raw) > Its like socialized medicine. Anyone can get a taste of that if they join the > military. I was about as sick as I'd ever been, fever, etc. and went to the > doctor in Ft. Monmouth, NJ. Got aspirin, nothing else. Now, it may have been I was scheduled for a Naval Reserve weekend, but I was very ill. "You can't call in sick, you have to come to the reserve center and let the Corpsman say you're sick" Wait in misery thirty minutes for the corpsman to say "Go to the V.A. hospital to see a doc" Drive there, am told "Wait right here for the doc." At least there was a TV there, and a football game was just beginning. At half-time, somebody came in, asked me a few questions, and left. When the game ended, someone else came in, gave me a note saying I should stay in bed, and left. Five hours out of bed and out of the house, in order to be told not to get out of bed. And interesting timing with regard to the game. :-) -- Wes Groleau Genealogical Lookups: http://groleau.freeshell.org/ref/lookups.html ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-25 8:27 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-25 20:50 ` Chad R. Meiners @ 2003-08-30 17:33 ` Jan Kroken 2003-09-01 10:03 ` Preben Randhol 1 sibling, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Jan Kroken @ 2003-08-30 17:33 UTC (permalink / raw) Preben Randhol <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> writes: > If you want to write open source software in the free time it must be > for either of two reasons: > > 1) You are making the software for yourself, but don't mind sharing > it with others. > > 2) You are making the software with an intent to one day perhaps be > able to make a professional version you can sell with a support > license. Is it ok if I use this as an example of the dangers of strong typing? :) -- Jan Kroken ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-30 17:33 ` A Customer's Request For Open Source Software Jan Kroken @ 2003-09-01 10:03 ` Preben Randhol 2003-09-17 18:21 ` Jan Kroken 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2003-09-01 10:03 UTC (permalink / raw) Jan Kroken wrote: > Preben Randhol <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> writes: > >> If you want to write open source software in the free time it must be >> for either of two reasons: >> >> 1) You are making the software for yourself, but don't mind sharing >> it with others. >> >> 2) You are making the software with an intent to one day perhaps be >> able to make a professional version you can sell with a support >> license. > > Is it ok if I use this as an example of the dangers of strong typing? :) If you explain what you mean first :-) -- �I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet. So who am I to judge.� - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radioplay) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-01 10:03 ` Preben Randhol @ 2003-09-17 18:21 ` Jan Kroken 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Jan Kroken @ 2003-09-17 18:21 UTC (permalink / raw) Preben Randhol <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> writes: > Jan Kroken wrote: > > Preben Randhol <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> writes: > > > >> If you want to write open source software in the free time it must be > >> for either of two reasons: > >> > >> 1) You are making the software for yourself, but don't mind sharing > >> it with others. > >> > >> 2) You are making the software with an intent to one day perhaps be > >> able to make a professional version you can sell with a support > >> license. > > > > Is it ok if I use this as an example of the dangers of strong typing? :) > > If you explain what you mean first :-) Sorry about the delayed answer. I just saw the similarity between organizing information in a uniform group (a type) in strongly typed languages like Ada, and normalizing reasons for doing open source development in a distinct and discrete group that would fit well in an Ada type. The danger I'm talking about is that of viewing normalized information as a lossless or at least basically correct representation of chaotic information. The phrase I reacted the most on was "must be for either of two reasons". When it comes to motivation for developing open source software, there is a thorough study available at http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/Final4.htm I'm unsure to what degree it is representable, since it was voluntary and distributed through the community by the developers themself. It also of course suffers from the normalization of the answers (and probably the questions too). In addition, when the people themself describe their motivation, the answer is probably going to be distorted by pride, self-glorification and other human weaknesses. -- Jan Kroken ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 14:33 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 16:40 ` David Holm @ 2003-08-22 16:46 ` Larry Kilgallen 2003-08-22 17:09 ` Stephane Richard 1 sibling, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2003-08-22 16:46 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 701 bytes --] In article <eRp1b.4$i%3.2@nwrdny02.gnilink.net>, "Stephane Richard" <stephane.richard@verizon.net> writes: > Indeed it would...the corporate expects OpenSource to do it all first..sell > later? :-)... Or so I've noticed in my career. Maybe somekidn of > ransomware is in order as far as comemrcialware goes? > > > -- > St�phane Richard > Senior Software and Technology Supervisor > http://www.totalweb-inc.com > For all your hosting and related needs > "David Holm" <david@realityrift.com> wrote in message > news:20030822153839.5ec5c918.david@realityrift.com... Indeed what would ? Please post a small bit of context in responses. Do not assume that everybody's newsreader is like yours. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 16:46 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2003-08-22 17:09 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 18:03 ` Larry Kilgallen 2003-08-25 8:33 ` Preben Randhol 0 siblings, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-22 17:09 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1695 bytes --] Sorry Larry, As you've seen I've responded to David Holm's reply, and in his case, all message I get from him are as attachement to the posting. so there's no contents that show when I hit reply. if you would have responded in the normal way (hitting "reply group" to the post) you wouldn't get any more contents that what I have shown here. :-) FYI; Here's the quoted contents of that mews post. "Place a paypal donation button on the page and strongly advice commercial users to donate as much as they can afford. If there is commercial interest in such an application, which there seems to be, I believe some companies would support it. Of course, this would require having a somewhat usable application first." -- St�phane Richard Senior Software and Technology Supervisor http://www.totalweb-inc.com For all your hosting and related needs "Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@SpamCop.net> wrote in message news:$ytOWWqDGf8M@eisner.encompasserve.org... > In article <eRp1b.4$i%3.2@nwrdny02.gnilink.net>, "Stephane Richard" <stephane.richard@verizon.net> writes: > > Indeed it would...the corporate expects OpenSource to do it all first..sell > > later? :-)... Or so I've noticed in my career. Maybe somekidn of > > ransomware is in order as far as comemrcialware goes? > > > > > > -- > > St�phane Richard > > Senior Software and Technology Supervisor > > http://www.totalweb-inc.com > > For all your hosting and related needs > > "David Holm" <david@realityrift.com> wrote in message > > news:20030822153839.5ec5c918.david@realityrift.com... > > Indeed what would ? > > Please post a small bit of context in responses. > > Do not assume that everybody's newsreader is like yours. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 17:09 ` Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-22 18:03 ` Larry Kilgallen 2003-08-25 8:33 ` Preben Randhol 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2003-08-22 18:03 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <H7s1b.83$i%3.14@nwrdny02.gnilink.net>, "Stephane Richard" <stephane.richard@verizon.net> writes: <top posting corrected> > "Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@SpamCop.net> wrote in message > news:$ytOWWqDGf8M@eisner.encompasserve.org... >> In article <eRp1b.4$i%3.2@nwrdny02.gnilink.net>, "Stephane Richard" > <stephane.richard@verizon.net> writes: >> > Indeed it would...the corporate expects OpenSource to do it all > first..sell >> > later? :-)... Or so I've noticed in my career. Maybe somekidn of >> > ransomware is in order as far as comemrcialware goes? >> Indeed what would ? >> >> Please post a small bit of context in responses. <top posting corrected> > Sorry Larry, > > As you've seen I've responded to David Holm's reply, and in his case, all > message I get from him are as attachement to the posting. so there's no > contents that show when I hit reply. if you would have responded in the > normal way (hitting "reply group" to the post) you wouldn't get any more > contents that what I have shown here. :-) Certainly my Keyboard has no "reply group" key, and my terminal emulator has no such function. I have never heard of such a thing in ANUNEWS, my browser :-) >> Do not assume that everybody's newsreader is like yours. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 17:09 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 18:03 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2003-08-25 8:33 ` Preben Randhol 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-25 8:33 UTC (permalink / raw) Stephane Richard wrote: > Sorry Larry, > > As you've seen I've responded to David Holm's reply, and in his case, all > message I get from him are as attachement to the posting. so there's no > contents that show when I hit reply. if you would have responded in the > normal way (hitting "reply group" to the post) you wouldn't get any more > contents that what I have shown here. :-) First just want to say I'm not lashing out at you, but I'm very frustrated after getting a lot of Sobig.F virus mails from people who use M$ Outlook. Why cannot people take the problem at the root and remove this piece of shrink-wrapped shiny commercial cowpat software from their system. Please get a propper USERNET client and not this Virus-infested Outlook shit. On USENET you don't send attachments nor HTML. -- �I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet. So who am I to judge.� - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radioplay) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 13:38 ` David Holm 2003-08-22 14:33 ` Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-23 13:05 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-23 13:05 UTC (permalink / raw) I'd want to see some evidence that putting a paypal button on a website would generate sufficient revenue to make a project sustain itself. Possibly a better way is to publish documentation and sell that as an extra. Or provide the "basic" package free of charge but charge a fee to get the "extras". Somehow, some way, you've got to find a way to generate some revenue or the thing would languish. MDC David Holm wrote: > Place a paypal donation button on the page and strongly advice commercial users to donate as > much as they can afford. If there is commercial interest in such an application, which there > seems to be, I believe some companies would support it. Of course, this would require having a > somewhat usable application first. > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 12:32 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-22 13:38 ` David Holm @ 2003-08-30 5:58 ` Adrian Hoe 2003-08-30 11:09 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-30 13:18 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Adrian Hoe @ 2003-08-30 5:58 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > That's why I suggested it as an opportunity to establish some major > market sector as belonging to Ada. An open source accounting system - > with add-ons for things like payroll, inventory, etc., would be a market > niche that is not adequately addressed in the Linux/Open Source world. > All you've got to do is figure out how to make it pay so its worth > someone's time to do the development. > > MDC > > Stephane Richard wrote: > >> Food for Though indeed. :-)....he's not wrong...as in orientation >> wise....there's plenty of people working on the >> servers/datbases/programming >> languages etc etc....there's OpenOffice which is a good start for the >> business world....but as far as payroll, inventory control, acounting, >> receivables etc etc...aint much done in those fields as far as open >> source >> goes.... >> > > Yes, market niche it is. But take accounting software for instance, it will require ten (10) years to be track proven (or at least 5 years). Gnucash has not been track proven yet, but my company (and all subsidiaries) are using it. Quite a nice software but it still cannot handle some of our financial requirement. If we talk about payroll, situation becomes worst. Why? Every country has different employment policy. Even in every states of US. And to make things worst, employment policy changes over years if not months. These I call them "Business Software". Because they need to evolve with businesses. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-30 5:58 ` Adrian Hoe @ 2003-08-30 11:09 ` Stephane Richard [not found] ` <rti721-4p3.ln1@beastie.ix.netcom.com> 2003-08-30 13:18 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-30 11:09 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2862 bytes --] Agreed, I've worked on a payroll program (for canada) (in visual basic 1.0 professional for DOS no less I can still feel the pain...hehe) and every year rates changes, salary margins change, everything changes...and then when income tax arrives everything seems to change again :-)....it's not impossible to do, but it is an evolving software....however since payroll is usually targetted at accoutants, they'll know what to do with it, all we need is to provide a way for them to update these evolutionary changes....maybe a grid of salary margins to tax rates is all they need since they are usually displayed as a table on the official forms. then anyone can follow the dotted lines so to speak...and enter margins and rates the same way...Obviously, these rates/margins changes need to be saved for future reference and calculations... But that's one margin...I assume GNUCash is a opensource version of a POS software? (point of sale) with integrated accounting? (or should I shut up rigth now and google on it first so it looks like I know what I'm saying?) :-)... -- St�phane Richard Senior Software and Technology Supervisor http://www.totalweb-inc.com For all your hosting and related needs "Adrian Hoe" <mailbox@nospam.adrianhoe.com.my> wrote in message news:3f503d49$1_2@news.tm.net.my... > Marin David Condic wrote: > > That's why I suggested it as an opportunity to establish some major > > market sector as belonging to Ada. An open source accounting system - > > with add-ons for things like payroll, inventory, etc., would be a market > > niche that is not adequately addressed in the Linux/Open Source world. > > All you've got to do is figure out how to make it pay so its worth > > someone's time to do the development. > > > > MDC > > > > Stephane Richard wrote: > > > >> Food for Though indeed. :-)....he's not wrong...as in orientation > >> wise....there's plenty of people working on the > >> servers/datbases/programming > >> languages etc etc....there's OpenOffice which is a good start for the > >> business world....but as far as payroll, inventory control, acounting, > >> receivables etc etc...aint much done in those fields as far as open > >> source > >> goes.... > >> > > > > > > > Yes, market niche it is. But take accounting software for instance, it > will require ten (10) years to be track proven (or at least 5 years). > Gnucash has not been track proven yet, but my company (and all > subsidiaries) are using it. Quite a nice software but it still cannot > handle some of our financial requirement. > > If we talk about payroll, situation becomes worst. Why? Every country > has different employment policy. Even in every states of US. And to make > things worst, employment policy changes over years if not months. > > These I call them "Business Software". Because they need to evolve with > businesses. > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <rti721-4p3.ln1@beastie.ix.netcom.com>]
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software [not found] ` <rti721-4p3.ln1@beastie.ix.netcom.com> @ 2003-08-31 18:28 ` Christopher Browne 2003-09-02 15:44 ` Adrian Hoe 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Christopher Browne @ 2003-08-31 18:28 UTC (permalink / raw) Quoth Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com>: > Stephane Richard fed this fish to the penguins on Saturday 30 August > 2003 04:09 am: > >> >> But that's one margin...I assume GNUCash is a opensource version of a >> POS >> software? (point of sale) with integrated accounting? (or should I >> shut up rigth now and google on it first so it looks like I know what >> I'm saying?) :-)... >> > Wrong end of the system... GNUCash is closer to Quicken (I > presume you are familiar with that)[though I don't know if GNUCash > fits Quicken Standard, Deluxe, Home Business... I'm sure it is not > attempting to fill the role of QuickBooks, which is more of a full > business/payroll application] The confusion is understandable, as there was, at one point, a company building software to do POS and integrate that with GnuCash. Two or three of the GnuCash "core developers" went into that project. Not too surprisingly, in retrospect, not much emerged, and the business enterprise was discontinued. -- wm(X,Y):-write(X),write('@'),write(Y). wm('cbbrowne','cbbrowne.com'). http://cbbrowne.com/info/spiritual.html Where do you want to go, toady? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-31 18:28 ` Christopher Browne @ 2003-09-02 15:44 ` Adrian Hoe 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Adrian Hoe @ 2003-09-02 15:44 UTC (permalink / raw) Christopher Browne wrote: > > The confusion is understandable, as there was, at one point, a company > building software to do POS and integrate that with GnuCash. Two or > three of the GnuCash "core developers" went into that project. > > Not too surprisingly, in retrospect, not much emerged, and the > business enterprise was discontinued. Business software is the most chanllenging software development if compare to system software. By the time you finish off your development, the business rules may have already evolved and you have to catch up with that. The life cycle goes on and on. Believe me, your nightmare will not end. I come from business software domain. Although providing a way to allow users to update the evolutionary changes (in Stephane's reply) provide a flexible functionality of the software, that renders the software to be complex and afterall, it is hard to predict what will come next. Even the gigantic SAP application framework does not fit into all manufacturing environment. You will need alot of customization if you want it to work according to spec. The world is full of chaos and no one can accurately predict the next happening. We can only design the software to handle evolutions that have already occured. Understand the business software domain, you will no longer surprise that the enterprise has been discontinued. Adrian Hoe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-30 5:58 ` Adrian Hoe 2003-08-30 11:09 ` Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-30 13:18 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-30 13:18 UTC (permalink / raw) That's one of the reasons it might work well as a GPL licensed product. You constantly have a need for support in terms of new features, add-on capabilities, changing requirements, customization, etc. (Although Quicken seems to do well without providing custom software, eh?) I don't think it would take 10 years to catch on. It may take 10 years to mature as a volunteer effort, but if done with an eye towards commercialization, I doubt it would be that long. The rest is what you do to promote its use in different places. MDC Adrian Hoe wrote: > > Yes, market niche it is. But take accounting software for instance, it > will require ten (10) years to be track proven (or at least 5 years). > Gnucash has not been track proven yet, but my company (and all > subsidiaries) are using it. Quite a nice software but it still cannot > handle some of our financial requirement. > > If we talk about payroll, situation becomes worst. Why? Every country > has different employment policy. Even in every states of US. And to make > things worst, employment policy changes over years if not months. > > These I call them "Business Software". Because they need to evolve with > businesses. > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 12:35 A Customer's Request For Open Source Software Marin David Condic 2003-08-21 12:46 ` Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-21 20:46 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-21 21:12 ` Stephane Richard ` (3 more replies) 2003-08-21 22:53 ` David Holm 2003-08-25 8:02 ` Preben Randhol 3 siblings, 4 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-21 20:46 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > Someone pointed me at the foloowing article: > > http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html?tag=lh Very interesting article. > Its an interesting conversation with the CEO of Ernie Ball - the guitar > string manufacturer. Apparently they totally dumped Micro$oft in favor > of open source software after getting sued for license infringements. > > The interesting part for Ada is that the CEO is identifying some major > holes in the "Open Source" world that he thinks need to be filled. It > would be wise to listen to a successful business customer who might pick > up on something written in Ada and start using it if it were available... > > From the article: > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > You've pretty much gotten by with off-the-shelf software. Was it tough > to find everything you needed in the open-source world? > Yeah, there are some things that are tough to find, like payroll > software. We found something, and it works well. But the developers need > to start writing the real-world applications people need to run a > business...engineering, art and design tools, that kind of > stuff...They're all trying to build servers that already exist and do a > whole bunch of stuff that's already out there...I think there's a lot of > room to not just create an alternative to Microsoft but really take the > next step and do something new. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > MDC I would have to agree. It would seem that there is plenty of interest in making server and kernel enhancements, but much less support in getting actual applications done. I am very interested in doing applications myself. The problem is that I want to do them strictly in Ada95, for all the reasons we know and love. So right now, my time is spent building up a series of important language bindings, one of which is APQ. *APQ PLUG* ;-) My first version of APQ only supported PostgreSQL in an object oriented, ODBC-less API. I am now in the process of generalizing that API, and adding a MySQL binding (the packages now split between APQ.PostgreSQL and APQ.MySQL). With the new binding in place, you'll will only need to tweak a few things in your application, and then be able to switch from PostgreSQL to MySQL, or vice versa with a recompile. Alternatively, you could access them both if you have a reason to. Go to the home page below, and follow the "Current Development: APQ Version 2.0 " link for other late breaking details, and issues. I have one other major binding in the works, but it is a larger effort, and will need more development. But this is another essential piece for my application development. The point of all of this is that the pieces for building applications are slowly falling into place. I figure another year of my own effort is required, before I can start to work on the "fun stuff". I think there are signs of other pieces falling into place as well (I need to check out the new GtkAda for example). -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 20:46 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-21 21:12 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 20:26 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-22 3:09 ` Hyman Rosen ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-21 21:12 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3521 bytes --] And where can I look at this APQ ? :-) -- St�phane Richard Senior Software and Technology Supervisor http://www.totalweb-inc.com For all your hosting and related needs "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote in message news:ica1b.638$9a2.34465@news20.bellglobal.com... > Marin David Condic wrote: > > > Someone pointed me at the foloowing article: > > > > http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html?tag=lh > > Very interesting article. > > > Its an interesting conversation with the CEO of Ernie Ball - the guitar > > string manufacturer. Apparently they totally dumped Micro$oft in favor > > of open source software after getting sued for license infringements. > > > > The interesting part for Ada is that the CEO is identifying some major > > holes in the "Open Source" world that he thinks need to be filled. It > > would be wise to listen to a successful business customer who might pick > > up on something written in Ada and start using it if it were available... > > > > From the article: > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > You've pretty much gotten by with off-the-shelf software. Was it tough > > to find everything you needed in the open-source world? > > Yeah, there are some things that are tough to find, like payroll > > software. We found something, and it works well. But the developers need > > to start writing the real-world applications people need to run a > > business...engineering, art and design tools, that kind of > > stuff...They're all trying to build servers that already exist and do a > > whole bunch of stuff that's already out there...I think there's a lot of > > room to not just create an alternative to Microsoft but really take the > > next step and do something new. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > MDC > > I would have to agree. It would seem that there is plenty of interest > in making server and kernel enhancements, but much less support in > getting actual applications done. > > I am very interested in doing applications myself. The problem is that > I want to do them strictly in Ada95, for all the reasons we know and > love. So right now, my time is spent building up a series of important > language bindings, one of which is APQ. > > *APQ PLUG* ;-) > > My first version of APQ only supported PostgreSQL in an object oriented, > ODBC-less API. I am now in the process of generalizing that API, and > adding a MySQL binding (the packages now split between APQ.PostgreSQL > and APQ.MySQL). With the new binding in place, you'll will only > need to tweak a few things in your application, and then be able to switch > from PostgreSQL to MySQL, or vice versa with a recompile. Alternatively, > you could access them both if you have a reason to. Go to the home page > below, and follow the "Current Development: APQ Version 2.0 " link for > other late breaking details, and issues. > > I have one other major binding in the works, but it is a larger effort, > and will need more development. But this is another essential piece > for my application development. > > The point of all of this is that the pieces for building applications > are slowly falling into place. I figure another year of my own effort > is required, before I can start to work on the "fun stuff". I think > there are signs of other pieces falling into place as well (I need > to check out the new GtkAda for example). > > -- > Warren W. Gay VE3WWG > http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 21:12 ` Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-22 20:26 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-22 20:26 UTC (permalink / raw) Stephane Richard wrote: > And where can I look at this APQ ? :-) http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg/apq-1.93.tar.gz is the 1.93 sources (PostgreSQL only). The PDF manual has examples for almost every API function, and is found at: http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg/apq_manual.pdf The version 2.0 is not quite ready yet, but it is the one that will support the common functions between PostgreSQL and MySQL. There are a few challenges in doing this, and so even version 2.0 will not yet include MySQL blob support for example (it has full support for PostgreSQL however). All other normal RDBMs functions will be available, however. APQ version 2.0 is pending more testing, and updates to the "manual". If you have an urgent need to try an alpha release, contact me privately (at v e 3 w w g @ c o g e c o . c a) and we can arrange something. For news about the current developments in APQ, use the link: http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg/software.html#APQ_RECENT Here is the little vers 1.93 sales blurb from the web page: The following are reasons you want to use APQ as your Ada95 binding to the PostgreSQL database: - It is a thick binding to the PostgreSQL database library libpq - Very simple to use - Uses Ada95 data types only (no C language interfaces) - Full BLOB support (PostgreSQL) - Open/Create blobs - Read/Write blobs using Ada95 stream I/O - Buffered BLOB I/O for greater performance - Generic functions and procedures allowing strongly typed programming - Very simple to install under Linux/FreeBSD: - Simple compile and install process - Only depends upon PostgreSQL libpq - No ODBC required! Direct interface to database. - No GNADE infrastructure required (simple install). - Full support of NULL indicators (strongly typed) - Source code is almost all Ada95 (tested under GNAT-3.13p, FreeBSD) - 120+ page programmer's manual (almost all functions have an example code fragment) - ACL or GPL2 license (dual license - you choose) - win32 clients can be supported - Under active development Here is a testamonial : "Thanks for 'apq'. The packages are easy to understand and use, and the doc's are helpful. With the help of 'apq' and 'PostgreSQL', I was able to build a largish, functional database in less than a week." Charles Darcy <charlie@mullum.com.au>, November 30, 2002 -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 20:46 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-21 21:12 ` Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-22 3:09 ` Hyman Rosen 2003-08-22 12:45 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-22 20:46 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-22 12:37 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-25 8:52 ` Preben Randhol 3 siblings, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Hyman Rosen @ 2003-08-22 3:09 UTC (permalink / raw) Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > I am very interested in doing applications myself. The problem is that > I want to do them strictly in Ada95, for all the reasons we know and > love. So right now, my time is spent building up a series of important > language bindings, one of which is APQ. Thereby demonstrating exactly the problem that Ernie Ball was talking about - programmers like to do programmer things, and that's what they'll do unless they're paid to do otherwise. Also, programmers know how to do programmer things, but not necessarily other things. And the people who know how to do the other things aren't necessarily programmers. That's why you don't get much free software in non-programmer areas. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 3:09 ` Hyman Rosen @ 2003-08-22 12:45 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-22 20:46 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-22 12:45 UTC (permalink / raw) True - to a point. There are programmers with knowledge of other fields and with interests beyond the technical hacking. (Your humble narrator, for example, happens to know something of accounting and has an interest in developing such an application) But the critical point being that unless someone sees it as an opportunity to somehow get paid for doing the development work, a project like this doesn't get very far. A lot of the server and network and other "geek tools" that are available under things like Linux as GPL'ed projects got developed because some geek in some company needed it for internal purposes and saw no point in not releasing it to the rest of the world. Something like an accounting package doesn't fit in the same category. Companies don't usually develop these on their own anymore - they only buy off-the-shelf packages. To get someone to develop an off-the-shelf accounting system in some version of Open Source they either have to do it as some sort of "labor of love" or they have to see some potential for financial payoff. The "labor of love" variety of projects don't always get real far. MDC Hyman Rosen wrote: > > Thereby demonstrating exactly the problem that Ernie Ball was talking > about - programmers like to do programmer things, and that's what they'll > do unless they're paid to do otherwise. > > Also, programmers know how to do programmer things, but not necessarily > other things. And the people who know how to do the other things aren't > necessarily programmers. That's why you don't get much free software in > non-programmer areas. > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 3:09 ` Hyman Rosen 2003-08-22 12:45 ` Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-22 20:46 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-22 20:46 UTC (permalink / raw) Hyman Rosen wrote: > Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > >> I am very interested in doing applications myself. The problem is that >> I want to do them strictly in Ada95, for all the reasons we know and >> love. So right now, my time is spent building up a series of important >> language bindings, one of which is APQ. > > Thereby demonstrating exactly the problem that Ernie Ball was talking > about - programmers like to do programmer things, and that's what they'll > do unless they're paid to do otherwise. I can tell you with all honesty, that I _didn't want_ to write this binding. But the closest thing to a PostgreSQL binding that I could find, were packages/bindings that were sadly lacking, and made Ada applications program at the "C level". GNADE is great for what it is, but IMHO it is a large amount of infrastructure, which can be problematic to install. Just try installing it on FreeBSD for example, or worse, a FreeBSD Dec Alpha. I want users of my application to not have to go through a help desk to "get there". A simpler solution needed to exist. So I was forced to scratch that itch. So while you might see this as "unnecessary", I don't agree. I have applications in mind, but I cannot get there until I have the necessary building blocks that I need. > Also, programmers know how to do programmer things, but not necessarily > other things. And the people who know how to do the other things aren't > necessarily programmers. That's why you don't get much free software in > non-programmer areas. There is some truth to this, but I can't agree with this wholesale. Not many programmers do kernels and servers in their day job. Most (probably non-Ada) programmers are doing mundane things like the Accounting systems and such (perhaps this is the problem ;-). So I don't buy the argument that the know how is lacking, only that the desire to do this may be lacking. Certainly on the Ada front, there is much needed for general purpose applications. Ada is quite suitable for embedded applications, but the Annexes are hardly enough for commercial use (once again, I repeat that you cannot even get the day of the week from the Ada.Calendar package, for example). So while it is easy to be critical, some of us are actually contributing our time freely here, to help make a difference. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 20:46 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-21 21:12 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 3:09 ` Hyman Rosen @ 2003-08-22 12:37 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-22 18:59 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-25 8:52 ` Preben Randhol 3 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-22 12:37 UTC (permalink / raw) Isn't there already a binding to these databases? GNADE? (I've downloaded it but have not had time to actually unpack it and look at what it does) I agree that Ada needs a full-up development environment that ought to include things like a database and a GUI. The problem is that the pieces are there, but not collected in an integrated, coordinated way, nor are they considered "Standard" in some respect so that developers can count on the interfaces being portable. MDC Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > > *APQ PLUG* ;-) > > My first version of APQ only supported PostgreSQL in an object oriented, > ODBC-less API. I am now in the process of generalizing that API, and > adding a MySQL binding (the packages now split between APQ.PostgreSQL > and APQ.MySQL). With the new binding in place, you'll will only > need to tweak a few things in your application, and then be able to switch > from PostgreSQL to MySQL, or vice versa with a recompile. Alternatively, > you could access them both if you have a reason to. Go to the home page > below, and follow the "Current Development: APQ Version 2.0 " link for > other late breaking details, and issues. > > I have one other major binding in the works, but it is a larger effort, > and will need more development. But this is another essential piece > for my application development. > > The point of all of this is that the pieces for building applications > are slowly falling into place. I figure another year of my own effort > is required, before I can start to work on the "fun stuff". I think > there are signs of other pieces falling into place as well (I need > to check out the new GtkAda for example). > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 12:37 ` Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-22 18:59 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-22 20:59 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-22 18:59 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > Isn't there already a binding to these databases? GNADE? (I've > downloaded it but have not had time to actually unpack it and look at > what it does) ... > MDC For many people, GNADE is the right tool. For others it is not. For example, I do not want the overhead/hassle of ODBC. GNADE also is tailored for Embedded SQL, which is another approach (I don't recall if it insists on ODBC, but it might). Finally, if you are targeting software to people that don't have GNADE pre-installed, GNADE is pretty large and can present many install related challenges. I prefer to go the route of an object-oriented interface, that requires a very light database infrastructure. You only need the C library(ies) + 1 APQ binding to use database(s). Hope that helps. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 18:59 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-22 20:59 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-23 13:24 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-25 19:35 ` Brien 0 siblings, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-22 20:59 UTC (permalink / raw) Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > Marin David Condic wrote: > >> Isn't there already a binding to these databases? GNADE? (I've >> downloaded it but have not had time to actually unpack it and look at >> what it does) > > .... > >> MDC > > > For many people, GNADE is the right tool. For others it is not. > For example, I do not want the overhead/hassle of ODBC. GNADE also > is tailored for Embedded SQL, which is another approach (I don't > recall if it insists on ODBC, but it might). Finally, if you are > targeting software to people that don't have GNADE pre-installed, > GNADE is pretty large and can present many install related challenges. I forgot to mention that what soured me on it, was the difficulty of getting it to compile and install on other non-Linux platforms like FreeBSD (Intel & Alpha). This is an important factor to consider when you want UNIX portable Ada code. I also must support win32 (I don't know how GNADE does there). > I prefer to go the route of an object-oriented interface, that > requires a very light database infrastructure. You only need the > C library(ies) + 1 APQ binding to use database(s). -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 20:59 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-23 13:24 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-25 19:35 ` Brien 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-23 13:24 UTC (permalink / raw) I believe it is supposed to - with MySQL. Like I said, I downloaded it but have not had the time to look at installing any of it - much less reading the documentation to see how it does its thing. MDC Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > > I forgot to mention that what soured me on it, was the difficulty > of getting it to compile and install on other non-Linux platforms > like FreeBSD (Intel & Alpha). This is an important factor to > consider when you want UNIX portable Ada code. I also must > support win32 (I don't know how GNADE does there). > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 20:59 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-23 13:24 ` Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-25 19:35 ` Brien 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Brien @ 2003-08-25 19:35 UTC (permalink / raw) > I also must > support win32 (I don't know how GNADE does there). I tried to get GNADE installed on win xp and then again in cygwin, but I couldn't get it to work. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 20:46 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2003-08-22 12:37 ` Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-25 8:52 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-25 16:32 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 3 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-25 8:52 UTC (permalink / raw) Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > I would have to agree. It would seem that there is plenty of interest > in making server and kernel enhancements, but much less support in > getting actual applications done. Oh yes. There are currently 362 different window manager projects listed at freshmeat. I would say we could do with 10 max. > I am very interested in doing applications myself. The problem is that > I want to do them strictly in Ada95, for all the reasons we know and > love. So right now, my time is spent building up a series of important > language bindings, one of which is APQ. Same here. Well at the moment I have had to halt any software development as I'm very busy. But I'm also doing this. What I'm currently designing and making is a library to contain useful Gtkada composites, like Dialogs: About, Exceptions, Warning, Info, etc..., new widgets and a simple Help system that can be integrated in the applications for simple on the spot help and information. And I'm also making a Program Template for GtkAda. The purpose of the latter is to be able to make new GtkAda programs faster as you do not need to do all the common functions/callbacks etc only that which is specific to your program. Combined with the other library I described a lot of the work done to make a nice GUI should be reduced and one would be able to reuse the code. At least this is my hope :-) -- �I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet. So who am I to judge.� - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radioplay) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-25 8:52 ` Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-25 16:32 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-26 9:19 ` Preben Randhol 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-25 16:32 UTC (permalink / raw) Preben Randhol wrote: > Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > >>I would have to agree. It would seem that there is plenty of interest >>in making server and kernel enhancements, but much less support in >>getting actual applications done. > > Oh yes. There are currently 362 different window manager projects listed > at freshmeat. I would say we could do with 10 max. > >>I am very interested in doing applications myself. The problem is that >>I want to do them strictly in Ada95, for all the reasons we know and >>love. So right now, my time is spent building up a series of important >>language bindings, one of which is APQ. > > Same here. Well at the moment I have had to halt any software > development as I'm very busy. But I'm also doing this. What I'm > currently designing and making is a library to contain useful Gtkada > composites, like Dialogs: About, Exceptions, Warning, Info, etc..., new > widgets and a simple Help system that can be integrated in the > applications for simple on the spot help and information. And I'm also > making a Program Template for GtkAda. The purpose of the latter is to be > able to make new GtkAda programs faster as you do not need to do all the > common functions/callbacks etc only that which is specific to your program. > Combined with the other library I described a lot of the work done to > make a nice GUI should be reduced and one would be able to reuse the > code. At least this is my hope :-) Very good. Ada needs development resources. If enough people like yourself contribute the necessary components, we can start to play on a level playing field (application wise). For the moment, it is still an up hill battle, but I think we're slowly winning.. ;-) -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-25 16:32 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-26 9:19 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-26 21:01 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-26 9:19 UTC (permalink / raw) Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > > Very good. Ada needs development resources. If enough people like > yourself contribute the necessary components, we can start to > play on a level playing field (application wise). For the moment, > it is still an up hill battle, but I think we're slowly winning.. ;-) Yes, we must labour like Sisyphus :-) -- �I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet. So who am I to judge.� - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radioplay) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-26 9:19 ` Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-26 21:01 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-27 5:15 ` Preben Randhol 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-26 21:01 UTC (permalink / raw) Preben Randhol wrote: > Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > >>Very good. Ada needs development resources. If enough people like >>yourself contribute the necessary components, we can start to >>play on a level playing field (application wise). For the moment, >>it is still an up hill battle, but I think we're slowly winning.. ;-) > > Yes, we must labour like Sisyphus :-) I'm not so sure I like that comparison :-/ (see graphic below) http://stripe.colorado.edu/~morristo/sisyphus.html -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-26 21:01 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-27 5:15 ` Preben Randhol 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-27 5:15 UTC (permalink / raw) Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > > I'm not so sure I like that comparison :-/ (see graphic below) hehe :-) -- �I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet. So who am I to judge.� - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radioplay) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 12:35 A Customer's Request For Open Source Software Marin David Condic 2003-08-21 12:46 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-21 20:46 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-21 22:53 ` David Holm 2003-08-21 23:11 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-25 8:02 ` Preben Randhol 3 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: David Holm @ 2003-08-21 22:53 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2822 bytes --] The kind of applications mentioned in this article, payroll system, engineering, art and design tools, all domain knowledge. For someone like me who rarely come into contact with those kinds of systems it would be difficult for me to start such a project. Projects such as mozilla and openoffice both come from companies which can afford to hire someone with domain knowledge and to do studies on what is needed to produce this kind of software. I have never used a payroll system and I have only seen a professional engineering system once. Where do you find people who know these kinds of software and who are willing to aid in developing an opensource application? If you look for people on sourceforge.net you will only find programmers and maybe some artists. //David Holm On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 12:35:12 GMT Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote: > Someone pointed me at the foloowing article: > > http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html?tag=lh > > Its an interesting conversation with the CEO of Ernie Ball - the guitar > string manufacturer. Apparently they totally dumped Micro$oft in favor > of open source software after getting sued for license infringements. > > The interesting part for Ada is that the CEO is identifying some major > holes in the "Open Source" world that he thinks need to be filled. It > would be wise to listen to a successful business customer who might pick > up on something written in Ada and start using it if it were available... > > From the article: > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > You've pretty much gotten by with off-the-shelf software. Was it tough > to find everything you needed in the open-source world? > Yeah, there are some things that are tough to find, like payroll > software. We found something, and it works well. But the developers need > to start writing the real-world applications people need to run a > business...engineering, art and design tools, that kind of > stuff...They're all trying to build servers that already exist and do a > whole bunch of stuff that's already out there...I think there's a lot of > room to not just create an alternative to Microsoft but really take the > next step and do something new. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > MDC > -- > ====================================================================== > Marin David Condic > I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ > My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ > > Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g > > "In general the art of government consists in taking as > much money as possible from one class of citizens to give > to the other." > > -- Voltaire > ====================================================================== > [-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 22:53 ` David Holm @ 2003-08-21 23:11 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 0:04 ` David Holm ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-21 23:11 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1369 bytes --] Well I did a commercial Payroll system in my career...I know accounting, inventory management, and just about everything in between, I've dont a lot of industry specific application development. and I'm thinking of doign an OpenSource project :-)....that message on the group made me realize how much it was lacking, but I agree, we need to replace such things as MYOB Accounting or atleast have an equivalent of. We need business management software, stats and probabilities, trend analysis, financial advisory tools, and everything else that can be used in a business. so I'm game. Also done a Point of Sale commercial application which integrated accounting behind the scene. He is right, as much as we do need the people who are updating the kernel, coming up with server apps, programming languages sure that's all good. But I think we equally need business quality solutions. and that does lack....think about it, a lot of databases are available for Linux, but what applications make very good use of these databases? if not by us, by someone else, but that field does need to get covered. In my book :-)... -- St�phane Richard Senior Software and Technology Supervisor http://www.totalweb-inc.com For all your hosting and related needs "David Holm" <david@realityrift.com> wrote in message news:20030822005323.2ff66948.david@realityrift.com... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 23:11 ` Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-22 0:04 ` David Holm 2003-08-22 0:17 ` Stephane Richard ` (2 more replies) 2003-08-23 1:47 ` jim hopper 2003-08-25 8:59 ` Preben Randhol 2 siblings, 3 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: David Holm @ 2003-08-22 0:04 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2256 bytes --] Another issue I see is that even though it would be a great idea to write this in Ada (I'm thinking of stability here), there will be problems finding programmers who are able to work on it. One way of making it easier for people to help the project might be to write the backend in Ada with a module loader (dlopen/dlsym/dlclose would d othe trick). That way people can contribute to the project without knowing Ada and the backend can still be kept solid. By using some database system like berkley db for universal datastorage (by all modules) and implementing a recovery system in the backend you should be able to have a solid system even though it will be tainted by other languages. //David Holm On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 23:11:23 GMT "Stephane Richard" <stephane.richard@verizon.net> wrote: > Well I did a commercial Payroll system in my career...I know accounting, > inventory management, and just about everything in between, I've dont a lot > of industry specific application development. and I'm thinking of doign an > OpenSource project :-)....that message on the group made me realize how much > it was lacking, but I agree, we need to replace such things as MYOB > Accounting or atleast have an equivalent of. We need business management > software, stats and probabilities, trend analysis, financial advisory tools, > and everything else that can be used in a business. so I'm game. Also done > a Point of Sale commercial application which integrated accounting behind > the scene. > > He is right, as much as we do need the people who are updating the kernel, > coming up with server apps, programming languages sure that's all good. But > I think we equally need business quality solutions. and that does > lack....think about it, a lot of databases are available for Linux, but what > applications make very good use of these databases? if not by us, by > someone else, but that field does need to get covered. In my book :-)... > > -- > Stéphane Richard > Senior Software and Technology Supervisor > http://www.totalweb-inc.com > For all your hosting and related needs > "David Holm" <david@realityrift.com> wrote in message > news:20030822005323.2ff66948.david@realityrift.com... > > [-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 0:04 ` David Holm @ 2003-08-22 0:17 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 0:19 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 20:49 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-22 0:17 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 655 bytes --] That is a good point David, I think I'd still keep a preference to Ada since this is an Ada Project. but if we can't find one then I'd go for the other languages. It might limit programmers, but it might also encourage them to learn and get into ada. (be flexible but still have a goal if you get what I'm saying :-)...some parts may not have a choice about beign in another language. but others might :-) -- St�phane Richard Senior Software and Technology Supervisor http://www.totalweb-inc.com For all your hosting and related needs "David Holm" <david@realityrift.com> wrote in message news:20030822020403.625ffbf5.david@realityrift.com... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 0:04 ` David Holm 2003-08-22 0:17 ` Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-22 0:19 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 17:49 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-22 20:49 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-22 0:19 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 357 bytes --] But like you say, no matter what, the back end should definitaly be done in Ada...:-)....no two ways about that -- St�phane Richard Senior Software and Technology Supervisor http://www.totalweb-inc.com For all your hosting and related needs "David Holm" <david@realityrift.com> wrote in message news:20030822020403.625ffbf5.david@realityrift.com... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 0:19 ` Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-22 17:49 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-22 20:56 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-22 17:49 UTC (permalink / raw) Stephane Richard wrote: > But like you say, no matter what, the back end should definitaly be > done in Ada...:-)....no two ways about that I strongly believe in using the right tool for the job. For a lot of an accounting system, that seems to be databases or spreadsheets. But not necessarily. Let's imagine creating a double-entry bookkeeping system in Ada. You would have a generic that you instantiated to create a journal, and all the underlying complexity of transactions, journalling, and backup would be hidden from view. Now you could implement the interface as a binding to say ODBC, but let's go a bit further. If the system were to have guarenteed restore properties, the actual operation could be all done in memory. (Say journalling and periodic backup to hard-disk, possibly on two physically separate disks.) Now for 90+% of the actual use, the file system is not involved. (Completing a transaction forces a journal write.) But let's go a bit further, the journalling can be to NVRAM, for example a Compact Flash card. The effort to memory map such a card would not be too great, and now we have an accounting system that is hard-disk (and file-system) free in operation. Why do that? Because in the next few years, NVRAM is going to replace DRAM. I can't tell you WHICH variety of NVRAM, AMD has a very nice polymer memory developed with Coatue, which AMD just bought. Motorola, IBM and others are working on MRAM. Molecular electronic memory is unlikely to be the first to market, but may eventually be the winning entry in the race. So an open source accounting system that gets away from dependencies on file systems and DBMSs will be very attractive down the road. How to make money on the idea? My leaning would be fairly simple. Have a loosely organized group of developers and maintainers who retain certain rights. (To sell the software or modified versions thereof, but free distribution and use would be permitted.) This group could sell "shrink wrapped versions of the software, but I see that as only an alternative to selling books to users (with CD-ROMs in the back) The group could also sell support both by individuals and through the group. I've probably said enough for now... -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 17:49 ` Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-22 20:56 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-23 2:29 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-22 20:56 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert I. Eachus wrote: > Stephane Richard wrote: > > But like you say, no matter what, the back end should definitaly be > > done in Ada...:-)....no two ways about that > > I strongly believe in using the right tool for the job. For a lot of an > accounting system, that seems to be databases or spreadsheets. But not > necessarily. ... > Now for 90+% of the actual use, the file system is not involved. > (Completing a transaction forces a journal write.) But let's go a bit > further, the journalling can be to NVRAM, for example a Compact Flash > card. The effort to memory map such a card would not be too great, and > now we have an accounting system that is hard-disk (and file-system) > free in operation. > > Why do that? Because in the next few years, NVRAM is going to replace > DRAM. I can't tell you WHICH variety of NVRAM, AMD has a very nice > polymer memory developed with Coatue, which AMD just bought. Motorola, > IBM and others are working on MRAM. Molecular electronic memory is > unlikely to be the first to market, but may eventually be the winning > entry in the race. ... > I've probably said enough for now... > Robert I. Eachus The problem is that even when NVRAM (in whatever form) becomes cheap and plentiful, addressing it still remains a problem. Assume that molecular memory becomes cheap and you have Petabytes+ of memory to waste with home movies and wave files. Do you want to use 1024 bit addresses to gain access to each byte of it? For this reason, even if memory becomes plentiful (as one hopes it will), it will still likely become "packaged" similar to the way disk I/O occur today. We just won't call it track and cylinder any more, but we'll fetch bunches of memory by some block address on an as needed basis. So I don't see the role of a RDBMs changing much, as a result. Only the amount that we have to manage, and the media that it is stored upon. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 20:56 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-23 2:29 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2003-08-24 2:54 ` Robert I. Eachus 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Alexander Kopilovitch @ 2003-08-23 2:29 UTC (permalink / raw) "Warren W. Gay wrote: > The problem is that even when NVRAM (in whatever form) becomes > cheap and plentiful, addressing it still remains a problem. Assume > that molecular memory becomes cheap and you have Petabytes+ of memory > to waste with home movies and wave files. Do you want to use 1024 bit > addresses to gain access to each byte of it? Quite strange to see such a concern here, in Ada (not C or Assembler) forum. Why do you need global addresses of these bytes? It is a compiler's job and not a concern for an application programmer. Well, I hope you aren't imagining Petabytes+ single data item, string or BLOB -:) > For this reason, even if memory becomes plentiful (as one hopes it > will), it will still likely become "packaged" similar to the way > disk I/O occur today. We just won't call it track and cylinder > any more, but we'll fetch bunches of memory by some block address > on an as needed basis. No, there is no need to fetch bunches of memory - compiler will tell (perhaps through OS directives) the memory chip siutable value of "base" and it's enough - we went through that long ago. Naturally, that will be less efficient than we currently associate with "real" (that is, non-virtual) memory - the switches of the "base" will take time, but it will be more efficient than disk I/O. Alexander Kopilovitch aek@vib.usr.pu.ru Saint-Petersburg Russia ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-23 2:29 ` Alexander Kopilovitch @ 2003-08-24 2:54 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-24 3:11 ` Matthew Heaney ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-24 2:54 UTC (permalink / raw) Alexander Kopilovitch wrote: > No, there is no need to fetch bunches of memory - compiler will tell (perhaps > through OS directives) the memory chip suitable value of "base" and it's enough > - we went through that long ago. Naturally, that will be less efficient than > we currently associate with "real" (that is, non-virtual) memory - the switches > of the "base" will take time, but it will be more efficient than disk I/O. I guess this is not an Ada issue yet, but it will be. ;-) Remember that when Ada first came out, there was no agreement that Integer should be 32-bits, not 16-bits. Of course, the only real effect on machines that support both 16-bit and 32-bit Integer types is on the size of Strings. Within a few years, as expected, almost all implementations had moved to 32-bit Integers. (Almost all, because of 24 and 36-bit implementations. ;-) For a financial package is 4 Gigabytes of addressable memory enough? (Two Gigabytes currently under Windows.) Some people are running up against that limit with spreadsheets, and most large database servers use machines with 64-bit address space support. Note that with current large databases a 32-bit address space is insufficient to manage the indexes and tables that are (virtual) memory resident. (Advertisement -- The next paragraph is in some sense a shameless plug for the new Opteron from AMD, and for the Athlon64 and Athlon64 FX that will be released next month.) AMD is now selling processors where the architecture supports up to 64-bit addresses. The virtual memory system supports 40-bits of addressable memory per processor, and the virtual memory system supports up to a 48-bit address space. (But unless you are putting together a system with over 1000 processors, those later numbers are details. The Red Storm machine which may soon be the worlds fastest supercomputer will have over 10,000 Opteron processors, and I am sure they are working the global addressing issue.) So not only can you now buy machines off the shelf that can directly address almost a petabyte of data, some organizations are buying them... But what I wanted to point out about the AMD64 architecture here is that with a 64-bit aware OS, modules written in (x86) compatibility mode can call dynamically linked libraries that are written in long mode. So a "database" module could address hundreds of Gigabytes of memory directly, while the application for the most part uses 32-bit addressing. Compared to a file system call which will take thousands to millions of clock cycles, an in memory database can probably be accessed in under a hundred clock cycles. That is a noticeable performance improvement. Apple has also recently started shipping 64-bit machines based on the new PowerPC chip from IBM. And if you are into masochism, there is Intel's Itanium2. (Speaking only as a compiler developer, of course. ;-) So in a few years, almost all server hardware should allow users to avoid the file system and address enough memory for most accounting systems and databases. Of course, someone will then invent a use for all that memory... -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-24 2:54 ` Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-24 3:11 ` Matthew Heaney 2003-08-24 14:57 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-28 22:04 ` chris 2 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Matthew Heaney @ 2003-08-24 3:11 UTC (permalink / raw) "Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com> wrote in message news:3F4828D9.8050700@attbi.com... > Alexander Kopilovitch wrote: > > For a financial package is 4 Gigabytes of addressable memory enough? > (Two Gigabytes currently under Windows.) There's a mode that allows you to use a 3GB of address space, but I think it's only available on Windows Server versions. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-24 2:54 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-24 3:11 ` Matthew Heaney @ 2003-08-24 14:57 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-24 16:31 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-28 22:04 ` chris 2 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-24 14:57 UTC (permalink / raw) I think that depends on how you go about doing it. If you're talking about small to medium sized businesses (Not Citibank or GM) how many accounts do you think they'll want to maintain? How many transactions do you think they'll need to support? Certainly for "home" accounting and most small businesses, this number can't be really huge. Are the accounts and transactions going to be simple ascii and numeric stuff (a few hundred bytes a piece, at most?) Or are we going to have to store graphics or other really memory intense items with each transaction. (Like if you want to keep scanned-in receipts for a transaction.) I'd think a memory based model would be sufficient right now for single-user accounting for home or small businesses. I also think it wouldn't be an imense job to take the basic in-memory model and then later modify it to write-through to a database or otherwise deal with a "transaction" that has to have integrity between multiple users. (Think multiple-clients, single-server) So the thing is you could start simple and get the programming model you want and then upgrade to fancier back-ends if you've got a basic product that works. For that, I'd think a 32-bit address space ought to be sufficient. But if you're doing dynamic allocation and you code things properly, switching to a bigger address space ought to be near trivial. MDC Robert I. Eachus wrote: > > For a financial package is 4 Gigabytes of addressable memory enough? > (Two Gigabytes currently under Windows.) Some people are running up > against that limit with spreadsheets, and most large database servers > use machines with 64-bit address space support. Note that with current > large databases a 32-bit address space is insufficient to manage the > indexes and tables that are (virtual) memory resident. -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-24 14:57 ` Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-24 16:31 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-25 12:37 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-24 16:31 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > For that, I'd think a 32-bit address space ought to be sufficient. But > if you're doing dynamic allocation and you code things properly, > switching to a bigger address space ought to be near trivial. To answer both Marin and Matthew together, yes, under Windows Server you can get a 3 Gig process space, but it isn't supported well. However, that is why I was gushing about the AMD64 architecture. Programs that are currently limited to two (or three) Gig, can have a 4 Gig process space under the beta of Windows 2003. No recompiles, no nothing. Even handier, as I pointed out, you can have a DLL that uses 64-bit addressing, and returns data copied into the 4 Gig process space. To use the example of scanned receipts, they wouldn't have to take a chunk out of the 4 Gig accounting process address space, just run the program to display them in its own 32-bit OR 64-bit address space. If you want to phrase that in Ada, you can have a distributed architecture where everything is running on the same system, but different parts of the application each have their own address space. If you happen to have a dual or quad processor system fine, but even on a single CPU system you get the addressing benefits. (Yes this code would work on Intel chips as well, but the PAE overhead is a killer.) Combine that with a transaction/journalling system that is very lightweight and can use memory-mapped NVRAM, and I think we have a winner. Works something like this. The database can have per record locking. The transaction system writes the journal entry, then updates the database unlocking the entries, and finally the transaction writes a completion. Or, of course, the trasaction fails for some reason and the entry is overwritten, or preferably, logged as failed with the reason. If you have a small (Compact Flash card maybe?) NVRAM, the transaction process can write the log to disk--preferably two disks--when the contents of the NVRAM get full. But my preference is to write the entire database out when the session is done, without, of course, overwriting the current version on disk. With proper design, you can have a complete journalling and audit trail system with little or no user involvement. -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-24 16:31 ` Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-25 12:37 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-25 14:08 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-26 18:34 ` Christopher Browne 0 siblings, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-25 12:37 UTC (permalink / raw) If you started with a "Single User" system, then all operations can take place in RAM - of whatever sort. This would be no different than editing a document with a word processor that is not journaling. If you take a power hit, you lose your work to that point in time. You get done posting transactions or generating reports - you "Exit - Save" and your work is written to a database. (The simplest form would be a stream file where you do a 'Write for your data structure.) From there, you can consider if you want to make this a multi-user system. An upgrade would be to write a wrapper around the core accounting object that acts as a "Server". Multiple clients connect, post transactions, disconnect, etc. The server is enforcing a kind of transactional integrity and it naturally lends itself to a network. (You're still stuck with a potential power-outage problem, but that isn't insurmountable. Worst case, you force writes to the database every few minutes.) There would be a couple of advantages to this approach - one technical and one financial. Starting with a simple single-user system gives you a reasonably simple goal to shoot for and lets you iron out all the bugs while building your understanding of what you are doing. The second is that you could easily release the single-user version as a freebie that would get people using it and then provide the multi-user version as a paid-for upgrade. MDC Robert I. Eachus wrote: > contents of the NVRAM get full. But my preference is to write the > entire database out when the session is done, without, of course, > overwriting the current version on disk. With proper design, you can > have a complete journalling and audit trail system with little or no > user involvement. > > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-25 12:37 ` Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-25 14:08 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-25 21:07 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2003-08-26 18:34 ` Christopher Browne 1 sibling, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-25 14:08 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > There would be a couple of advantages to this approach - one technical > and one financial. Starting with a simple single-user system gives you a > reasonably simple goal to shoot for and lets you iron out all the bugs > while building your understanding of what you are doing. The second is > that you could easily release the single-user version as a freebie that > would get people using it and then provide the multi-user version as a > paid-for upgrade. Ah, the perils of decent design and encapsulation! If the database interface and transaction management protocol are properly encapsulated these changes are trivial. But if they are trivial, you will have a hard time charging for them if the base system is free... -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-25 14:08 ` Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-25 21:07 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Alexander Kopilovitch @ 2003-08-25 21:07 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert I. Eachus wrote > Ah, the perils of decent design and encapsulation! If the database > interface and transaction management protocol are properly encapsulated > these changes are trivial. But if they are trivial, you will have a > hard time charging for them if the base system is free... It is rarely trivial to recognize properly what your customer (of this kind) really needs -- even for himself -- because his mindset on the matter usually has neither decent design nor encapsulation. Therefore real job of customization in this domain is not to make changes, but to determine which changes are needed. The problem space for the domain is complex enough, but every single customer occupies small part of it. And most of that small part is, as a rule, quite common and easily identifiable, but almost always there are some bits, which are rather specific and at the same time important for this particular customer. Sometimes the crucial moment is simply to determine properly whether specifics is present or absent. So, perhaps, more proper way will be to aim not directly to end-user, but to some sort of consultant, who will install the product for a customer. Alexander Kopilovitch aek@vib.usr.pu.ru Saint-Petersburg Russia ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-25 12:37 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-25 14:08 ` Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-26 18:34 ` Christopher Browne 2003-08-27 12:21 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Christopher Browne @ 2003-08-26 18:34 UTC (permalink / raw) In an attempt to throw the authorities off his trail, Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> transmitted: > If you started with a "Single User" system, then all operations can > take place in RAM - of whatever sort. This would be no different > than editing a document with a word processor that is not > journaling. If you take a power hit, you lose your work to that > point in time. You get done posting transactions or generating > reports - you "Exit - Save" and your work is written to a > database. (The simplest form would be a stream file where you do a > 'Write for your data structure.) > > From there, you can consider if you want to make this a multi-user > system. There is a strong tendancy for systems designed in this manner to NOT play well when they move over to allow concurrency. I think I can characterize it all in one word: "Windows." In spite of there being Windows NT around, which _was_ designed as a multiuser multitasking system, since so much of the software had its genesis with companies that assumed ONE user running ONE program on some variation of Windows 95, which was a thin layering of GUI atop MS-DOS, what we see now is that "Windows applications" are basically designed for a single user OS, and most don't play well if you have multipel instances of things around. Concurrency is _hard_, and if you don't design it in at the beginning, it is quite likely that by the time you get around to it, the system design will probably preclude having it _really_ work... -- output = ("cbbrowne" "@" "acm.org") http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/languages.html "It's not about 'Where do you want to go today?'"; "It's more like, 'Where am I allowed to go today?'" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-26 18:34 ` Christopher Browne @ 2003-08-27 12:21 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-27 13:37 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-27 12:21 UTC (permalink / raw) I agree that concurrency is difficult. What I'm talking about is that if you built a core accounting engine that presented itself to the rest of the application as an "object" and if that engine initially just operated within RAM (load and store to a file), you'd have a useful start. If you wanted to later go to a concurrent system you could either wrap the core in a server that serialized the access (serve just one user at a time in a read/modify/write kind of protocol) *or* if you thought that would be unreliable, you could rebuild the core with a database beneath it and present the same interface to the rest of the app. Its mostly a way of saying "Start with a nice simple, achievable goal that produces something useful. If it succeeeds in comiing to fruition, worry about upgrades later." All too many projects that get discussed here end up on the trash heap of obscurity and decay because the owners get far too ambitious for their own good. Its a natural human tendancy and one that strikes us engineers particularly hard. It has to be overcome if you want to actually get something done. MDC Christopher Browne wrote: > > > There is a strong tendancy for systems designed in this manner to NOT > play well when they move over to allow concurrency. I think I can > characterize it all in one word: "Windows." > > In spite of there being Windows NT around, which _was_ designed as a > multiuser multitasking system, since so much of the software had its > genesis with companies that assumed ONE user running ONE program on > some variation of Windows 95, which was a thin layering of GUI atop > MS-DOS, what we see now is that "Windows applications" are basically > designed for a single user OS, and most don't play well if you have > multipel instances of things around. > > Concurrency is _hard_, and if you don't design it in at the beginning, > it is quite likely that by the time you get around to it, the system > design will probably preclude having it _really_ work... -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-27 12:21 ` Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-27 13:37 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-27 13:37 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > I agree that concurrency is difficult. What I'm talking about is that if > you built a core accounting engine that presented itself to the rest of > the application as an "object" and if that engine initially just > operated within RAM (load and store to a file), you'd have a useful > start. ... > MDC Actually, that is not too far away! I just finished testing some generic database code, that can swing between PostgreSQL and MySQL with just a swap of a "with" statement in the main program (using APQ 2.0). This relies heavily on tagged types and polymorphism, but it works very well. You build your code so that it only needs the database connection Root_Connection_Type'Class (which naturally dispatches when used), and the procedure that this connection object is passed to can do everything else in a database neutral way. This is not to say there aren't some database specific issues, but there are ways to deal with most of these, and some of them in a fairly generic way. Since accounting is such a basic need, I have made plans to include an accounting engine object in a child package, to do just the sort of thing you have suggested. I mean, why build the accounting engine more than once? Everyone needs accounting. The package may fit into the hierarchy structure as something like APQ.Applications.Accounting. If you want to see a rough draft of a PDF manual for APQ version 2.0, email me and I'll send it to you (it includes some generic database code examples). The first thing I had to conquer was generic database programming, since I don't like being locked into one brand of database. Whatever I choose will be the wrong choice for you, or the wrong choice 2 years from now. But this annoyance is nearly out of the way now. I only like to write such things once if possible, and only support one instance of the same code. So the time is now ripe for application objects of this type. It is nearly next on my list of things to do, and I have a big list ;-) -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-24 2:54 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-24 3:11 ` Matthew Heaney 2003-08-24 14:57 ` Marin David Condic @ 2003-08-28 22:04 ` chris 2003-08-29 1:02 ` Robert I. Eachus 2 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: chris @ 2003-08-28 22:04 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert I. Eachus wrote: > > Apple has also recently started shipping 64-bit machines based on the > new PowerPC chip from IBM. And if you are into masochism, there is > Intel's Itanium2. (Speaking only as a compiler developer, of course. > ;-) So in a few years, almost all server hardware should allow users to > avoid the file system and address enough memory for most accounting > systems and databases. What do you mean 'avoid the file system'? I've heard people say if vast amounts of persistant ram storage become available file systems will be given the boot. Is that what you meant? If so I can't see it. You still have to know where things are and more importantly you need a conceptual association with data. That's all a file system is really, a way to name blocks of data (people won't be able to remember 100 64bit addresses, even in hex). Everything else is just built on top of that simple idea. The details may (will) change but it'll still be a file system. (Just a really fast, abundant and abused* one). > Of course, someone will then invent a use for > all that memory... > Orthogonal Persistance with versioning and reversability implemented in Windows ;) Chris *Although I'd love an athlon 64 and love lots of persistant ram more, it might be actually be bad thing. Will people bother with the memory footprint of their apps anymore? Sure some algorithms which have large space demands might be feasible and desirable, but I fear many will just factor out memory as a concern and gobble as much of it as they can. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-28 22:04 ` chris @ 2003-08-29 1:02 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-29 10:46 ` Larry Kilgallen ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-29 1:02 UTC (permalink / raw) chris wrote: > What do you mean 'avoid the file system'? I've heard people say if vast > amounts of persistant ram storage become available file systems will be > given the boot. Is that what you meant? If so I can't see it. You > still have to know where things are and more importantly you need a > conceptual association with data. That's all a file system is really, a > way to name blocks of data (people won't be able to remember 100 64bit > addresses, even in hex). Everything else is just built on top of that > simple idea. The details may (will) change but it'll still be a file > system. (Just a really fast, abundant and abused* one). What was so wonderful about Multics? In part, that it wasn't built around a file system, it was built around virtual memory. I won't go into the gory details here--you can find the Organik book if you haven't read it. But the memory concept in Multics was that everything was made of segments, and a process had access to segments. (Of course, some of the things in those segments were links to other segments.) The point though, is that you don't open a file and read it record by record or line by line. You map a segment into your process and can address any bit in the segment at random. The operating system may have some of pages of the segments your process has access to resident in memory and others still on disk, but you (and your applications) don't care. Access to the data is not mediated by the OS or the file system once you link to the segment. (Of course, on Multics when you linked to a segment both mandatory (security) permission levels and discressional access permissions are checked, and if those permissions change, the link will be snapped and have to be re-established with a new set of access checks. But all that is implementation detail.) This was the paradox of Multics that most people never understood. The system could afford to have good security because compared to conventional OSes security checks--and all of the other overhead of accessing a file--only needed to be done maybe one-thousandth as often, if that. The rest of what you talk about has to do with naming of datasets. Multics had both character string versions of pointers and "packed" hardware pointers. The character strings corresponded to file names (and a directory hierarchy) on a conventional system, plus the ability to address multiple entry points in a segment, or address an individual bit. The packed pointers were used by hardware to actually find the data. And as I alluded to above, converting a pathname to a segment table entry is the one time that access rights have to be checked. If the access control list or security level for a segment changes, then all existing page table entries are invalidated, and have to be revalidated to access the segment again. Neat, simple, and secure. So yes, when I talk about memory-mapping of files and not avoiding any file systems that is exactly what I mean. And until you have worked with a system that supports it well, you don't know what you are missing. Just one other example. Multics of course had dynamic linking, but the form of dynamic linking was much different from what we think of today. During development, you never invoked a linker. You just had all of the the code segments of your program lying around, pointed at the main program--or some other entry point, and said run. If you got to a point in your program where you called a procedure you hadn't written yet? The operating system would tell you that a call had been made to a segment it couldn't find. You could then run emacs, write the code, compile it, then--and only then--tell the OS where to find the code. Your program would continue running from the point where it had stopped. Once you had a complete, debugged program, you often invoked the binder, and put all your pieces together in one segment. Of course, there were probably lots of pathnames that connected to the OS, or to other subsystems, etc., that you left unresolved in the bound version. -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-29 1:02 ` Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-29 10:46 ` Larry Kilgallen 2003-08-29 21:15 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-29 16:10 ` Jon S. Anthony 2003-08-30 19:01 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2003-08-29 10:46 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3F4EA616.30607@attbi.com>, "Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com> writes: > The point though, is that you don't open a file and read it record by > record or line by line. You map a segment into your process and can > address any bit in the segment at random. > This was the paradox of Multics that most people never understood. The > system could afford to have good security because compared to > conventional OSes security checks--and all of the other overhead of > accessing a file--only needed to be done maybe one-thousandth as often, > if that. That sounds true for unrestricted access, but the number of occasions for checks should have to be the same as any other operating system for data protected as "single writer at a time". ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-29 10:46 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2003-08-29 21:15 ` Robert I. Eachus 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-29 21:15 UTC (permalink / raw) Larry Kilgallen wrote: > That sounds true for unrestricted access, but the number of occasions > for checks should have to be the same as any other operating system for > data protected as "single writer at a time". I wasn't particularly addressing that, but yeah, in Multics, its "in there." The first and most important feature for supporting multiple writers was known as the first reference trap. When a process accessed a segment for the first time, or wrote to a segment for the first time (for that segment) there was a piece of code associated with each action that would be run (if non-null). Sometimes, for example if a program had a predefined data segment, it would do copy-on-write so the first time the program wrote to its data segment, the process got its own copy. There were a number of "predefined" first reference trap-handlers that were used for common purposes. For example, there was a MRDS (Multics Relational Database System) manager. MRDS ran in ring 2, so if a segment had a write bracket of 2, any attempt to write would be passed inward to MRDS. If you wanted transaction protection, you would define a set of MRDS transactions and MRDS would guarantee the all or nothing character of each transaction. (The first reference trap initialized the database connection.) Even though MRDS supported the whole relational algebra, you could use it for concurrency protection with out using the rest of it. Similarly, the mail system ran in ring 3. Processes sometimes used the mail system just to create and manage (in-memory) queues. No reason not to. Since the mail system didn't have to work through a file system, it could be very fast--and low overhead. Inward ring calls are/were also very cheap in Multics, and returns from an inward call wasn't much of a problem. The tricky part of the ring system was the "crawl-out" in the login daemon. The code had to do a lot of checks that were normally done by the hardware, then "return" into the newly created outer ring environment. -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-29 1:02 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-29 10:46 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2003-08-29 16:10 ` Jon S. Anthony 2003-08-30 19:01 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Jon S. Anthony @ 2003-08-29 16:10 UTC (permalink / raw) "Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com> writes: Re: Multics memory stuff... Sounds like a bit like a subset of a Lisp machine/OS. > Just one other example. Multics of course had dynamic linking, but > the form of dynamic linking was much different from what we think of > today. During development, you never invoked a linker. You just had > all of the the code segments of your program lying around, pointed at > the main program--or some other entry point, and said run. If you got > to a point in your program where you called a procedure you hadn't > written yet? The operating system would tell you that a call had been > made to a segment it couldn't find. You could then run emacs, write > the code, compile it, then--and only then--tell the OS where to find > the code. Your program would continue running from the point where it > had stopped. Once you had a complete, debugged program, you often > invoked the binder, and put all your pieces together in one segment. > Of course, there were probably lots of pathnames that connected to the > OS, or to other subsystems, etc., that you left unresolved in the > bound version. This, of course, is definitely a part of a Lisp OS. Actually this is still available in CL implementations even on current (primitive) state of the art HW... /Jon ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-29 1:02 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-29 10:46 ` Larry Kilgallen 2003-08-29 16:10 ` Jon S. Anthony @ 2003-08-30 19:01 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2003-08-30 22:57 ` Robert I. Eachus [not found] ` <hli721-4p3.ln1@beastie.ix.netcom.com> 2 siblings, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Alexander Kopilovitch @ 2003-08-30 19:01 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert I. Eachus wrote: >What was so wonderful about Multics? In part, that it wasn't built >around a file system, it was built around virtual memory. I won't go >into the gory details here--you can find the Organik book if you haven't >read it. But the memory concept in Multics was that everything was made >of segments, and a process had access to segments. (Of course, some of >the things in those segments were links to other segments.) What is not so wonderful about Multics? That it is almost mythical in part, somehow like ancient Greece - famous, with obvious conceptual heritage, but unreachable for observation and study. You mentioned Organik's book - well, here is a copy of single review for it at Amazon: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Organick describes the design of Multics, a mainframe timesharing system that was one of the most influential software efforts of the late 1960s. The book describes the internals of the Multics system with a clarity and thoroughness that set a standard for other writers on operating systems. The book describes Multics as it was planned in the late 1960s, before it had been released to users, and it describes the version of the system that ran on the GE-645 computer. Multics became a commercial product from Honeywell on a substantially enhanced machine and continued to evolve for 20 years, so readers should understand that they are reading about the system designers' intentions and plans, and not necessarily about features of the commercial system. (disclosure: I worked on Multics in the 60s and helped review drafts of some chapters of this book before publication.) ----------------------------------------------------------------- After all, another Organik's book is about ill-fated, although also famous that time Intel 432 processor (by the way, I remember vague rumors that that processor somehows implements/supports Ada directly in hardware) - was this author specializing on the subjects that were impressive in design, but have no real perspective as products? Anyway, it seems that Multics world was very closed world, consisting of competent, creative and ethusiastic people,,, who appreciate each other, but were disinterested in presenting the results of their work to broader community. If this impression is wrong then how can one explain apparent absence of publications describing the developed Multics system? Certainly it is a tradition in science and even in engineering to describe thoroughly every significant project, which results may influence future progress. Alexander Kopilovitch aek@vib.usr.pu.ru Saint-Petersburg Russia ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-30 19:01 ` Alexander Kopilovitch @ 2003-08-30 22:57 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-31 23:04 ` Alexander Kopilovitch [not found] ` <hli721-4p3.ln1@beastie.ix.netcom.com> 1 sibling, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-30 22:57 UTC (permalink / raw) Alexander Kopilovitch wrote: > What is not so wonderful about Multics? That it is almost mythical in part, > somehow like ancient Greece - famous, with obvious conceptual heritage, but > unreachable for observation and study. I had accounts on various Multics systems, and at one point I had half a dozen project accounts distributed among three Multics systems. (HI-Multics in Minneapolis, MN System-M in Phoenix, AZ and BCO-Multics in Billerica, MA.) Later I added an account at MIT-Multics (Cambridge, MA). Then I moved to Stratus Computer. VOS, the "native" operating system for Stratus products was closely based on PrimOS, which in turn was based on Multics. So Multics features were widely available, even if Multics systems were not. I would love to have an operating system for today's x86 processors that took the Multics approach. But the problem would be that most applications would be ported versions of applications that were designed around file systems, so you would have to materialize a file system for them. :-( Could be done, but I think the better approach is to design applications that don't require a file system first. -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-30 22:57 ` Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-31 23:04 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2003-09-01 2:09 ` Robert I. Eachus 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Alexander Kopilovitch @ 2003-08-31 23:04 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert I. Eachus wrote: > > What is not so wonderful about Multics? That it is almost mythical in part, > > somehow like ancient Greece - famous, with obvious conceptual heritage, but > > unreachable for observation and study. > > I had accounts on various Multics systems, and at one point I had half a > dozen project accounts distributed among three Multics systems. > (HI-Multics in Minneapolis, MN System-M in Phoenix, AZ and BCO-Multics > in Billerica, MA.) Later I added an account at MIT-Multics (Cambridge, > MA). > > Then I moved to Stratus Computer. VOS, the "native" operating system > for Stratus products was closely based on PrimOS, which in turn was > based on Multics. So Multics features were widely available, even if > Multics systems were not. Well, the Multics features were more widely available then Multics itself, but nevertheless there were (and certainly are) very few people who have real experience with Multics or at least those Multics features and are more or less active today. And there is no good book accumulating both description of the real producttion system and experience with it. > I would love to have an operating system for today's x86 processors that > took the Multics approach. But the problem would be that most > applications would be ported versions of applications that were designed > around file systems, so you would have to materialize a file system for > them. :-( > >Could be done, but I think the better approach is to design applications >that don't require a file system first. I don't think that this porting is a grave problem, this is something like transition from 16-bit MS Windows 3.1/3.11 to 32-bit Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.5 and then to Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 and further. First time it was significant to support previous 16-bit applications, but then they began steadily disappear, being replaced by new 32-bit ones - more and more often not simply "ported", but designed (or redesigned) for new 32-bit systems. Alexander Kopilovitch aek@vib.usr.pu.ru Saint-Petersburg Russia ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-31 23:04 ` Alexander Kopilovitch @ 2003-09-01 2:09 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-01 16:29 ` Alexander Kopilovitch ` (6 more replies) 0 siblings, 7 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-09-01 2:09 UTC (permalink / raw) Alexander Kopilovitch wrote: > I don't think that this porting is a grave problem, this is something like > transition from 16-bit MS Windows 3.1/3.11 to 32-bit Windows 95 and Windows > NT 3.5 and then to Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 and further. First time it > was significant to support previous 16-bit applications, but then they began > steadily disappear, being replaced by new 32-bit ones - more and more often > not simply "ported", but designed (or redesigned) for new 32-bit systems. It is a resource issue. It would be nice to have a son of Multics implementation in Ada, but the cost of doing that for any real platform is prohibitive. I think the last time I seriously looked, Multics ran to over 20 million lines of (almost all PL/I) source code. That does include the compilers, mail system, emacs, relational data base, etc., but it gives you some idea how large the Multics environment was. On the other hand most RDBMSs have options for bypassing the file system and managing disk storage directly. With a large amount of NVRAM, their is no need for the file system at all. So my feeling is that the way to get something to market at the right time is to concentrate on products that can take full advantage of large (and non-volitile) addressable memories. -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-01 2:09 ` Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-09-01 16:29 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2003-09-01 21:22 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-01 21:44 ` Larry Kilgallen ` (5 subsequent siblings) 6 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Alexander Kopilovitch @ 2003-09-01 16:29 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert I. Eachus wrote: > It is a resource issue. It would be nice to have a son of Multics > implementation in Ada, but the cost of doing that for any real platform > is prohibitive. I think the last time I seriously looked, Multics ran > to over 20 million lines of (almost all PL/I) source code. That does > include the compilers, mail system, emacs, relational data base, etc., > but it gives you some idea how large the Multics environment was. Well, this is understandable. But I guess that there may be non-conventional ways to get something like that. One way, which I imagine, largely avoids that "prohibitive cost" (although it still may be considered as a sort of a plot for an episode of the serial "Wild Investor" -:) : take existing open source OS - FreeBSD is, perhaps, the best candidate - and start to replace its layers from the ground, that is, from the kernel, following the Multics design, and making necessary bridges (between lower Multics-layers and upper FreeBSD layers) at each stage, thus maintaining functionality but not too worrying about effectiveness. > On the other hand most RDBMSs have options for bypassing the file system > and managing disk storage directly. With a large amount of NVRAM, their > is no need for the file system at all. So my feeling is that the way to > get something to market at the right time is to concentrate on products > that can take full advantage of large (and non-volitile) addressable > memories. Well, I have vague only feeling about current state of RDBMSs, and it is not clear for me whether people in that area will see that as major improvement (for what I constantly hear, their main practical problem regarding efficiency is just right index structure). But I have a friend who is an active professional in this area, both at academic side and at practical side, and I'm going to ask for his opinion on this matter (but it may take about 2 weeks, because just now he is busy at a DBMS conference in Germany -;) ... if his opinion will be positive then, perhaps, some of his Ph.D. students will become interested in such a project -:) . Alexander Kopilovitch aek@vib.usr.pu.ru Saint-Petersburg Russia ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-01 16:29 ` Alexander Kopilovitch @ 2003-09-01 21:22 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-02 2:12 ` Christopher Browne 2003-09-02 16:16 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 0 siblings, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-09-01 21:22 UTC (permalink / raw) Alexander Kopilovitch wrote: > Well, this is understandable. But I guess that there may be non-conventional > ways to get something like that. One way, which I imagine, largely avoids that > "prohibitive cost" (although it still may be considered as a sort of a plot > for an episode of the serial "Wild Investor" -:) : take existing open source > OS - FreeBSD is, perhaps, the best candidate - and start to replace its layers > from the ground, that is, from the kernel, following the Multics design, and > making necessary bridges (between lower Multics-layers and upper FreeBSD > layers) at each stage, thus maintaining functionality but not too worrying > about effectiveness. Non-starter, really. That would be like translating a novel from Russian to English a word at a time. You would end up with a book all in English, but full of Russian idioms and with no English idioms or common phrases. Actually, make that Klingon and English, or something even wierder. Klingon to Chinese? There are hundreds, make that thousands of assumptions in a disk-based OS that are absent or different in Multics. For example on Multics there is a tool called the binder that can be used to bundle up snapshots of a group of programs. These snapshots are not the programs, but they are the closest Multics has to the concept of a computer program. In the Multics world, a program is often no better defined than "this entry point in this segment, called with these parameters." Of course, there is on-line documentation FOR THAT SEGMENT, that explains all that. (And yes, one of the things that you pass to the binder is a list of the entry points that you want to be visible.) Similarly, connecting to a Multics site is a meaningful concept. Booting is something that hardware does after a power failure. You can have a Multics site with several CPUs--I think System M in Phoenix had five--and we can discuss things in terms of symmetric multiprocessing. But that sort of misses the point. The Multics site can add CPUs, drop CPUs, upgrade CPUs, etc., and all that is going on from the Multics viewpoint is adding and removing resources. Same for memory, disk drives, tape drives, and any other resources. (Hmmm. Translation, in the Multics world critical is not a word you assoicate with resources.) > Well, I have vague only feeling about current state of RDBMSs, and it is not > clear for me whether people in that area will see that as major improvement > (for what I constantly hear, their main practical problem regarding efficiency > is just right index structure). But I have a friend who is an active professional > in this area, both at academic side and at practical side, and I'm going to ask > for his opinion on this matter (but it may take about 2 weeks, because just > now he is busy at a DBMS conference in Germany -;) ... if his opinion will be > positive then, perhaps, some of his Ph.D. students will become interested in > such a project -:) . As I said, most RDBMSs already have the ability to bypass the OS and access disk drives directly. This is going one step further, and "mapping" the disk drive into memory. With a memory-mapped drive on a virtual memory system, you can address the disk just like the memory was physically present in RAM. On Multics, a user process had 4096 segment descriptors available, each of which could map to about one Megabyte of RAM (actually 256k words of 36-bit memory). Some of these segments were common OS gate segments, some were applications in use by the user, some were what you would think of as open files, and some were user defined segments with entry points. (Remember, one segment could have several hundred different entry points--or more. About a dozen entry points was common.) -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-01 21:22 ` Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-09-02 2:12 ` Christopher Browne 2003-09-02 4:16 ` Ludovic Brenta 2003-09-12 12:21 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen 2003-09-02 16:16 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 1 sibling, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Christopher Browne @ 2003-09-02 2:12 UTC (permalink / raw) The world rejoiced as "Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com> wrote: > Alexander Kopilovitch wrote: > >> Well, this is understandable. But I guess that there may be non-conventional >> ways to get something like that. One way, which I imagine, largely avoids that >> "prohibitive cost" (although it still may be considered as a sort of a plot >> for an episode of the serial "Wild Investor" -:) : take existing open source >> OS - FreeBSD is, perhaps, the best candidate - and start to replace its layers >> from the ground, that is, from the kernel, following the Multics design, and >> making necessary bridges (between lower Multics-layers and upper FreeBSD >> layers) at each stage, thus maintaining functionality but not too worrying >> about effectiveness. > > Non-starter, really. That would be like translating a novel from > Russian to English a word at a time. You would end up with a book all > in English, but full of Russian idioms and with no English idioms or > common phrases. Actually, make that Klingon and English, or something > even wierder. Klingon to Chinese? > > There are hundreds, make that thousands of assumptions in a > disk-based OS that are absent or different in Multics. For example > on Multics there is a tool called the binder that can be used to > bundle up snapshots of a group of programs. These snapshots are not > the programs, but they are the closest Multics has to the concept of > a computer program. In the Multics world, a program is often no > better defined than "this entry point in this segment, called with > these parameters." Of course, there is on-line documentation FOR > THAT SEGMENT, that explains all that. (And yes, one of the things > that you pass to the binder is a list of the entry points that you > want to be visible.) Right, that sure was one of the bigger differences with Multics. That means that a recreations would need to have a fair bit of code to support this. A start might be to look into RVM, the "recoverable virtual memory" system created for the Coda distributed filesystem. That is a system that implements something strongly resembling Multics segments, which runs on all sorts of systems. Instead of giving up because it's necessary to implement _everything_, from hardware on up, in order to have a viable system, it might be an idea to start by hosting "PseudoMultics" atop one of the Unixes, running it inside user space, with a view to modifying the kernel eventually to support things that vitally need to be in the kernel. > Similarly, connecting to a Multics site is a meaningful > concept. Booting is something that hardware does after a power > failure. You can have a Multics site with several CPUs--I think > System M in Phoenix had five--and we can discuss things in terms of > symmetric multiprocessing. But that sort of misses the point. The > Multics site can add CPUs, drop CPUs, upgrade CPUs, etc., and all > that is going on from the Multics viewpoint is adding and removing > resources. Same for memory, disk drives, tape drives, and any other > resources. (Hmmm. Translation, in the Multics world critical is not > a word you assoicate with resources.) That can only conceivably be supported on hardware that conciously supports adding and dropping CPUs while the system is "hot." You're lucky, these days, to have a RAID controller that lets you hot-swap disk drives; hot-swapping processors tends to indicate that you have multiplied the cost of the system up to a new level. Vis-a-vis disk, it's quite common for the support for that to mostly sit at the hardware level, where a lot of change can take place with the OS being oblivious to it. (That's one of the _nice_ things about FibreChannel arrays...) But mandating an OS design that mandates this "many-times-more-expensive" sort of hardware in days when over-the-counter hardware is so cheap and available seems almost as limiting as the lack of an "adding CPUs" feature. I think it would be a mistake, today, to assume hot-swappable CPUs as a basic function of the hardware. It has proven a lot more economical to put additional rackmounted computers onto a rack, and separate the functions across multiple buses. Futurists keep imagining that we are right around the corner from the situation where it will make sense to buy computers that have huge arrays of CPUs; while Apple may be very proud of their dual-PPC "G5" systems, prices of multi-CPU "backplanes" remain stunningly higher than those for single-CPU hardware, and there doesn't seem to be good reason for that to change soon. > As I said, most RDBMSs already have the ability to bypass the OS and > access disk drives directly. That's news; I wasn't aware that there were any left since Digital sold RDB to Oracle. There are some that support "raw partitions," but this doesn't involve "bypassing the OS;" they merely bypass filesystem support. -- (reverse (concatenate 'string "moc.enworbbc" "@" "enworbbc")) http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/linuxxian.html "The only constructive theory connecting neuroscience and psychology will arise from the study of software." -- Alan Perlis [To the endless aggravation of both disciplines. Ed.] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-02 2:12 ` Christopher Browne @ 2003-09-02 4:16 ` Ludovic Brenta 2003-09-02 14:53 ` Christopher Browne 2003-09-03 2:18 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-12 12:21 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen 1 sibling, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2003-09-02 4:16 UTC (permalink / raw) Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org> writes: > I think it would be a mistake, today, to assume hot-swappable CPUs > as a basic function of the hardware. It has proven a lot more > economical to put additional rackmounted computers onto a rack, and > separate the functions across multiple buses. > > Futurists keep imagining that we are right around the corner from > the situation where it will make sense to buy computers that have > huge arrays of CPUs; while Apple may be very proud of their dual-PPC > "G5" systems, prices of multi-CPU "backplanes" remain stunningly > higher than those for single-CPU hardware, and there doesn't seem to > be good reason for that to change soon. In fact, mainframes have had this kind of capability for quite some time now. And the people who use them take hot-swapped CPUs for granted. The only reason why they don't convey an image of futurism is that they still program in COBOL :) Yes, mainframe-class hardware costs more than commodity PCs, but there are situations where this is economically sensible because racks upon racks of small independent computers mean huge sysadmin costs. I have been personally involved in managing several racks of 32 Linux blade servers and I can tell you that this kind of approach simply does not scale from a human perspective. More info here: http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/library/techpapers/gm130260.html (I am not affiliated with IBM). -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-02 4:16 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2003-09-02 14:53 ` Christopher Browne 2003-09-02 19:52 ` Charlie Spitzer 2003-09-03 2:18 ` Robert I. Eachus 1 sibling, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Christopher Browne @ 2003-09-02 14:53 UTC (permalink / raw) Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@skynet.be> wrote: > In fact, mainframes have had this kind of capability for quite some > time now. I know that. That is why I used words like "many-times-more-expensive" and "over-the-counter". When building a new operating system, in the post-Mach, post-Windows NT age, where the ground has been scorched, and there are no DARPA projects pushing hundreds of millions of dollars at OS research, there is little point in building something that requires custom hardware. -- (reverse (concatenate 'string "moc.enworbbc" "@" "enworbbc")) http://cbbrowne.com/info/oses.html HEADLINE: Suicidal twin kills sister by mistake! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-02 14:53 ` Christopher Browne @ 2003-09-02 19:52 ` Charlie Spitzer 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Charlie Spitzer @ 2003-09-02 19:52 UTC (permalink / raw) "Christopher Browne" <cbbrowne@acm.org> wrote in message news:bj2asn$egqfv$1@ID-125932.news.uni-berlin.de... > Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@skynet.be> wrote: > > In fact, mainframes have had this kind of capability for quite some > > time now. > > I know that. That is why I used words like > "many-times-more-expensive" and "over-the-counter". not so expensive. far more reliable than clusters. see the ftserver product at http://www.stratus.com for hot swappable cpus for windows on pcs that's available now. > When building a new operating system, in the post-Mach, post-Windows > NT age, where the ground has been scorched, and there are no DARPA > projects pushing hundreds of millions of dollars at OS research, there > is little point in building something that requires custom hardware. > -- > (reverse (concatenate 'string "moc.enworbbc" "@" "enworbbc")) > http://cbbrowne.com/info/oses.html > HEADLINE: Suicidal twin kills sister by mistake! caveat: i work for stratus, but don't speak for them. regards, charlie stratus cac ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-02 4:16 ` Ludovic Brenta 2003-09-02 14:53 ` Christopher Browne @ 2003-09-03 2:18 ` Robert I. Eachus 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-09-03 2:18 UTC (permalink / raw) Ludovic Brenta wrote: > In fact, mainframes have had this kind of capability for quite some > time now. And the people who use them take hot-swapped CPUs for > granted. The only reason why they don't convey an image of futurism > is that they still program in COBOL :) Yes, mainframe-class hardware > costs more than commodity PCs, but there are situations where this is > economically sensible because racks upon racks of small independent > computers mean huge sysadmin costs. I have been personally involved > in managing several racks of 32 Linux blade servers and I can tell you > that this kind of approach simply does not scale from a human > perspective. That's why I, and apparently IBM are so enamored of the new (AMD) Opteron-based servers from Newisys (just acquired by SCI-Sanmina). The (dual or quad) processor servers have an additional smaller processor with its own Ethernet port. You can connect all these server processors to a PC (or to several) on sysadmins desks, and they can do all the typical system adminstration type stuff from their desks in addition to the normal remote functions like checking loads--shutdown, restart, kill a particular memory DIMM, boot in an alternate mode for file backup and all that, even run some hardware diagnostics. It doesn't make running an array of servers painless, but it does take away a lot of the pain. And, yes, you can kill one CPU if necessary. You do lose the memory connected to that CPU though. (The RAM in an Opteron system connects directly to the CPU without going through a Northbridge.) -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-02 2:12 ` Christopher Browne 2003-09-02 4:16 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2003-09-12 12:21 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen 2003-09-12 17:49 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-12 20:45 ` Christopher Browne 1 sibling, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Jacob Sparre Andersen @ 2003-09-12 12:21 UTC (permalink / raw) Christopher Browne wrote: > The world rejoiced as "Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com> wrote: >>Alexander Kopilovitch wrote: [ viewing CPU's as just another resource ] > That can only conceivably be supported on hardware that conciously > supports adding and dropping CPUs while the system is "hot." I am not sure I agree with you on this point. I beleive that MOSIX actually allows you to do something like that, although the units you add or drop are whole physical machines and not just single CPU's or memory blocks. > But mandating an OS design that mandates this > "many-times-more-expensive" sort of hardware in days when > over-the-counter hardware is so cheap and available seems almost as > limiting as the lack of an "adding CPUs" feature. If it is sufficient to be able to add or drop physical machines from a networked cluster of machines that make up the Multics site, then I don't see it as a problem. Jacob -- "We will be restoring normality as soon as we are sure what is normal anyway." ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-12 12:21 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen @ 2003-09-12 17:49 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-13 5:49 ` Edward Rice 2003-09-12 20:45 ` Christopher Browne 1 sibling, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-09-12 17:49 UTC (permalink / raw) Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote: > If it is sufficient to be able to add or drop physical machines from a > networked cluster of machines that make up the Multics site, then I > don't see it as a problem. Agreed. There is no particular need for any element to be "hot swapable." With Multics, the units that could be added or dropped were large cabinets, call it six feet by three by three or so. The point was that the Multics site had an electronic existance that was not tied to any particular hardware. You could, and many sites did, upgrade the hardware, replacing all of it without ever shutting the site down. -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-12 17:49 ` Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-09-13 5:49 ` Edward Rice 2003-09-13 18:59 ` Robert I. Eachus 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Edward Rice @ 2003-09-13 5:49 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3F620703.9080804@attbi.com>, "Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com> wrote: > any particular hardware. You could, and many sites did, upgrade the > hardware, replacing all of it without ever shutting the site down. Can you actually point to any site that re-cabled a processor or IOM or SCU without powering down the system, Robert? At AFDSC, we did about as much dynamic reconfiguration (and upgrading) as any place, but when it came time to disconnect power and data cables, HFED wanted the system all to themselves. We certainly split our system without bringing down service -- that was a daily operation. But I don't consider adding back a processor at 5:00 AM that was removed at 8:00 PM the previous evening to be an upgrade. Edward Rice ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-13 5:49 ` Edward Rice @ 2003-09-13 18:59 ` Robert I. Eachus 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-09-13 18:59 UTC (permalink / raw) Edward Rice wrote: > > Can you actually point to any site that re-cabled a processor or IOM or SCU > without powering down the system, Robert? At AFDSC, we did about as much > dynamic reconfiguration (and upgrading) as any place, but when it came time > to disconnect power and data cables, HFED wanted the system all to > themselves. > > We certainly split our system without bringing down service -- that was a > daily operation. But I don't consider adding back a processor at 5:00 AM > that was removed at 8:00 PM the previous evening to be an upgrade. At BCO in Billerica, MA it was actually done at least once or twice that I was aware of. As you point out, it is a power and cabling issue. We did have every box on its own circut breaker, so doing it was a lot less dangerous. But remember, that in this situation it helped a lot that BCO was part of Honeywell, and there was some trading back and forth of staff with CISL in Cambridge, MA, where they hacked their own Multics system a lot. (CISL was the development site for Multics.) As for disk and tape drives, that was done all the time. The only two times I can remember BCO being down, a squirrel jumped from one power wire coming into the building to another in the rain. I also can't remember any occasion where Honeywell support people came to our site. Doesn't mean it didn't happen. However there were at least a dozen times where someone from CISL showed up to do a hardware mod, or to oversee an OS upgrade. Even though we were a different part of Honeywell from CISL, the geographic convenience meant that we were often the first non-CISL site to install a software upgrade or hardware fix. Those hardware fixes were the occasions where one processor at a time was shut down, modified and added back in. But again, the reason it was so nice was that it was much nicer to live with fewer processors for most of a day, compared to shutting the site down for a day or two to do the same thing. -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-12 12:21 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen 2003-09-12 17:49 ` Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-09-12 20:45 ` Christopher Browne 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Christopher Browne @ 2003-09-12 20:45 UTC (permalink / raw) In an attempt to throw the authorities off his trail, Jacob Sparre Andersen <sparre@crs4.it> transmitted: > Christopher Browne wrote: >> The world rejoiced as "Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com> wrote: >>>Alexander Kopilovitch wrote: > > [ viewing CPU's as just another resource ] > >> That can only conceivably be supported on hardware that conciously >> supports adding and dropping CPUs while the system is "hot." > > I am not sure I agree with you on this point. I beleive that MOSIX > actually allows you to do something like that, although the units > you add or drop are whole physical machines and not just single > CPU's or memory blocks. That agrees with what I have heard about MOSIX. There's a BIG efficiency difference between the approaches, to the point of massively changing the approaches you would take to using the 'cluster.' If the CPUs are on the same bus, then you can assume quick inter-CPU communications, and that changes task scheduling rather a lot as compared to off-host scheduling of work. >> But mandating an OS design that mandates this >> "many-times-more-expensive" sort of hardware in days when >> over-the-counter hardware is so cheap and available seems almost as >> limiting as the lack of an "adding CPUs" feature. > > If it is sufficient to be able to add or drop physical machines from > a networked cluster of machines that make up the Multics site, then > I don't see it as a problem. If that were the proper interpretation, I wouldn't see it as a big problem. Which interpretation is right seems to me to be a pretty big /design/ question... -- output = reverse("moc.enworbbc" "@" "enworbbc") http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/ Coming Soon to a Mainframe Near You! MICROS~1 Windows NT 6.0, complete with VISUAL JCL... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-01 21:22 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-02 2:12 ` Christopher Browne @ 2003-09-02 16:16 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2003-09-03 2:36 ` Robert I. Eachus 1 sibling, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Alexander Kopilovitch @ 2003-09-02 16:16 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert I. Eachus wrote: > > take existing open source > > OS - FreeBSD is, perhaps, the best candidate - and start to replace its layers > > from the ground, that is, from the kernel, following the Multics design, and > > making necessary bridges (between lower Multics-layers and upper FreeBSD > > layers) at each stage, thus maintaining functionality but not too worrying > > about effectiveness. > >Non-starter, really. Perhaps. Although I don't see serious reasons for that other than insufficient information about real Multics (including its usage). > That would be like translating a novel from >Russian to English a word at a time. You would end up with a book all >in English, but full of Russian idioms and with no English idioms or >common phrases. Well, let's compare it with translation, but why such a ridiculous way - word by word? You said Russian novel to English - good, let it be (for example) L.Tolstoy (I think that Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are most known Russian writers in USA, and programming still didn't reach the Dostoevsky's level of tense and struggling -:). So, as we know that Tolstoy's writings consist of 3 major components - static descriptions of natural environment, long moral speeches, static and dynamic description of characters - and occasional (rare) short sayings of exceptional strength or contents, so we can deal with all that by corresponding stages. First, we'll translate into English all descriptions of natural environment. At the second stage we'll translate moral speeches. Then, at the third stage we'll translate the rest - real contents, character by character. And during that third stage we'll care about those singled sayings. > Actually, make that Klingon and English, or something > even wierder. Klingon to Chinese? I was very surprised about that Klingon - I never saw this name. So I was forced to search via Google for it, and yes, I found that this is the language from Star Trek product. Well, I understand that perhaps it is impossible to avoid Star Trek in USA - just as it was impossible to avoid Communist's favorite movies, songs and slogans in USSR. By the way, here in Russia we have our own alien language - from the movie "Kin-za-dza" (produced about 1990). It is very simple language - less that 10 words for all occasions. Two main words are like "qoo" (positive word, double and triple "qoo" along with touching your cheeks with your fingers are used for expression of admiration, subordination, etc.) and like "que" (negative word). Well, I recommend you that good movie, if you want to understand the mood in the late Soviet Union -:) . > There are hundreds, make that thousands of assumptions in a disk-based > OS that are absent or different in Multics. Yes, surely. But I do not think that one must be too serious about all those assumptions. Some of them are significant and should be satisfied or simulated one way or another; but most of them really need not be satisfied - they may be substituted by other assumptions without much harm. (I'm not saying that this is simple or smooth job -;). Note, that in the intermediate stages (being partially Multics and partially FreeBSD) the system need not have production strength. > For example on Multics > there is a tool called the binder that can be used to bundle up > snapshots of a group of programs. These snapshots are not the programs, > but they are the closest Multics has to the concept of a computer > program. In the Multics world, a program is often no better defined > than "this entry point in this segment, called with these parameters." > Of course, there is on-line documentation FOR THAT SEGMENT, that > explains all that. (And yes, one of the things that you pass to the > binder is a list of the entry points that you want to be visible.) I don't see why this may appear serious obstacle. I can't imagine that it may be too hard to emulate conventional process environment in any reasonable OS. Just because that conventional process corresponds to important and natural needs of significant share of users - so, if OS can't provide that opportunity then it is fatally flawed as general-purpose OS, and given the fame of Multics it seems improbable. > Similarly, connecting to a Multics site is a meaningful concept. > Booting is something that hardware does after a power failure. You can > have a Multics site with several CPUs--I think System M in Phoenix had > five--and we can discuss things in terms of symmetric multiprocessing. > But that sort of misses the point. The Multics site can add CPUs, drop > CPUs, upgrade CPUs, etc., and all that is going on from the Multics > viewpoint is adding and removing resources. Same for memory, disk > drives, tape drives, and any other resources. (Hmmm. Translation, in > the Multics world critical is not a word you assoicate with resources.) I don't see how these features of Multics may create any obstacle for suggested scenario - they all are additional features (relative to conventional OS), and in the scenario Multics grows from the lower layers. > As I said, most RDBMSs already have the ability to bypass the OS and > access disk drives directly. This is going one step further, and > "mapping" the disk drive into memory. With a memory-mapped drive on a > virtual memory system, you can address the disk just like the memory was > physically present in RAM. What I still can't get clear is why this approach did not (apparently) already succeeded? Not all applications need very large databases - 1Gb is enough for many, and memory is cheap - so, why we don't see such products? By the way, I'm pretty sure that I saw something somehow similar to that - OODBMS in Ada95, which was based on storage pools - in public domain, in 1995 or 1996 or 1997. I remember that I downloaded that thing, it seemed interesting and I read and even printed it. Now I tried to find it again, but so far failed - both on my disks and in the Net (unfortunately I remember neither the author's name nor exact title). There is still a chance that I'll find it in my archives on CDs. Alexander Kopilovitch aek@vib.usr.pu.ru Saint-Petersburg Russia ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-02 16:16 ` Alexander Kopilovitch @ 2003-09-03 2:36 ` Robert I. Eachus 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-09-03 2:36 UTC (permalink / raw) Alexander Kopilovitch wrote: > I'm pretty sure that I saw something somehow similar to that - OODBMS in Ada95, > which was based on storage pools - in public domain, in 1995 or 1996 or 1997. > I remember that I downloaded that thing, it seemed interesting and I read and > even printed it. Now I tried to find it again, but so far failed - both on my > disks and in the Net (unfortunately I remember neither the author's name nor > exact title). There is still a chance that I'll find it in my archives on CDs. The names have sort of changed, but not the reality. There are several companies that provide object-oriented databases. But the names to look for are CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture and ORB (Object Request Broker). If you create a CORBA object usually in IDL, then any ORB can be used to share access to that object. Of course what you really want to do is to have an object database that you can link to through the ORB, and an Ada binding to CORBA to translate your IDL objects into Ada code. (Even better would be a tool that abstracted objects from your Ada code and created IDL descriptions of them.) I used to follow the CORBA work pretty closely, then I got involved heavily in projects that used Oracle and staying current in both Oracle and the CORBA world was too much. (Along, of course, with Ada, and the computer hardware, and a couple of OSes, and...) -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-01 2:09 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-01 16:29 ` Alexander Kopilovitch @ 2003-09-01 21:44 ` Larry Kilgallen [not found] ` <e2e5731a.0309010Organization: LJK Software <og4DamrQ9AuX@eisner.encompasserve.org> ` (4 subsequent siblings) 6 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2003-09-01 21:44 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3F53B88E.7040405@attbi.com>, "Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com> writes: > As I said, most RDBMSs already have the ability to bypass the OS and > access disk drives directly. They do ? On what operating systems ? On the one with which I am most familiar, device registers can only be accessed from the innermost mode, and the code that does that is in a device driver. If the DBMS vendor should happen to provide their own driver, installing it would make it part of the operating system. Even ADABAS, the most contrary DBMS I have encountered for system manager relations, was this way. It insisted on calculating sectors and cylinders on its own (back when there were such things), but it ended up calling the operating system's device driver to read those bits into memory. I think there are many hardware architectures that would have a hard time delivering the interrupts without going through the operating system interrupt dispatch. > This is going one step further, and > "mapping" the disk drive into memory. With a memory-mapped drive on a > virtual memory system, you can address the disk just like the memory was > physically present in RAM. I know compilers that read source that way, relying upon the OS paging in the data as appropriate. But it is an individual performance/coding tradeoff, not applied so universally as in Multics. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
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* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software [not found] ` <e2e5731a.0309010Organization: LJK Software <og4DamrQ9AuX@eisner.encompasserve.org> @ 2003-09-03 3:02 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-03 16:57 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-09-03 3:02 UTC (permalink / raw) Larry Kilgallen wrote: > In article <3F53B88E.7040405@attbi.com>, "Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com> writes: > > >>As I said, most RDBMSs already have the ability to bypass the OS and >>access disk drives directly. > > They do ? On what operating systems ? I guess we have a different idea of what bypassing the OS means. I was thinking of for example, Oracle on Solaris. You can go through the file system, bypass the file system and have Oracle manage a partition (raw mode), or give Oracle full control of the DISK device or devices. But even then you are right, the DBMS uses the standard device drivers. The difference is that if Oracle controls the entire disk, it can take control of the head positioning and other driver level functions. > I know compilers that read source that way, relying upon the OS paging > in the data as appropriate. But it is an individual performance/coding > tradeoff, not applied so universally as in Multics. Well, in Multics it is universal because there is no user level distinction between main memory and disk storage. It is all memory, and once you have linked to a segment, there are no further OS level commands to read and write it. Well, technically not. You could break the link to the segment if you wanted, or were running out of segment descriptors in your process. But breaking links was more likely to be a side effect of deleting the segment. A bit of magic here. If you were compiling a file that was part of an application the compiler would normally rename the old version of the code segment, not delete it. That way if someone else--or you in a different process--were executing the old code, the segment was still there. But you could then delete the old version to force users to use the new copy. What if the segment you were compiling was part of the operating system? Why should that be any different? So you could modify Multics on the fly. Occasionally with early versions of Multics, there were "flag days". There was an incompatable change to the OS, so at a particular point all the affected old segments were replaced with new versions. But they soon stopped. The reason that flag days happened was usually that someone had concluded that some data structure did not need an internal version number. Pretty soon it became accepted wisdom on Multics that every OS data structure needed a version number, including structures that contained structures with version numbers. -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-03 3:02 ` Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-09-03 16:57 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-09-04 7:19 ` olehjalmar kristensen - Sun Microsystems - Trondheim Norway 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-09-03 16:57 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert I. Eachus wrote: > Larry Kilgallen wrote: > >> In article <3F53B88E.7040405@attbi.com>, "Robert I. Eachus" >> <rieachus@attbi.com> writes: >>> As I said, most RDBMSs already have the ability to bypass the OS and >>> access disk drives directly. > >> They do ? On what operating systems ? > > I guess we have a different idea of what bypassing the OS means. I was > thinking of for example, Oracle on Solaris. You can go through the file > system, bypass the file system and have Oracle manage a partition (raw > mode), or give Oracle full control of the DISK device or devices. But > even then you are right, the DBMS uses the standard device drivers. The > difference is that if Oracle controls the entire disk, it can take > control of the head positioning and other driver level functions. INFORMIX and Sybase can work with the raw devices as well. This was in fact, a problem in early Linux kernels, as they did not support raw devices (only "block" devices where the disk blocks are cached -- database engines prefer to do their own caching techniques). Linus didn't understand the need for these raw (unbuffered) devices in the beginning. I think Oracle was probably the source of enlightening on that front. ;-) So on the early Linux kernels, only file system based versions of INFORMIX and Sybase databases were possible. Now I would expect that has all changed. You might wonder why buffered "block" devices are not good enough for the purpose. I can't answer to the specifics, but only that database engines are in a position to better manage the cache based upon what they "know" needs to be done. Another important reason to control caching details is that when a transaction is committed, you need to guarantee that the data is written to the disk media (or can be recovered if the database is to be restarted at that point). The database must be recoverable at any given point anyhow, and this usually requires fine grained control over physical writes to the media. This aspect and performance means that the engine must balance performance with reliability (persistance), which are conflicting goals when using disk. It is this last area where oodles of persistent fast memory (instead of disk), can make a world of difference. In this case persistence = memory performance, which of course is where the win is. If disks became obsolete (one can hope), then I could see that new database engine design (internals) will become much different than what it is today. Certainly, many of the present compromises would be eliminated. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-03 16:57 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-09-04 7:19 ` olehjalmar kristensen - Sun Microsystems - Trondheim Norway 2003-09-05 17:06 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-09-05 19:27 ` Robert I. Eachus 0 siblings, 2 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: olehjalmar kristensen - Sun Microsystems - Trondheim Norway @ 2003-09-04 7:19 UTC (permalink / raw) >>>>> "WWGV" == Warren W Gay VE3WWG <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> writes: <snip> WWGV> You might wonder why buffered "block" devices are not good WWGV> enough for the purpose. I can't answer to the specifics, but WWGV> only that database engines are in a position to better manage WWGV> the cache based upon what they "know" needs to be done. Another WWGV> important reason to control caching details is that when a WWGV> transaction is committed, you need to guarantee that the WWGV> data is written to the disk media (or can be recovered if WWGV> the database is to be restarted at that point). The cache management will typically be the same with both OS files and raw devices. The main difference is as you say, that you have better control over the raw device with respect to the layout of your tables, so you may be able to optimize disk writes better. Usually, you will be able to get higher bandwidth when running on a raw device. Most operating systems will allow you to wait until the data are even if you are using the file system, so there is no difference with respect to the durability of data. All portable DBMS need to do their own cache management, so if you are running on files, both the OS and the DBMS cache the same blocks, thereby wasiting RAM. Also, the replacement strategies may be conflicting, resulting in suboptimal performance. WWGV> The database WWGV> must be recoverable at any given point anyhow, and this WWGV> usually requires fine grained control over physical writes WWGV> to the media. This aspect and performance means that the WWGV> engine must balance performance with reliability (persistance), WWGV> which are conflicting goals when using disk. WWGV> It is this last area where oodles of persistent fast memory WWGV> (instead of disk), can make a world of difference. In this WWGV> case persistence = memory performance, which of course is WWGV> where the win is. If disks became obsolete (one can hope), WWGV> then I could see that new database engine design (internals) WWGV> will become much different than what it is today. Certainly, WWGV> many of the present compromises would be eliminated. WWGV> -- WWGV> Warren W. Gay VE3WWG WWGV> http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg Possibly, but keep in mind that most current DBMS's are already CPU bound when it comes to throughput. Fast disks and techniques like group commit ensures that the log is rarely a bottleneck, and all you need to recover is in the log. What you can get with large non-volatile memory is much lower latency per transaction, that is, the response time for a single transaction can be dramatically lower, even if the throughput in terms of TPS stays the same. And in case you were wondering if you could do away with the log, the answer is yes, if you create some kind of multi-version system. But you always need some way of keeping track of the history, so you can roll back your changes in case a transaction decides to abort for some reason. Actually, one may say that the log IS the database, all the rest is there only to give faster access to the latest version. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- There can be only One. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-04 7:19 ` olehjalmar kristensen - Sun Microsystems - Trondheim Norway @ 2003-09-05 17:06 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-09-05 19:27 ` Robert I. Eachus 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-09-05 17:06 UTC (permalink / raw) I had written a detailed reply to this by my crappy Netscape 7 had an error posting via NNTP, and threw the whole reply away (major grumbling here about that!) So this will be a very brief repeat of the essential items ;-) olehjalmar kristensen - Sun Microsystems - Trondheim Norway wrote: >>>>>>"WWGV" == Warren W Gay VE3WWG <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> writes: > WWGV> You might wonder why buffered "block" devices are not good > WWGV> enough for the purpose. I can't answer to the specifics, but > WWGV> only that database engines are in a position to better manage > WWGV> the cache based upon what they "know" needs to be done. Another > WWGV> important reason to control caching details is that when a > WWGV> transaction is committed, you need to guarantee that the > WWGV> data is written to the disk media (or can be recovered if > WWGV> the database is to be restarted at that point). > > The cache management will typically be the same with both OS files and > raw devices. The main difference is as you say, that you have better > control over the raw device with respect to the layout of your tables, > so you may be able to optimize disk writes better. Control is where it is at. With block devices you can only: 1) leave it up to the O/S when to flush out writes 2) call sync(2) and have all dirty blocks written out 3) call fsync(3) and have all of your own blocks related to the file descriptor written out. With a block device, a return from write(2) does not guarantee that your data has been recorded on the magnetic media. With a raw device, it should be a guarantee, with the following exceptions: 1) Smart caching IDE like disk drives 2) EMC like subsystems with electronic cache > Most operating systems will allow you to wait until the data are > even if you are using the file system, so there is no difference with > respect to the durability of data. With UNIX, a return from write(2) is only a promise that it will someday be written. No specific timeline is guaranteed (see above). I don't expect it is much different with win32 systems. > All portable DBMS need to do their own cache management, so if you are > running on files, both the OS and the DBMS cache the same blocks, > thereby wasiting RAM. Also, the replacement strategies may be > conflicting, resulting in suboptimal performance. Yes, if the DBMS is expecting a raw device, and doing its own caching, then using a block device (or file system file) is asking for double-buffering. Very bad indeed for performance. > WWGV> The database > WWGV> must be recoverable at any given point anyhow, and this > WWGV> usually requires fine grained control over physical writes > WWGV> to the media. This aspect and performance means that the > WWGV> engine must balance performance with reliability (persistance), > WWGV> which are conflicting goals when using disk. > > WWGV> It is this last area where oodles of persistent fast memory > WWGV> (instead of disk), can make a world of difference. In this > WWGV> case persistence = memory performance, which of course is > WWGV> where the win is. If disks became obsolete (one can hope), > WWGV> then I could see that new database engine design (internals) > WWGV> will become much different than what it is today. Certainly, > WWGV> many of the present compromises would be eliminated. > > WWGV> -- > WWGV> Warren W. Gay VE3WWG > WWGV> http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg > > Possibly, but keep in mind that most current DBMS's are already CPU > bound when it comes to throughput. Fast disks and techniques like > group commit ensures that the log is rarely a bottleneck, and all you > need to recover is in the log. This is primarily where I disagree: I don't disagree that there are fast disks and subsystems today. But keep in mind two things: 1) There are oodles of traditional slow disk based databases around still 2) The database engines were designed to handle the difficult case of #1. Designing a new RDBMS would be much simpler, if you could ignore the performance cost of putting data to the magnetic media. But I would venture that all of the popular database vendor offerings available today, were designed to get performance out of slow disk I/O technologies. Otherwise, they could just insist on this new technology, and make life easier forthemselves from a design and enhancement point of view. > What you can get with large non-volatile memory is much lower latency > per transaction, that is, the response time for a single transaction > can be dramatically lower, even if the throughput in terms of TPS > stays the same. It also buys an opportunity to re-design the database engine, because now you can eliminate: 1) the cost of slow disk I/O 2) the worries about data persistance (no disk write operations need to be issued) This opens the doors to a whole new set of database engine design dynamics. > And in case you were wondering if you could do away with the log, the > answer is yes, if you create some kind of multi-version system. But > you always need some way of keeping track of the history, so you can > roll back your changes in case a transaction decides to abort for some > reason. Actually, one may say that the log IS the database, all the > rest is there only to give faster access to the latest version. Going to fast, persistent memory, opens a lot of doors indeed. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-04 7:19 ` olehjalmar kristensen - Sun Microsystems - Trondheim Norway 2003-09-05 17:06 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-09-05 19:27 ` Robert I. Eachus 1 sibling, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-09-05 19:27 UTC (permalink / raw) olehjalmar kristensen - Sun Microsystems - Trondheim Norway wrote: > Actually, one may say that the log IS the database, all the > rest is there only to give faster access to the latest version. Very good. I am used to calling it the transaction journal, but I am very leery of any DBMS whose state cannot be uniquely recovered from the journal, or and earlier save, and the journal entries since. And yes, it has been true for at least 15 years that some databases will allow you to commit transactions by journalling them in persistant memory. > There can be only One. For databases, make that there can only be one version of the database at any point in time. ;-) -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-01 2:09 ` Robert I. Eachus ` (2 preceding siblings ...) [not found] ` <e2e5731a.0309010Organization: LJK Software <og4DamrQ9AuX@eisner.encompasserve.org> @ 2003-09-03 12:38 ` Larry Kilgallen 2003-09-06 2:10 ` Larry Kilgallen ` (2 subsequent siblings) 6 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2003-09-03 12:38 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3F5559A4.8030507@attbi.com>, "Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com> writes: > Larry Kilgallen wrote: >> In article <3F53B88E.7040405@attbi.com>, "Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com> writes: >> >> >>>As I said, most RDBMSs already have the ability to bypass the OS and >>>access disk drives directly. > > >> They do ? On what operating systems ? > > I guess we have a different idea of what bypassing the OS means. I was > thinking of for example, Oracle on Solaris. You can go through the file > system, bypass the file system and have Oracle manage a partition (raw > mode), or give Oracle full control of the DISK device or devices. But > even then you are right, the DBMS uses the standard device drivers. The > difference is that if Oracle controls the entire disk, it can take > control of the head positioning and other driver level functions. You are correct about different terminology. Eschewing a file system from my frame of reference is something less drastic than bypassing the whole operating system. If I "own" a particular disk I can do whatever I want with it, but using the disk read/write mechanisms provided by the operating system (possibly including paging I/O). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-01 2:09 ` Robert I. Eachus ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2003-09-03 12:38 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2003-09-06 2:10 ` Larry Kilgallen [not found] ` <e2e5731a.03090Organization: LJK Software <D1upWhxUuOLF@eisner.encompasserve.org> 2003-09-06 23:36 ` Larry Kilgallen 6 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2003-09-06 2:10 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <Ln36b.22618$su.611773@news20.bellglobal.com>, "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> writes: > Control is where it is at. With block devices you can only: > > 1) leave it up to the O/S when to flush out writes > 2) call sync(2) and have all dirty blocks written out > 3) call fsync(3) and have all of your own blocks related > to the file descriptor written out. You seem to be presuming some Unix system. Not all operating systems have those limitations. >> Most operating systems will allow you to wait until the data are >> even if you are using the file system, so there is no difference with >> respect to the durability of data. > > With UNIX, a return from write(2) is only a promise that > it will someday be written. No specific timeline is > guaranteed (see above). I don't expect it is much different > with win32 systems. It is certainly quite different with OpenVMS. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
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* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software [not found] ` <e2e5731a.03090Organization: LJK Software <D1upWhxUuOLF@eisner.encompasserve.org> @ 2003-09-06 20:34 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-09-06 20:34 UTC (permalink / raw) http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg "Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@SpamCop.net> wrote in message news:D1upWhxUuOLF@eisner.encompasserve.org... > In article <Ln36b.22618$su.611773@news20.bellglobal.com>, "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> writes: > > > Control is where it is at. With block devices you can only: > > > > 1) leave it up to the O/S when to flush out writes > > 2) call sync(2) and have all dirty blocks written out > > 3) call fsync(3) and have all of your own blocks related > > to the file descriptor written out. > > You seem to be presuming some Unix system. Not all operating systems > have those limitations. Duh, yes of course! Is there any other operating system? ;-) > >> Most operating systems will allow you to wait until the data are > >> even if you are using the file system, so there is no difference with > >> respect to the durability of data. > > > > With UNIX, a return from write(2) is only a promise that > > it will someday be written. No specific timeline is > > guaranteed (see above). I don't expect it is much different > > with win32 systems. > > It is certainly quite different with OpenVMS. Never heard of it ;-) -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-09-01 2:09 ` Robert I. Eachus ` (5 preceding siblings ...) [not found] ` <e2e5731a.03090Organization: LJK Software <D1upWhxUuOLF@eisner.encompasserve.org> @ 2003-09-06 23:36 ` Larry Kilgallen 6 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2003-09-06 23:36 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <zCr6b.10761$Pa1.517650@read1.cgocable.net>, "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> writes: > http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg > "Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@SpamCop.net> wrote in message news:D1upWhxUuOLF@eisner.encompasserve.org... >> It is certainly quite different with OpenVMS. > > Never heard of it ;-) Ok, we have discovered the root cause of your computing problem :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
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* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software [not found] ` <hli721-4p3.ln1@beastie.ix.netcom.com> @ 2003-08-31 2:35 ` Robert I. Eachus 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2003-08-31 2:35 UTC (permalink / raw) Dennis Lee Bieber wrote: > And yes, there is an Ada (Ada 80 level, I believe) linkage in the way > the processor handled varying sized memory blocks with protected access > and tasking. I believe the native developement environment was supposed > to be Ada. I actually interviewed at Intel to work in the compiler group for the iapx432. I guess I was fortunate in one sense in that the day I was interviewing Intel management made a killing decision about the chip. The iapx432 implemented a capability architecture. The software group noticed that standard way of modifying a capability node didn't work with the root node. The only way to alter it was to create a new root table, then do a hardware reset. The hardware people argued that since there was a workaround for this errata it didn't need to be fixed for the first shipping revision. When I was at lunch with the compiler group, they were planning what to do next, because there was no future for the iapx432. (Of course, what I should have done was to hand out some extra resumes. People at lunch that day were involved in founding Rational and Verdix.) How bad was that decision? Pretty bad. It meant that in practice any memory reference went through an extra level of indirection. That did a pretty good job of killing performance. There was also a joint venture by Siemens and Intel called Biin to create and sell (Ada) systems based on the iapx432 architecture. When the 432 was bombing based on initial performance tests, Intel pulled the rug out from under Biin. AFAIK, a company in the UK, High Integrity Systems was the only company to ever actually sell iapx432 based products. -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-22 0:04 ` David Holm 2003-08-22 0:17 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 0:19 ` Stephane Richard @ 2003-08-22 20:49 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2003-08-22 20:49 UTC (permalink / raw) David Holm wrote: > Another issue I see is that even though it would be a great idea to write this in Ada (I'm > thinking of stability here), there will be problems finding programmers who are able to work > on it. One way of making it easier for people to help the project might be to write the backend > in Ada with a module loader (dlopen/dlsym/dlclose would d othe trick). That way people can > contribute to the project without knowing Ada and the backend can still be kept solid. By using > some database system like berkley db for universal datastorage (by all modules) and implementing > a recovery system in the backend you should be able to have a solid system even though it will > be tainted by other languages. > > //David Holm OTOH, when the stuff you really care about is written in this strange language called "Ada", you might have some interest in learning more about it. Especially if you want to customize it and/or contribute. ;-) -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 23:11 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 0:04 ` David Holm @ 2003-08-23 1:47 ` jim hopper 2003-08-23 1:47 ` Ludovic Brenta 2003-08-25 8:59 ` Preben Randhol 2 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: jim hopper @ 2003-08-23 1:47 UTC (permalink / raw) Have you all seen this: http://www.redrocketconsortium.com/zbc/index.html its in ada here is the intro: In June of 2001 I started a project to build an application that would allow small and midsize businesses the same level of inventory, order entry, sales tracking and accounting functionality as would be expected from commercial applications. I wanted it Open Source (GPL, specifically), cross-platform, and international. I wanted to make it possible for the little guy who can't afford the $60,000 for a commercial application and the yearly annual license fees to bring his business into the modern age ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-23 1:47 ` jim hopper @ 2003-08-23 1:47 ` Ludovic Brenta 2003-08-25 9:12 ` Preben Randhol 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2003-08-23 1:47 UTC (permalink / raw) jim hopper <hopperj@macconnect.com> writes: > Have you all seen this: > > http://www.redrocketconsortium.com/zbc/index.html Yes, I even joined the project, but unfortunately thate hasn't been any activity on it for a more than a year now. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-23 1:47 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2003-08-25 9:12 ` Preben Randhol 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-25 9:12 UTC (permalink / raw) Ludovic Brenta wrote: > jim hopper <hopperj@macconnect.com> writes: > >> Have you all seen this: >> >> http://www.redrocketconsortium.com/zbc/index.html > > Yes, I even joined the project, but unfortunately thate hasn't been > any activity on it for a more than a year now. Well it is GPL so ask the author if you may continue on it. -- �I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet. So who am I to judge.� - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radioplay) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 23:11 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 0:04 ` David Holm 2003-08-23 1:47 ` jim hopper @ 2003-08-25 8:59 ` Preben Randhol 2 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-25 8:59 UTC (permalink / raw) Stephane Richard wrote: > Well I did a commercial Payroll system in my career...I know accounting, > inventory management, and just about everything in between, I've dont a lot > of industry specific application development. and I'm thinking of doign an > OpenSource project :-)....that message on the group made me realize how much > it was lacking, but I agree, we need to replace such things as MYOB > Accounting or atleast have an equivalent of. We need business management > software, stats and probabilities, trend analysis, financial advisory tools, > and everything else that can be used in a business. so I'm game. Also done > a Point of Sale commercial application which integrated accounting behind > the scene. Might want to have a look at this site: http://www.redrocketconsortium.com/zbc/ -- �I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet. So who am I to judge.� - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radioplay) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-21 12:35 A Customer's Request For Open Source Software Marin David Condic ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2003-08-21 22:53 ` David Holm @ 2003-08-25 8:02 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-25 20:55 ` Chad R. Meiners 3 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-25 8:02 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > You've pretty much gotten by with off-the-shelf software. Was it tough > to find everything you needed in the open-source world? > Yeah, there are some things that are tough to find, like payroll > software. We found something, and it works well. But the developers need > to start writing the real-world applications people need to run a > business...engineering, art and design tools, that kind of > stuff...They're all trying to build servers that already exist and do a > whole bunch of stuff that's already out there...I think there's a lot of > room to not just create an alternative to Microsoft but really take the > next step and do something new. Amen! -- �I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet. So who am I to judge.� - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radioplay) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-25 8:02 ` Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-25 20:55 ` Chad R. Meiners 2003-08-26 9:28 ` Preben Randhol 0 siblings, 1 reply; 106+ messages in thread From: Chad R. Meiners @ 2003-08-25 20:55 UTC (permalink / raw) "Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message news:slrnbkjgjn.2kg.randhol+abuse@kiuk0152.chembio.ntnu.no... > Marin David Condic wrote: > > You've pretty much gotten by with off-the-shelf software. Was it tough > > to find everything you needed in the open-source world? > > Yeah, there are some things that are tough to find, like payroll > > software. We found something, and it works well. But the developers need > > to start writing the real-world applications people need to run a > > business...engineering, art and design tools, that kind of > > stuff...They're all trying to build servers that already exist and do a > > whole bunch of stuff that's already out there...I think there's a lot of > > room to not just create an alternative to Microsoft but really take the > > next step and do something new. > > Amen! > Hazah! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
* Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software 2003-08-25 20:55 ` Chad R. Meiners @ 2003-08-26 9:28 ` Preben Randhol 0 siblings, 0 replies; 106+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2003-08-26 9:28 UTC (permalink / raw) Chad R. Meiners wrote: > > "Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message >> Amen! >> > Hazah! Just to make it clear nothing religious was meant by my comment. :-) -- �I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet. So who am I to judge.� - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radioplay) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 106+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2003-09-17 18:21 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 106+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2003-08-21 12:35 A Customer's Request For Open Source Software Marin David Condic 2003-08-21 12:46 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 12:32 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-22 13:38 ` David Holm 2003-08-22 14:33 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 16:40 ` David Holm 2003-08-23 13:18 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-25 8:27 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-25 20:50 ` Chad R. Meiners 2003-08-26 1:28 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-26 9:27 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-26 17:06 ` Chad R. Meiners 2003-08-26 12:51 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-26 18:25 ` Wes Groleau 2003-08-27 10:05 ` Dave Head 2003-08-27 12:11 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-27 19:45 ` [off-topic] military medicine Wes Groleau 2003-08-30 17:33 ` A Customer's Request For Open Source Software Jan Kroken 2003-09-01 10:03 ` Preben Randhol 2003-09-17 18:21 ` Jan Kroken 2003-08-22 16:46 ` Larry Kilgallen 2003-08-22 17:09 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 18:03 ` Larry Kilgallen 2003-08-25 8:33 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-23 13:05 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-30 5:58 ` Adrian Hoe 2003-08-30 11:09 ` Stephane Richard [not found] ` <rti721-4p3.ln1@beastie.ix.netcom.com> 2003-08-31 18:28 ` Christopher Browne 2003-09-02 15:44 ` Adrian Hoe 2003-08-30 13:18 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-21 20:46 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-21 21:12 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 20:26 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-22 3:09 ` Hyman Rosen 2003-08-22 12:45 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-22 20:46 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-22 12:37 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-22 18:59 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-22 20:59 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-23 13:24 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-25 19:35 ` Brien 2003-08-25 8:52 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-25 16:32 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-26 9:19 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-26 21:01 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-27 5:15 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-21 22:53 ` David Holm 2003-08-21 23:11 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 0:04 ` David Holm 2003-08-22 0:17 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 0:19 ` Stephane Richard 2003-08-22 17:49 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-22 20:56 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-23 2:29 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2003-08-24 2:54 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-24 3:11 ` Matthew Heaney 2003-08-24 14:57 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-24 16:31 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-25 12:37 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-25 14:08 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-25 21:07 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2003-08-26 18:34 ` Christopher Browne 2003-08-27 12:21 ` Marin David Condic 2003-08-27 13:37 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-28 22:04 ` chris 2003-08-29 1:02 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-29 10:46 ` Larry Kilgallen 2003-08-29 21:15 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-29 16:10 ` Jon S. Anthony 2003-08-30 19:01 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2003-08-30 22:57 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-31 23:04 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2003-09-01 2:09 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-01 16:29 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2003-09-01 21:22 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-02 2:12 ` Christopher Browne 2003-09-02 4:16 ` Ludovic Brenta 2003-09-02 14:53 ` Christopher Browne 2003-09-02 19:52 ` Charlie Spitzer 2003-09-03 2:18 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-12 12:21 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen 2003-09-12 17:49 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-13 5:49 ` Edward Rice 2003-09-13 18:59 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-12 20:45 ` Christopher Browne 2003-09-02 16:16 ` Alexander Kopilovitch 2003-09-03 2:36 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-01 21:44 ` Larry Kilgallen [not found] ` <e2e5731a.0309010Organization: LJK Software <og4DamrQ9AuX@eisner.encompasserve.org> 2003-09-03 3:02 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-03 16:57 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-09-04 7:19 ` olehjalmar kristensen - Sun Microsystems - Trondheim Norway 2003-09-05 17:06 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-09-05 19:27 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-09-03 12:38 ` Larry Kilgallen 2003-09-06 2:10 ` Larry Kilgallen [not found] ` <e2e5731a.03090Organization: LJK Software <D1upWhxUuOLF@eisner.encompasserve.org> 2003-09-06 20:34 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-09-06 23:36 ` Larry Kilgallen [not found] ` <hli721-4p3.ln1@beastie.ix.netcom.com> 2003-08-31 2:35 ` Robert I. Eachus 2003-08-22 20:49 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2003-08-23 1:47 ` jim hopper 2003-08-23 1:47 ` Ludovic Brenta 2003-08-25 9:12 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-25 8:59 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-25 8:02 ` Preben Randhol 2003-08-25 20:55 ` Chad R. Meiners 2003-08-26 9:28 ` Preben Randhol
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