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Comment Re:My problem with "the IT department" in general (Score 1) 572

IMAP is a security hole and for policy reasons, they won't do so.

So which part of that is the sysadmins fault (that is if it *is* indeed policy and not an excuse). In a lot of companies willfully disregarding policy is a fireable offence. You apparently think it's reasonable to place someone in such a position, because it's convenient for you to have IMAP. If this is indeed policy and you're not happy with it, you talk to the implementer of the policy to get the policy changed, you don't blame a co worker for actually adhering to policy.

I need wireless access. Policy states that no wireless device can be set up other than by IT. IT refuses to touch anything on my separate network

Again. If you need this, you go to the person who can actually sign off on you having a wireless network for testing purposes. You don't set up your own and connect it to the company network, because it's convenient and if you do set up yourself, you should have a good talk with HR.

Management approved the purchase and it was all fine. IT then blocked it saying that they supply our standard equipment from Dell and we shouldn't be ordering IT equipment separately.

That's essentially rubbish, but again; this may be policy; if you don't agree with the policy discuss policy changes with the policy makers.

but from my point of view, they do get in the way of us doing our jobs far more than they help

From my point of view, it looks like you're blaming people who follow policy for following policy. If policy is idiotic or if you need an exemption, you go through someone who can change policy or give you the exemption, probably not the persons you're complaining about.

Comment Re:So... (Score 1) 572

That does sound like your IT department is not understaffed and evaluated on the 'number of tickets closed'. This approach probably does not fare that well in a company where the bean counters have taken over.

Comment Re:License war commencing... (Score 1) 457

You'll find innumerable similar examples out there. The GPLv3 which is supposed to give you more "freedom" from corporate "opression" is instead just making everyone flee from projects that use the new license, to no-one's benefit.

Again, I know this is quite selfish, but if I wrote code and I had the choice of writing code that's used by a smaller user group whose members have the same ethics and getting something back in return in the form of improvements OR writing code that's used by a huge group of users without ever getting anything (not even kudos) back *ever*, I'd go for option number one. Getting something back with BSD is not a requirement for companies, companies' only goal is to make money, ergo the time that a company actually does give something back is because it's cheaper to give something back than to keep it in-house.

Option number one is not to 'no one's benefit' it's to the benefit of members of a like minded group, with that group growing once the benefits become clearer to people outside that group, the alternative is benefit to corporations ONLY, without them ever being required to give anything back.

The actual divide in mindset deciding between GPL and BSD licencing, is priorities; BSD minded people probably believe that furthering technology is more important than freedom. I would rather not have cool technology if it meant that it's completely closed off and non-free.

Comment Re:License war commencing... (Score 4, Interesting) 457

Personally, from my point of view, it's more like:

GPL: had BSD been licenced under GPL, then I would not just have worked as free labour for Sony, but Sony actually had to give something in return for using my code (not money, but improvements).

BDS: I don't mind being free labour for multinationals and them making large amounts of money off of my work, as long as I am being credited in the code (which is not open sourced so nobody will actually see who wrote what).

I prefer GPL myself and I know that it's actually a more selfish choice, I do actually somewhat admire people who do seem to be completely selfless and use the BSD licence, the world would be a better place if everyone was like that. However, not everyone is like that and I am sure that if both BSD and Linux were both using the GPL licence, Sony would still not have gone through the trouble of developing their very own. That's called leveraging existing technology, where the main goal is saving money by not having to re-invent the wheel.

Sony now had the choice of:

- Some Free software, where they actually have to put effort in to provide their improvements back to the community

or

- Some free software, which they can use in which ever way they want without having to do anything in return.

Easy choice.

Comment Re:What year is this? (Score 1) 559

When the low-level service jobs start drying up, I'm not sure what will be the new foundation of that pyramid.

The pyramid would have its lowest layer removed, after which the next lowest layer will be removed until in the end only the top is left (if the top hasn't been removed by force by everyone who's not part of the pyramid anymore).

Comment Re:And... it's gone (Score 1) 636

Assuming that the NK top military are not religious nut cases or just outright stupid, the only reason for the sabre rattling, would be to divert attention of the general population away from internal issues and keep them in line; I would expect the levels of dissent among the NK population to be quite high.

Does someone have any direct information on general position of the NK population of its leaders?

Comment Re:And... it's gone (Score 1) 636

Please do some back ground checks with someone who really has had some experience living in Europe, before you start blurting out nonsense.

Europe is not going broke under the weight of Socialistic market controls. It's going broke because in the last 15-20 years everything that was governed by 'socialistic market controls' has been privatised, after which prices of those services started soaring and the actual service received dropped significantly.

Due to privatisation, instead of just going to the GP and getting a prescription, patients now go to the GP, who tells them to get a some further tests with a specialist in the hospital, who in turn does some additional tests 'just to be sure', then another appointment at the GP later that person gets the same prescription. After privatisation, money is made by every additional bit of work someone does, resulting in lots of unnecessary steps. Also because hospitals are essentially competing with one another, every hospital now needs that multi-million CAT scanner that sits idle for 80% of the time. Previously if a test like that was required and no profit was made, a patient would be sent to a different hospital, Now patients pay for expensive equipment that sits idle most of the time.

Same with the railroads; railroads are privatised after which the companies that run them are completely uninterested in actually maintaining the existing infrastructure, in turn resulting in degraded public transport. This goes on until the infrastructure is really broken and the private company has completely sucked dry the investment done by all previous generations of citizens, after which the government can buy their own infrastructure back at a premium.

Electricity grid and telecommunications, same story.

It's not the so-called 'Socialistic market controls' killing Europe, it's unbounded neo-liberalism and unchecked privatisation and short-sighted, short-term profits and pure greed of a relatively small group of people at the expense of generations of citizens who paid for good infrastructure with their taxes and saw their politicians squander it inside just a few short years.

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