Slashdot Mirror
More Companies Jump on the Linux Train
I had a thought while I was typing the words above: should Slashdot do periodic "roundups" of new Linux ports and support announcements? With so many hardware and software vendors now moving into the "Linux marketplace" (which is how many of them see Linux -- as a marketplace), these announcements are no longer "news" in the sense of being unique or unusual events, but they're still good to know about.
Should we make a weekly post out of all these announcements? Or, because they don't come in at an even rate, should we save them up until we have 10 or so and post them all then whether that takes two days or three weeks?
So, besides posting any new Linux product/support announcements you've seen lately, how about a little advice on how Slashdot might best handle these announcements in the future? I promise to read every comment with a moderation level of zero or higher.
- Robin "roblimo" Miller
And we're supposed to be pleased with this?
"...Is this world not a call I can screen out" --
At the risk of coming off as some unholy Stallman-wannabe, I have to say this.
Linux isn't what's important. Free Software is.
Linux is software, and software comes and goes. Whether some company or other jumps on the Linux bandwagon is irrelevant in the big picture. What is truly important is to spread Free Software in general - not only the software itself, but the accompanying meme that says, essentially, that "sharing is profitable". The catch is to ingrain this idea into our culture in the same way that sharing is already ingrained in the scientific and mathematical communities.
Once we've done that, we'll have achieved something much greated than pressuring a lot of companies to support a Free operating system. We'll have dominated the world. Because world domination is not achieved by actually taking over the world, but by having the world think that you're in control of it.
(Again, sorry for the rant. I'm in extended no-sleep mode.)
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
In answer to roblimo's question, I find that Linux Weekly News (www.lwn.net) already does an excellent job of such roundups. This isn't something slashdot needs to duplicate.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
I would image in the best way to go about this would to have a Linux announce page, which would have a submission form for companies or observant end-users to give their announcements to slashdot. This would be off of the main page, and once a /. moderator looked at the email acct or whatever where the submissions went to, he/she could post them on the page.
How is this accessible on the main page? A slashbox of course! Make it a default one so everyone can see what's been announced in a box on the main page.
"In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." -Nietzsche
Personally I'm -very- excited about this one. Enterprise level mass storage (there's more to veritas than just filesystems) is one of few sticking points for linux making the move from utility to work horse. Having the same bullet proof, flexible FS on my linux box as I have on my Solaris box.... drool.... :)l l/000121E29E
http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/a
... with eskimo chains i tatto my brain all the way...
I took a look at the released linux drivers posted at Aureal's site and they seem to be violating the stock-GPL lisence they distribute it with!
The driver is released in the form of a single C "wrapper" file that links with the main portion of the driver, which is binary-only. Does this seem to any of you to be a sneaky way to say they are delivering source, but in fact are not?
IANAL, but from what I have always believed the GPL meant, you can't link GPL code with binary-only modules.
Can anyone knowledgable comment on this?
________________________________
I noticed over at Gear's web page that they say a Linux version is coming "soon." I have been looking for VideoCD software for quite a while, either recording or playing 'em. Hopefully this will be one step closer.
Sorry, I beg to differ and I bet a lot of other people do to.
I don't require that everypiece of software is GPL'ed, or even that every piece of software is freely available in any form.
Binary only software distribution has it's place and so does (gasp horror) binary only software that you have to pay money for.
What is important about linux gaining mainstream driver support (even in binary only form) is that people now have a real choice in the future on intel rather than being forced to use Microsoft operating systems by default.
With the mostly collapse of non-intel architecture unix platforms in the workstation market (Sun, SGI, HP etc) we needed a robust unix based low cost alternative.
Linux is it, and I don't care if some software is binary only or I have to pay money for it.
I've been beta-testing houdini on linux:
... no prob. Worked like a charm.
http://www.sidefx.com
sweet. I even used the renderer and scene generator under FreeBSD
I use Linux on an Intel Processor, but what about those who don't work on Intel machines? Remember that Linux is the most widely ported OS. Binaries will serve the Intel population, but not all Linux users. And again you are forgetting about other OSs like BSD. I will be replacing windoze with Open BSD about July (after graduation). Drivers matter to me. Source for the drivers will help in selling more hardware for these companies.
Which is why the Open Source/ Free Software meme is more important than the OS itself. Remember, the idea is to support the meme, not an OS on one platform.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
I wouldn't smile at this list though if every company on there was only releasing closed source and proprietary products, though.
To get community support, you need to be friendly to the community. That means you can't try any lock-in bullshit, nor obfuscated code, nor "OH, THAT'S PRIVATE INFORMATION. WE HAVE NEEDS, SORRY :))".
How about we only post products that are 100% open source? Tbat means that you are in fact giving publicity to products that would support this community, and in turn be providing a true community service, and you'd also, indirectly, encourage them to strive to get on your list.
Open source as in, not some cheapassed Acme Public License, but one that is recognized and accepted.
Of course, there are also those people who just want a Windows clone without Microsoftian dominance. Our viewpoints differ here. Oh well.
--Michael Bacarella
The company I work for, RIMS, and a vendor of ours, Merant, will have a joint press release out tomorrow. The process release will be about Merant's porting of their Micro Focus Object COBOL stuff to Linux and our efforts to port our QicClaim/2 product to the COBOL port on Linux. <marketing speak>QC/2, as with all our software, is aimed at the healthcare verticle market. QC/2 is used to administrate health benefit programs, mostly used be third party administrators.</marketing speak>
No, its not open sourced, but its the start of greater use of Linux and open source projects within my company. Something I've been fighting a year for. We hope to have some open source stuff out there in the near future. We're deceiding the what, where, and when of all that. But I'm pretty excited as I'll be a big part of all of it.
I think i'd like a combination of some of the above ideas.
First create a anounce section, in which every 'anouncement' is an article. This gives people the option to discuss every anouncement, eg those aurol 3d drivers seem to be a nice discussed item, so why stomp the discussions.
Then create a slashbox, to show the most N-recent anouncements. This alows people who are interested to see all the recent trafic on the 'anounce list', but ppl who dont care dont have to be confronted.
Then every once a 'period' eg week, biweekly or whatever, do a roundup, as we do quickies every-once-in-a-while (Tm) currently, on the main page.
This way people who want to read, and reply to everything, can.
People who have questions on this release/anouncements, have a place to discuss.
People who just care a little bit, can just read the slashbox, to get a @ a glance impression.
People who care even less, will see an article commin by every week/ every other week, and get a quick glance @ what happend, and is of intrest...
This way we should serve all people, and all desire levels.
-- Chris Chabot
"I dont suffer from insanity, i enjoy every minute of it!"
I think this type of announcements are not longer different from any announcement on Freshmeat, and should hence be moved over there, perheaps bundled in a pack of tens of them at once. /. and Freshmeat are now Andover.net sites, I have seen little or no cooperation between them, at least in the content field (I don't know about code cooperation).
While both
This may be regarded as troll, non-/.-ish or whatever, but please read it and think twize, before you moderate or comment.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
For what you seem to describe we have a situation with the following schema:
Binary driver --> C file (wrapper) -->Linux kernel
Given that Linus specifically allowed binary drivers these are not violating the GPL FOR LINUX ONLY (Linus said it was Ok, but this only apply to Linux).
They have a good reason to do this wrapper:
Linus don't care that much if new kernels break the compatibility with binary-only driver (and IMHO he is right), so doing a wrapper to the driver allow them to just change this wrapper to keep the compatibility, they can also put the wrapper under the GPL (or, better for them, the LGPL) and hope that people using their hardware will help them keep the compatibility between kernels.
It's a first step in the right direction (full Free Software driver) and this give them a first taste of Free Softare and we can only encourage them in it (by helping them keeping the compatibility and, when you submit the patch, tell them how great this would be for you and them if the driver was fully GPL'd).
Of course your post didn't mention wether the wrapper was Free (speech) but there would be little advantage to give this wrapper otherwise.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
What you have to do is get a message to their marketing group that they do actually have Linux users and that demographic will get bigger for their hardware if they provide drivers. The best ways to do that is to E-Mail their tech support requesting that they send your message on to marketing or to open a suggestion defect requesting drivers and support for Linux. The justification is that the Linux market segment is growing and that Linux is the only non-MS OS on the market which is exhibiting such growth. Thus supporting Linux makes much more sense than supporting, say, OS/2, which IBM has been actively trying to kill for the last 5 years.
The more requests of this nature that go into the company, the more you'll see OSS awareness in the company grow. It'll probably be a couple of years yet before the entire company is completely clueful on the subject but I think that day will come.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...we need a web page. With summaries of each company's existing support (and non-support), the structure of this support (closed driver vs. published specs vs. open source driver), and announced plans. That web site could then have a weekly news report of new announcements.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
We may sneer at hype here, but that's what drives big companies. Huge IPOs, hundreds of articles, and industry analysts coming out asking the question "Is Linux a Windows Killer?" all go to convince big companies that there's something interesting in the OSS model. And OSS can actually fit into the corporate mentality. And programmers obviously can still make a living programming, witness all the companies currently picking up programmers to do coding for OSS projects on company time.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I'm getting really pissed at this, why is their almost no support for other OSs, like BeOS, *BSD, QNX4 etc.
I mean, you people hate companies, you only want GPL and free beer.
We, the others, how really care about free speach get almost zero support.
If all of you that own Sigma-cards could send
a polite mail to arthur_bao@sdesigns.com
asking for Linuxsupport for current products.
The polite part can't be stressed to much.
Just a suggestion, add an optional box to the side of slashdot's main page for new products supporting linux.
~~~ They call me Little John, but don't let the name fool you...in real life I'm very big.
Well, I just got the word from VMWare:
Tommorow there will be a public beta of VMWare 2.0, and they included support for SCSI, Sound-in, Major improvment of running Windows 95/98 as a guest, Shrinking disk, Larger then 2GB Virtual disk support, and other goodies.
Check tommorow: http://www.vmware.com
Hetz (Heunique)
...the OSS movement in the company is still largely driven by the lower employees rather than management.
Indeed. In fact, I would expect most companies to be like this. Management is generally only good at keeping people in line and on the job (and sometimes not even that). It always seems to be the engineers and techies "in the trenches" who know which way the wind is blowing first. No great surprise there. Of course, with a company as large as IBM (Incredibly Big Monolith), inertia plays that much bigger a role, reaction time is much slower, and some parts of IBM will still be swinging around when The Next Big Thing is happening.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
By the same token I have room in my philosophy to buy binary-only software such as games. However, show half-assed support for the game (Such as a huge feature mismatch between Windows and Linux versions) and I may get pissed off and never buy anything from your company again. If you're not going to open the source up, you damn well better be willing to commit to maintaining it yourself. DOS/Windows users might be willing to accept game companies doing half-assed jobs on their software -- certainly I've seen enough games where the coding was obviously done by brain dead chimpanzees. Linux users are a more demanding crowd, though. If you're going to put out software that sucks, we don't want you here.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Unless he agreed this with ALL contributors to the code, he doesn't have any power to override the existing licencing terms. Those terms (GPL) eitehr permit binary only drivers (or are unable to prohibit them) or they don't.
True, but I didn't hear about any developer complaining, in which case they would have to retire his code from the kernel.
If you are not happy you can fork the kernel and make it truly GPL, but don't count on us to follow you and don't forget to call it otherwise than Linux (Lunix if you want, or Trollix).
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
They've got over a dozen people working on the project, including both coders and artists. There's definitely room for more help though. (I'm not directly involved in the project, although I will be as soon as I can find more time.)
Click the link in my sig for more info.
You know what to do with the HELLO. ...
Help create an open-source world
http://helllabs.org/~claudio/alsa/ rms-aureal.txt
LWN seems to do an excellent job of rounding up various products each week. Maybe they could do a company profile page detailing the level of support you can expect from the company and whether buying from them would be a safe move or not. Rate the company on some scale (Maybe -10 to +10?) and sort on the rating. Then I can go see at a glance who I want to buy from.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Thank you, Mr Hugo, for putting it so very concisely. I wish my writing made half as much sense as yours. :)
:)
On a side note, I'm glad that I could help provoke such intelligent talk with my original post, and help show that good things still come from Slashdot.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.