Re: Future of IT in Lebanon

Joseph Mouhanna wrote:

It's about what makes sense for the Lebanese IT industry to target, and given the numbers out there, I would say that for the desktop, Windows (and Longhorn) will continue to blow Linux away, so between the two, I would pick Windows, and yes, Linux for the desktop remains an experiment.

There is no distinction between between Linux-for-desktop and Linux-for-server. It's the same Linux code base. If there is any difference, it is how linux is configured and packaged with third party apps.

How do I define an experiment? very easy. Everthing that's still under development,

Everything starts under development.. At some point a product crosses the beta or UAT threshold and goes in production. Development for new releases typically continues.

has negligible market share,

Many *mature* products have negligible market share.. Market share is more often than not driven by marketting prowess and not by technical merit.

has not really broken out of the realm of academia,

That may be true for a lot of academic exercises (proofs of concept). But there are also applications that benefit academia primarily. Take TeX/LaTeX for example.

is an experiment, in this case, Linux for the desktop fits the bill. Linux in the server space, is not an experiment, but perhaps you can tell me how you can make money programming for the Apache Web Server (and for that matter the Microsoft IIS). 

But it's the same core product (linux server/ Linux desktop) :-)

You left out anything that is open source.. :-)

Really, where? 

Where something was left out? :-)

Great, I already said that if the target is the Web, then Java is the way to go. Are you re-phrasing what I'm saying in here? 

Java has application outside the web domain.

Only in the sense that you're not reporting what I said accurately. There's nothing experimental about Open Source. Open Source can be for Windows, Linux, etc. The issue is about maximixing return on programming resources, and at this point, there's no proof that Open Source does that. You want proof? look at the commercial operations out there, and see who's making more money.

You're mixing too many concepts.
- Open source can be experimental (as it often starts)
- "Maximizing return on programming resource" is an economic measure it usually includes many factors other than technical merit.
- As to "no proof that Open Source" .. maximizes "return on programming resources" is perhaps a subject for a PhD thesis. I accept that whatever I say will not convince you. Considering that my argumentation skills are limited anyway and that I have already tried in good faith.. well, I punt.
- I don't want proof..
- Commerce is but one domain..

Not even close to being related to something I said. It's not about how much a tool costs, it's about doing it as a job for hire, versus retaining your rights to it. Again, it's about maximizing return on programming resources. Priority levels are sa follows: Own it, do it for hire.

You appear to be arguing that someone (say in Lebanon) is going to hire tens of programmers to develop code and then make money trying to distribute the code freely. If that's your argument then you're really missing the point of the whole discussion.

This may be a problem in the Linux world :-) in the Windows world (and the MAC), all the *locale* specifics are automtically done by OS services. What's left is to take the resources files and translate them.

Translating resource bundles is one aspect.. Since you mention the Windows world, I have tens of application installed on an XP box. Tell me how I can make them all display Arabic menus, everything right to left. :-)

See, I mentioned Open Source above (at least twice in this reply) :-) I am not talking about a Microsoft-size company, but now that you mention it, are you saying that Open Source is not going to be as profitable as Microsoft-style? :-) 

Open source what?  Creation, use, integration, ..?

You're obviously not going to make a fortune distributing free software, so let's dispense with this wild goose chase.

Can you make money building your business around open source use and integration? You bet. Can you make lots of money? Probably not as much as a monopoly.

You're saying that I use Open Source as a synonym for experiment, which in your opinion is condesending. A couple of things: 1) I am not saying that. I refer to developing for Linux on the desktop as an experiment, not Open Source;

Since I disagree with your definition of "experiment", it's no surprise that I disagree with your conclusion based on what-I-believe-to-be a faulty definition :-)

2) experiment is not a condesending term, it indicates where in the pipeline something might be. Within the context of this thread, it refers to what can be proven to be a moneymaker,

Money making is not an end.. it's a means. So for example a responsible government typically breaks even (well not in Lebanon and the US but that's another story :)

A successful corporation pays its employees, which feeds their families, pays its shareholders, and at the end of the year balances the books.

If in the context the company uses or develops open source as but one cog in a complex machinary, would you really condemn the company in good conscience?

and given the need for Lebanon to place its development sources where it makes the biggest impact, Lebanese companies should not at this point *experiment*. At this point, I would also call developing for .net as an experiment, versus Java. 

Deja vu all over again :-)  I give up.

My point is that the Kernel is completely useless, unless there are applications and tools around it.

Anymore than a sink in a boat (to use your previous example). I guess boat engine would have been a better analogy but sink will do.

This is the same argument I used to have with people who were convinced that Windows will sell on its own merits, with no applications to fill the ecosystem. At some point in the future (and Google is leading the charge in that direction), the Kernel/OS (whatever you want to call it), will become more anonymous, as the only thing that matters will be the service, and that will determine the value of the OS. The hardware industry also hs similar parallels. Today, I have to pay a mega premimum for an Intel CPU or an AMD CPU if my goal is to build a desktop PC or a business server, when in the gamong world. where Windows, Linux or other Kernels/OS'es are not the primary issue, the CPU, which is far more powerful than the desktop or server CPUs, fetches a lot less (check out the specs on the XBox 360 or the upcoming Sony platform). 

I don't disagree with the notion above.

Why would I call the presentation a laptop?

Exactly my point why you wouldn't call a Novel Linux commercial distribution "Linux" :-)

I use Suse, I call it Suse, not linux. I know that the engine inside is Linux but I don't confuse Suse (the distribution) with Linux (the OS) or with posix (the standard that linux meets).

It's actually not about what's around the Kernel, it's about the application or service. The industry has been working on making this whole kernel/tools, etc. paradigm go away. Things like UPnP make it go away. If I walk into a room to deliver a presentation, the laptop, projector, etc. are non-essential. As long as all the parts plug and play with each other, practice mutual discovery and setup, then I can do my presentation using my cell phone to recall resources available to me over the web. 

I don't disagree with the notion above.

How it helps the IT industry in Lebanon?

- localization leading to local markets (Lebanon, Gulf, etc. ) customizations => complete packages
- Gives the Lebanese IT industry a channel to distribute its wares
- Made-in-Lebanon distributions developes a local technical skill pool that can be used in other contexts (outsourcing for example)

This may make Lebanese developers money, but it will only turn them into employees of International companies.

You seem to have missed the second bullet. The second bullet could be anything the company developes, which could well be closed-source. In this case the CD distribution is the vehicule, the made-in-Lebanon (open- or closed-source) application is the payload.

This is not what the IT industry in Lebanon should be shooting for. Localization/Customization is a low-paying field, does not establish original work abilities, and puts them in the same category as sweat-shop workers.

Localization is just one little aspect of the equation to create a platform on which other made-in-Lebanon software can be distributed.

It depends.. if copyright is enforced, corporates or homes face the choice of caughing up a fortune to stay legal *or* try one of those complete localized distributions that gives you functionally everything you need, maybe not as polished. What choice will it be?

I'm still not seeing an original work. 

Please try again with the above elaboration in mind.

[this has nothing to do with the main context, which is how to optimize the use of IT resources in Lebanon from an economic perspective, but what the heck, most of this thread is off into personal prejudices around what's good and what's bad in the software and hardware industries] 

Prejudices are one thing, trial by fire is another :-)

The world is finally moving in the direction of OS-independent web-based services, and what you're suggesting will be something that runs on a particular hardware platform, highlighting a particular OS. 

I don't disagree with the notion above.

> Web-based services are no longer an experiment.

You're tripping over your definition :-)

Let's see, measure web services that substitute for an OS by your definition of an experiment, recall:

> How do I define an experiment? very easy. Everthing that's still under
> development,

Check - Web services in lieu of OS are still sience fiction

> has negligible market share,

Check - Who's making money selling web services as OS?

> has not really broken out of the
> realm of academia,

No check - I guess companies may be experimenting

You think condesending because you have an ax to grind.

Hm.. I never attempted to sell a product on the market that competes with Microsoft, I've been using MS products since 80's, so where is my ax?

Open Source is not the issue, it's the ability to develop a unique application that guarantees maximum returns on investment, while retaining full ownership. 

I don't disagree with the notion above.

Open source is just a tool.

This project, commissioned in August 2004 by Microsoft EMEA, is an update of the Economic Impact Model (EIM) and an extension to look at the specific economic impact from software in general and Microsoft software in particular.

Thanks for posting the public portion. So MS is the client for whom the study was prepared.

a.. Over a third of 2004 employment and tax revenues stemmed from the vast Microsoft ecosystem. For every dollar of Microsoft revenue in the region another seven and a half were generated by other companies selling hardware or software that works on Microsoft operating systems or servicing that software. 

I don't necessarily have an argument with this statement.

By the same token, consider companies that use Apache for example and measure how many folds these companies make for every dime of revenue that goes to the apache organization. Fair?

And use it for what? 

Cheap network terminals.. in the old days I used to run seti :-)

I am using one Linux PC that as an "old media" box (5 1/4" drive, 1/4" tape drive, DOS, Windows 3, dual boot, etc.)

I have an oldish 21" screen in one (computer) room connected to KVM box that is connected to several Linux boxes. I rarely sit in front of this screen. I run apps on these machines as Xwindows clients with a XP wireless laptop, in the comfort of my living room, as the Xwindows server. I ssh into these boxes remotely to access the shell.

anchoring your boat while fishing? :-) Not too many people are in the business of running their own web servers.

I have two Netfinity servers that have never ran MS Windows.. although they could.

If you mean what's referred to as PocketPC, then the answer is maybe,

I wasn't refering to PocketPC. Speaking of which I buy for myself Palm Pilot but I gift others PocketPC. How about that :-)

depends on your individial point of view. If you mean set top boxes, then what's below the surface is irrelevant, it's the Java platform that's the *only* performance criteria. The only thing users actually see and interact with (and programmers use), is Java. .net is not there (and I don't know if it will ever be). 

OK.. thanks for the info.

Yes you do.. Starting from Excel 2003, record a macro, edit, a new application opens, Check the about, it says Microsoft Visual Basic 6.3.

Are you redefining what an environment is?

Since I gave the example, I am entitled to define the environment for my example. In the example I use the application (Lotus 123, Qattro) as the environment.

The environment is Windows and any application, from a programming perspective, whether it's VB, or anything else, is a separate Window. The point is that you do not have to leave the environment and the original application is still there, the whole time. The whole point of your argument is that you did not have to leave the environment, and I'm countering that you never leave the environment in Excel either. The rest can be filed under you saying tomato and me saying tomatoe.

In your answer you stretched the environment from the application in question to other application. You sweep the stretch under the rug by calling it another window. :-)

Why do I need to learn other nonsense to program a spread*** macro? if you call one thing nonsense then other things are nonsense as well. You see, your application is a spread***, and a spread*** will let you do calculations, with a set of built-in formulas. Simple macros require very little knowledge of any programming languages, more sophisticated *applications* require more programming knowledge. 

Have you seen the Lotus 123 macros?  They typically go like this
{UP}
{LEFT}
{DELETE}
Etc..

So, when you record a macro, it simply records the keystrokes. You can reuse as is, or you can edit to augment the macro. The macro is saved in another spread*** cell range (example of a self contained environment).

I used to record repetitive tasks as macros, save them, and invoke them with shortcuts. It didn't require training to figure out how to change the macros.

Since the advent of Excel, I still record macros but I don't edit them since I don't have time or inclination to learn VB.

Moving from Lotus123/quattro to Excel meant that I lost the ability to edit macros.

Fomat, font, row, column, search? these are not VB programming directives. You're confusing Excel or Word's internal lingo with VB. Here's a challenge for you: you write a Quattro macro in Quattro's language, and I will reciprocate by creating the same in Excel's Macro language and let's compare the two.

I don't have quattro or Lotus123 installed anywhere.. I still have the quattro original media in some corner of the house.. I don't think it is worth my time to engage this exercise.

Here is a simpler test. I opened a spread***, started a macro, pointed to a cell and entered the following:

- 1 <TAB>
- 2 <CR>
- 3 <TAB>
- 4 <CR>
- selected a 2x3 range anchored by the 1 cell
- clicked on Sum
- ckicked elsewhere
- stopped recording

Here is what excel recorded (stripped the comments):

Sub Macro1()
    ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "1"
    Range("E9").Select
    ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "2"
    Range("D10").Select
    ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "3"
    Range("E10").Select
    ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "4"
    Range("D9:E11").Select
    Range("D11").Activate
    ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "=SUM(R[-2]C:R[-1]C)"
    Range("D9:E11").Select
    Range("E11").Activate
    ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "=SUM(R[-2]C:R[-1]C)"
    Range("D13").Select
End Sub

Now tell me that this gobbledygook is intuitive :-)

Yes, I did. Actually in this case, the government botched up the case. They accused him of being the money bag and a major planner, in reality, he *wanted* to be the money bag and planner, but his offer was not accepted by the terrorist powers to be, so nothing illegal took place. Yes, in most cases, truth prevails.

According to press accounts I read, the government is planning to deport him rather than retry him on deadlocked charges. If the government re-tries him it risks losing.

As long as you concede that they all followed the AT&T base design, you have no argument from me.

"Base design" is not a software engineering term :-) I use architecture, loosely. More specifically I refer to posix standard. Coding to a standard is not the same as stealing code.

It makes very little difference when computing the resources.

It makes a difference to somebody's pocket (*volunteer* resources vs *hired* resources), recall your maximizing returns argument.

To recap:

- I'd like all computing environments and development paradigms to be available to Lebanese IT companies so that they can chose the best tools that best serve their customers
- I am a firm believer in market economies
- If competition is fair, the better product (relative to user perception) prevails
- I agree that the end user experience is gravitating towards web services, but I don't think we're there yet
- I agree that once the users adopt web services, the OS becomes irrelevent

bassem
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