Work 1:52 PM

Just got a briefing about the engine sitting on top of MTS. They wanted it validated and free from bugs and gave me the go signal to let me start getting up to speed on how the program works. They seemed to be wanting to move to interface-based programming model which I think makes sense. We'll see how this one goes, better get myself ready for COM+.

1:15 PM

An interesting article from Miguel showing how Unix sucked. My take on that is somewhat the same thing too. Too many non- compatible applications running on its own world with its own configuration management tools. Proof:X, config files. Also, in Linux there are no tools that help the programmer develop solid multithreaded programs, while there's a lot of it on Solaris. Plus the fact the most of POSIX4 was taken from Solaris. To me, it looks like SUN and its Solaris truly represent innovation.

Maybe I should start using Solaris, BeOS or WIN2K for the same reason that Linux sucks. Well, not so, I will still use Linux for the simple fact that I can put the things that I want and make it work the way I want it to work. I think that's the thing that keeps me around Linux. For as long as I can do what I want then I'll stick with Linux.

12:15 PM

After thinking about the things I wrote below, I seem to be getting a pattern that I am more inclined to support the traditional style of selling software which means basically make development tools as cheap as possible and sell the applications just like what Unix apps are being sold today. I guess that model definitely works on Unix and Unix like environments. But the idea of giving away applications is still totally foreign to me, maybe next year I'll get the idea but not today or tomorrow.

This just shows how skeptic I am to this new paradigm. I dunno, I'll have to wait and see how this one plays out. Hmm, giving enduser applications for free, like zero dollars...how will I make money if I give it away?

10:00 AM

Just got to read a very interesting art icle that really had a big impact of my impression 'bout Free Software. While the article painted Free Software with a shade of anti-capitalism and all the blackness of it, it seems that it's more likely to support my apprehensions towards the idea of being "Free" in speech and beer. This is the foundation of all my apprehensions: Why give all my labor for free? I'm only a programmer, I don't provide service to my customer, how will I make money then? Should I quit programming and start a tech support career? Nahh, programming is my life, I like to code and that is where I get paid. I will not talk about the getting paid part because we all know how much we get when we get to a level of competency and we definitely agree that the pay is not bad in this industry. I dunno, I still think that most programmers who are in similar situation are thinking the same thing too.

But, I think there's a middle ground where I can benefit in both ways. What I'm seeing now, the best thing I could probably do is stay away from technologies that will be dominated by commodity software. I think that's it. If a product is about to be commoditized, then that's the best time to use free software. In the meantime while the urban growth boundary of free software is still far away, I'll just continue on what I'm doing.