First Impressions: Rootly

James Thomas suggests Rootly as an alternative to Google News in his life without google. His recommendation makes it sound good, but we all know how important first impressions are. Here was mine:

Compare this to google news, where the first thing you see is … news! Can you find the news in the rootly screenshot? (Hint: did you check that thin little strip above the horizontal scroll bar?)

I’ll continue to give it a try, but I already get the feeling that I’m not a very important customer because my screen isn’t wide enough, or I’m not using their favorite browser, or something.

Build it or License it

Billy Newport complains that he can find code to do what he wants freely and easily on the Internet, but that he doesn’t want to have to go through the hassle of actually getting permission to incorporate it into an IBM product. He goes on to say that open source software doesn’t increase programmer productivity, because he can’t find code that he can use for his employer without any strings attached.

Open source code does increase programmer productivity within the open source community. If you go ahead and write the data structure code for IBM, then IBM owns it, and nobody but IBM reaps the rewards. Viral open source licenses give the open source community the same advantages. When I distribute code licensed under the GPL, the open source community reaps the rewards. It’s a feature, not a bug, that IBM can’t use this code without playing by the same rules. I, for one, would love to see IBM[*] gaining the rewards of participating in the open source community. This doesn’t mean taking what you want from the community without giving anything back (nor does it mean whining about what the community won’t give you for free).

If IBM wants the software, they can either build it or license it. Whining about it doesn’t change those options. The fact that the Internet provides an accessible software marketplace with plenty of code under a variety of licenses doesn’t change those options. You can either build it or license it. The references to Apache and GNU licenses in the original article are really just passive-aggressive FUD. If you find code you want, but you can’t agree to license terms with that code’s owners, then you either keep shopping for code you want to license or decide to build it yourself.

[*] I am aware that IBM does participate in the community. I’m responding specifically to Billy’s post, in which he assumes the role of a “commercial” entity himself, and says the GPL and LGPL are useless.

Sprint PCS Sucks

For years, I was a content Sprint PCS customer. More than anything, I
liked my Motorola Startac. It’s a great phone with a great UI.
Unfortunately, the antenna design is bad, and it broke again. My old
phone is a few years old, so I thought I’d take a look at the newer
alternatives out there.

This was mistake number one. Today’s phones are so concerned with being
flashier than the rest that they’ve forgotten that they’re supposed to be
phones. If I wanted a game boy, I’d buy a game boy. I want a phone.

So I picked up a samsung phone (the N400, I think). Piece of crap! The
damned thing didn’t ring. It let you choose between two options of what
it would do with an incoming phone call. You could have it play “tones”
(music) or “ringers” (more music). Phones have been around a long time.
Have you ever been in anyone’s house where an incoming call turns the
stereo on? No, because people don’t want that. It’s stupid. So I
went back to the store and returned the piece of crap the same day, before
I ever activated it.

After this experience, I decided to stick with what I knew I could count
on. Motorola has continued making good phones, like the V60 and T720.
Unfortunately for Sprint, they don’t offer any new Motorola phones. So
off I went to the Verizon store. I’m now a very satisfied
Verizon customer.

The next step was to cancel my service with Sprint. Here’s where it gets
really bad. I called to cancel at around 11:30 pm local time (PDT). The
first guy I talked to said that because I’m such a “valued customer” my
account could only be closed by someone in the retention department.
Fine, transfer me there. So I wait. I wait. I wait 30 minutes on hold.
Then the same guy comes back on the line, informing me that the retention
department is closed. They just closed, at 2:00am central time. Midnight
my time. I waited on hold an extra 30 minutes (because I’m so valued),
and then they just closed and left me hanging. Bastards! So I have to
call back tomorrow.

First, I went to the Sprint PCS web site, found a link that said “email
us”, and composed a message indicating that I was pretty unhappy, and
that this was a really bad way to treat a “valued” customer.
Unfortunately, by “email”, they really mean “post a web form”. This form
posts to an URL that just hangs. My message could not be sent.

So next, I composed a real email message. I sent it to as many addresses
I could think of at sprint: support@sprintpcs.com, billing@sprintpcs.com,
claire@sprinpcs.com, webmaster@sprint.pcs.com, postmaster@sprintpcs.com,
ceo@sprintpcs.com. I gave them my story. I told them I’d called, been
placed on hold twice, then abandoned. I told them I tried to use their
stupid web form, which is broken. I also let them know I was originally
canceling because of my bad handset experience, but this bad service far
eclipsed any handset issues.

A few addresses bounced. Most said no such address. That’s fine; I had
made them up, and expected a few bounces. ceo@sprintpcs.com came back
with “mailbox full”. One address (I think it was support@sprintpcs.com)
succeeded. I got back an autoresponder message saying “please use our
stupid web form”.

I’d tried calling. I’d tried to “email” (post the stupid web form), and
I’d tried to send real email. Of the 3 communication channels I’d tried,
I was 0 for 3. This is a communications company?

I then just tried calling again just now (during their regular business
hours). They informed me that their system was unavailable due to
maintenance/upgrades. I take this as a lesson learned to never use
sprint anything for service availability.

So anyway, I’m still dealing with them. A month ago, I would have
happily recommended the service, but it’s a different story now. If
you’re already a sprint PCS customer, I can only advise you to be careful
to never become a “valued” customer, and to switch to another carrier as
soon as possible.

The only thing I can do at this point is fight to not be billed for this
last month of service, and do my best to ensure that nobody ever pays
them a penny ever again. If you’re thinking about signing up with
sprint, please don’t. Do me a favor by helping me pay them back for the
horrible service they gave me, and do yourself a favor by saving yourself
from ever being subjected to the same. I’m so interested in discouraging
people from giving sprint any money that I’ll even pay you to sign up for
Verizon instead. I think they offer a $10 credit for referrals. If you
were thinking about sprint and saw this page, and decide to use Verizon
instead, I’ll give you the whole referral credit ($10, or whatever it is;
it might be more). Contact me and we’ll work it
out. I can give you my Verizon number to get the referral credit and
I’ll paypal you the money as soon as it’s applied to my account.

Apparently, I’m not the only
one.