Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment I think I earned one of those trophies (Score 1) 26

On a system safety telecon, I totally lost it because someone said "Why would anyone have the network be safety-critical?" on a networked combat system. The contractor wanted to fire me, or at least get me moved off the program. I told my government boss, "Well, if I'm going to get fired, getting fired for being overly aggressive on soldier safety is something I'm OK with...."

Comment Re:Maybe Apple would be more enterprise friendly? (Score 1) 45

I think the 'usual suspects' lock on enterprises is MUCH weaker than it has been. Look at all the people carrying corporate issued or at least corporate approved iPhones and Macs. And the Neo punctures a lot of the acquisition cost arguments, for a lot of people (secretaries, sales people, managers), a Neo would be just fine.. (Getting through to the life-cycle costs is a harder proposition, mostly because of sunk costs in personnel. No CIO wants to reduce his/her headcount, that's a primary driver of budget and authority. Similarly, moving to longer replacement cycles because of hardware quality would also impinge on CIO budgets.)

For consumer networking, there are LOTS of choices, sure. But the -quality- of those choices is highly questionable, and chief among those quality attributes is 'security'. (I did try an Eero, couldn't get it to work as expected. But I have neighbors who are happy with their Eeros.)

Comment Re:Maybe Apple would be more enterprise friendly? (Score 1) 45

I'd like to see Apple get back into the networking/router business. The only reason I gave up my old Airport Extreme was problems with buffer bloat on a slower ISP connection. Tim Cook would talk about "owning the critical parts of the infrastructure", and it seems to me that WiFi counts.

I replaced that Airport with an Ubiquiti Dream Machine about 5 years ago. The unboxing of that Dream Machine was a direct rip-off of the Apple Airport Extreme. The initial configuration of that was painful (even with a friend who had one at his house helping me.) Over the years, the Ubiquiti software has matured. It's still more complex than the Airport Utility, but that complexity is generally well managed. Apple could do worse than buy Ubiquiti, methinks...

Comment restricted use licenses aren't new (Score 4, Insightful) 49

I remember Java for years had a license restriction against using it for safety-critical applications.

It's interesting to consider restrictive licenses as a legal liability measure (as I suspect was true for Java), versus a technical or moral measure (i.e. 'we don't trust this well enough to use in some circumstances.')

But I wonder if the FSF position will change if/when AI vibe-codes non-open-license replacements for key OSS projects.... Would they claim that the LLM 'inhaling' GPL licensed software inherits the license terms of the input?

Comment Re:The value - and cost - of being first to market (Score 1) 180

Something can be 'technically superior' but still not the 'best' solution, because 'solution' includes a lot of factors beyond 'technological superiority.'

100%. If the superior solution always won, Microsoft Windows would have been relegated to the dustbin long before Windows 95 existed (and we wouldn't be dealing with the disaster pile that is Windows 11 today). Similarly if the superior solution always won we'd have high speed rail in the US connecting all our major cities, but that hasn't happened either.

'solution' includes a lot of factors beyond 'technological superiority.'

Including whose wheels you're willing to grease to get your inferior solution a leg up on the ones that are better.

Slashdot Top Deals

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read.

Working...