Talk To an Astute IT Industry Observer 275
Dan Gillmor is about as high on the IT journalist and industry pundit "respect" totem pole as you can get. Slashdot has linked to hundreds of his articles. What do you ask this veteran observer of the Silicon Valley scene? Whatever you like, one question per post. We'll email 10 of the highest-moderated questions to Dan 24 - 36 hours after this post goes up, and run his answers shortly after he gets them back to us.
Desktop Operating Systems (Score:4, Interesting)
BS industry (Score:2, Interesting)
Future (Score:5, Interesting)
Question (Score:5, Interesting)
The "Big Player" (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell us how Colleen Kollar-Kotelly will rule (Score:5, Interesting)
What's your best guess on how Judge Kollar-Kotelly will rule? The Judge Jackson's ruling came as an utter and complete surprise to almost everyone who hadn't followed *web* reports on the trial. The mass media did a very bad job protraying the issues of the original trial, basically parroting MSFT and Wag-Edd's "freedom to innovate" press releases, rather than reporting on the fairly straightforward restraint of trade case that the DoJ made. This time around, the web reporters seemed a bit confused by how the case went as well.
IT Industry (Score:5, Interesting)
Employment? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not just relative to the dotcom bubble. There are few jobs, and those that are out there process applicants via companies that specialize in resume processing. (The latter means it's all about keywords, not how good you are.) The most reliable way to get a job continues to be working your personal network; but many networks have dissolved, as everyone gets laid off in a short period of time.
What's your take? From where you sit, have you seen any bright spots, or any indications things might get better (or worse)? What coping strategies have you seen people find for sucessfully getting new jobs, or surviving unemployment well?
Microsoft .NET (Score:5, Interesting)
What the heck is
How much longer will programming stay in the US? (Score:5, Interesting)
Future directions of technology (Score:5, Interesting)
Media Undstanding of Technology (Score:5, Interesting)
What impact does this have on the public's perception and awareness of new technoloy, and will this lack of understanding dissapear as older journalists are replaced by a younger, more tech-savvy breed?
the cycle of things (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now, most of "us" IT-workers are facing the results of "new economy" bubble and the consecutive downturn of IT.
Here in Germany, I remember that in 1991 when I finished high school, people told me not to go study computer science because back then, the career outlook was bland and many IT academics were unemployed or received low figures. Then came the internet, salaries and everything else exploded, which was nice while it lastet, yet incredibly surreal.
Right now clients are sitting on every single penny , I know highly-skilled IT workers who are nevertheless unemployed because companies stopped hiring and around us and even some of the former key players of the industry are going bust...
So, do you remember a similar economic situation in IT and how did you experience it?
Keeping up and remaining unbias. (Score:5, Interesting)
What/where/who do you read/research/ask to stay abreast of the many technical aspects you need to report on (to keep technical accuracy) without simply taking various companies words for granted (and thus loosing your unbiased approach)?
Conflict of Interest (Score:5, Interesting)
What's up with the open relay? (Score:2, Interesting)
The next "next thing"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Activism? (Score:5, Interesting)
IIRC, back in the day you were pretty seriously activist: I seem to remember you at Usenix handing out buttons and carrying signs.
Do you still consider yourself an activist? If not, what changed? Is there still a place for activism in the geek community? What is it?
Is Apple truly against DRM? (Score:5, Interesting)
Your article is, however, basically speculative.
Do you have any evidence that Apple really has an anti-DRM corporate strategy? Gateway has issued a limited but significant public statement of support for fair-use rights. Do you have any ideas why Apple has not done anything like this?
Digital divide.. (Score:5, Interesting)
In hindsight... (Score:5, Interesting)
Any changes in Valley startup culture? (Score:5, Interesting)
Silicon Valley venture capitalists in the late 1990s turned their money and attentions to bear on creating dozens of companies that never had any hope of turning a profit.
From personal experience I've seen just how powerful VCs are in shaping the development of the IT market through their iron-grip control of individual startups.
Have you noticed any fundamental power shifts or changes in the way startup IT companies are being funded and created in the Valley over the past couple of years?
Market Saturation (Score:5, Interesting)
Now that the bubble is gone, Mr Bill's Corrolary has (mostly) failed, and the market is obviously saturated, when are Intel/AMD/Microsoft going to admit to this, and what are the general industry plans to deal with this, beyond the obvious software rental model?
dating tips... (Score:3, Interesting)
Databases and File Systems (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft's approach is to tune the database (SQL Server) to act as a file system, scheduled replace NTFS in 2006. The open source community, however, is taking the opposite approach and aiming to make the file system more database-like.
One of the most promising ideas right now for Linux seems to be coming from Hans Reiser, soon to be implemented in a future version of Reiser FS. Reiser FS will store many attributes about a file in other files, basically expanding the capabilites of the file system into a database.
Which do you see as the more promising approah? What do you think the impact of such hybrid filesystem/databases will be on DBMS such as Oracle, Sybase, and DB2?
Desktop Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Soko
Software Patents and Law (Score:5, Interesting)
What is your opinion on this issue?
Re:Future (Score:4, Interesting)
Additionally, what do you see companies looking for in non-Silicon Valley areas? Low taxes, low costs for manpower, low utilities, access to bandwidth?
What will happen to the consultant-industry. (Score:1, Interesting)
Next technology to go down (Score:3, Interesting)
Convergence or Divergence? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously... (Score:4, Interesting)
The Re-writing of Computer History (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, in Robert X. Cringely's book "Accidental Empires", he tells the story of how the personal computer grew from a hobby toy to one of the most important devices ever made.
But it's a decidedly left-coast "californa-centric" point of view. Very little mention of IBM is ever made, except how they screwed up and gave the golden key to Bill Gates, and computer industry pioneer Commodore doesn't even seem to warrant a paragragh, although at one point in the early 80's CBM held over 33% of the market.
So, my question is: Do you feel that the number of reporters hovering around Silicon Valley have distorted the view of the rise of the industry?
While I also believe that Woz is due saint-hood, I also have tempered that view with the knowledge that both Commodore and Clive Sinclair did more to raise the bar on the Personal Computer than most others, despite the Mac being "insanely great".
When I watch "Pirates of Silicon Valley" I can't help but feel that we're cheating ourselves by allowing the "pundits" to dictate how this industry came to where it is now.
It does appear at times that the those reporting on technology are often just cheerleaders for whatever large software/hardware company pays the advertising bills for the magazine that reporter works for.
How do you feel about these issues?
Technology: Wings of wonder or chains of opression (Score:5, Interesting)
Nowadays, it seems that one can't do anything with a PC without a bunch of rules, regulations, or disclaimers. While it's understandable that many companies wish to protect their products, and also protect themselves from lawsuits, it seems that today freedom in IT is becoming increasingly narrow.
What do you think the future of the internet is, in a legal and freedoms sense? Will it continue to become a medium for free expression (quite strongly accented by sites such as here, slashdot), or will insane lawsuits and regulations put to much fear into using the freedoms which are so easily stepped on today.
As the world integrates IT more and more into our lives, what will happen with it as a medium of freedom Vs one of restriction. Will we still be able to speak our minds online, or will we live under the chains of lawsuits, speed governers, and surveillance devices.
Technology is a wonderful medium for crossing new boundries, but often it seems to also be used to impose new ones. Which usage for technology do you see being stronger in the future: the wings or the chains, and how would you see each being applied?
Apple bashing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sponsorship, biases, etc. affecting articles (Score:2, Interesting)
We all hear stories of different reports being paid for by corporations such as Microsoft. How are many of the current stories, newspapers, and other printed (electronically printed or otherwise) stories affected by corporate sponsorship, biases, etc.? Which industries, points of view, or otherwise get promoted heavily with regards to importance due to these biases or sponsors? Is this a way to manipulate public viewpoints, in an arena which should be impartial?
What sources are doing this the most? Are there any sources that truly seem impartial in most of their judgements? It all comes back to who do we trust?
Merger (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Media Undstanding of Technology (Score:3, Interesting)
The other possibility is that they are "encouraged" to hype stuff from particular vendors, or even all vendors. A magazine that criticizes latest trends and products is going to draw *less* advertisers than one that goes along with the hype. After all, why put in an ad for your latest greatest gizmo if the mag is just gonna bash it next month?
Thus, a variation of this question would be: "How can excess hype be counteracted in spite of the pressure to hype vendors' new stuff?"
Trends in Software Quality (Score:5, Interesting)
Dinosaurs (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How much longer will programming stay in the US (Score:2, Interesting)
How long before I.T. unions are as big as other unions. Or do you think that the current unions will join together to form one large union?
Being a conservative in nature it is a shame to see all these votes going to the Democrats...
On a side note, I can't wait for foreign software development to be taxed like imported cars are.
Open Source Government (Score:4, Interesting)
Is IT Discredited? (Score:5, Interesting)
In the 90's companies seemed to believe in IT benefits dispite this lack of a solid connection. Has the tide now turned such that companies are going to shun IT projects and revert to more traditional (manual) processes for the borderline functions that are not clear candidates for automation?
In my observation, whenever there are no clear and/or agreed-upon metrics for the usage of a given technique or approach, then its popularity is highly subject to whim, speculation, and fads.
For example, the "market-share over profits" viewpoint was popular in the 80's during the Japan boom. Now it is pretty much dead. Is IT in the same boat now?
exporting Silicon Valley over Europe (Score:3, Interesting)
you've seen a lot of things happening in Silicon Valley so far, from the VC-financed dot-com big-blow to the latest enforcement of "security" and "digital rights management" to other less known things.
Now, being an EU citizen, I fear that Europe may slowly want to catch up with the "famous" Silicon Valley in terms of technology, state of mind, rate of growth, and so on. Manager are fascinated by the possibilities of 'making money', young students in Economics are told that Silicon Valley Was A Good Thing No Matter What, et cetera.
What do you think will happen over here? Will Europe take just the good ideas from the Silicon Valley (grass-root movements, improvements in technology just for the sake of it, improvements to the whole mankind) or will we all become subject to EULAs and draconian laws imposed by some multinational company?
What can be done to avoid the dangers that a too-obtuse management class can do? (don't suggest "move to another country" please
thanks
Promises, Promises (Score:5, Interesting)
As I see it, to a large extent this is due to an over-reliance of IT journalists on industry contacts and a highly incestuous meme-pool.
Since industry contacts are driven by their own agendas to poison the meme-pool with hype and FUD, reporters typically serve only to reinforce entrenched concerns in the industry.
This is particularly troublesome given that the IT industry of uniquely reliant upon innovation which has traditionally emerged from smaller players & upstarts.
Therefore, does IT journalism really contribute positively to the industry and, if so, how?
Time to rethink patents? (Score:4, Interesting)
Should we shorten the term of patents in emerging technology fields, such as in software and other relatively new high tech industries?
Paradigms (Score:3, Interesting)
Keeping with the times (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks.
Where are the gold-diggers going? (Score:4, Interesting)
During the dot-com boom, a big wod of "IT professionals" came out of nowhere to help with web projects.
Many of these people seemed mostly interested in money and prestige, and not true computer-lovers like us real nerds on slashdot
Some now seem to be moving toward the currently hot accounting field.
What percentage of IT workers seem to be like this and what percent are successfully moving out of IT into a more happening field?
Will enough of them disappear from IT to return computer employement to normal?
The Internet (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How much longer will programming stay in the US (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, there are German companies outsourcing software development to the US and US companies hiring German companies to do the work for them. (We do, albeit for a very very small application and probably mostly because that American businessman is a German US-immigrant who knows us personally, but hey.)
Then, there are US companies manufacturing computers using Asian electronic parts, hiring Taiwanese engineers in Taiwan to do the electronic design.
The Microsoft keyboard I am typing on was made in Thailand, the Microsoft mouse I am using was made in China, the computer by "Apple, California" on the desk next to me was actually manufactured in the Czech republic and designed by a company based in Germany.
There are Japanese, French and German car makers who have car plants in the US, employing US workers to manufacture cars with a Japanese, French or German brand name.
There's a Coca-Cola bottling plant right next to where I live, run by a German family business for more than 40 years. They use German water, German sugar (and I presume most of the other ingredients are German too) to make a product sold under an American brand name, using advertisement controlled by their American mother-company to sell an American lifestyle.
Big deal, it's a global economy. Your point?
EFF. (Score:3, Interesting)
However, as much as I and many others on Slashdot agree with these causes, do you believe that as a journalist your involvement with the EFF etc, has made you biased? And if not why?
Thanks,
Primenumber
Career focus (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there a light at the end of the DRM tunnel? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How much longer will programming stay in the US (Score:5, Interesting)
So how are they supposed to compete with Indians who will do it for $5/hour?
Programmers in America see themselves as professionals. The ones who do it on the cheap in India, don't. If this trend continues, there won't be many (or any) programmers in America, because the work will all have been outsourced to somebody who will do it for 5 times less than s/he is worth.
If somebody living in another country is genuinely a better person for the job, then by all means, that's great. I hope that Americans get German contracts, and Germans get American contracts. And everyone pays each other a fair wage for the work.
But no German is going to work for 10 DM an hour doing programming.
If Indians were to charge the rates that are commensurate with the task, that too would be fine in my eyes. My problem is simply that it hurts everyone when workers of a certain type are undervalued.
Computer Security (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you believe That Palladium is a sincere attempt on Microsofts/intel/etc part to offer secure Computing or is it merely a gimmick to cash in on security and remove the open source software as an option to the basic computer User?
Do you see any change in computing Law in the next 20 years in regard to Vendors culpability for security Flaws?
Ease-of-use, etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
I am, however, getting sick of what passes for operating systems and applications these days. Many of my tech-savy friends are taking a serious look at Apple hardware and software 'because it just works'. The company I work for runs a collection of Windows and Linux machines. With Windows machines, we have to spend far too much time keeping the system patches and antivirus software up to date and generally managing them. I love Linux and use it all the time but I am still very aware that I am using a Linux system, not just a 'computer'.
And I am tired of it. Why should I have to care about the operating system? I want to use the computer to do my job. I don't want to fight with patches. I don't want to reinstall software and spend hours tuning the configurations. I'll do that for our servers because, at the moment at least, I have to. But why should I spend large part of my day managing the computers rather than just using the damn things? Why don't they just work? Why do I even still care what operating system I am running?
The reason is, of course, fairly obvious. But how do you see this changing over the next decade? Can we get a handle on the complexity? What influence will Apple have? Do you see operating systems becoming to a simple commodity (choose what you want, all your applications will work regardless)?
Microsoft's Apogee (Score:4, Interesting)
So the question is... Has Microsoft reached its apogee? Has it seen its best days from a growth and profitability standpoint? & if so is this a good or bad thing for IT & Silicon Valley?
Re:How much longer will programming stay in the US (Score:3, Interesting)
Programmers in America see themselves as professionals. The ones who do it on the cheap in India, don't.
I strongly doubt that. This is like saying back in the 70s that "US car workers see themselves as professionals, yet those who do it in the cheap in Japan don't." This may tickle your ego, but you evade the problem that they offer a similar or better product for a lower price.
Will Linux price-shock for the industry at large? (Score:5, Interesting)
As linux overtakes Solaris, other Unices, and M$ Windows in the server and workstation tiers, it could be a huge boon to businesses that use this technology. At the same time, could it actually hurt those employed at various levels of the high-tech industry? For example if linux is more efficient and scalable, might it:
Please note that I'm not decrying this potential effect of the use Linux or free software. If our industry is too fat (especially on the support side) then great. . . it should be cut down and people retrained. But it seems logical that the free software movement will cause efficiencies that will force a good percentage of this work-sector to "get with the program or get off the bus". The problem is that without consistent innovation at the business layer (businesses' use of technology) then the tech industry may not expand enough to allow retraining as a saviour for disenfranchised MCSEs, CNEs, etc. etc. If most businesses are content with basic file-serving, routing and printing without investing in technology then many people will just plain lose their jobs.
It seems to me that M$ has created a bubble with their inefficient and unreliable software. A LOT of people are employed to keep that junk working. In effect, businesses are subsidizing this "ill" part of the industry by throwing employees at a series of problems M$ has created. Similarly, forced dependence, and file incompatibilites, have allowed M$ to maintain a pricing bubble for software basics such as word-processing and simple spreadsheets. If they lose the OS war to free software and some of the office-turf to openoffice won't the air go out of a lot of balloons? Should people be bracing themselves for this?
I've wondered about these issues for a while and I'm sure you have much better insight into these topics than I do. What is your take?
Security/Privacy (Score:3, Interesting)
Is security/privacy something providers of goods/services should take care of, or is it the end-users problem to deal with it ?
Price Wars (Score:2, Interesting)
Are we going to see the gradual upgrading of prices, as everyone starts charging for software, to get the funds of the "Big Companies" and therefore develop programs which have a hope of selling, or are we going to see everything becoming cheaper and cheaper, with advertising in programs, so that more and more of the programs will be bought at a lower price, ending up with the cheap programs selling a lot more than the more expensive programs, with a higher turnover?
Or will we see everything turn shareware, with an additional fee to remove the adverts and so forth, but for everything?
Thank You for your time.
Blue Collar? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft .NET (Score:2, Interesting)
human computer interface (Score:1, Interesting)
TiVo and political advertising (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you see it affecting political advertising, and if so how?
I'll gladly take min wage!!! (Score:1, Interesting)
I'll take it!
I have been programming all my life. It is my *only* marketable skill. I don't have a choice.
I would rather program for 8$/hr than flip burgers for 8$/hr.
Anybody out there with a min.wage programming job avilable in the US? I'll lie about my citizenship even! I'll gladly take it. I don't like flipping burgers, and have ZILCH other options.
Just let me write and maintain code instead of spending all day sending out resumes to black holes. I miss loops and subroutines etc.
Suggestions for Upward Mobility (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I think you are wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
They've been doing this for years, look how much has changed from Win 95 to XP. They just keep adding new "features" that new programs will require.
And look how much software still runs under Win/95 or Win/98. But anyway, of course Microsoft is going to continue adding enhancements. But so what? It's not like thousands of features come out every week.
How many programs REQUIRE IE 4/5?
I dunno; I can't think of any off-hand. But again, so what? It's not that hard to make it think that IE is installed when Mozilla really runs.