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  • Originally posted by allquixotic View Post
    For a task as easily-remotable as software engineering, I find this pretty ridiculous, myself
    Sure a lot of the implementation can be done remotely. But often when people are remote, especially for too long, they get onto a totally different page and go off on tangent tasks. There are some pretty good advantages of doing things in person especially when it comes to bonding, trust, respect for co-workers.

    FOSS developers have regular conferences to meet in person at least annually. They're able to tackle difficult engineering problems on whiteboards, over beer, etc that otherwise would end in stalemates for months.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Chewi View Post
      I have worked from home for years and am now so sick of it that I am getting an office job at last. That's not the only reason though. At least in the web development world and probably other areas of software development too, agile development methods are becoming ever more popular as they have proven to be far more productive than the traditional methods. They strongly promote face-to-face communication and collaboration that no amount of technology can truly replace. Having occasionally travelled to offices to work with other developers in person, I have seen first hand how much more productive you can be.
      Did you try things like video conferencing and telecons? Did you try playing video games or socializing in second life with your coworkers to create a bond? Did you try ensuring that you work on the same time schedule as your coworkers in the office, so that everyone is "at work" at the same time?

      Without these things, I agree that working remotely would be isolating and difficult. But if you use the tools that the Internet makes available to you, you can really make it work.

      A recent product -- Bioware's Mass Effect 3 -- was produced as a cohesive, coherent game with teams in at least four different locations (that I'm aware of) cooperating together remotely, without frequently meeting in person. Sure, I'm sure they all met one another at some point at a summit or something, but their day to day grunt work was done while coordinating several separate offices. And of course, in order to make a game that is consistent, functional and coherent, they had to communicate a LOT between the offices, so I'm sure they used the latest tech (including Quantum Entanglement devices that create holo-projections ) to keep everyone on the same page.

      I think your company (or whoever you're working with on your web development project) is Doing It Wrong (tm). You can't treat a remote worker exactly the same as you'd treat a face to face worker, but doing without the things that you take for granted in person.

      That's not acceptable. Instead, you need to recognize the things that you don't have immediately available, and find ways to make those things happen remotely. Hence my suggestions of possible social outlets above, and so on.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Veerappan View Post
        Thanks for not reading the rest of the thread and then coming in and ranting about things that have already been discussed...

        Michael has already responded to this. By running Ubuntu 10.10 in a VM, he gets better battery life on his laptop than running Ubuntu on bare metal. Given personal experience, I believe that. MacOS has amazing power efficiency when run on Apple hardware because they are able to control the entire software/hardware stack, and therefore they can optimize the crap out of it..

        As for why Michael has an Apple laptop, I can give 2 possible reasons:
        1) The build quality and size/weight/portability of the aluminum Macbooks is pretty good.
        2) Michael needed a machine for comparative benchmarking of Linux/Windows/MacOS, and buying a machine that could run all 3 made sense from both a cost and benchmark integrity standpoint.
        Actually, I think you missed my point. Even if everything you said is valid, there's no reason to use such evil more than necessery (i.e. to do benchmarks, not something I agree with either, but I can see how it fits into the business model). But here we see that phoronix even uses that evil for reading/sending mail, i.e. for normal tasks, so how's the reasoning that 'ubuntu is run in a vm' worth anything if it's not even used? Does running the email client in the vm'd ubuntu also cost more battery life? You see how this whole battery life argument and vm excuse is just what it is, an excuse, and that eventually the most used OS is the one installed on the computer itself.

        I don't understand how the two possible reasons you gave are any justification, either. (1) I don't deal with the devil just because it's pretty, nice, useful, etc. etc. and (2) so just because that OS is not supported well for installation on other hardware (which is a direct consequence of its company's horrible draconian policies and approach), I should use it since the others are freer? How does that promote freedom? How does it promote adoption of Linux when even people who allegedly support it use other operating systems in their every day tasks? Doesn't that make them hypocrites?

        Let me quote you something interesting:

        Through all of his work he is a Linux and free software advocate with strong support for GNOME, Wayland, PHP, X.Org, Fedora, and Ubuntu, among other projects
        I find it really interesting that a free software advocate uses one of the most closed systems in the world to read his mail.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by susikala View Post
          Actually, I think you missed my point. Even if everything you said is valid, there's no reason to use such evil more than necessery (i.e. to do benchmarks, not something I agree with either, but I can see how it fits into the business model). But here we see that phoronix even uses that evil for reading/sending mail, i.e. for normal tasks,
          OMG the horror!

          Originally posted by susikala View Post
          so how's the reasoning that 'ubuntu is run in a vm' worth anything if it's not even used?
          *confused. I thought this was explained earlier. He just uses MacOS to get better battery life

          Originally posted by susikala View Post
          Does running the email client in the vm'd ubuntu also cost more battery life? You see how this whole battery life argument and vm excuse is just what it is, an excuse, and that eventually the most used OS is the one installed on the computer itself.
          Yep, clearly you know exactly how he's using his system, and you know better than he does. Glad we have you on the case.

          Originally posted by susikala View Post
          I don't understand how the two possible reasons you gave are any justification, either. (1) I don't deal with the devil
          That's right. He's using software from Satan, from hell itself. Michael is evil incarnate.

          Originally posted by susikala View Post
          just because it's pretty, nice, useful, etc. etc.
          Pretty sure he dealt with this earlier... Battery life... Clearly also for benchmarking, BUSINESS reasons... right?

          Originally posted by susikala View Post
          and (2) so just because that OS is not supported well for installation on other hardware (which is a direct consequence of its company's horrible draconian policies and approach),
          Yeah, true, I'm no fan of Apple's approach to business...

          Originally posted by susikala View Post
          I should use it since the others are freer? How does that promote freedom? How does it promote adoption of Linux when even people who allegedly support it use other operating systems in their every day tasks? Doesn't that make them hypocrites?
          You've convinced me, clearly Michael has no interest what-so-ever in the linux and open source world. Yep, this website - dedicated to providing news on anything linux related - is run by a massive hypocrite. Really Michael is a huge Apple fanboi trolling everyone in the open source community. He'll continue to post articles subtly containing pictures of the MacOS X desktop in the hopes of eventually undermining the entire readership of phoronix who will also convert.

          Glad you saw through the hypocrisy and warned us!

          Originally posted by susikala View Post
          I find it really interesting that a free software advocate uses one of the most closed systems in the world to read his mail.
          Not really, if he started promoting the benefits of Apple products in some of his articles then perhaps I'd think something was up.

          Ok I probably went a bit too far.. In all seriousness though, do you attack everyone that runs a proprietary OS like this? I really don't see the big deal. Do you use computers at work and occasionally deal with a proprietary OS? How is this different?

          Comment


          • Originally posted by susikala View Post
            Actually, I think you missed my point. Even if everything you said is valid, there's no reason to use such evil more than necessery (i.e. to do benchmarks, not something I agree with either, but I can see how it fits into the business model). But here we see that phoronix even uses that evil for reading/sending mail, i.e. for normal tasks, so how's the reasoning that 'ubuntu is run in a vm' worth anything if it's not even used? Does running the email client in the vm'd ubuntu also cost more battery life? You see how this whole battery life argument and vm excuse is just what it is, an excuse, and that eventually the most used OS is the one installed on the computer itself.

            I don't understand how the two possible reasons you gave are any justification, either. (1) I don't deal with the devil just because it's pretty, nice, useful, etc. etc. and (2) so just because that OS is not supported well for installation on other hardware (which is a direct consequence of its company's horrible draconian policies and approach), I should use it since the others are freer? How does that promote freedom? How does it promote adoption of Linux when even people who allegedly support it use other operating systems in their every day tasks? Doesn't that make them hypocrites?

            Let me quote you something interesting:

            I find it really interesting that a free software advocate uses one of the most closed systems in the world to read his mail.
            1) Claiming that Apple is pure evil gets very old to listen to. You don't like their approach to applications on iOS, the premium on their hardware, or other policies with regards to working conditions, etc... Fine. At the same time, you need to recognize that Apple is putting money into LLVM, WebKit, X.Org, and other technologies that we use regularly. You may think they're the devil, but I reserve that title for others (such as Sony and Oracle). Apple may not be the best company in the world, but they're better than some, and they're doing work which we benefit from.

            2) I'm not going to get into a debate about MacOS being able to be installed on commodity hardware. Are you seriously proposing that only people who exclusively run Linux should be allowed to be advocates for its use? If you go down that path, the user-base of Linux is not going to grow. I've written plenty of open-source code in the last year, and guess what... It runs in Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Just because I prefer to work in Linux, and do for 40 hours/week, doesn't mean that I don't also use the other operating systems available to me.

            Honestly, I view MacOS this way: It's a stable *NIX system with a nice GUI that also gives me access to a terminal and everything else that I usually need in Linux. It's easy to support other people (relatives) who use it, and it's a lot more novice friendly than apt-get.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by susikala View Post
              Actually, I think you missed my point. Even if everything you said is valid, there's no reason to use such evil more than necessery (i.e. to do benchmarks, not something I agree with either, but I can see how it fits into the business model). But here we see that phoronix even uses that evil for reading/sending mail, i.e. for normal tasks, so how's the reasoning that 'ubuntu is run in a vm' worth anything if it's not even used? Does running the email client in the vm'd ubuntu also cost more battery life? You see how this whole battery life argument and vm excuse is just what it is, an excuse, and that eventually the most used OS is the one installed on the computer itself.

              [/blablabla]
              Are you, by any chance, running on Intel, AMD or ARM hardware? Then congratulations! You've affiliated yourself with the devil himself,
              by using a non-free platform whose architecture and blueprints/specs are closed down and, therefore, pure evil.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Veerappan View Post
                1) Claiming that Apple is pure evil gets very old to listen to. You don't like their approach to applications on iOS, the premium on their hardware, or other policies with regards to working conditions, etc... Fine. At the same time, you need to recognize that Apple is putting money into LLVM, WebKit, X.Org, and other technologies that we use regularly. You may think they're the devil, but I reserve that title for others (such as Sony and Oracle). Apple may not be the best company in the world, but they're better than some, and they're doing work which we benefit from.
                Apple is pure evil and crap company. LLVM, ok, it's useful in few cases, but Apple lived thanks to GCC. Webkit, guess what webkit is? It's a fork of the KDE project. X.Org? Because they do some work for OS X? What other technologies do you mean? What apple deserves is death and it's apple that benefits the most from Open Source software. Not opposite.

                Honestly, I view MacOS this way: It's a stable *NIX system with a nice GUI that also gives me access to a terminal and everything else that I usually need in Linux. It's easy to support other people (relatives) who use it, and it's a lot more novice friendly than apt-get.
                And Ubuntu center is even more novice friendly.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Ancurio View Post
                  Are you, by any chance, running on Intel, AMD or ARM hardware? Then congratulations! You've affiliated yourself with the devil himself,
                  by using a non-free platform whose architecture and blueprints/specs are closed down and, therefore, pure evil.
                  Running AMD, Intel or ARM hardware you don't support apple. It's so simple.

                  Comment


                  • May I just remind people of two very key articles

                    #1
                    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite


                    It's Official: Valve Releasing Steam, Source Engine For Linux!
                    Published on May 12, 2010
                    This was proceeded by article after article of "its coming, its coming" until finally this was posted, NO independent citation from Valve YET peddled as fact.
                    This was then followed by article after article "it is coming, trust me, just watch, I have been told."


                    until

                    #2
                    It was a beautiful dream, and someone even went to the trouble of pushing some decent proof, but for now at least Valve is denying any Linux version of Steam in the works. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, when asked about the Linux Steam rumors, Valve marketing VP Doug Lombardi dropped the word: "There's no Linux version that we're working on right now." Of course, things can change, or Valve could be lying to our face in the interest of a good surprise, but for now we're going assume the worst for our freedom-loving brethren. What, are those penguin tears we see? Don't cry, Tux. Don't cry.


                    Valve denies having a Linux version of Steam in the works
                    By Paul Miller posted Aug 23rd 2010 3:09PM




                    This is the same tune that Phoronix plays. This is like a dream for Linux users and likewise reporting on it will drive hits to this site and links (already this "news" article has been links on other sites re-starting the "factual" it is coming game...)

                    Thing is I believe Michael really does believe in what he has come across, problem is he has not learnt from last time, a small glimmer of hope in what is the perverbial holy grail for linux gaming. Rather than actually getting some firm commitment/citation again jumping the gun.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Naib View Post
                      Thing is I believe Michael really does believe in what he has come across, problem is he has not learnt from last time, a small glimmer of hope in what is the perverbial holy grail for linux gaming. Rather than actually getting some firm commitment/citation again jumping the gun.
                      So basically, it's the story of man who believes in his delusions so much they've become a second reality to him?

                      Jokes aside, there's no reason not to believe it when there's hard and fast evidence. You know, not screenshots of mails (on evil oses!!), nor quotations, nor looking for traces of linux code in executables. Just make a video of the game running under linux and everyone will believe you. I'm sure your ever exclusive direct access to sources will allow you to do that, wouldn't it?

                      Another annoying thing about this story is that it's been thrashed to death by phoronix too much now that if it ever does become true, we'll have a huge overproportioned 'wow' effect and phoronix riding on it for the rest of entire lives saying 'I told you' in _every_ article which would have any remote connection to valve (or perhaps gaming in general?). So basically, if you look at it from this point of view, it's a good investment (in future page views, clicks, etc., in other words money) -- if it turns out to be nothing, not much happened besides speculation. If it turns out true, jackpot!

                      Future quote: "Our 66th benchmark of portal 2 on Ubuntu 18.10 shows significant performance improvements (everyone upgrade your vm ubuntu installation!!!). As you remember, I was the first one to report the source engine coming to Linux. Even against all hopes, and with overflowing waves of skepticism from the community, I stood by my word and turned out victorious!"

                      My conclusion -- if source ever does reach linux, this site won't be bearable at all any more.
                      Last edited by susikala; 31 March 2012, 05:25 PM.

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