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Software

Submission + - Open 'Commericalized' Source v Free Software

Submitted by
GotCode
GotCode writes: "Ok so we have seen how the big guns are commercializing the open source model and now users have the fix it your self approach or pay for commercial support and/or additional features. With money coming into open source projects is this changing the direction of how open source projects can evolve ?

For those users paying for commercial support of an open source product what really is the benefit of an open source product ? With larger commercial interests in open source are we going to loose control of our creativity just because someone or an organization can stump up the cash to push development into a particular direction, i.e development by cash influence rather than by community direction and values.

In this light is open source just becoming a buzz word to get you noticed ? Is there really any difference between this and giving away a closed software product and just charging for support and or consulting services. From a customer point of view if they get what they want for free but pay for the support and services and can influence the feature set with cash where is the benefit of open source to an end consumer of it ?

Is it time for Free Software, Software leasing or Pay as you go type of software to become more prevalent? Or is there another business model that could be used for this ?"
Spam

Is There Any Reason to Report Spammers to ISPs? 117

Posted by Cliff from the does-it-do-any-good dept.
marko_ramius asks: "For years I've been a good netizen and reported spam that I get to the appropriate contacts at various ISPs. In the entire time that I've done this I've gotten (maybe) 5 or 6 responses from those ISPs informing me that they have taken action against the spammer. In recent years however, I haven't gotten any responses. Are the ISP's so overwhelmed with abuse reports that they aren't able to respond to the spam reports? Do they even bother acting on said reports? Is there any real reason to report spammers?"
Windows

Solution for Remote Software Deployment on Windows? 84

Posted by Cliff from the is-pushing-images-the-only-way dept.
DownTownMT asks: "I work as a Windows administrator in a small company with roughly 180 WinXP/2000 and 30 Win98 machines. Our current method for installing Windows patches is WSUS which works great for the non-98 PC's. However, when installing software, such as Adobe, QuickTime and various other tools, our only method is to manually install it on each machine. What are you sysadmins using to deploy software across all of your machines?"
PlayStation (Games)

Alternative Uses and Interesting Mods for a PS1? 48

Posted by Cliff from the breathe-new-life-into-old-hardware dept.
carolinamagi asks: "I've got an original Playstation collecting dust in my garage that I only use when I've got a fix for Final Fantasy VII. I know the original Playstation is a dated system but I can't help but wonder if there are any 'after market' or non-game mods which others have tried (with success) to give their Playstation some new life. The catch is that I'm a total novice when it comes to mods (although I am handy around the house and around a computer) and I would still like the ability to play games with my modded Playstation. Any ideas?"
Spam

Is There Any Reason to Report Spammers to ISP's?

Posted by Cliff from the does-it-do-any-good dept.
marko_ramius asks: "For years I've been a good netizen and reported spam that I get to the appropriate contacts at varois ISPs. In the entire time that I've done this I've gotten (maybe) 5 or 6 responses from those ISPs informing me that they have taken action against the spammer. In recent years however, I haven't gotten any responses. Are the ISP's so overwhelmed with abuse reports that they aren't able to respond to the spam reports? Do they even bother acting on said reports? Is there any real reason to report spammers?"
Programming

How Would You Interview Potential Managers? 72

Posted by Cliff from the introducing-the-hot-seat dept.
martincmartin asks: "The company I work for is starting to interview development managers, and I've been asked to interview a bunch of them. While there's been a lot written on interviewing programmers and what makes a good manager, how do you interview a management candidate? What questions do you ask? What are good and bad answers? What else do you do?"
Encryption

Full Disk Encryption - Xen, Windows and Linux? 49

Posted by Cliff from the protecting-your-data-across-various-OSes dept.
Bofh To asks: "I'm in an industry that, more or less, requires full disk encryption, and to accomplish this, we use Pointsec on Windows. For the past 8 years, I've been running Linux on my work laptop, and this is the first time I'm running in a Windows only environment. I am interested in changing that, because I want to use Linux as my main platform, and only drop in to Windows when necessary (and use crossover if at all possible). I'm also interested in Xen, and would like to see if I can use that to virtualize Windows under Linux. My thought is that, as long as Pointsec is in dom0 and I use virtual disks for the Windows VM, I should be covered. The problem is that I'd also like a machine that is usable, as opposed to waiting endlessly as the virtual memory, virtual machine, pointsec, and xen all thrash around while I'm working on the machine. Has anyone used Pointsec for Linux, with Xen? "
Software

Can You Run an Open GSM Network? 51

Posted by Cliff from the be-your-own-cell-phone-carrier dept.
OpenCell asks: "Here in Vancouver, cellphone companies are charging ridiculous amounts for basic cellphone plans. I'm wondering if it's possible to run an open/almost free GSM network on a small college campus. Assuming we could find the hardware and get the rights, is there open source software out there to handle most aspects for something like this?"
Businesses

Worrying About Employment Contracts? 98

Posted by Cliff from the read-before-you-sign dept.
An anonymous reader wonders: "I was preparing to accept a software developer job at a California company and was put off by the contract which claimed ownership of any ideas I create (on my own time or at the company) during my stay at the company and required me to inform them of any ideas (related to the company or not) during my employment and for a year afterwards. I've found references to a couple of instances where this became a legal problem for the developer. Is this something to worry about?"
GUI

Multiple Desktop Users on a Single Machine? 106

Posted by Cliff from the multiple-heads-why-not-multiple-consoles dept.
_Sharp'r_ asks: "I'm trying to design the least expensive way to make OpenOffice, email, and a web browser available to students in a new charter elementary school. In my past experience working with charitable computer donations, I can usually get three to four working computers out of five donated 'broken' computer systems, usually with plenty of monitors, keyboards and mice left over. I'd like to use one computer for multiple students by attaching multiple monitors, USB keyboards and mice. What drivers/OS versions support multiple local input devices and monitors that can be attached to a specific login session? Will this require virtualization? Is there a config I haven't found that you can use to assign these devices to specific ttys? Have you done this before?"
Networking

High-Capacity Bandwidth Testing Software? 32

Posted by Cliff from the how-fast-is-your-link dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "I work for an ISP which specializes in high bandwidth (100+ megabit) fiber-based delivery solutions. As with any other ISP we sometimes have to perform troubleshooting with customers who are reporting slow throughput. We currently have a home-grown bandwidth testing server in order to point-to-point test the throughput across our own network. Unfortunately (fortunately), customers have begun purchasing amounts of bandwidth that are capable of exceeding our testing capacity. Given a multi-gigabit network infrastructure and an on-net server with a gigabit Ethernet port, what software packages are available which can reliably test throughput approaching one gigabit? Cross-browser compatibility and 'click-here-to-test' usability should be considerations."
The Internet

A Succinct Definition of the Internet? 498

Posted by Cliff from the indefinable dept.
magnamous asks: "Ever since Senator Ted Stevens used the phrase 'series of tubes' to describe his understanding of the Internet, I've noticed several stories and comments referencing how silly that is. Although I agree that that description is rather silly, each time I've found myself trying to come up with a -succinct layman's definition- of what the Internet is, and I come up short. Wikipedia has a gargantuan page describing the Internet, and Google's definitions offer pretty good descriptions of what the Internet is in a functional sense (with some throwing in terms that the layman wouldn't understand, or take the time to understand), but not really a good description of what it -is- in the physical sense that I think Sen. Stevens was trying to get at. What are your suggestions for a succinct layman's definition of the Internet?"
Software

Copyright vs Exclusive License? 95

Posted by Cliff from the what-rights-do-you-have-if-you-paid-for-the-development dept.
cdanzig asks: "My company recently hired a development house to do some contract work for us. They did great work, but they are claiming that they now own the copyright on the code and are issuing us a permanent and exclusive license. My bosses are concerned that this will hamper our ability to make changes to the code or prevent us form being able to claim the software as a company asset. What is expected protocol between a client and a development house? What is the long-term difference between owning a copyright and owning an exclusive license? If we paid for the development of the code, is it fair for us to demand ownership?"
Software

Building a Dynamic DNS Server for Your Enterprise? 67

Posted by Cliff from the your-own-mutant-hostnames dept.
Biff98 asks: "We manage thousands of hostnames for field gear with DynDNS.org. It's always been our intention of configuring our own DDNS server and bring it in-house. Given the recent DynDNS outage due to a DDOS attack, resulting in the inability to resolve names for multiple days, there has been 'encouragement' from management to move forward on bringing DDNS in-house. Here's the problem: I can't find any easy-to-use, scalable software to accomplish this task! BIND doesn't scale well, and I don't consider MintDNS an option due to the required platform (Windows Server w/ AD & IIS). Has anyone out there solved this problem before?"
Communications

Which Shared Calendar Package Would You Use? 78

Posted by Cliff from the many-fingers-in-your-datebook dept.
Bob McCown asks: "I manage several websites, both internally and externally accessible. Many of them have event calendars or schedulers. We'd like the ability to have these calendars shared, with the ability to modify them by both a web interface, and at the application level (via Sunbird, an Outlook plugin, or something similar). The web side of our system uses an Enterprise Linux distribution that runs Apache. Ideally, the web side would be written in PHP to minimize time to integrate with the rest of the sites. What's out there that can do this? What have you used before?"

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