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Why Ricoh Used Ruby to Develop New Online Storage Service

9 points by peter123 17y ago

patio11 17y ago
Although open source appears to be gaining a little traction in Japan, the country isn't typically associated with open source technology. That tells you a lot about people doing the associating, but not necessarily so much about Japan. For what its worth: its a big country, with all sorts of big companies in it. (And small companies, too.) I work in Big Freaking Enterprise Web Applications. We use more OSS than you can shake a stick at.
- rgrieselhuber 17y ago
  Totally. Japan has quite a friendly attitude towards OSS and I come across it all the time in the companies that I work with.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    As I understand it, there are two streams of Japanese cultural life. One comes from the Samurai, the feudal system, and the Bushido code. The other comes from village/farm life. The latter emphasizes cooperation and community. Open Source seems to be an excellent fit for the second. (Corporate hierarchy is a good fit for the former. Organized crime hierarchy even more so.)
    - patio11 17y ago
      As I understand it, there are two streams of Japanese cultural life. Do me a favor: any time you hear a claim about Japanese culture, mentally replace all occurrences of Japan with Britain. If the statement strikes you as merely wrong now, this heuristic tells you nothing. If the statement strikes you as sounding like it came from a blithering idiot, consider that it may not be as profound as it sounds. As I understand it, there are two streams of British cultural life. Wait, big country with long history and over a hundred million very diverse people in it, and I think I can encapsulate it in two sentences. My blithering idiot light is blinking. One comes from the... feudal system Wait a second, what relevance do knights in armor have to the London stock exchanges? Nothing, or I'm a blithering idiot. The other comes from village/farm life. The latter emphasizes cooperation and community. Open Source seems to be an excellent fit for the second. So the Brits are uniquely good at open source because, at one point, they had agriculture? AGRICULTURE?! Every modern nation has agriculture! Well, I suppose it is an indirect pre-requisite for Computers on the Civilization tech tree WHAT UTTER TRIPE AM I SAYING. (Corporate hierarchy is a good fit for the former. Organized crime hierarchy even more so.) In addition to the London Stock Exchange, the knights also cause crime!
      - stcredzero 17y ago
        Wait a second, what relevance do knights in armor have to the London stock exchanges? Nothing, or I'm a blithering idiot. The comparison between corporate hierarchy and feudal hierarchy has been around for many decades. Incidentally, both of these are only indirectly related to markets. No claim of analogy is being made to markets. Please keep these things straight. http://tinyurl.com/yb5tkka http://tinyurl.com/yb5tkka So the Brits are uniquely good at open source because, at one point, they had agriculture? AGRICULTURE?! Every modern nation has agriculture! Actually, there are particular practical aspects of rice agriculture which are especially conducive of cooperation. Basically, the irrigation requirements make pre-industrial revolution rice agriculture impractical without a much greater level of cooperation than is required of, say, someone with a subsistence potato patch. (The idea is not mine. It comes from western anthropology of Japan.) http://www.publicanthropology.org/Archive/HO1991.htm http://www.publicanthropology.org/Archive/HO1991.htm Thanks for mistaking your lacking a few pieces of information for someone else's poor thinking. So all "agriculture" is functionally equivalent? It's all an undifferentiated token? I guess that would make sense from a strategy game POV. Every modern nation has agriculture! Well, I suppose it is an indirect pre-requisite for Computers on the Civilization tech tree WHAT UTTER TRIPE AM I SAYING. So you get your ideas about history from strategy games, project the same toy world view on everyone else, then accuse them of being misinformed? Your adjectives are appropriate, but perhaps they're directed at the wrong party? Actually, the history of technology is much better represented as a vast, dense, directed acyclic graph, not a tree as in most games. This might help you out. There's a TV show if you have too short an attention span. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series) If you have a really short attention span, try just skipping to the 3rd episode. You can relate that one to Left4Dead.

9 points by peter123 17y ago

Although open source appears to be gaining a little traction in Japan, the country isn't typically associated with open source technology. That tells you a lot about people doing the associating, but not necessarily so much about Japan. For what its worth: its a big country, with all sorts of big companies in it. (And small companies, too.) I work in Big Freaking Enterprise Web Applications. We use more OSS than you can shake a stick at.

rgrieselhuber 17y ago
Totally. Japan has quite a friendly attitude towards OSS and I come across it all the time in the companies that I work with.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  As I understand it, there are two streams of Japanese cultural life. One comes from the Samurai, the feudal system, and the Bushido code. The other comes from village/farm life. The latter emphasizes cooperation and community. Open Source seems to be an excellent fit for the second. (Corporate hierarchy is a good fit for the former. Organized crime hierarchy even more so.)
  - patio11 17y ago
    As I understand it, there are two streams of Japanese cultural life. Do me a favor: any time you hear a claim about Japanese culture, mentally replace all occurrences of Japan with Britain. If the statement strikes you as merely wrong now, this heuristic tells you nothing. If the statement strikes you as sounding like it came from a blithering idiot, consider that it may not be as profound as it sounds. As I understand it, there are two streams of British cultural life. Wait, big country with long history and over a hundred million very diverse people in it, and I think I can encapsulate it in two sentences. My blithering idiot light is blinking. One comes from the... feudal system Wait a second, what relevance do knights in armor have to the London stock exchanges? Nothing, or I'm a blithering idiot. The other comes from village/farm life. The latter emphasizes cooperation and community. Open Source seems to be an excellent fit for the second. So the Brits are uniquely good at open source because, at one point, they had agriculture? AGRICULTURE?! Every modern nation has agriculture! Well, I suppose it is an indirect pre-requisite for Computers on the Civilization tech tree WHAT UTTER TRIPE AM I SAYING. (Corporate hierarchy is a good fit for the former. Organized crime hierarchy even more so.) In addition to the London Stock Exchange, the knights also cause crime!
    - stcredzero 17y ago
      Wait a second, what relevance do knights in armor have to the London stock exchanges? Nothing, or I'm a blithering idiot. The comparison between corporate hierarchy and feudal hierarchy has been around for many decades. Incidentally, both of these are only indirectly related to markets. No claim of analogy is being made to markets. Please keep these things straight. http://tinyurl.com/yb5tkka http://tinyurl.com/yb5tkka So the Brits are uniquely good at open source because, at one point, they had agriculture? AGRICULTURE?! Every modern nation has agriculture! Actually, there are particular practical aspects of rice agriculture which are especially conducive of cooperation. Basically, the irrigation requirements make pre-industrial revolution rice agriculture impractical without a much greater level of cooperation than is required of, say, someone with a subsistence potato patch. (The idea is not mine. It comes from western anthropology of Japan.) http://www.publicanthropology.org/Archive/HO1991.htm http://www.publicanthropology.org/Archive/HO1991.htm Thanks for mistaking your lacking a few pieces of information for someone else's poor thinking. So all "agriculture" is functionally equivalent? It's all an undifferentiated token? I guess that would make sense from a strategy game POV. Every modern nation has agriculture! Well, I suppose it is an indirect pre-requisite for Computers on the Civilization tech tree WHAT UTTER TRIPE AM I SAYING. So you get your ideas about history from strategy games, project the same toy world view on everyone else, then accuse them of being misinformed? Your adjectives are appropriate, but perhaps they're directed at the wrong party? Actually, the history of technology is much better represented as a vast, dense, directed acyclic graph, not a tree as in most games. This might help you out. There's a TV show if you have too short an attention span. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series) If you have a really short attention span, try just skipping to the 3rd episode. You can relate that one to Left4Dead.