What Makes Something An Appliance
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@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@Tim_G said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
I can get on board with that. Because under the hood, I think effectively nothing is an appliance anywhere. I mean somewhere there is actually something that must be, I just have no idea what it actually is.
I agree.
But I'm still not at a comfortable spot with this. I could easily do away with the word "appliance", and say server instead. What difference does it make whether I say 'KACE server' or 'KACE appliance'? What about "PBX appliance" or "PBX server"? Does it tell you anything different? Or does it designate a taste, or a perspective... like an adjective would?
I would like it too. An example from the other thread.... I like appliance when used with a Mitel PBX but not with FreePBX. One is very packaged and I can't control it (without totally killing what makes it what it is) whereas the other is totally designed for me to... use however I see fit.
Then I think things are starting to veer down a different path, away from what appliance means, moving towards a marketing viewpoint.
For example... if you give someone new slow-cooker. That's all dandy, you've just given someone a slow-cooker. But if you give it to them wrapped in wrapping paper, it's now a gift or present.
So I think it still stands better as an adjective. You are still receiving a Mitel PBX server. That's exactly what it is. The think that makes you want to call it an appliance, is how it's presented. AKA marketing.
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So maybe a server is a piece of the appliance. Such as a light. It can be built into a car or it can suffice on its own.
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@black3dynamite said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
ATMs, cell phones, printers, thermostats, calculators, and videogame consoles.
Well, I can see those things being considered that, but a totally different type that we are discussing here. Or that we have been discussing. But maybe we just overlooked them?
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@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@black3dynamite said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
Appliance more of a pre-configured device?
Kind of. But what about after you start using it?
Depends if you start messing with it in ways not intended by its manufacturer...
That's what we ran into earlier... what constitutes the manufacturer? The one that made the real system, or the one that tacked some stuff onto it?
Now I think you're splitting hairs to be overly myopic. Whose logo is on the product you bought? That's the manufacturer.
So... that goes back to the original question... literally slapping branding on a product or just a web page on it, that's all it takes? That's the "painting your car and calling yourself a manufacturer" conundrum. It's hairier than it sounds because several commonly accepted appliances, like FreePBX, are 99.9999999% made by one company, the tiniest additional thing is slapped on top with no functional differences - basically just cosmetic changes, and now it is an appliance?
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@IRJ said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
An appliance ALWAYS acts as a server. You can debate whatever else you want, but what everyone considers as an appliance functions as a server.
Yeah, I think that I agree there. Or maybe we mean "server appliance", butt he server bit is assumed.
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@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@black3dynamite said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
ATMs, cell phones, printers, thermostats, calculators, and videogame consoles.
Well, I can see those things being considered that, but a totally different type that we are discussing here. Or that we have been discussing. But maybe we just overlooked them?
This brings up a good point. A videogame console is definitely a computing device with a specific function. And it definitely limits configuration ability. At this moment anyways, I'd way more happily refer to my Xbox 360 as an appliance a lot sooner than I would call it a server.
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@NerdyDad said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
So maybe a server is a piece of the appliance. Such as a light. It can be built into a car or it can suffice on its own.
What about an appliance in a container, like Docker? We use an appliancized Rocket.Chat server. It's on a general purpose OS, but the application is packaged as an appliance, they even handle the updates!
Take your appliance server mix and flip it for that example.
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@Tim_G said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@black3dynamite said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
ATMs, cell phones, printers, thermostats, calculators, and videogame consoles.
Well, I can see those things being considered that, but a totally different type that we are discussing here. Or that we have been discussing. But maybe we just overlooked them?
This brings up a good point. A videogame console is definitely a computing device with a specific function. And it definitely limits configuration ability. At this moment anyways, I'd way more happily refer to my Xbox 360 as an appliance a lot sooner than I would call it a server.
Until you get to Steam, because that turns into a video game SERVER.
ARGH!!!
Maybe the two terms just are separate axis of description completely.
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@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@black3dynamite said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
Appliance more of a pre-configured device?
Kind of. But what about after you start using it?
Depends if you start messing with it in ways not intended by its manufacturer...
That's what we ran into earlier... what constitutes the manufacturer? The one that made the real system, or the one that tacked some stuff onto it?
Now I think you're splitting hairs to be overly myopic. Whose logo is on the product you bought? That's the manufacturer.
So... that goes back to the original question... literally slapping branding on a product or just a web page on it, that's all it takes? That's the "painting your car and calling yourself a manufacturer" conundrum. It's hairier than it sounds because several commonly accepted appliances, like FreePBX, are 99.9999999% made by one company, the tiniest additional thing is slapped on top with no functional differences - basically just cosmetic changes, and now it is an appliance?
Sure. Why not? What does that violate?
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@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
Is painting a car or putting a seat cover in or installing GPS "modifying the design" of a car?
Those are poor examples, a better one might be taking a caddy and making it into a limo. It still drives, just like a caddy, but it's not really a caddy anymore, it's a limo. It's intention isn't be be a daily driver anymore, it still does nearly everything it did before, in some cases better than before (i.e. hauls more people), but it now really has an entirely different purpose.
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@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@Tim_G said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@black3dynamite said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
ATMs, cell phones, printers, thermostats, calculators, and videogame consoles.
Well, I can see those things being considered that, but a totally different type that we are discussing here. Or that we have been discussing. But maybe we just overlooked them?
This brings up a good point. A videogame console is definitely a computing device with a specific function. And it definitely limits configuration ability. At this moment anyways, I'd way more happily refer to my Xbox 360 as an appliance a lot sooner than I would call it a server.
Until you get to Steam, because that turns into a video game SERVER.
ARGH!!!
Maybe the two terms just are separate axis of description completely.
Well, that changes nothing of the appliance. That makes Steam the server, not my xbox.
XBOX = appliance
STEAM = server
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@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@black3dynamite said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
Appliance more of a pre-configured device?
Kind of. But what about after you start using it?
Depends if you start messing with it in ways not intended by its manufacturer...
That's what we ran into earlier... what constitutes the manufacturer? The one that made the real system, or the one that tacked some stuff onto it?
Now I think you're splitting hairs to be overly myopic. Whose logo is on the product you bought? That's the manufacturer.
So... that goes back to the original question... literally slapping branding on a product or just a web page on it, that's all it takes? That's the "painting your car and calling yourself a manufacturer" conundrum. It's hairier than it sounds because several commonly accepted appliances, like FreePBX, are 99.9999999% made by one company, the tiniest additional thing is slapped on top with no functional differences - basically just cosmetic changes, and now it is an appliance?
Sure. Why not? What does that violate?
Well it makes it not an IT differentiation but purely a marketing one. It means that you can take anything that is not an appliance, and simply hand to someone else and it is the act of "calling" it an appliance that makes it one, not the intent of its creation or any technical aspect of it.
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@Dashrender said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
Is painting a car or putting a seat cover in or installing GPS "modifying the design" of a car?
Those are poor examples, a better one might be taking a caddy and making it into a limo. It still drives, just like a caddy, but it's not really a caddy anymore, it's a limo. It's intention isn't be be a daily driver anymore, it still does nearly everything it did before, in some cases better than before (i.e. hauls more people), but it now really has an entirely different purpose.
Right, but you are making actual functional changes there. The point here is that with many of these appliances that people think of, they are just adding window dressing, not changing the functionality. A limo, assuming you mean stretched or with added features, isn't the same as the original Caddy, it can do some different things. But FreeNAS, for example, literally does nothing more OR less than the FreeBSD it is built on.
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@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@black3dynamite said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
Appliance more of a pre-configured device?
Kind of. But what about after you start using it?
Depends if you start messing with it in ways not intended by its manufacturer...
That's what we ran into earlier... what constitutes the manufacturer? The one that made the real system, or the one that tacked some stuff onto it?
Now I think you're splitting hairs to be overly myopic. Whose logo is on the product you bought? That's the manufacturer.
So... that goes back to the original question... literally slapping branding on a product or just a web page on it, that's all it takes? That's the "painting your car and calling yourself a manufacturer" conundrum. It's hairier than it sounds because several commonly accepted appliances, like FreePBX, are 99.9999999% made by one company, the tiniest additional thing is slapped on top with no functional differences - basically just cosmetic changes, and now it is an appliance?
Sure. Why not? What does that violate?
Well it makes it not an IT differentiation but purely a marketing one. It means that you can take anything that is not an appliance, and simply hand to someone else and it is the act of "calling" it an appliance that makes it one, not the intent of its creation or any technical aspect of it.
That's not what you said, though. You just said that because they ONLY added something small, should that count. They still added something proprietary to the package and then slapped their name on it. They altered it in a way that belongs only to them. It doesn't mean you can't recognize what it's built on, but the result is 100% theirs.
If I start a company and all I do is take brand new cars, peel off the badges, paint them a custom-mixed purple that I give a trademarked name to, and then slap my brand on them and sell them, guess what? They are very obviously not built by me from the ground up, but they legally belong to me alone. If there was a manufacturer's name to be placed on the title, it would be my brand.
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The big question for me is do you have to install an operating system and/or use an operating system license?
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@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@Dashrender said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
Is painting a car or putting a seat cover in or installing GPS "modifying the design" of a car?
Those are poor examples, a better one might be taking a caddy and making it into a limo. It still drives, just like a caddy, but it's not really a caddy anymore, it's a limo. It's intention isn't be be a daily driver anymore, it still does nearly everything it did before, in some cases better than before (i.e. hauls more people), but it now really has an entirely different purpose.
Right, but you are making actual functional changes there. The point here is that with many of these appliances that people think of, they are just adding window dressing, not changing the functionality. A limo, assuming you mean stretched or with added features, isn't the same as the original Caddy, it can do some different things. But FreeNAS, for example, literally does nothing more OR less than the FreeBSD it is built on.
Window dressing - I want to argue with this - I'd say - sure it's window dressing, but that's all most GUI'fied tools are is window dressing on the CLI tool. Adding a GPS to a car doesn't change it's function, declaring FreeNAS a thing is changing it's function, not fundumentally, but mentally it does - it's why people use it instead of just using FreeBSD instead. It's the appliance-ification of the OS for a user. Without it, the number of people willing to use FreeBSD drops like a rock (at least for this purpose).
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Another thing I'm wondering about - the underlying situation of the appliance - the maker probably just uses whatever they had lying around and rarely if ever update it.
Hense all of the appliances Scott mentioned earlier that have old/ancient version of 'nix on them.
Great example - the CT machine we have. Costs $300K - it's an appliance. It's running on Windows 2000 Pro, but it's still an appliance. I do have the ability to get fully into the OS and do whatever I want with it, but I shouldn't.
And this is just one of billions of appliances where the underlying OS is rarely if ever updated... If we're lucky the top layer app is updated, but not the underlying OS.
not sure this should or shouldn't matter, but I thought I should mention it.
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@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@art_of_shred said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@scottalanmiller said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
@black3dynamite said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
Appliance more of a pre-configured device?
Kind of. But what about after you start using it?
Depends if you start messing with it in ways not intended by its manufacturer...
That's what we ran into earlier... what constitutes the manufacturer? The one that made the real system, or the one that tacked some stuff onto it?
Now I think you're splitting hairs to be overly myopic. Whose logo is on the product you bought? That's the manufacturer.
So... that goes back to the original question... literally slapping branding on a product or just a web page on it, that's all it takes? That's the "painting your car and calling yourself a manufacturer" conundrum. It's hairier than it sounds because several commonly accepted appliances, like FreePBX, are 99.9999999% made by one company, the tiniest additional thing is slapped on top with no functional differences - basically just cosmetic changes, and now it is an appliance?
Sure. Why not? What does that violate?
Well it makes it not an IT differentiation but purely a marketing one. It means that you can take anything that is not an appliance, and simply hand to someone else and it is the act of "calling" it an appliance that makes it one, not the intent of its creation or any technical aspect of it.
That's not what you said, though. You just said that because they ONLY added something small, should that count. They still added something proprietary to the package and then slapped their name on it. They altered it in a way that belongs only to them. It doesn't mean you can't recognize what it's built on, but the result is 100% theirs.
If I start a company and all I do is take brand new cars, peel off the badges, paint them a custom-mixed purple that I give a trademarked name to, and then slap my brand on them and sell them, guess what? They are very obviously not built by me from the ground up, but they legally belong to me alone. If there was a manufacturer's name to be placed on the title, it would be my brand.
Sure, but do we as professionals recognize that as a different category of product? No, because at a technical level, you can't even tell that anything changed.
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@IRJ said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
The big question for me is do you have to install an operating system and/or use an operating system license?
That's useful but, often the answer is yes or no in nearly all cases. I can't think of any uniformity there.
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@Dashrender said in What Makes Something An Appliance:
Hense all of the appliances Scott mentioned earlier that have old/ancient version of 'nix on them.
Most are not too old. FreeNAS is a little old. FreePBX is up to date on an older CentOS family (fully patched, but not the latest features.) Some expose the underlying OS directly for updates, some do not.
