Slashdot Mirror
Torvalds: Business World Boosts Linux
XGN writes "News.com has an article posted, quoting some of Linus Torvalds' keynote speech and getting into detail how business is boosting Linux. "Technologists often forget the general user," Torvalds said. "Technology is only as good as the user experience. That is something that technology groups very often forget." Linux companies aren't just parasites because they make sure much of the "boring" bug-fixing and other maintenance gets done.
"
The Mindcraft benchmarks *were* FUD. Mindcraft *did* tell outright, bare-faced lies in their reports about it (at least one lie). The tests *were* unrealistic, and Linux did always perform better than NT for realistic loads. The fact that Linux's networking stack was improved even further as a result of some hugely unrealistic tests that exposed a particular bottleneck that NT didn't have, that was later fixed, shouldn't tempt us into thinking that Mindcraft did right. They didn't, and they deserved the "pay for the benchmark results you want" pillory that they got.
Ever since Linux fixed the problem, lots of people have gone around talking as if it's been shown that Mindcraft were right all along. They weren't - they're outright liars and makers of biased tests to order.
--
Xenu loves you!
So that puts VA trading at, what, 100 to 1? Those stock prices were INSANE. VA's just a PC maker, dammit! The best thing to be said about them is that they aren't beholden to Redmond, but that's faint praise. PC manufacturing is a low-margin industry, which means constant engineering efforts to keep the product up-to-date, as well as excellent warehousing and production business practice, which has *nothing* to do with Linux. Even Dell and Compaq are insanely overpriced... VA is just surreal.
The same goes for Red Hat. They made what, ten million last year? How in the name of Gawd can you justify a valuation in the tens of billions? I know RESTURANTS that do more business than Red Hat!
I wouldn't buy a single share of a "Linux" stock at this point. By any reasonable investing standard, it's a bad idea. Established, profitable companies with long-term predictable growth should trade at something like 20:1... maybe 30:1 if you wanna be wacky. Microsoft trades at roughly 65:1 (not counting questionable accounting practices), and i think their doom is written in their stock price.
If Internet/Linux stocks are "suffering", it's because their valuations mean not just unreasonable, but impossible expectations of long-term performance.
---
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
naturally, there's often an 'S' curve as the initial enthusiasm yields to reality check - the fed is currently expected to boost interest rates 1/4 point to slow the economy down some, which will deflate a lot of stocks across the board, but I'm expecting the aging, nearing retirement baby-boomers to contine to invest and save a significant part of their incomes for some time to come. Day traders may as well be playing in a casino, a lucky few will get rich quick - but it's those who buy and hold for the long term who eventually get a steady growth/income from their investments that beats inflation or what they can get at the bank.
Personally I'm chomping at the bit to see some Linux sysadm jobs show up - there was one in our local Sunday paper - so I can ditch this embarassing McSE 'rebooter' job and get something I can work with and add value as far as system design goes, not just popping in CD's from Redmond and praying, and getting bitched at every time msft craps out.
Agent 32
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
This is absolutely true. Red Hat (and others, but RH is the foremost example, so I'll use them) is utterly dependent in the long term on free (speech) software. if RH began abusing free software, it would be simple, and, I think, not inconsistent with the views of the FSF, to insert a clause into GPL-type licenses saying "This license does not apply to Red Hat, Inc., it's subsidiaries, assigns, heirs, (other legalspeak terms to make sure they can't get around this clause). Red Hat is specifically forbidden to distribute this software program in any form."
i'm not a stallman fan, but this is NOT what the GPL is about. and therefore will NEVER happen, if the FSF is what i think it is,
I could easily see the FSF excluding specific companies from their licenses if the GPL was found to be unenforceable, in whole or in part. Sometimes it's not enough to be quiet and leave other people alone; sometimes you have to fight for freedom. If the FSF is not willing to fight for freedom, then they're not about freedom...
I think they interpreted this:
[Linus]"People didn't want to go through the onerous process of productizing a development kernel," Torvalds said. He resolved to change this process with the next edition of the heart of Linux, the kernel version 2.4."
as this:
[news.com]"In the past, development of Linux has been driven by technologists interested more in new features than in having a product that works more reliably than an experimental system. That resulted in a years-long development of the current heart of Linux, version 2.2 of the kernel. "
even though the order of appearance in the article is reversed here. I think they are confusing packaging with reliability. The above description seems much more applicable to
win 9X/NT/2XXX/name_of_the_week/etc.
they answered quite nicely: i wrote them about being biased, about the place where the benchmarks happened, about the tuned nt system and the raw linux setup. they talked back about a reputation they have to loose, etc ... finally they made a fair test to us (this time with open source people involved) and it had nearly the same results ...
... i think some of us did!
people we have to learn to
i'm not a stallman fan, but this is NOT what the GPL is about. and therefore will NEVER happen, if the FSF is what i think it is. the opensource definition is different too. if such things happened, they would hurt the community in the long run.
...
but you can hurt a company in other ways, and nobody buying/supporting redhat is the strongest by far
In the keynote address this morning, Linus said 2.4 will have support for firewire. Anyone know more on this subject? I haven't exactly followed the evolution of the 2.3.x branch, but I thought firewire still had a long way to go, more so than USB...
Actually (I just got back from the keynote address), he said the release of 2.4 was still a matter of months.
Actually, I hope nobody licences the software. If they do we should boycott it. If we can't watch purchased DVD's on our terms, then to hell with them. I bet as Linux grows for home use that the economic blunder the MPAA is engaging in will start to sink in.
Clearly, if someone releases a closed source application for viewing DVDs in Linux we should definitly boycott it, but the issue is likely to be more complex. Specifically, If someone releases an open source application to view DVDs with a closed source decryption tool we will need to descided our actions based on the following question: Is the application realitivly interoperable with the open players that are currently being developed? i.e. I must be able to DL the open source application (without paying any money to the MPAA) and DL a module based on DeCSS to make a regionless player which uses no closed source code.
Message to you Linux companies: It would not be an intelegent move (politically) to release an open source player without a trully open source alternative. You should develop the player in the open and make shure that you are not putting the truly open alternative at a disadvnatage. A very well documented "decryption/region module" interface would be essential (document this one part of the program jsut to prove to the community that your intentions are honerable).
Jeff
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
"As soon as Torvalds gets back to his home state of California, he will release the preliminary production versions of 2.4, he said."
- Have a picture
> Windows NT offers JFS???? Did I miss something??
;-)
Probably.
Inside the Windows Nt File System - Helen Custer
NT only journals Meta-Data though ! Something MS forgots to tell people.
Cheers
Meta means 'above' or 'about'.
;-)
.html file.
Meta-data is any kind of info ABOUT a file.
i.e. it's filename, it's attributes, etc.
If you study philosophy, you will come across the term meta-physical. Same idea. (Bad pun, since ideas are meta-physical
> url?
A directory is also meta-data. The OS opens the directory as a file, but treats it specially.
So I guess in once sense you could call a url meta-data, since it points the way to the data, i.e. the
A true journaling system also backs up file data. Meaning no data loss. There is a minor speed hit with "mirroring" the data, but usually filesystems use B+ Trees and other database concepts so they can be just as fast as a "simple" filesystem.
> I dont want to buy an out of date print about a microsoft product to find out.
Its actually not too bad. Quota's and Encrytion aren't covered, but the rest of the book is good.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Bill!
Perhaps when you run for president again in 2004, you should consider Linus Torvalds as a running mate. I realize that attracting him to the Meadow Party may be a bit difficult, but I think the party's promise to make a talking pengiun Secretary of State will win him over.
Yeah, and how is the whole clone thing working out for you?
.sig: Now legally binding!
Yeah, if your filesystem is 32bit.
If you give NT programming a try, you'll notice can read files using 64bit pointers. Notice Win32 functions like GetFileSize etc work with 64bit numbers.
GetFileSize as an example, returns the low order dword or the filesize, and takes in a dword pointer which it fills with the high order dword.
A bit yucky, but makes it so 32bit users can use ignore the highword parameter (use NULL).
yes :P
:)....and it doesn't have a 2GB filesize limit like Ext2/HPFS/Fat etc
NTFS uses 64bit descriptors, so supports up to 16EB (ExaByte) volumes
"Technologists often forget the general user," Torvalds said. "Technology is only as good as the user experience. That is something that technology groups very often forget."
</i>
Geee, sounds a bit like something Bill Gates and Microsoft have been saying themselves for years. Why do you think they're so successful developer and user wise? And why they have so much public support.
It's not suprising now that Linux has got corporate support that Linus starts leaning in different directions.
And it's nice to know that he now admits NT 'trounced' Linux then. I remember Linus being rather angry about those tests, going on about Marketing, and how Microsoft would do anything possible to survive.
The more you layer GUI on top of the system, the more you clutter its ability to process efficiently and security is more easily compromised. Windows has and continues to prove that fact over and over again. I wish Linus had touched upon that issue a bit more so that the general non-tech business community might have more of an understanding as to why GUI interfaces are not readily embraced by techs as they often require more maintenance and cause more problems.
Sometimes I even think business people are paranoid that techs are plotting some conspiracy to make their lives more difficult by choosing certain technology when we're just trying to find the best solution.
Or have I just been out-of-the-loop on the conspiracy thing? Was there a meeting I missed?
- tokengeekgrrl
RedHat et al have obligations to their shareholders - that is - they need to keep doing stuff that benefits their owners and increases the company value. Microsoft does this, too - their way is trying to lock everyone into a Windows-only world. Fortunately for us, the success of Linux companies relies (at least partly) on the community, so they need to maintain good relations with the people. And this also that the best thing they can do, from the shareholders' view, is to embrace the open source community with open arms - which is what they have do, have done, and will be doing.
Of course, this characterization only includes companies whose sole business idea rests on Linux. The attitudes of others (like Sun) may be different, as is proper, considering what they have to do in order to satisfy their shareholders.
2 February 2000
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 07:13:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Macki <macki@2600.com>
To: dvd@2600.com
Subject: Press release - Anti-MPAA event planned
February 2, 2000
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DAY OF ACTION PLANNED AGAINST MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION IN 100 CITIES
Members of the hacker and open source communities worldwide, along with various civil liberties groups, are planning a massive leafletting campaign on Friday, February 4 to call attention to the recent attempts by the Motion Picture Association of America to shut down thousands of websites.
Lawsuits have been filed against hundreds of people, as well as an Internet Service Provider and a magazine, for having information the MPAA wants to keep secret.
The controversy centers around a computer program known as DeCSS, thought to be written by a 16 year old in Norway. The program defeats the encryption scheme used by DVD's which prohibits them from being viewed on non-approved machines or computers. It also enables DVD's from one country to be played in another, contrary to the wishes of the movie industry. It does NOT facilitate DVD piracy - in fact, copying DVD's has been possible since their introduction years ago. In its press releases on the subject, the MPAA has claimed that this is a piracy issue and they have subsequently succeeded in getting injunctions against a number of sites that had posted the program in the interests of free speech.
This is in effect a lawsuit against the entire Internet community by extremely powerful corporate interests. The lawsuit and the various actions being planned promise to be a real showdown between two increasingly disparate sides in the technological age. The consequences of losing this case are so serious that civil libertarians, professors, lawyers, and a wide variety of others have already stepped forward to help out.
Friday's action will be coordinated in 74 cities throughout North America and 26 cities in other parts of the world. Leafletting will take place outside theaters and video stores in these cities - all of which participate in a monthly "2600" gathering. 2600 Magazine has been named in two lawsuits regarding the DeCSS program and has joined with the the growing number of people who will fight these actions by the MPAA until the end.
The lawsuit has been filed by the Motion Picture Association of America, Columbia/Tristar, Universal City Studios, Paramount Pictures, Disney Enterprises, Twentieth Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, and Time Warner Entertainment.
Contact:
Emmanuel Goldstein
(631) 751-2600 ext. 0
See 2600
DVD-DeCSS Report: Fade to Black
Legal Report: DVD Desperadoes
An archive version of the Linus Torvalds keynote webcast is available here (RealVideo 28.8). We'll post 80Kbps and mp3 versions *real soon*.
Why haven't there been any articles about this? I would like to see these stocks succeed as much as anyone but hey, they're failing. All we ever see are articles about the great Linux stocks but their performance frankly sucks.
Something the article cited caught my attention:
He said it will be for the market to decide which journaling system gets chosen. Right now there are two main contenders, ReiserFS and ext3, an improvement to the current Linux file system, ext2. In addition, SGI and IBM have journaling file system work under way.
It struck me that put simply, free software can be nothing other than a free market. The barriers to entry are very low. You have to be competent and credible, or you are ignored, but you don't need a marketing machine and shelf placement at nationwide retail chains. And the only constraints preventing project forking are cultural.
Plus (and I know I keep bring this up), we adhere to publically documented interfaces. If nothing else, the source is the documentation of the interface. Anyone can read it.
Together these factors add up to the opportunity for multiple solutions to arise. In the case of journaling file systems, the demand is clearly there, so the solutions are springing up.
The two sides of the free market equation are both illustrated by this example. Multiple producers competing to be the best solution. And those same projects acting as customers bidding for developers to work on them. In both cases, they are bidding with technical merit and project credibility. On one side, they have to convince users to use them. On the other, they have to get programmers to enhance them.
We are all consumers, and we are all producers. What makes the free software marketplace interesting to watch is that a large portion of the community acts as both in the same space. And the currency with which we buy is the most valuable thing we have, our time.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
After many people complained about the Mindcraft benches thinking it would undermine Linux, something positive happened. Mindcraft pointed out where Linux needed help and the developers worked on it. The fact that Linus doesn't casually ignore problems like M$ does will insure that Linux will be superior (if it isn't all ready) to the other OS's out there. Next time a benchmark comes out with everyone yelling "FUD!! FUD!!" why don't you just take it with a grain of salt and then fix the problem that was exposed. Sometimes getting a good old-fashioned butt kicking is good for the soul.
Note: I am not saying I support biased benchmarks just that we should encourage an honest comparison to other systems whether we like the results or not.
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
In the article, Linus is quoted about DVD:
"This is a perfect case of companies who want to screw their customers over," Torvalds said today, drawing cheers from the crowd of thousands. The DVD industry "wants to control the market not by being a good technical solution, but by just locking customers into a certain solution."
I wonder if Linus would consider testifying in the case. That would legitimze the "interoperability with Linux" arguement in the eyes of the court.
Torvalds said he hopes "the DVD consortium will lose this lawsuit, and we'll just have DVD on Linux," but if that doesn't happen, he hopes commercial companies will license the appropriate software.
Actually, I hope nobody licences the software. If they do we should boycott it. If we can't watch purchased DVD's on our terms, then to hell with them. I bet as Linux grows for home use that the economic blunder the MPAA is engaging in will start to sink in.