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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 more you layer GUI on top of the system, the more you clutter its ability to process efficiently and security is more easily compromised.
The fundamental problem is poor software design. Properly designed software should have a generic interface that provides hooks for both scripting (including command line parameters) and GUIs, with sufficient flexibility to support internationalization. That core should then be easily portable, with mainly the GUI layer needing porting for different systems.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
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.