Slashdot Mirror
Attacking Open Source
Paul Bristow writes: "John Taschek of ZDNET has written a superbly under-informed criticism of the entire open source movement, based on the fact that Mozilla isn't offically released yet. Look at the article here to see him completely ignore apache, the kernel, fetchmail, KDE/Gnome and all the other great open source projects that make the internet possible and livable in. " Remember: If you are going to e-mail them, or respond in here, respond in a calm, intelligent manner, refuting the points they make without flaming - we all represent the Open Source Community.
Hmmmmm, let's see:
- FreeBSD - Hotmail, Yahoo!...
- Linux - 28% of Web servers
- Apache - 60% of Web servers
- Sendmail - no figures, but I'd guesstimate it's above 80% of mail servers
- XFree86 - literally ALL Freenices...
In two years, one of the more high-profile open-source projects - Mozilla.org - has released exactly zero legitimate copies of its browser.Correct me if I'm wrong, but Mozilla had serious problems in the start because nobody in Open Source community considered it "pure" enough. Mozilla is hence anything but "high-profile" Open Source project...
Notes to John Taschek:
- get your head out of your arse
- return that fat cheque back to you-know-who
- research the Open Source movement and its "high-profile"projects
- publish an article on Open Source movement
I can almost smell the Taschek's burning flesh from the flames comingAn article of this sort generally falls into the category of "punditry". The gentleman in question probably had a deadline and was a few hundred words short of a real article.
The solution in these cases is to put on one's pundit hat and literally pull a story out of one's [CENSORED]. Symptoms of such stories include:
What should be your reaction, O Gentle Reader? Ignore it. As others have pointed out, ZDNet will soon learn that anti-OSS/Freedomware stories = /. effect = page impressions = dollars.
People who receive attention tend to repeat the attention-getting action. It's just one of those things :)
be well.
--
"Don't declare a revolution unless you are prepared to be guillotined." - Anon.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
I don't know if i'd call free "earth shattering".. it's only free if you have the time and bandwidth to download it, though it's certainly cheaper in stores than other OSes (usually anyway.. the corel package was in the $90 range last time i was at best buy).. and open source isn't really earth shattering either, since the only difference it makes to Average Joe User is that it's harder to get some programs running since he (Joe) has to figure out how to compile it first.
Now if it were free (and commonly available in a free state), open source, easy to use, and had at least a reasonable chance of being capable of utilizing all the resources of a typical off-the-shelf PC, That would be 'earth shattering'.. but i guess 1.5 out of 4 is better than none.
Dreamweaver
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
I actually removed Linux from my work machine, because the guys kept calling me a "Linux zealot" and an "open source fantic".
And which middle school did you say you worked at? It's a shame peer pressure is so bad there; I hope you manage to stick up for yourself better when they start pushing drugs.
What other things of merit do you avoid because the Roseanne Barr fans of the world don't understand or enjoy them? There's a wonderful world out there which exists outside of the commercial, least common denominator, predigested pap which snags the biggest wedge of the marketing pie charts.
I don't think Linux, for example is for everyone, or even for a large minority everyone, and it will be years before it is. But is that any reason for those of us who are more comfortable with computers and more demanding of our software to avoid using it today? And if among those users are a vocal minority of easily excitable immature zealots, should you hate them so much to avoid using the same software they do? Keep in mind that every operating system (including Windows), political or religious belief system, country, state, race, etc. has a similar gang of loud idiots who can make the whole group look bad if you're foolish enough to pay attention to them.
People can remove Linux for good reason, too. It might be too difficult, it might not run software you need, it might not work with hardware or peripherals you have. "The people at work are picking on me" is not a good reason; it suggests you need to find a new job, not a new OS.
I think ZDNet does this sort of thing intentionally just to get people to their site so they can demonstrate traffic to their advertisers. Journalistic integrity be hanged! If you can't draw people to your site by saying intelligent and knowledgable things, then surely you can get them there by spewing out inflamatory misinformation which is guaranteed to draw flames.
"Everything works if you let it" - The Flying Mouse
Chill out, Wah. Okay, so you were rejected again. This still isn't the place to get your message out.
:)
Well, we all know slashdot sucks, so get it posted on kuro5hin or something. Actually, its a good article, so if you don't, I will. But I'd rather you did, since you have that nifty "Retort".
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
It might be more productive to send John your comments, rather than post them to that useless ZD talkback page.
2 708
Email: John_Taschek@zd.com
Copy to:
pankaj_chowdhry@zd.com
henry_baltazar@zd.com
See the following DejaNews article:
www.deja.com/=dnc/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=48712
I find I can work in Linux all day and get everything I need to done. Generate a report? LaTeX has better output than any WYSWYG word processor I've ever seen. Browse the web? Netscape or Mozilla do a pretty good job. I've even been playing with XML recently with Mozilla. Dynamically generate web pages with headlines from a multitude of sources? That's why God made Perl. Serve those web pages? Apache does a fine job. Route E-Mail? Nearly every E-Mail you get likely went through Sendmail, though with ZDnet obviously being a Microsoft shop most of your internal stuff probably goes through an outlook server with half the capacity at three times the price.
I've got spelling checkers and graphics programs and a GUI environment that Windows users drool over. I've got a system that I can leave on all the time because I never have to worry about it crashing.
And I've got a system that will run amazingly fast on Merced when it comes out. Due to what SGI and IBM are doing to Linux to prepare it for Merced, I had to upgrade my Merced expectations from "underwhelmed" to "You know, this could be big." I'd originally failed to take into account the prospect of Linux on Merced. Where's your 64 bit Windows now, Mr. Taschek? Microsoft did it once and it was a horrible flop. Do you think they'll do better on Merced? I don't. Especially with them bleeding employees whose options are now worthless and who are very concerned about a possible impending breakup of Microsoft.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Most of us know how important some of the Open Source projects are to the health and well being of the internet. But the average user isn't interested.
An real world analogy would be roads (the internet) and vehicles(individul PCs). I have very little real knowledge about what make a good road. I don't have the education to know how to slope the curves or the right combinations of materials to use. All that I know is that some roads are more annoying to drive on than others. Most people don't know how the internet works, they just know that some parts are slower than others.
While I know the basics of how engines work, I wouldn't be able to tell you any details about the one in my car. I know how far I can drive before filling up with gas and how much it would cost me. Similarly, most people don't know the internal working of the computers, but they do know how many and which programs that they can run on it.
To extend this futher. I do know the audio system in my car pretty well and am always willing to upgrade it. This would be analogous to the applications that people use on their computers.
So, to sum up this entire analogy. While advancements in road and auto construction are very important and exciting to the engineers, they don't generate the same excitement in the end users. They are more interested in getting higher quality music out of their stereo system.
To apply this to the computer world. Many of us here get excited when an improvement is made to the items that run the internet and individul computers. But to the average users, they could care less. They are more concerned with the applications.
If the Open Source community wants to win more of the non-Geek type people to their cause, then they are going to have to create more car steroes. Rehashing the same old agruments are just going to fall on deaf ears.
The real truth is that open source just IS.
I mean, we wrap it up, put licenses on it, talk about how it will change the world, and try to push it on people.. but in the end, it's here because it's been here for a long time.. it's here because, to a certain segment of the computing community, it's how things should be done. It's here because of poeple who like to share.
So. Companies can complain, journalists can complain, they can all say how Open-Source is a 'dead end' idea.. but the fact is, it's been here longer than these commercial companies have.
> why would ZD, a free market or for profit company, hire a reporter who is of such obviously low caliber and who writes such poorly researched articles.
Because unemployment is way low, and anyone with the first clue about IT already has a real job.
When the current economic bubble pops, this guy will be back to sacking groceries or pumping gas, which he may actually be qualified for.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
yeah - some here think that a large flaming pile of dung icon would be better ;-)
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
After reading this article, I'd have to come to two conclusions:
1. This article was designed in order to generate traffic and earn revenue.
2. The guy that wrote it has never ventured past the Microsoft environment.
I've been on both sides of the fences- NT administration and *NIX administration, and have seen this opinion expressed a million times by the Microsoft guys. They'll see you working at the command line, somehow associate it with DOS, and then jump to the conclusion that since NT is "better" than DOS, NT is also better than whatever command line you're working at. I couldn't tell you how many time I've heard "No GUI? It must suck then." or "Windows 2000 can do it." When you start thinking from the perspective that most NT guys are _amazed_ that Windows 2000 has an ftp and telnet server, you start to understand how this article was written. Apache doesn't have some huge chunky GUI to configure it (a few good ones though), so a large majority of uninformed people tend to think IIS is superior. This pretty much applies to all open-sourced software that is considered standard by the *NIX people- they don't see any pretty login screens so they assume theirs is better. Note the _only_ software he gave any props to was mozilla- which happens to be a nice, graphical app.
ads3.zdnet.com /etc/hosts
since there is a number in the ads i sugest enter it * for junkbuster or more numbers for
OK, I'm sick of /.ers assuming that everyone who reads /. must be some kind of American, white, male Linux user without a life.
I am a white, male, American, Linux user. And I have a life. I know there are others on /. who have different attributes, either they're not white, or not male, or not American. You aren't a Linux user.
And as the title says, "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters". There's nothing about open source in there at all.
So what matters to you? How come you haven't submitted any stories about it? I occasionally submit a story I think people on here will be interested in. And I maybe read 1/3 or less of the articles that do get posted. Not everything on here is going to appeal to everybody. The idea is you can choose what you're interested in!
I do not represent the open source community. I do not run Linux. In fact, I was curious about it before I came here, but a year's worth of zealotry and bigoted postings have pretty much put me off of ever running Linux at all. Why should I associate myself with such a narrow-minded group of people? Trust me, zealots do nothing but put people off. Linux could do without them, and /. certainly could.
If you were curious about Linux, /. is the wrong place to go. Nobody here knows anything about Linux. :) All joking aside, there are lots of compelling reasons to take a good hard look at Linux besides the zealots, trolls, and OOG THE CAVEMAN.
- It's a rapidly developing yet stable Unix-like platform easily competitive with Windows NT (2000).
- It runs on cheap commodity PC (and Macintosh, and lots of other) hardware like the box that you're probably using right now.
- You don't have to reboot every time you change a setting or install some software.
- The graphic user interfaces are a lot nicer than Windows.
- You can actually get work done with it.
- It pours 48% hotter grits down your pants than Windows.
That said, there are a few reasons you might not want to use it exclusively: for instance, incomplete hardware support for such things a nVIDIA cards, incomplete applications and file format support for such things as MS Office documents. But these things are being worked on with all deliberate speed.So if you want to be ahead of the game when Linux emerges as a REAL market force, and have no doubt that it will (yeah, I'm one of the zealots, I guess), then you'd do well to learn your way around it now.
In fact, I'm sick of every single "open source" project getting a whole story here with every release, even when it's 2.999a 0.6pre3 or some other incomprehensible version number.
I think you're confusing /. with freshmeat.net.
This isn't a hardware site is it?
Yes and no. Sure there's a place for hardware. But there's also a place for: (take your pick) The Almighty Buck, AMD, Amiga, Announcements, America Online, Apache, Apple, Be, Beanies, BSD, Bugs, Caldera, CDA, Censorship, Christmas Cheer, Comdex, Compaq, Corel, Debian, Digital, Department of Justice, Education, Encryption, Enlightenment, ePlus, Games, The Gimp, GNOME, GNU is Not Unix, GNUStep, Graphics, Hardware, It's funny. Laugh., IBM, Internet Explorer, Intel, The Internet, Java, KDE, Links, Linux, Linux Business, Linuxcare, Linux Mandrake, The Media, Microsoft, Movies, Mozilla, Music, Netscape, News, Patents, Perl, PalmPilot, Privacy, Programming, Quake, Quickies, Red Hat Software, Science, Silicon Graphics, Slashdot.org, Space, Spam, Star Wars Prequels, Sun Microsystems, SuSE, Technology, Toys, Transmeta, Television, Unix, Upgrades, United States, VA, Wine, and X. So if you don't like what you see, quit whining and submit a story.
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How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
I think that's exactly what the author had in mind -- the ESR line that opening the source of an already popular proprietary product will increase profitability. If you limit the discussion to that issue, then BIND, Apache, Linux, sendmail and all the other success stories cease to be relevant and you're left with Mozilla, which, as you've noted, is the poster child of "Open Source".
Personally, I think that in five years when the smoke has cleared, it'll turn out that it was Apple that really understood what "Open Source" is and is not good for. (Keep the parts that really matter to you, but allow the hackers to carry your flag into areas you wouldn't have gone on your own.)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Yeah. I definitely have a hard time typing into XEmacs or StarOffice without DirectX. :-P
ITYM "gaming operating system."
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John Taschek's comments are pretty brutal given the wide exposure ZDNet gets, but not unexpected from a journalist whose job forces him to be a generalist. Taschek probably would have little idea of where to go to get open source software to address a given need. Moreover, it would not be his first choice anyway.
What this speaks to is not the availability of "the goods", but how well the average person perceives them to be available (and anyone who writes an article such as Tashek's can be lumped into the average, at least where open source is concerned). This is not to attack Tashek (although personally I wish someone would), but to suggest that if open source wants to attract his kind of casual user, the inherent "promotion" from the community should be different.
How desirable that is I will leave up to this capable community of users, developers, and admins. I just wish that Tashek in his rush to get in a (weak-ass) submission would think about the damage he is doing. If his article was factual, we could take his words as a peer issuing a healthy challenge, but instead they just do damage by distorting facts.
-L
Excuse me, but make that Linux users not zealots. I like to think (hope) that most people here are not zealots. Unfortunately, zealots tend to talk louder than the rest of us, so their numbers seem overrepresented. (Not to mention trolls playing the zealot.)
Personally, I think zealotry in an OS is pretty damn sad. There is a lot more to life than what set of bits you put in your computer.
To the guy who originated this thread, I'd like to say: don't let the idiots put you off. If you are in this industry, you owe it to yourself to try Linux, not because it is "better", or even because it is going to "win", but because stretching yourself technologically is the key to long term success. Using just one system is stagnation. (And that goes for all you guys who've never used anything but Linux as well. Learn windows even if you never intend to do much with it. Seeing another approach, even a poor approach, is a learning experience.)
The cake is a pie
If that's not marketer-speak, I dunno what is.
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Don't blame the author for wanting to uphold the status quo. Open source is a relatively new paradigm in a world full of old, tire, and worn out paradigms. He fears open source, and so does a majority of people that write about or make purchasing decisions in IT. They feel that if they don't pay huge amounts of money for a broken product with pretty packaging in a shrink wrapped box that they are being ripped off, and aren't getting value for their money.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Nothing helps boost a falling Internet stock like being at the receiving end of the /. effect every once in a while.
"Hmmm...the stock price is dropping like a stone. Better write a clueless article to piss off the open source crowd."
A short while later...
"Wow, would you look at all the irate geeks. The stock just recovered another 5 points! Good job John!"
Really, whose cause are we helping by flocking to sites which write such tripe. We should elect one or two individuals to set them straight and not inflate their "eyeball" count, any more than necessary.
The real silver bullet to good programs is caffeine; lots and lots of caffeine! *twitch, twitch*
Hm. dunno about IBM. Seems they are too often overlooked as a source of good open source software. Ever hear of alphaWorks? What a huge cache of high-quality software, much of which is open source. (And as far as OS licenses go, the IBM public license seems to be a very nice and clean one.)
Nope, it's "bad". In fact, it's evil. Why?
Well, for something that's supposed to be so gosh-darned "Intuitive", why wasn't it designed right the first time?
If I close a program, it goes away. Why would it still be there?
If I drag a file to the trash, it's gone, waiting to be deleted perhaps. If I drag a disk to the trash, it isn't deleted at all! In fact, it spits at me!
...and god forbid if you try to eject something and the Mac wants it back later.
(How do you confuse a Mac? Take its CD out and put a different one in... (infinite loop, always asking for the *other* CD...))
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Is it just me, or does that entire article just seem like a taunt? I mean, there's no actual meat to that article. It doesn't have any real point to make. It just comes across as an elaborate way of saying "You suck!", then the author stands back and watches what happens. If 3 people agree with him or thousands get out the flamethrowers, zdnet is raking in the revenue, because its anti-opensource and it appeared on slashdot.
As it has been said before, There are MANY MANY successful open source "products" that are in use today, and have been in use for several years now. Some of which, such as sendmail, predate even the earliest version of windows.
As for the hype factor, the difference between open source and every other dot-com company that hopes to rake in an obscene amount of money in an IPO, is that most of the time, open source projects are not started with such delusions of grandure. Nobody spends $200 million to hype the latest release of the linux kernel. For the most part, open source projects are focused solely for those that might find them useful and if nobody else is interested, the authors probably couldn't care less. Hype isn't even a factor.
Face it.. Its just a taunt. Please react appropriately.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
This guy Taschen asserts that "AOL tapped an abundance of good programmers who did all the work for free." However, the majority of the progarammers were Netscape employees, being payed explicitly for working on Mozilla. Of course, AOL owns Netscape, and has for a substantial part of the time that Mozilla has been in development. So AOL in fact paid employees to develop Mozilla, and kept the project open-source at the same time.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
The article is clearly written with one purpose only: to troll as much of hits and replies as possible.
Do not give it those, it should not be awarded - it's that much purposely lacking in insight.
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
I am in the process of writing an official response to one of ZDNet's "Leave Microsoft alone" articles. As I believe that ZDNet is doing this to gather eyeballs, I would like to propose that slashdotters stay away from ZDNet for a period of 2 weeks.
There are 2 possible outcomes. Slashdotters don't add up to a significant number of hits on ZDNet, and the boycott is ignored, or ZDNet takes some minor damage because we don't visit.
HOpefully, either way we get what I would refer to as "responsible journalism, and not the amateurish dribble that I constantly find when referred to ZDNet articles.
Well, lizards can be mean...
There is a wierd tone in this article; the author confuses the development/maturation of the open source movement , (which is a myriad of software licenses centered around distribution arrangments, and modification of the original software), with the development of a single open sourced project, Mozilla.
.*BSD
There are several large scale open sourced projects which are/have been key to the internets growth and development.
Just to back up my projects statment from above...
Apache
Linux
Sendmail
There are THOUSANDS of other projects (gnome, php, mysql) which are all variants of open source which have PUT up.
The article may not be worth your time.
When I first read this article, I thought, "this guy is just trying to create a little steam.." and it made me angry. Open source has been one the most revolutionary and liberal computer policies of all time. I never post, but I feel strongly about this one.. I am a journalist, and this article seemed like poor journalism to me. I respect the opinions of everybody, but he uses references that make no sense.. such as open source being "all hype and speculation and no fundamentals" What sort of fundamentals is he referring to? He is trash talking the movement yet he has no physical evidence of any harm that open-source has caused. (Not to mention the fact that he avoids sobjects such as the beauty of Apache and how crappy the internet would be without it) And what sort of goods is he looking for? He never actually states... I think he is referring to profit.. sure open-source software isn't the best when it comes to economics, but it is a very forward way of thinking.
Viva la GNU!
~ The Irony is, The only reason I'm not at Berkeley right now is because I was on acid during my SAT's..
Sourceforge: 4081 Projects and 25264 reg users
FreshMeat: ~10'000 entries (ok, not all open source)
google search on "open source": ~100'000 hits (linux ~800'000, windows 95/98/2000/NT ~800'000)
definitively insignificant!!
Obviousman is obviously not obvious enough
yea, sorry. numb (a.k.a G27) already slapped me down. Just got a bit excited. I'll be patient now....it's over here too...
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+&x
Nah, he'll read the emails. Expect an article in a week or so about all the rabid Linux people with emails saying, "Hey you stinking pile of shit. You better take it back or I'll beat your fucking ass." ZD does this a couple times a year, and without fail, it works.
Not if you're using a nice ad remover within squid. Wroks perfectly :) ;)
But remember to turn it off for Slashdot
Are you sure your not a big fat transvestite that can't get laid either ?
This is what happens when you start giving people iMacs. I'm guessing tangerine.
Its even worse when someone who should know what their talking about starts knocking open source:
Gorden Bell, President of QNX had this to say when quizzed about open-sorce kernel code:
"Open-source kernel code may have its advantages, but, for the majority of e-devices, it's the wrong model," said Bell.
"Rather than burden embedded teams with the time-consuming - and expensive - task of modifying and maintaining kernel code, we offer a more productive approach: an OS architecture that can be extended using application-level tools and developers. It's friendlier, faster, more cost-effective - and much more reliable."
Hmm, bad move lets assume ALL developers haven't the skills to hack the kernel and produce something productive...way to go QNX!
The article is about "open source." RMS and GNU are about free software.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I just submitted it there. I think I messed it up though, vote for the second one. Thanks.
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+&x
Step 1. You must realize that your jaws need to be warmed up; if you start talking without warming up you will hurt your jaws. So, whenever you open your mouth to say something, use you brain for a moment, and then close your mouth. Repeat this for a few times. After this your jaws are flexible enough and, contrary to your normal procedure, you have also been thinking. You may now proceed to the next step.
Step 2. Whenever you think of applying your keyboard with your fingers, stop. Your fingers need stretching. Close your hand into a fist and open it again - and while doing this, engage your brain. After having done this for a few times, you may resume writing.
Step 3. You have now written your article. Because of the unprecedented amount of activity you have imposed on your brain, you will realize - after having read the article - that you have no talent at all. You decide to get a job at a local circus because of your amazing jaw-flexing and finger-stretching abilities.
I say, let them write whatever they want to; yes, they are doing this just to provoke feedback/hits.
...
Don't feed them!
The time is really over to defend the principles of Open Source; the advantages are obvious, the support from many major players is serious, the opponents lose attraction (-> Win2000 etc.).
So why should one negative and obviously wrong comment (on a page meant to be read by interested and usually well informed visitors) be able to harm that movement?
The adequate response: IGNORE IT and do something useful
====================================== No sig, no ideas, no money
nuff said. - overflow
The author of this article has relied on a single logical premise. There is an open source projectd which seems to be having development troubles.
To logically refute this argument it is suffcient to cite only *one* propriatary project which has suffered similar problems. This would *prove* that the argument is not related to the open source nature of the project. It would also serve as a neccessary argument, although not sufficient, to show that software development *in general* shares this problem.
The evidence:
Every Microsoft OS ever realeased.
The many Microsoft products actually released but that proved to be so poor that they failed in the market. Some of these are SO poor that Microsoft officially denies they ever existed, despite users actually having copies of them.
The dumpster full of Microsoft products that went into development but that had so many problems they were canned before ever being released.
Diablo II.
I could, of course, list hundreds, if not thousands, of other examples.
But anyway, we all know the real issue here. The author, with *hindsight* picked a single data point to support his argument while ignoring all other data points, like Linux itself, Apache, etc. and chose to ignore all nonsupporting data points such as those listed above. In other words, the game was willfully rigged, and the author knows it.
Even so, he did a remarkablely crude job of it, one that the average 12 year old could look at and comment...."Huh?"
I'm curious: why doesn't anyone mention TeX and LaTeX when discussing open source? Am I missing some distinction? The code is out there, it's free (though commercial versions are available), and it's well-documented. It is also software that has made a real difference. A very large percentage of mathematical manuscripts are produced using LaTeX. I am writing a book and currently talking to commercial publishers. Their production people are thrilled that I'm using LaTeX.
Could it be because a certain ESR wrote parts of it?
Tommy Hallgren
The same comments could have been said about PC software in the early 80s. There wasn't really any good PC software then. It was useful. But there simply wasn't much that was produced. Now there are a lot of good, useful, free software apps. Unfortunately, free software--although it has existed in some form for some time--is just now getting the popularity it needs and deserves. It could be said that it is a *new* thing. Just like PC software in the 80s. I am sure that in ten to twenty years you will see more completed, good, useful free software. Why? Because it takes time to develop any software. Free or restricted.
ZDnet has a long history of clueless reporting, why should this be news to us. Sad that media with such a wide coverage to the general public has no competent, informed reporters.
What advertisements, i don't see any :)
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 16:24:03 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.12 (Unix)
Location: http://www.zdnet.com/
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Connection: close
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
> since there is a number in the ads i sugest enter it * for junkbuster or more numbers for /etc/hosts
Kind of like Usenet trolls and spammers, who keep adding different numbers to their name in hopes of avoiding the killfiles, eh?
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Since when is 'fetchmail' on the same level as the kernel, KDE, Apache, or Gnome??? Get real. What do people even use fetchmail for anyway? All email clients have pop3 retrieval built into them.
ZDNet runs Netscape on Solaris while PCWeek runs Apache on Solaris. The article was originally posted on PCWeek.
Its like this guys intention was to be misinformed. Thats a strange goal for any kind of "journalist"!
I think this is just another example of ZDNet completely being bought and sold by IBM, MS, Intel, etc.. This story is obviously propaganda.
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www.chowda.net
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YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
I am an open source developer and I realize that it does not always work, on some projects, but the important ones do work. Having used Linux for several years now, I have noticed that it has only gotten better and easier to do things with.
send flames > /dev/null
Only 'flamers' flame!
In the Slashdot parody, Suckdot, the leading headline was "Linux possibly defamed somewhere." More and more I'm realizing how dead on that parody was. Somebody says something misinformed or critical of Open Source or Linux (or more and more, the Athlon or GeForce), and raving lunatics get all bent out of shape. Yikes. I've been through two bad computer scenes--the Amiga and the Mac--and this is just as idiotic.
Gee, so I guess that Windows never was a threat to Apple or Sun?
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
But that poses the question... Have I been trolled by CNN? Don't answer that. I'd like to keep my pride semi-intact... :)
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
This is an obvious attempt to make us view the ads on the site. Don't just point out the inacuracies, block zdnet ads, and tell them untill they stop trolling, they will remain as /etc/hosts or c:\windows\hosts that's what i did, anyway.
127.0.0.1 addserver.of.zdnet
in the
SUN-OS came from BSD, which was an effective open-source movement (as opposed to a free-software movement). Back then, just about everybody who used unix had source. I remember seeing patches for everything from Filesystem bugs to chsh.
The reason why UNIX got so good was that the USERS were able to fix bugs without having to wait for AT&T to get around to it with their handfull of programmers. Then AT&T folded it into systems III and V. Once AT&T broke (up) out of it's monopoly straight-jacket, they moved UNIX into a more and more closed-source space and the UNIX universe kinda stagnated until GNU created the space for LINUX to step in and re-ignit the open source base of UNIX.
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Actually, I wonder what you read Slashdot for, given that you are unLinuxed. Just curious...
-- Diana Hsieh
-- Diana Hsieh
GeekPress: The Weirder Side of Tech News
It was kind of like the interview with Jon Benet Ramsey's mother on TV a few weeks ago. All of the ads show the reporter asking if she killed her daughter. Right, like she's been denying it to the police for the last 2 years but she's going to break down and admit it in front of 12 million people on international TV. So why did they play it? Because people want it.
The only thing I can say is, I hope that most people that are interested in Open Source would be a little bit more intelligent than to trust a ZDNET article. But then again, maybe people are more gullible than I thought.
Anyone that believes that ZDNET article, I have a nice list of e-mail addresses to sell you ;)
kwsNI
OK, so make it "free, open source and popular"...
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Thanks for reacting first. After finishing the great waste of time article - I was itchy enough to want to flame /. for putting the GNU icon on this with an Open Source headline. I mean, come on, it was a great interview - how does it get forgotten so fast? If Free Software can't hold it's ideological ground on /. then OSS has succeeded in watering the Free down to Open.
OK - coffee - no more ranting.
Ok, so maybe ZDnet never had it.
I find it very sad that ZDnet would allow such a story (even if it is an editorial) as misleading as this to be published. I know a number of people who read Ziff Davis publications and many of them are casual computer users, and worse still investors. There are a great many people that depend on ZD for "news" not "flamebait"!
The sad fact is, article's like this are a diservice to the IT industry. When someone goes to their IT manager with a strong case for open source software, the clueless manager will remember the "words" of this so called "expert". And another company will shell out big bucks to Redmond for something they don't really need.
It's too bad, that ZD would allow themselves to become the "Enquirer" of the computing news.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Didn't everyone read the section headline? Rumors and Comment. Obviously this is uninformed drivel, but that's OK -- it's just ZDNet giving the uninformed their say.
He works for PC Week -- of course he's going to be afraid of the Free Software movement, because it promises to set PC's free. PC Week's bread and butter is M$ crap -- they need Microsoft so they can continue to publish their "1001 Ways To Reboot Your Computer" articles.
darren
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
ZDNet publishing a clueless article... no news here. Now if they were to publish something both accurate and insightful, that might be news.
--
not plane, nor bird, nor even frog...
Obviously the guys over at ZDNet were perusing their hit statistics and noticed they were waning (we haven't seen such a crappo article from them in quite a while.)
Simple solution: post deliberate flamebait, aim for the slashdot effect, your hit statistics go through the roof, advertising revenues rise.
Ignore it!
Most of these effects are because of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, not fungi. Fungi may serve to nourish plants in some cases, but not necessarily by providing nitrogenous compounds.
OK, we're veering a little OT here. Yes, it is bacteria that fix nitrogen. I got this little tidbit from a lecture by a fungus expert some years ago, though: fungi play an important role in transporting nitrogen through the soil in temperate forests.
Projects like sendmail, apache, bind, et al, are beneficial in certain applications, but are not indespensible, like the fungi. The Internet was functional long before opensource, linux, or other ABM-wank-of-the-week and will have descendents which will survive long after their demise.
Of course the Internet existed before bind and sendmail, but I'd argue that without them today, it'd be more of a curiosity.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I recieved the e-mail below after writing a 2-page e-mail to John Taschek (yesterday, Monday), and referring him to the letter that Keven reichard wrote (http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/1 783/1/). Return-Path:
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Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 14:09:37 -0700
From: john_taschek@ziffdavis.com (ATTN! John's new address is john_taschek@ziffdavis.com)
Subject: Re: Recommended reading...
To: Dan Browning
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Dan -
Thanks--he sent his message directly to me. I think he is confused about the column though. The column's intent is to prevent open source software from becoming commercialized. It seems that the best of open source, especially the newest products, have been taken over. I see this as a threat to the movement. I also see all those sendmail, bind, etc. references as rather old. The question is what has open source been doing lately. Perhaps PHP is the best example, but I still see that most businesses would rather run Oracle, Microsoft, etc. as the app tier.
jt
Daniel
One of the talkbacks suggested a retraction due to cluelessness on the author's part. An editor appended a note to the talkback saying that it was just a commentary, not an article, so it was OK if the author hadn't done his research.
I found that lame excuse more offensive than the original article it was trying to cover for.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The Slime Mold hits! You die!
> All of which Slashdot has used before in their stories.
/. readers realize that.
/. brings up topics long before I would have heard of them otherwise (e.g., I knew about the MP3 revolution well before my friends who follow the music industry did).
/., contrary to the whingers' claims, you get a lot of diverse opinions on almost every story you read. And a lot of inside info, too (e.g., physicists replying to the cosmology stories, Jeremy replying to the Samba topics, etc.).
/. is a key information source for what's going on in the IT world.
I suspect that most
Still,
Also, the discussions can be very educational by bringing up facts and pointing out spin that I might not be aware of otherwise.
I find it very annoying to go to a mainstream news site such as abcnews.go.com, seeing a story that is obviously bullshit, and not being able to post a reply pointing that fact out to anyone who might not already know it. Similarly, I always wonder as I read the stories there, "What bullshit or misrepresentation of the facts is here that I am not aware of?"
On
So no, I don't get all of my news here, but I do feel like
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
He just doesn't know it. He probably thinks he's written a provocative article to generate flame and hits, but (without reading the article intensely) I think he's right.
Open Source has created good products, but it has yet to complete "The Project." And "The Project" is not necessarily a single product.
Linux (feel free to substitute *BSD in this argument, or any other OS) has been in development for 10+ years. It gained fringe popularity 5+ years ago, and has achieved cult popularity in the last 2 years. There are thousands of developers working on Open Source projects for Linux in addition to Linux itself. However Linux still hasn't released a product capable of competing with Microsoft Windows on all levels. And I'm not talking about Windoes interoperability. I'm talking about ease of use, features for dummies, consistency among apps, and interoperability among other Linux systems. Linux is an incomplete piece of software. It's functional beta (very functional).
Sure, linux competes quite well on the server side as far as pure performance, but all over Linux is lacking. Linux is still a long way from competing in the desktop world.
Livable, yes..but comfortable? For all?
This might be the most insightful (+1) paragraph in the whole article. "Open source is not geared to create but critique" I think that phrase is half right. Open source is geared to create...but the people in Open Source are geared to critique. The fragmentation in Linux is amazing, instead of helping to improve an existing WM people would rather write their own. I'm surprised everyone has settled on one Web Server. "It's best at tearing apart the establishment..." The establishment, I believe, is more than just Wintel or Proprietary software. The establishment is anything that's "established." The problem with having a bunch of hacker type people working on Open Source is that you get the individuality and righteous indignation of hackers. "I can do it better" or "my way is better."
Now, granted, not all projects suffer this problem. Gimp, from what I've seen, appears to a very nice image manipulation program. Well done. But come on, BeOS managed to eclipse you all with a well-polished desktop OS in only a handful of years.
Can Open Source beat Microsoft? I think so. Will it do it anytime soon? Probably not. But it's definately not going to do it with the current Open Source mindset.
And you should all fear the capitalistic involvement with Open Source. Because if you think the lone wolf, righteous indignation of hackers is bad, then you haven't seen just what capitalism can do. All your precious Linux companies will be releasing competing apps, all vying for the title of best Linux company. APT, PKG, etc.. Want to see what I'm talking about? Just imagine what would happen if Microsoft decided to Embrace and Extend Linux. Released their own distribution then started slowly moving everyone to their apps, then slowly changing the playing field. Like the frog in a pot that doesn't realize the water is getting hot until he's cooked. Now once you've got that image in your head then realize that your Linux comapnie are already doing that.
In closing I would like to say that I do not "represent the Open Source Community" (Hemos). In fact I'm a former Microsoft employee. I left my job 2 months ago, because I wanted to do something different, and for no other reason. I've watched the Open Source Community, and have even participated in select OSS projects. What I have written does not apply to all OSS projects, by far, there are some that are very effective and are not plagued by such problems, but I see a trend, and it's based int he same religious OS war that makes you hate Microsoft with a passion.
Collaborate, cooperate, and create.
-Joe
Check out his link. This is funny, cute, useful, and innovative, all at the same time.
I'm downloading it the minute I get home.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
To me the earth-shattering part of linux is its stability, and the freedom it gives me over MY computer. If i don't like something, i can just take it out. I have emense power with open source. Even if joe blow can't do that, there is always a few neighborhood kids that could do it. Just like not everyone is a mechanic, but there always seems to be someone around that is, and would like to lend you a hand. Even the car enthusist next door would be able to help you out. Finally, i'd like to point out that i work for a company that by its very nature must be open source. We develop web applications, and in the end, the clients get the source code to the pages (including the scripts run server side), and we still make a nice chunk of change :)
While Mr Taschek may be somewhat ignorant about the nuances of the Community's terminology, I don't think this was as horrible as it sounds. His distinction between Linux (with its bright future) and Open Source (which is doomed) seemed strange, until it became clear that he thought Open Source meant "release source code to get a bunch of free labor", which is, for the most part, what happened with Mozilla.
Linux, Apache, XFree86, FreeBSD, Gnome, KDE and the long list of excellent projects posters have enumerated in this forum all have one thing in common: their roots are entirely free. They may have commercial ventures associated with them now, but they came FROM the Community, while Mozilla was handed TO the Community. How many major Open Source packages can you think of that started life as proprietary software and then "converted" successfully?
I've always thought RMS's zealotry with respect to the open source movement was a little loony. I still think he's a loony for other reasons, but on this one, I think I understand where he's coming from. The idea that corporations can sprinkle Magic Open Source Dust on their projects and get a swarm of crack programmers distracts attention from what -really- drives free software: sense of ownership by the community that creates it.
This is not the same thing. They are using the GNU icon in association with the Open Source term. You want to distinguis two things, use two different words... or Slashdot icons.
2? make that 3!!
...of ZDNet giggling as they watch ad revenue spike. ...of Taschek chortling as the talkback articles flood in, proving that somebody actually reads his columns.
"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped." --Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)
Agreed on the troll. But I almost always surf with images off. Not that they can be turned on in lynx!
I wonder how many others routinely surf images OFF?
My, that was a yummy slime mold!
This is the kind of irrensponsible journalism that has led to the mantra "We're just giving the public what they want" in traditional media. The argument being that people WANT to see crime and death and human misery, since that's what they seem to be watching. The truth is, people watch it because a) they're not given any choice, and b) they feel socially and morally obligated to watch it. We live in a society where it can be embarrassing to not know what's going on in the news, while everyone else is talking about it. We also feel the need to know what the "dangers" of the real world are so we can protect our loved ones from them - the dangers having been generated and hyped by the media.
My point is, this is the same kind of thing. /.ers feel socially and morally obligated to read this troll article so they can intelligently and accurately flame them for being such asses. They know it, so they're capitalizing on it. We feel a need to protect our "community" so we read about the "danger" facing it--namely Irresponsible Journalism.
If I didn't believe that people (like Carnage4Life) were intelligent enough to see through most of this BS, this might be enough to make me reconsider my position on the 1st Amendment. Fortunately, I think we're all smart enough that the ass who wrote the original piece isn't demagogue enough to actually sway anyone's opinions.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
"Open Source" is a business movement started by a corporate whore. It has not produced anything which anyone could really call "successful" in the capitalist sense since the profits these projects generate is pitiful compared to closed-source undertakings.
Free Software has always, and always will be, a success. The question as to whether capitalist can be their usual parasitic selves and rip off the movement is yet to be seen.
support gun control: take guns from cops
The beauty is: you buy it once and can legally make copies and install it on hundred of computers without having to pay multiple license fees.
and open source isn't really earth shattering either, since the only difference it makes to Average Joe User is that it's harder to get some programs running since he (Joe) has to figure out how to compile it first.
He doesn't have to compile, that's what binary RPM and DEB packages are for. And while the open source may not be directly beneficial to the average user, it is important for companies or government agencies who want real security, and for anyone developing software: if a system call behaves differently than you thought it would, you can always look at the source.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Fromto
NEWS: IGNORANCE ONLY BLISSFUL FOR THE IGNORANT.
Before you totally trash a movement/culture you should open your eyes and look at it.
If you want to see examples of great open source projects, look at www.freshmeat.net! They have nearly 100 postings a week of new software and updates to old software. There are 1000's of beautiful pieces of software out there that have 100% open source. GNOME/KDE, Linux, GIMP, Gnumeric (and friends), Licq, and the list goes on and on (those are just a few of the ones I use EVERYDAY).
I use Linux as my ONLY desktop environment. One day about 3 months ago I installed linux andput all my MS stuff in a box in the closet. Ever since I have been even more productive and learned than I ever was using window$. Just because mozilla is based on crappy corporate technology and its taking them a while to get the junk out, you feel the need to trash all of us. Open source isn't some fad or pipe dream! Its here and its now and its millions of users and developers coming to stomp corporate cultures long held beliefs that everything good is closed and information is property.
It would be nice of you to release a more informed article someday.
------
www.chowda.net
------
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
Computer programs started out open sourced. but now there is a closed source program too: windows, which shows that all closed source programs are instable, and are written by corporations lacking even the will to follow laws.
Bah.. I'm no good writing Taschek style, I can't make the statements above last more than 3 pages..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
As cynical as this sounds, this article was probably written specifically to get our (collective) goat. Pretty soon the site is going to be slashdotted, and most of you are going to read the Talk Backs and probably enter some of your own. Every single one of these page views is 2 banner ads they push out there! This is all about ad revenue, folks! They have to know that this article is flamebait -- the author may work for PC Week, but ZDNet is not stupid -- but flamebait draws flames, and each flame is half a dozen banner ads.
Whatever you do, view these pages with images off. Don't give them the satisfaction of the ad revenue.
darren
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
Well, running XEmacs and StarOffice doesn't really require the equivalent of DirectX in Linux. (smile)
However, if you're talking games with full 3-D graphics and EAX or Aureal 2.0/3.0 surround support, well, we're not quite there yet. The Linux programmers are aware of this and in fact I believe a project to develop the Linux equivalent of DirectX is well underway.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
zdnet's article was a blatant attempt to get people to register on zdnet. The only way you can talkback to the author is to register, and of course, your responses are subject to censorship by one of their jackbooted editors.
What a bunch of morons.
Isn't The GIMP GPLed? But its success never got mentioned. I personally find the GIMP to be 100% better and easier than any PhotoShop.
Many former photoshop advocats agreed that The GIMP is better after I showed it to them.
Isn't this a perfect example of the pluses of GPL Software?
> SELECT * FROM brain_cells WHERE synaptic_rate > 0
0 row returned
This is article is obviously troll material. It design to generate heat (and clicks). There is no substance.
Its starting to become almost a cliche' for struggling tech authors to generate interest by attacking Open Source (Mr. Metcalf comes to mind). Ignore them and get back to work on something usefull.
someone has to do the research for Jesse "my pic hasn't changed in years" Berst. How else is he going to find out about Open Source if we don't tell him?
The way ZDNet did it was to say Open Source is a failure, so we all chime in with "It's not because of "Apache, Perl...", and BAM, instant research for Jesse.
Ugh, let it go.
Since when is KDE not opensource? Hell KDE is even GPL.
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
>It's like an onion in a bushel of apples.
>Someone might notice that it looks and tastes
>different, but peel away its layers, and there's
>nothing there.
YOU have a tin ear for metaphors? Cluelessness aside, where did this 'journalist' learn to write? Were the editors asleep? Furrfu.
ZDnet is a business publication with a focus on computers, not a technical publication. If something isn't already making a ton of money and doesn't look like it's about to soon, they consider it useless.
If a few idiots can turn you off from using a new product that may or may not be great when then does that say of you?
/. dumbed down just to expand the user base? Just to get more eyes on the ads? Well I'm sure that if Rob and Hemos did that, sure Andover could make more money, at least for a short while. It would kill /. however, it would no longer be the /. that we know and love.
/. if you had you way.
I've been a slashdotter for over a year and a half. I suppose that I'm not nearly as Old Skool as some of the rest here but with the exception of the Katz Articles, I think that Rob and Hemos are doing a great job. They provide a place where people from our community can come together and share our thoughts.
If you don't like news about open source projects, if you don't like news about new hardware, I think that I can recommend a few news pages for you. zdnet.com or cnn.com should be more like what you're looking for.
I (and many more like me) come to slashdot because we can have some great debates. Even though I may disagree with the other parties, I can at least have a discussion that is more profound than "Do you think that Callista Flockheart is too skinny?"
It is your desire to see
Let me tell you the story of two musicians. Mc. Hammer and Vanilla Ice, both were hugely popular. Both made fantastic sums of money. Now neither of them could sell out a public bathroom for a concert. Why? Because they lost the respect of the people who put them on top.
That's exactly what would happen to
If you don't want to try linux because you're afraid. Fine. If you don't want to try linux because your current OS serves all of your needs. Fine. Don't blame anyone else for your decision not to try something new.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
As long as their server only counts ad impressions or ad click-throughs for billing purposes, I'm not adding to their advertisement bottom line.
Yes, IJB works great. I use Stefan Waldherr's slightly hacked version from http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/. (It displays a "Junkbuster" image as well as the empty image or a broken link.) Also check out his filter files on the update page.
--
"You've crossed my Line of Death!" "What? No! Where is it?" "Here in the fine print...."
ZDNet writes articles like this every once in a while that are blatantly false simply to generate traffic and comments
Sounds like Jon Katz's reason for being to me.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
yeah. you could be right.
i'd probably be poor interested if i had a lot of (especially financial) interest in linux's wide spread adoption by the masses.
(believe me it is linux he is bashing. he uses the word open source because he is ignorant but he meant to bash linux not pearl, apache, sendmail, or BSD)
the thing that i was talking about is that slashdot normally prints only good/thought provoking articles about open source. like the "mindcraft" thing and the "linux myths" page. this guy on the other hand is really ignorant.
the slashdot article is no doubt going to cause several hundred flames in this fellows mail box. probably he deserves it. i don't know. the whole jihad thing scares me.
in a business i'd imagine that a totally incorect bashing of a company would result in that company sending a polite well considerred letter to the editor. with linux it's a little different.
i kind of like the idea of just pitying or laughing at his poor misguided soul. but once you start adding money to the equation it's good to write letters to the editor too.
it's not that /. lacks spin, it's that it has so much spin you have to form your own opinion. The blurbs are just one person's opinion, and so is each comment. That article was still pathetic though.
--
+&x
Sounds a lot like what Linux/FreeBSD/whatever users say about Windows. :-)
Seriously, that seems to happen a lot around here. It's just the norm to bash MS and praise Linux (or whatever, I'm speaking in the general sense) without really saying what you're talking about. Sure, Linux is more stable, but that's not the only thing I want in an operating system. Windows, for example, beats the snot out of Linux when it comes to application support. It's got Internet Explorer, which despite the shrieks of horror that I hear whenever the name comes up, is easily the best all around browser in existence right now. (No, Mozilla doesn't count yet.) And it's got Photoshop. 'nuff said.
Hi... I'm Larry... the shivering chipmunk... brrrrr!... I'm cold... I need a sweater...
What do you to increase readership when you are a clueless reporter? Flamebait. I always wondered what happened to jeuvenile flamers when they grow up. They become hack reporters. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against honest mistakes. Maybe even confusing Gimp and Gnome, but this guy has made a profession of flamebaiting readers. If you realy needed a job bad after getting that philosophy degree then it's probably a good strategy to get your readership up by baiting or spouting extremist mumbojumbo. Then you can point to the page hits on your column and say to your boss, "its time for a raise". Beyond clueless.
Now that Mozilla has a 'only accept images from originating server' option you can easily browse without ads.
Ho, ho, how ironic.
Invoking Godwin's Law here....
Whether the many builds of mozilla are "legitimate" or not depends on what you were expecting. Mozilla.org really makes no promises. Mozilla seems legitimate to me.. I think the fact that most of the code is external XML says something..
In fact, the best parts of Netscape 6 have nothing to do with openness. The most important part of the browser
I would like to know what Mr. Taschek is basing this on. The fact that Net2Phone and some other junk was included with the first, and so far, *only* preview release of Netscape 6? If the stuff that NS6 is based on is not yet 'legitimate', how can he expect the final release to look like the preview? Netscape will without a doubt, offer a choice of components to d/l or install in the final version. And if NS6 rubs you the wrong way, stick with Mozilla.
Taschek's article is interesting, but his criticism of Mozilla (and OS in general) appears a bit unfounded.
free speach
Did you mean: free speech
Stories like these are a big reason I didn't have a great deal of sympathy for complaints about Leonardo Di Caprio interviewing Clinton about global warming and not being a Journalist.
Speaking of April Fools....Did anyone see this? Here's my retort
.5b
...
/.
--
To Hilary Rosen. A Retort.
This is a quick dissection of your recent interview with Salon.com. Please respond if you have a moment.
Your quotes are in italics, questions are in bold, my comments are in plain text.
While ultimately I don't think litigation is the right business strategy over the long term,
Would that be 20 years long term? It will take at least that long for a generation to forget.
I do think that Napster is guilty of copyright infringement, and we will have both a favorable court decision and some precedents set for companies that try and commercialize file sharing.
Why is sharing so bad? And I am shocked that you didn't say "commercialize file pirating." Some would call that a Fruedian slip.
There is certainly a lot of intrigue in the notion of file sharing -- for community reasons and for marketing reasons and for putting like people with like-minded interests together.
Nice, it even sounds good coming from you.
Clearly I understand all that.
For some reason I don't believe you.
But those issues really should be divorced from the very unique and specific issue, Does a company have a right to create a system that is so deliberately designed to take other people's work?
Why do we need another divorce? This country needs healing. It needs the power of community. I lost you after "does a company have a right..."
It's interesting in court -- the Napster lawyer tried to make the argument that file-sharing services like Napster actually bring the Internet back to its original purpose and history, which was when university researchers would share their research with their colleagues around the world.
Perish the thought. Please tell me, again, why this is a bad thing for anyone?
That was a very valuable and exciting thing that happened, but there's a principal difference between that activity and what businesses like Napster are engaged in -- it was those professors' works that they themselves were sharing!
Again with the sharing? This is the word we're talking about right? "a : to partake of, use, experience, occupy, or enjoy with others b : to have in common" That's the bad word?
As a practical matter going forward, lawsuits get a lot of headlines and they raise a lot of passion -- I understand that.
Not yet you don't. I still have three friends that haven't heard about you yet.
But ultimately the future of music on the Internet is not going to be about legalities and litigation, it's going to be about how are we bringing music to fans -- new music,
Yes, it is. But I don't think you know what "we" means yet.
established artists -- what are the new business models that people are adopting and how do you make all the new opportunities win-win.
BY SHARING THE MUSIC. YOU HAVE A FREE RESOURCE. USE IT! I can explain this philosophy in great detail if you like. Click that "user info" button and look for a conversation (still ongoing) with Eric the
I don't think anybody has illusions about controlling all transmissions online.
I do (think some have illusions, not have them myself).
The question is, How do you compete if services available to give it away without regard to the creators are allowed to flourish with such customer-service-friendly tools?
If you ask the wrong question, the answer doesn't matter. Remove the words "without regard to the creators" and you are on the right track. The Net is like that, it doesn't really make sense in most traditional terms.
Gnutella is a little harder to use than Napster, but there also ways to enforce against Gnutella users that you don't have with Napster.
Hehe, that would be funny to watch. I don't think you want to try and fight that battle.
Are Napster and online distribution of music causing the record industry to rethink or change its business models?
It doesn't necessarily change -- it expands. I personally believe people will want to buy CDs for a long time to come, [agreed] but I also believe they want to have subscriptions, kiosks in stores and airports, digital downloads
I don't, but then again I'm one of your core customers. At least I used to be.
I believe the expansion is where the conflict and the opportunity arrives. It behooves technology innovators to help develop those concepts in partnership with the music community. It's not accurate to say that the record industry says no.
What is it accurate to say? The record industry says "go for it, we have good lawyers and lots of money?"
There's no question that the industry has been slow to the marketplace, but it's too simplistic to say that the slowness or speed is out of some fear.
Simplicity sells technology. Just something I've noticed. I see fear in all your actions. Most creatures that are panicing don't notice it themselves, but again, those are just my observations.
It's more accurate to say that these are very complex transitions with a lot of interests and players involved -- artists and publishers and distributors and retailers and technology partners. There are a whole host of changes, and new structures that have to be created to move into these worlds.
That's the big problems. There are so many players involved. We need two players. Artists and Fans. Which one are you? We don't need new structures either. We have the Net. It's a new structure, how much of it have you guys built? How much have you tried to destroy? Can you see why we (I) don't like you (plural)?
It's not necessarily what people always want to hear, but I do believe that it is complex.
You just keep on digging into the unnecessy complexities of the business models you have created. I'll be listening to some music.
It's not whether or not somebody is killing CD sales this week -- it's whether music has value, and is perceived to have value in and of itself by fans, and by technology companies and venture capitalists who are investing in new businesses and have to pay for everything from their server space to their telephone lines to their lunchboxes.
Simplify, simplify. How many venture capitalists do you know that would give money to a company that starts out with the idea "First, we sue everyone with a different business model..." (step three: Profit!)
Paying for the content they are using is not an unreasonable request. I think it's a value quotient, not necessarily a piracy fear, that is also important to consider.
You should search this site. I'm sure somebody will give you a clue as to the nature of supply, demand, and value quotients on the Internet. "Not necessarily a piracy fear", I thought you guys weren't scared?
It goes back to the earlier issue that whether or not the record companies and artists are making money selling CDs is irrelevant to Napster; they are building a business on the backs of artists.
And your business would be built where?
Just because [artists] are making money elsewhere doesn't mean Napster has the right to do this. It's a self-serving argument for Napster.
*COUGH*
No one is arguing Chicken Little here;
Sometimes you should listen to a little pen^H^H^Hchicken. The sky has indeed fallen.
what we are saying is that if that geometric [try exponential] progression is such that music has less and less value, ultimately you do get to a scenario where it's hard for the legitimate businesses to compete. No one says we're there, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see where we're going.
No it doesn't. Have you ever seen a fifty-year-old rocket crash into the ground? Be patient. Shouldn't be too long now.
It's an artists issue. Cynics say the record industry doesn't like that model because it takes them out of the equation. But it's not true -- artists like it when they have a record that's so successful that they get to stay home for a few months rather than go on tour.
Do artists also like works for hire? Here's a link from your page. And here's a link about where you paid to get the law changed. And here's one to a quick rundown on how artists fare with your current business model.
You are limiting the artists' choices. And secondly, a significant part of the meaning of the music is creating the demand for the work.
i.e. Marketing. Yea we've heard of it. I don't remember that in my music appreciation class in college though. Must'a skipped that day after a ragin' Rage show.
And creating that demand for the music and the artist is very much a marketing and promotional function the record company does. The costs associated with that have to be absorbed somewhere.
Yes, they do. And we, the fans, would be more than happy to do it. Just let us copy, digitally, our music files (that we bought and paid for) and allow us to take care of that marketing part for you. We'll tell our friends what sucks. And what kicks ass. MP3 is about as good as quality as radio, if you haven't noticed. CD's sound better. They still travel better. They look good on coffee tables. We're not going to stop buying CD (unless you quit fretting and bring us DVD-AUDIO, and yes, it will get broken)
Things will evolve and the industry has always given away music for free, but it's really inappropriate that the only ways that artists should be able to make money off their craft is touring, if in fact people are enjoying their music anyway.
Remember we are paying for that promotion and distrubution so you don't have to. You can take all that money you save and give it straight to the artists. And why don't you give their copyrights back after you stop promoting them? That doesn't seem fair to me, but then again I didn't lobby to have copyright extended for an additional 20 years after death.
Not to mention the whole crop of artists that don't have the ability to tour.
I'm sure studio musicians will still have skills that are useful to somebody. Perhaps they can teach in schools after the sudden revival in the public's taste for live music? I mean, MP3 is great, CDs are better, but you can't beat the real thing. Don't forget that.
What was your reaction when you heard that Napster was sponsoring the Limp Bizkit tour?
I thought Napster must be desperate to have to pay $2 million to get someone to support them.
I think you might have wanted to think about this one for a second or two. Exactly how much did you guys spend last year on Congress? What's the annual promotion budget for New York?
I didn't think it was a thoughtful statement about the long-term economics of the record industry -- it was an anti-establishment, rock 'n' roll publicity thing for them to do.
Yes, and...? You 'member Elvis shaking them hips don'cha? What an anti-establishment, rock n' rock thing for him to do.
There's no question that the multitude of artists who have spoken out against Napster far outweigh this kind of publicity stunt, but I hope that their fans realize that these artists actually care about their work, and care about their art, and care about their ability to keep making it.
No question, eh? No question? Now would that be artists as in "signed, sealed, and delivered on the dotted line" or artists as in "a person skilled in one of the fine arts." I don't remeber seeing that national statistics poll, I must've been asleep at the wheel.
I think if Napster has ideas for alternative business models, they haven't said them yet.
Since when did "put music in the hands of fans" become an alternative business model. What is radio supposed to be? What's MTV for again?
I don't think it's my place to do that. If people are creating businesses that use other people's work like that, it behooves them to come up with some other scenario at the outset that does the right thing. Where they go from here is the subject of obviously complicated scenarios.
Obviously complicated scenaries, i.e. lawsuits. You've got that part of the business plan down pat. Keep the course.
There are mutual responsibilities, but obviously as this case is in litigation, suffice it to say that Napster has never come up with a scenario. And I don't think anybody in the record industry has any indication that that is a viable option.
The record industry? What's a record? Oh, you mean those big plastic CD's? I remember seeing one of those when I was five (and music never sounded so good, analog is a good way to preserve quality, hint, hint) Of course you don't see it as a viable option, that's the problem.
The business models that MP3.com have put forward are interesting business models. The issue with MP3.com is simply of them not seeking licenses prior to the launching of their system.
So you mean in addition to buying your CD, I have to get some ethereal "license" to listen to it? We are talking about my.mp3.com, right? Try and stay on-topic, that's what the lawsuit is about. That, and bankruptcy.
I do get a particular laugh out of technology entrepreneurs who try and say that the record industry has screwed artists over the years. But what is it, now it's their turn?
Oh, we're doing the screwing all right. But the artists have had enough, if you catch my drift. I get a particular laugh too, haw-hah!
We have gone through an interesting shift here. The RIAA is a trade organization that was never a public entity or necessarily had any public profile. So it's quite a different role for us to all of a sudden respond not just to the music community but to the public itself.
The Internet exposes dark organizations. Have you heard about Echelon? Area51? There's some pictures around here somewhere... Unfortunately the power has shifted. You no longer are dealing with someone coming to you for a resource only you control. Now you have to deal with us, and we control the resources.
But I've learned a lot: A lot of people don't know what record companies do and what they bring to the equation -- helping to develop the talent and create the demand. That's been interesting.
Oh, just wait. This party is just getting started. Most of the players aren't even here yet. We live in interesting times, indeed.
When you go to buy a Chevy, you generally know something about General Motors being a decent company.
Define decent for me. I do not think it means what you think it means. (Not a knock on GM, just a question about your example)
When you want to buy a Bruce Springsteen record, you don't think much about Sony Music; that's been deliberate by these companies over the years. As a result, a lot of other people have painted on that blank canvas. If we could do that over, maybe we'd do that differently. But maybe not.
A painting on a black canvas. What an apt metaphor. No wonder it's taken so long to see it clearly.
I cheerfully await a response. I fervently hope that this crosses your desk at some time in the future. I've been harsh, perhaps unnecessarily so, but I hope you can get around my sarcasm and cynicism and see what I have for you here. Don't be afraid to by cynical in response. A little laugh might do us all good at this point. Let's get a conversation going and maybe we can save you some litigation costs.
Thanks,
Roy M. Taylor
a.k.a Wah on
--
+&x
The "editor" that looked the story over was John Tsacheck (whatever). He's the editor of PCWeek. The magazine that ran the benchmarketing tests to prove that the Mindcraft tests were valid.
Unfortunatley OpenSource is an idea, and not an enitity. Otherwise, a defamation of character and libel lawsuit would already by in the works.
D
The first, last, and only tech news site on the net
There's a few points I wanted to make out of analyzing the article:
1) Of course companies using Open Source have profit motives - as do many of us. Making profit is not the opposite of Open Source, the two co-exist happily.
2) Mozilla is, frankly, about the last example of popularly known Open Source I'd use to show how Open Source works.
3) Open Source has shown goods and is in use - the mail server in my office is running Linux and Sendmail.
4) PHP, an open source CGI language, is sweeping servers. I admit I'm not up to using it myself, but I figure in a year with some company support, it'll be a viable alternatitve to ASP and CFM.
Finally, the article itself is too sarcastic (the joke about Red Hat needing another color was pointless), which I think portrays bias, be it against Open Source, or a bias towards sounding sensational/confrontational.
Sad, really.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
OK, I'm sick of /.ers assuming that everyone who reads /. must be some kind of American, white, male Linux user without a life.
/. certainly could.
/. is not just for Linux, and people should try and remember that otherwise they will just alienate a large proportion of their user base, and *gasp* lose advertising money. And that's what'll hurt them.
True. However, if you think that the Open-Source community is composed entirely of while male Linux users without lives, you're as prejudiced as you claim other Slashdotters are.
I do not represent the open source community. I do not run Linux. In fact, I was curious about it before I came here, but a year's worth of zealotry and bigoted postings have pretty much put me off of ever running Linux at all. Why should I associate myself with such a narrow-minded group of people? Trust me, zealots do nothing but put people off. Linux could do without them, and
A question: what do you run? I'm sure I could find zealots for any OS you could possibly be running, even Windows. You're right, they don't do any good for a community. But they exist in all communities.
In fact, I'm sick of every single "open source" project getting a whole story here with every release, even when it's 2.999a 0.6pre3 or some other incomprehensible version number.
No need to be overdramatic. A quick look at Freshmeat will tell you that what you said simply is not the case; where was Slashdot when the Bubbling Load Monitor 1.0 was released?
The fact is, Slashdot tries to cover releases of the most important software to the Open-Source community (Linux, *BSD, Apache, etc). And occasionally if a piece of software looks interesting they'll throw that one in too, to get the word out. What's the matter with that?
And I'm sick of every third article being about graphics cards. So what about YAGCB (Yet Another Graphics Card Benchmark)? This isn't a hardware site is it?
Not entirely, but hardware is a part of it. As is software. As are most other aspects of computing. And graphics cards are in fact important to the Slashdot community; a community is best served by its journals if they contain things which are important to the community at large. Most Slashdotters run some kind of "alternative" OS, whatever that OS may be, and we've never had good graphics card support in any of these. So it's important to know what's going on.
In short,
You're correct. However, Linux is a part of Slashdot, and a rather large and important one. Perhaps you don't like it, but that's what the article filters are for. Use them if you don't like what Slashdot has to say.
I think the latest way of making money from OS s/w must be:
- post thinly disguised flamebait on your discussion based news site
- wait for slashdot to notice
- watch the banner hits stack up
Maybe do this at the end of every month where you haven't quite reached your targets for ad revenue.Why do journalists feel the need to sensationalize everything? In ZDNet's case it's a matter of generating hard evidence that people even read their articles. I suppose that would be true of any ratings hungry organization. I am not surprised, but at the same time I am disappointed. I would expect something like this from C|Net, but I see that in the past year or two ZDNet has snowballed down the hill into a media giant that wants ratings and nothing more. ...just look at what it's doing for education, or for people who want to learn in their own time. I agree with the numerous posts before my own: (-1; Troll).
The failure of the writer to address even the most obvious of Open Source projects is the clincher: he really didn't do his research. If he's gabbing about Mozilla, the next logical step is Apache, from there he can go to PHP, Perl, just about everything--since apache is that capable. It's apparent that he already had his opinion well formulated since he pounded on the Mozilla project and took the view point of 'AOL gobbles up Netscape and acquires Open Source effort: win/win for AOL'
What the fellow really missed the mark on was one thing: even if Open Source isn't 'delivering the goods'
zerodvyd
If you weren't convinced how clueless (I'm still trying to decide if it's deliberate or accidental) John Taschek is, take a look at http://www.netcraft.com. PC Week's site is running none other than Apache 1.3.12!! (on Solaris).
Kinda ironic, isn't it?
There is an underabundance of open source products that the general public would care about.
Netscape 6 is the first product to come out that the general public would care about and the author was clearly not impressed by it.
Instead of attacking Open Source bashers with the same old arguments, prehaps the Open Source community should re-examine its priorities and posistions.
There are people out there who are not seeing the benefits of Open Source code as there hasn't been sufficient code written that would interest them. Most of the code to date has been written by Geeks for Geeks. This was fine until the Open Source community started pushing Open Source as THE WAY to publish software. Suddenly, non-Geeks started taking interest. But as most of the software is being written for Geeks, most non-Geeks only see an absence of software that would help them with their computing tasks.
Exactly, even if the parent was probably intended as sarcasm. Obviously, Slashdot has what many would consider a "radical" stance on issues such as privacy or copyright. So why not extend it to Free Software, Linux included? Who gives a shit whether a non-initiated luser, marketing drone, or barely literate MCSE thinks that the Free Software community is extreme and overbearing in its rhetoric and practice?
Free Software is here, Linux is here, they've been around since before Slashdot, since before it was cool or even practical to run Linux on your desktop. What with the current desire to shift our (as in those who appreciate GNU/Linux) approach to political issues in order to please total outsiders? No one was born a Linux user or Free Software advocate, but many have come to understand the ideology and love the technology it's produced. If others follow the same path and come to similar conclusions, great. If they don't, fine. But it's not the community's prerogative to change its approach in order to entice them into our ranks.Keep it radical, keep it aggressive, or watch it dilute into a half-assed, focus group-driven, Windows alternative.
This article summarizes all the reasons why I get all my 'net news right here at /. - because of spin, media pressure, sensationalism, etc... Sites like this are no better or different than television news shows. They are after ratings (hits) to please their sponsors (banner ads).
The only groovy thing I can say that ZDNet has had its hands in lately is Computer Stew.
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Looks like they're duping us left and right with this baiting and FUD. :) Because, notice that they do not ever publish a retraction to something like this unless it is legally inaccurate or slanderous. If its inciteful yet within the bounds of the law, it doesn't matter if it's truth or a blatant lie.
Don't feel too bad about this; it's like letting a troll get your goat (troll? goat? Err, never mind).
A lot of times, the better trolls (like the Mindcraft study) uncover useful things to work on. Even if they don't, Free software cannot be damaged the way commercial software is by FUD. The typical FUD tactic is scare away customers, scare away investors, then revenues and capital flees and the product shrivels up and blows away. Free software doesn't work that way; as long as somebody with the requisite skills finds some tiny piece of a project useful, it will survive. You can slay a dragon with a sword, but not a slime-mold. While public battles noisily rage on, free software continues to qutiely creep into a million dark corners from which it can never be entirely eradicated, and from any one of which it can erupt with uncontrollable exponential growth.
In this context, there is no bad publicity. Even this kind of blatant troll serves the cause. I wish ZDNet and every other news organization on the planet published one of these every day. Nothing would suit me better than if the public were absolutely saturated with this kind of swill.
There's a Hindu story about a man who didn't believe in God. Every day he went about his business, he constantly said to himself "There is no God". When he died, he was surprised to find he was instantly united with God. Why? Because every waking moment of his life he thought about God.
To write in hot prose that something doesn't amount to much is to deny your words by your actions.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Why? Not because open source software in general doesn't deliver operationally speaking, it clearly does.
However, how many investors like him have been able to get rich because of open source related IPOs? I'm thinking that he may be simply looking at the bottom line compared to "traditional" e-commerce related IPOs and not seeing much net take-away; which is somewhat true.
I do think he did a horrible job of explaining himself though. Beating on Mozilla because its been a while in the making is quite pointless also. Heck, you can pick pretty much any organization for that "crime" and get away with it.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Ever stop to think that maybe Linux zealots make up the larger part of their userbase? Look at the banners on the top of your screen while you read this. There's a good chance its an ad for something to do with Linux. If advertising is targetted, what does that tell you about what the average reader of slashdot is.....
Here you have a guy who studied jounalism in college and landed a job writing about computers. He knows enough about a computer to turn one on and maybe surf the web or use MS-office. But when it comes to true understanding of the technology and issues behind computers, he doesn't have a clue. They need to can this guy and hire people who studied computer science or EE in college. A lack of writing skills is a much easier problem to solve than a lack of understanding about what they are writing about. From the picture of this guy he can't be more than 25. Most people that age, even hackers (hacker != cracker) don't have much in the way of historical perspective. They don't remember the days of DOS or C64's or Apple II's, let alone CP/M. (I'm something of an exception as I began hacking computers from the womb.) They need to get someone about 45-55 who has been working with computers since Bill Gate's was in high school. Someone who has obviously kept up on the latest happenings though.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
By "bad" I don't mean "bad system," I mean "bad vibes." There was so much advocacy among Amiga and Mac owners that I just couldn't stand it. In both cases, there was a degeneration into "let's try to beat the PC!" which dragged everyone into the much and slime. Every game had to try to outdo some PC game. Every app had to try to outdo some PC app. In the end, the underdog system came out looking like a wannabe.
Why was this marked troll / off-topic ?? This guy didn't flame anyone .. in fact, I think he had a valid reply to why the other user didn't use Linux.
At least partly I agree with this guy. Mozilla isn't exactly "free as in speech", if Netscape would have released the code "free", but not only as in beer, I bet there would have been a lot more ppl spending there time on it (me included).
"Open Source" can die at this instant, I don't care, but "free software" in unkillable".
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
it seems obvious to me that some reporters at zdnet have figured out that if you piss off the open source community, they get LOTS of hits
this means $$$$$ for them from their advertisers !!
if you keep slashdotting them, they will not go away; you are becoming part of their bottom line. please stop including references to zdnet articles, people ! we all know they are ignorant and annoying -- we do not need to pay them for it.
-abf.
this story is about a ZDNET troll that fooled lots of stupid people into responding to it. now you have posted a slashdot troll.... and lots of stupid people have responded to it!
very clever.
Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is
Did we really need to have this article on Slashdot? Sure it feels good to gang up on this guy, but I would have much rather preferred to read an editorial that cleverly attacked open source with highly credible arguments that leave you questioning your entire foundation of values until a very few highly intelligent people in the community come out with refutations that make you glad that they're on your side. In that case I would learn something. In this article I learned nothing. Wildmage
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wildmage
Memoirs of a Mad Scientist
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Um, i don't really think linux is an experiment in a CS lab anyway, at least not any more. I installed a linux box at work, which is mission critical. We found the windoze box was too unstable to handle the task, and needed rebooting every few days. To my knowledge (i haven't actualy been on site for 3+ months now) the linux box has never gone done, and never needed any tweaking. It has also been giving them better performance. There are also alot of apps for linux, server stuff at least. PHP, some sql servers, apache, smb, nfs, all of which is valueable to buinesses. And comparing the track records of these servers with ms ones, i'd say stability is pretty important. And linux is both stable and useful.
This months issue of Maximum LINUX enclosed a 2 CD set of LINUX & Mandrake. The magazine was about five bucks, making the CD's a give-away. We are not likely to see PCWeek enclose a copy of DOS2000 anytime soon, are we?
The advantage to Joe User is that the code has been subjected to peer review. I have not read a single line of code (yet) from BASH, KDE, StarOffice, or even the LINUX kernel, but I have the comfort of knowing that hundreds of geeks have. Bugs get found and squished very promptly once you get enough monkeys in front of typewriters. With Windows, Joe must place his faith in the QA team and Beta testers... and wait for the next Service Pack.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
>I see a rather large smoking gun at the scene of the crime....
>
>ZDNet is running from.... an Apache Webserver.
Get your facts right. They are running Netscape Enterprise/3.6-SP3 on a Solaris box. Follow the link below if you don't believe me.
What's ZDNet Running??
Before you post something to incite the masses more, make sure you have the facts straight!
> I expect something a bit more than "Open source is dumb because you can't make money off it."
It's almost enough to make a guy wonder how much MSFT he owned before the bottom fell out.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
ZDNet runs a "clueless" article attacking Open Source. /.ers swarm to ZDNet and read all the responses as well as leaving some flame. ZDNet gets thousands of hits, hits == $$$ from advertizers. Doesn't sound so clueless to me.
"pull my finger" - Uncle Chuckles
Just to clear things up. The Author John Taschek works for PC Week and PC Week Runs on Apache 1.3.12 on Solaris
can you show me a multi-terabyte 24x7 rock-solid Access application running on a PC ?
snide comment about sysadmins, you reveal your own inadequacy
or my long memory
CPU cycles are a PRIVELIGE, not a RIGHT, and that privelege must be EARNED
Your point being that I go to work all week, EARN money, save that money for a year, spend that money on a computer, on software for that computer, and on the resources I need to keep my knowledge up to date, and then i STILL need to earn, er, what exactly? Or does this only apply to machines bought with my tax money rather than the bit I'm allowed to keep?
Unix centric ... idiotic non-CS attitude
Let's not get into the One True System thing again, please? Or I'll be forced into another rant about the joys of Multics or how much i miss playing with a 3090, and that can get VERY boring VERY fast. By the way, don't CS courses teach you how caps lock works anymore?.
I long for a return to the days where a glass wall separated the competant from the idiots, where machine time was granted to people who NEEDED it, rather than simply wanted it.
another name for you. Ted Nelson. A little out of fashion perhaps, but clearly mightily relevant.
Feeling old and grouchy now...
TomV
Is john_taschek@ziffdavis.com
I have sent him a polite email pointing out a well known web server that happens to be open source, the netcraft site so he can see the survey and also noted that Linux is open source, just in case he didn't make the connection.
If you email him please be poilite and point out the errors in his article rather than flaming him to death.
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
Hm. dunno about IBM. Seems they are too often overlooked as a source of good open source software. Ever hear of alphaWorks? What a huge cache of high-quality software, much of which is open source. (And as far as OS licenses go, the IBM public license seems to be a very nice and clean one.)
You are, of course, absolutely correct. I should have thought about my choice of corporate "mosters" a bit harder, I appologize.
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www.chowda.net
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YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
I used to read articles on their site daily, Linux, Java, networking and such directories. But now after reading such a poorly written, un-informed article like this, I'm taking my 2+ hours surfing elsewhere.
Yes, in theory /. isn't a Linux site. But really, what would a non-Linux/BSD user find of interest here? Perhaps the science stories, but that's about it. So why do you read /.? I'm not attacking you -- I'm just genuinely curious.
Just remember...the only thing that made him an expert on what he's writing about is that he's managed to guess three things correctly at some time in his career. Don't ask me what those three things are, I have absolutely no idea. But I do have more of a clue about the Open Source movement than he does...I can at least identify viable Open Source products four out of five times.
'Nuff said.
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
ok, I won't explain or talk about what this guys wrote, everyone understood what it was worth. The only problem is that the author (Mr Taschek) explained his point with only 2 examples (mozilla and red hat if I can remember) and then he concluded with a general idea about open source. Come on, when you have something to explain or to argue, you don't bring 1 or 2 examples and put a general statement from them! examples are useful to explain an idea, not to make one... what would you think, Mr John Taschek, if I said "John wrote an awful article, so he is dumb." I don't think a statement like that would have anything to do with truth....(althought I feel better now :))
OK, better :)
--
http://gammatron.weblogger.com
by Bero, Red Hat
Richard M. Stallman, the closest thing GNU has to a cult hero, calls Microsoft Windows a disruptive technology.
Microsoft Windows is not a disruptive technology. It's a wannabe operating system, and OSes aren't a thread to anyone - and if they were, it surely wouldn't be a good thing. Richard apparently is referring to the proprietary software movement and the sea change behind Microsoft products that has made them unsettling to more than one or two OS vendors.
What amazes me most is that proprietary software has gained so much momentum without showing any goods. It's a dot-com--all-hype and speculation and no fundamentals. It's like an onion in a bushel of apples. Someone might notice that it looks and tastes different, but peel away its layers, and there's nothing there.
In several years, one of the more high-profile proprietary software projects at its time - Microsoft Bob - has released exactly zero used copies of its interface. It won't be until Microsoft throws a copy into open source that anything usable will be released. And the result is a product that might have some good but not earth-shattering.
In fact, the best parts of Microsoft Bob have nothing to do with proprietaryness. The most important part of Microsoft Bob is that it runs on Windows - it's Microsoft's obvious attempt to tie in the product to a bunch of for-profit wannabe OS products.
Although Microsoft has had incredible stock market valuations at one time, it's very much down to earth right now. This means that they'll quickly have to expand beyond valuations centered on Windows.
Microsoft took the bait, creating MSN, an online service that, while fairly bad, had not much to do with Windows. Perhaps Microsoft needed to add another color to its spectrum. Maybe it will next buy AT&T to flesh out its all-American offerings.
It's clear that Windows has a future and that it's still attracting dumb people. Proprietary Software, on the other hand, appears to be struggling.
The reason is simple: People gravitate toward products, and proprietary software is not geared to create but to make money at the cost of freedom, stability and usability. It's best at tearing apart the establishment because it locks out valuable programmers who might want to improve the products.
But proprietary software advocates should face the facts: Put up some goods or your establishment will be ripped apart, too.
Are you a proprietary software advocate, or do you just not care? Let me know with the "Reply" button below.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
If the free market provides such superior quality of products, then why would ZD, a free market or for profit company, hire a reporter who is of such obviously low caliber and who writes such poorly researched articles.
To be fair, it should be noted that GNU were busy developing and distributing software long before ESR coined the term "Open Source", as were many other groups. Perl similarly developed essentially independantly of the modern, primarily advocate-driven "Open Source" movement. It is likewise true that Mozilla, the "Open Source" flagship, has been floundering on the rocks for a significant period of time.
I guess we should note that the typical Linux distribution has very little code developed by the "Open Source" (i.e. post-ESR) movement, and lots developed by other groups.
Yeah linux is a disruptive technology. It disrupts the hold microsoft has on the market. The disruptive qualities are good ones and I am glad something does disrupt someone telling me what I have to run and making my mind up for me.
With the guy who wrote this article making this to be a bad thing and of course missing the point all together is like saying America was a disruptive technology in WWII. I mean hitler had it all figured out right? Why did we get in there and disrupt his plan?
don't forget, for non-technical people like journalists and marketing types, the goal is not to be right, or accurate, or have anything original to say. The goal is to attract attention, attention uber alles. Nothing else really matters, to them at least. ZDnet people are no doubt paid according to how many hits they can create/attract. The more outrageous the ZDnet article, the more provocative the challenge, the more successful they are in drawing eyeballs, and getting a good annual performance review by their paymasters at Ziff-Davis.
As has been pointed out before, Slashdot is the "sandbox of Cmdr. Taco and Hemos." If you don't like the stories they choose, then there are plenty of other news sites out their for your viewing pleasure. Or you could try submitting a story of your own. Or use Slashcode to start your own competeing site, it is free software after all.
As for Linux, ever stopped to consider why it has so many vocal zealots supporting it? Maybe its because its got good software supported by nice extras (one of those, for me, is the GPL!).
-RickHunter
Seems to me this guy's confusing the two, thinking about the profit and the bottom line, rather than the software produced. The distinction was made by RMS in his recent interview. Or maybe he isn't; maybe he's not at all interested in the software produced, and deliberately focusing on the profitability of open source ventures. As an economic phenomenon, it has perhaps been over-hyped a wee bit. Which is why I side with RMS over ESR on the whys of the issue.
Sometimes columnists do just that. They write an article and put lots of provocative senences there in order to stir up a (fiercy?) discussion. After all, journalists feel happy if their products make people to react somehow.
I remember when the local newspaper had a column which sugested that fattening foods should carry extra taxes just like booze and cigarettes. The reasoning was, overweightness causes lots of diseases and is expensive to society in form of sick leaves and so on. You can guess the readers were not amused about the idea. But the columnist was rewarded - he (she? can't recall) made the readers to talk about the column in homes, offices and schools. Not bad.
-P
I hate people who quote
Does he not know that salvation lies in striving for karma rather than striving for ad hits? Does he foolishly think he can take his ad revenues with him when he dies?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I don't know what's more disturbing, that ZDNet published a steaming pile of dung like that... or that Slashdot is driving traffic, and therefore ad revenue to ZDNet.
:) Because, notice that they do not ever publish a retraction to something like this unless it is legally inaccurate or slanderous. If its inciteful yet within the bounds of the law, it doesn't matter if it's truth or a blatant lie.
Looks like they're duping us left and right with this baiting and FUD.
It draws the eyeballs. Thank you, Yellow Journalism!
I also agree that Slashdot should have a different icon for the open source movement and not use the GNU icon for it. All the reasons for clearly distinguishing open source from free software (which is obviously what GNU is) were stated by rms yesterday.
I've been through two bad computer scenes--the Amiga and the Mac--
I feel obligated to ask when you were through the Amiga scene. A lot of Amiga decay and PC improvement went on between 1987 and 1994. Put an Amiga 2000 head-to-head with a 386, and guess who'll win?
Macs, OTOH, I can somewhat agree with. I nearly "destroyed" one once because I didn't understand that clicking the Close button did not Quit the program (and neither did the teacher), and it ran out of memory. Also, whenever I drag a disk to the Trash, I think I'm about to reformat it (Amiga-style) rather than Eject it. Give me hardware-based ejection controls any day! But that's not exactly "bad"----its just the quirks of the OS.
-- LoonXTall
~~~LXT~~~
Life is like a computer program: anything that can't happen, will.
This is the same Stallman who thinks that Linux should be called GNU/Linux but that all of the other contributors (e.g. MIT/X, BSD, etc) should be ignored in the naming?
Let's not try to take the moral high-ground by quoting Stallman; it's always a bad plan.
Or is there some specific feature it's lacking that other os'es have? I don't know what you'd be referring to.
The bus came by and I got on
That's when it all began
There was cowboy Neal
At the wheel
Of a bus to never-ever land
I'd rather be lucky than good.
From the last paragraph of the article:
But open-source advocates should face the facts: Put up some goods or your establishment will be ripped apart, too.
Are you an open-source advocate, or do you just not care? Let me know in the talkback below.
ZDNet writes articles like this every once in a while that are blatantly false simply to generate traffic and comments (if you don't believe me look at the size of the Talkback and compare to other stories on ZDNet). To put it simply, there is no way that a reporter that is employed as a technical writer for a tech magazine cannot know of the successes of Open Source. Apache, *BSD, most of the important Unix tools (thanks to GNU), Perl, etc cannot be completely unknown to this writer or whoever he bothered to ask while researching this article. I wouldn't waste my time responding to this obvious troll either by posting to ZDNet or bothering to send him an email.
If you flip around ZDNet's computer magazines, you'd only find that AMD's Athlon is not so better when AMD got the 6?? MHz chip and PIII only marginally slower, while they didn't mention loudly that what they're talking about is the expensive server oriented Xeon PIII. Or a recent article about Linux not ready for the desktop, while I basically perform all the tasks that I do with W95 and more (how about serving friends mp3 as a FTP server by default from install?) I don't think ZDNet is clueless, it's more like ZDNet spreading propaganda. Most likely they're backed by Wintel and AOL and such. My opinions, if I'm wrong I apologize. Calyth
..but I think the best part is the little picture of him on top of the article. He reminds me of John Tesh, another waste of time at the keyboard.
Lots of people have responded directly to this gentleman and ZD on their site. I doubt he will read the responses, though.
Come on /. editors! You'd think that from yesterday's 10 page article by RMS you'd have learned to sort out Free Software from plane ole Open Source. Slashdot needs to take an active role in promoting the difference -- at the very least by using the appropriate label in a headline!
The commentary on ZD Net tells me I should make some comments on the current state of Linux.
As a _server_ operating system, Linux works great for workgroup to departmental data server and also as a small Web server. However, what I do find interesting is that many of the machines that run corporate-scale databases, major e-commerce sites (note I said _major_ e-commerce sites) and web portals run either Sun Solaris, IBM OS/390 or AIX, or FreeBSD. Hopefully, the upcoming Linux 2.4.x kernel will allow very-large-scale data transactions and this will allow Linux servers to run large-scale e-commerce sites (something on the scale of things like the big online bookstores).
As a _desktop_ operating system, Linux has improved quite a lot since the release of Red Hat Linux 5.0 some years ago, but the lack of true equivalents of ACPI Plug and Play and DirectX (though you can get around that with OpenGL), plus somewhat iffy printer support still indicates that Linux has still a ways to go. Hopefully, once these issues are resolved within the next 24 months, Linux will finally be a viable operating system even for first-time computer buyers, with ease of support for hardware changes as a customer upgrades the computer.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
-- The Apple Growers Almanac
(...now... if we could figure out how to put banner adds on each layer of the onion and get them to peel away each layer... yea... we'd be on to something...)
M$hit owns ZDNet anyway, so why are you all surprised.
Bob
Lately, the Macintosh community has woken up to this tactic, posting stories at places like LowEndMac warning about ZD's trolling. The next step was obvious: Find another loyal, tight-knit community on the net and flame them. Open source is a ripe target. In a couple months, I'm sure it will be a story about Red Hat being "beleagured", complete with FUD about all LINUX distro's in general.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I actually agree with you here, even though I run Linux as my main OS, I also run Windows 98 and Windows 2000.
:)
There are many things wrong with slashdot - namely the large number of people from the US who think their law is the world's law (storie about UK email thingy yesterday, Russian lyrics site).
There are also many good things about slashdot, a general alround summary of what is happening in the world of technology, well Linux technology
However, I suggest you read the article, you may not like Linux, and I do suggest you try it, just once even, not everyone is a zealot. The article referred to here is not the sort of thing that is not good for open source in general, it is very narrow minded and badly-informed, or else is just flaimbait.
Don't ask me, I run junkbuster with a pretty comprehensive sblock.ini file :-)
You have an excellent point though, although you may not realise it. The article in question absolutely stinks of having been written with one purpose in mind: to be linked to from Slashdot so as to generate the associated hits and, therefore, advertising revenue.
I cannot, will not believe that "in this day and age" a so-called professional technology journalist could be so woefully misinformed. I also refuse to believe that such a person would write an article so sweeping in its criticism of something based on such a small facet of it.
Sure, mozilla is taking a while to get out of the door, but to dismiss open source as being of no real substance is little short of professional misconduct.
As others have already pointed out, two of the most widely-installed and used software products in the world, apache and sendmail, are both open source. To ignore them and dismiss the entire open source movement based on the perceived failings of a single, relatively minor piece of software beggars belief.
I knew that ZDNet had a reputation for being so blindly pro-Microsoft that it hurt (not unlike Slashdot's somewhat over-the-top anti-Microsoft stance can be at times...), but I didn't realise that it could be this bad.
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I see a rather large smoking gun at the scene of the crime....
ZDNet is running from.... an Apache Webserver.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The only reason I could imagine someone to publish an article like this one would be to generate traffic on their website. I will not give credit to that article by posting a comment on the website that publishes it. It is way too much under the level I would expect from a professional news website. If I can find the author's email address, I will directly send him my comments, but I will not use that talkback system that the author can simply ignore.
-- Slef
I don't expect a journalist in a daily newspaper to have a good grasp of the technicalities of the subject.
However, I do expect some level of competence from a writer in a technical forum like PC Week. I expect something a bit more than "Open source is dumb because you can't make money off it."
-Dead Lesbian Witches! Think about it!
WTF? Since when did AOL have such a HUGE part in the open source movement. Last time I visited freshmeat in search of the latest update or delphree I don't remember seeing huge glaring AOL logo's on each and every project.
Too bad he didn't check into all his facts, correction too bad he didn't check into any facts. Such propaganda like this will put a tarnish on the entire idealogy of open source projects in the future.
Perhaps we should all look for funding from AOL for our open source projects in the future. =)
Mozilla.org - has released exactly zero legitimate copies of its browser.
Surely, Mozilla.org has released many thousand legitimate copies, every time someone downloads it they are getting a legitimate (legal) copy.
Yet another worthless comment in an otherwise worthless artical.
Geez. I was just about to say the same thing. We should have a different icon for the Open Source mouvement. This is not good because it spreads confusion as to what free software is about. It's like this hacker/cracker fiasco`you want to distinguish to things, use two different words... and two Salshdot icons.
"Are you an open-source advocate, or do you just not care? Let me know in the talkback below."
Or: Don't bother emailing because I really don't care about this issue one way or another. I'm just glad you saw the ads we tacked on to this story, and I hope you click on a few more pages on ZDNet so we can show you some more.
"It wasn't until the very-much-for-profit AOL snagged a copy in mid-development that anything usable was released. "
Okay, how many AOL engineers have made meaningful contributions to the Mozilla source code? Didn't think so. They are NETSCAPE engineers (who happen to be captured and enslaved by AOL ;))
"The most important part of the browser is not its unique blue interface. It's AOL's obvious attempt to tie in the browser to a bunch of for-profit proprietary services"
Eh? They haven't "tied" Mozilla to anything. The Netscape beta had no more "ties" than a version of Internet Explorer (which links to MS news sites, Hotmail etc. etc.). Mozilla doesn't have any of this crap. He completely glosses over the best part of Mozilla-- the NGLayout engine (marketing types call it "Gecko") which is extremely fast and the most compliant out there. Quite an acomplishment considering the the sheer size of standards information it has to adhere to.
"Red Hat took the bait first, gobbling up a small benchmarking company called Bluecurve, which made a database and Web testing program that, while fairly good, had nothing to do with Linux. "
And this proves Open Source doesn't work how? 1) Red Hat is a company, not some sort of programmer collective, and 2) Buying strategic companies to round out your offerings is how you make money. If Red Hat learns anything from Microsoft it should be "trimmings matter", and if you want all the trimmings you're going to need expertise you may not have in-house already. This can be a win-win situation since we the consumer now get our regular product PLUS the trimmings.
"Open source, on the other hand, appears to be struggling. The reason is simple: People gravitate toward products, and open source is not geared to create but to critique. "
He's been listening to too many kiddiez. ;) I don't see open source struggling anywhere, I just see it getting stronger and stronger. Not just Linux, Mozilla, Apache, and all of the other success stories we know and love, but the unheard of new offerings from IBM, SOAP stuff, XML libraries, databases...
Anyway, my point is: He's baiting. Ignore him or write a polite letter, but don't flame him or he'll feel vindicated. By pointing out his failings politely and intelligently we'll do much more damage. ;)
--
Blocking ZDNet banner ads is easy enough. Just setup your DNS to screw up any doubleclick.net anything. I did this by creating a doubleclick.net domain with nothing in it. And best of all your still supporting sites such as Slashdot and Freshmeat, they don't use DoubleClick. Of course you do need a DNS server that you admin, but just setup named on your Linux box for that.
(Actually Slashdot does have DoubleClick ads sometimes, but not often)
Junkbuster is designed specifically for this purpose, as well...
---
>When you get down to it what is so earth
>shattering about Linux? Nothing. It's just
>another OS for your apps to run on. Big deal.
Hmm... It's just another OS, but it happens to
be open-source. Really nothing earth-shattering,
but I think it's the best OS out there.
When you smile, the world laughs at you.
The "earth shattering" part is that it's free and open-source. These two qualities are what made Unix win agains all the other OSes in the 1970ies (even though it was almost free only for universities).
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
While this is pretty much a troll message, I'd appreciate if this isn't moderated down because I know that there are a LOT of people out there who agree with me.
---message begins---
You're complaining about ZDnet writers being morons? I thought everyone knew this by now.
Three good reasons why Ziff-Davis and ZDnet suck:
1) John C. Dvorak - is the ultimate Internet security person because he has Black Ice. I'll never be able to h4x0r him; he's too l33t for me.
2) Jesse Berst - is just as stupid as Dvorak, but even more loudmouthed.
3) Panjak Chowdry - kisses Microsoft's ass every second he gets. Anyone remember his articles in PCWeek (oh, sorry, now it's eWeek. *snicker*)
Down with ZD. We need Slashdot Publishing, Inc.
I'm an engineer that works in Italy, but I also often write on magazines (favoutite topic: Linux!); consequently, I know various journalists and reporters.
The thing is, there is a large number of them (should I say "us"?) who are requested to write on any subject without actually knowing anything about it, or just because they think they know enough. But I see that this is a common plague for all topics, not just computing... I do not consider Italian press to be valid, but I suppose this situation may occur in other countries.
This person actually states...
Just wait you're gonna love this...
Open source isn't about Free!
At this point my mind went berzerk as I realised what a complete moron this must be and how right RMS was in his interview about the differences between the FSF and OSI that the general public would perceive. tsk, tsk
Ashley Clark
How clever, never thought they'd post an April Fools article on the 30th of the month instead of the 1st.
numb
No we don't
OK, I'm sick of /.ers assuming that everyone who reads /. must be some kind of American, white, male Linux user without a life. This may have been true way back in the distant past, but nowadays /. has grown and all different kinds of people read it. And as the title says, "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters". There's nothing about open source in there at all. Read it if you don't believe me.
I do not represent the open source community. I do not run Linux. In fact, I was curious about it before I came here, but a year's worth of zealotry and bigoted postings have pretty much put me off of ever running Linux at all. Why should I associate myself with such a narrow-minded group of people? Trust me, zealots do nothing but put people off. Linux could do without them, and /. certainly could.
In fact, I'm sick of every single "open source" project getting a whole story here with every release, even when it's 2.999a 0.6pre3 or some other incomprehensible version number. And I'm sick of every third article being about graphics cards. So what about YAGCB (Yet Another Graphics Card Benchmark)? This isn't a hardware site is it?
In short, /. is not just for Linux, and people should try and remember that otherwise they will just alienate a large proportion of their user base, and *gasp* lose advertising money. And that's what'll hurt them.
I think the funniest type of ZD magazine issue are those "TIPS" issues.
:D
"I can't find any real content to put in...Oh, I know what to do!
TIPZ TIME!!"
Personally, I wouldn't even wipe my ass with stuff from ZD. The magazines they put out are so bad that they don't even deserve to be put in the fireplace.
Mr. Tasheck almost had a good point in regards to the 'disruptive technology' comment. Linux is not a disruptive technology (hold on..), it is an OS. HOWEVER, you take disruptive for its true definition, and it is a disruptive technology; disruptive can be good or bad. In the case which I think John Patrick is referring to is that it has disrupted the industry into rethinking a lot of their methods of business. Look, if it wasn't for Open Source, Linux, Mozilla, etc., then would we have the source code to Java or Solaris today? How about the fact that more web servers are powered by Apache than any other software in the world? And going with the "free" concept of Linux, would we have Borland compilers for free today?
All in all, yes, Linux is a disruptive technology in that it made the software industry shed a new light on things. And as for John Tascheck, he's just another one of those writers who has NO IDEA of what is going on and probably barely knows how to power up Microsoft Word on his blueberry iMac.
My two cents; no refunds.
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
bubbling load monitor rocks! even tho i've not yet upgraded to the latest version, i'm still using the one i fixed to not segfault... hopefully once projects are done (sometime after tomorrow) i'll get back around to playing with it... =)
That column is a reflection of the outer world (and especially stock buyers) that open source for them doesn't work!
Geeks and stockbuyers have different priorities..
hey what comes around, goes around.
someone should publish the same kind of flamebait attacking zdnet and the writter. showing the same courtesy they showed to the open source community. with the same lack of research and lack of reference (a perfect job for someone like Jon Katz). at some point making personal attacks to the author of the article and multiple references to his mom.
Right, what Advertisement servers should I block before I go to read that article?
the equvilant of a USA today article. Sure people on AOL and M$ Slaves will read it and go see we are right. Any article that can be summed up in under 1000 words does not really mean much. Open source is for our community bad press in a forum like that means about as much as when we flame M$. Anyone that would stay away due to that sort of "journalism" should not be here to begin with.
linux is good for some things but *BSDs, Solaris, are vastly superior in most respects.
How come all the *BSDs people are always saying that [favourite_version]BSD is sooooooo much better then linux (or anything else for that matter), but they never produce any proof for it, they just say it.
Well, I got to the first part, about treating him calmly, just fine. I calmly flamed him.
He needs it. He's the jerk who set up the hackpcweek farce, inviting MS to install/tune their server and then not so much as visiting RedHat's update site by clicking on the update icon right there on the default desktop.
More napalm! We need more napalm!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I'm sure you've received many responses on your attack piece on Open Source software where you likened Mozilla's development cycle with all of Open Source software. I'm sure you've been reminded by a number of people of the successes of Open Source software like Apache, Free BSD Unix, Sendmail, Perl, and many others. I'm also pretty sure that in your self righteous way you managed to ignore those criticisms and still think that you were correct about this whole open source thing. I'm not going to bother to correct you on your misconceptions. I'm just going to tell you that I have a free subscription to PCWeek. A magazine of which you are the editor. I thought I detected an anti-Linux bias, and now I'm sure that with an editor like you the magazine could not remain objective regarding my favorite server operating system. I'm going to cancel my subscription to PCWeek and ignore any more of your Op Ed pieces. You have no credibility and obviously don't research your articles. Please educate yourself so that you don't embarrass yourself further. Andy Glover
While we're on the subject, I'm not sure that the apparent (possibly illusory, but still...) feud between the Open Source and Free Software movements is really going to be beneficial to either if it hits the mainstream press (which is to say, ZDNet). If you think we get FUD now....
-jcl
I submit that mainstream press articles - positive or negative - containing no new or useful information need not be reported here any longer. They are, in effect, simply meta-trolls. We've heard it all before, and none of it makes any difference.
Take two Valium and send me email tomorrow.
Ooh, please, mr big important godlike high priest SysAdmin, is there any chance you could run this piece of code for me on your mainframe. Some time in the next 6 months would be nice, but obviously if that doesn't fit in with your important schedules......
I thought we tried to kill all the high priests years ago. Forget P(ersonal) C(omputer)s then. Forget Vaxen, forget PDP's even. I mean notwithstanding BigBadBill's other sins, he did at least help (with ppl like Woz, Kapor, and so forth) us to get those damned elitist powertrippers off our backs. Let's not invite them back.
Recompile Kernel? we can schedule that in for you in mid to late september.
TomV
I guess I should've worded that better - I realize that /. has biases, but I believe them to be less dirty or greedy than the biases of other news sources. Here at /. you know that MS will get a bad rap and Open Source is untouchable. But I really don't know (nor do I have the time to find out) who NBC, ABC, CNN, et al are in bed with this week.
;-)
For the record, I get non-internet news from PBS. I support NOVA, so PBS is by proxy in bed with me, and that's alright!
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
I didn't know that trolls were allowed to post on ZDnet....it's fascinating. I think this opens up whole new vistas for /.-tters. Now all they have to do is let OOG put a column there, and their journey to the dark side is complete....oh wait....OOG has something intelligent to say, most of the time....that would be out of character...
...which may have tired of paying programmers to produce stuff that doesn't matter much anymore
....they're very much down to earth right now. This means that they'll quickly have to expand beyond valuations centered on Linux.
...open source is not geared to create but to critique. It's best at tearing apart the establishment because it consists of underappreciated programmers who suddenly have a vote. Read: Open Source is not geared to create but to critique (us). It's best at tearing apart the establishment (I got passed up for promotion to VP because I didn't see Linux's potential) because it consists of underappreciated programmers who suddenly have a vote (But not to worry, we'll have them back chained to their desks with whips cracking soon)
On to the article....
It's a dot-com-all hype and speculation and no fundamentals
Define "fundamental" You mean something like a stupid "mission statement"? Clearly the GNU's Not That! Do you mean it has no vision? Clearly Linus doesn't, and hasn't known what he was doing for a while. Somehow 143,445 registered users (and roughly 14 million unregistered ones) are running on said "hype". (Come on, people! Slashdot http://counter.li.org!) But anyway.
The most important part of the browser is not it's unique blue interface. It's AOLS's obvious attempt to tie the browser to a bunch of for-profit proprietary services
Since when is product-placement and advertising the most important part of *anything*? Clearly, such advertising belongs to the mysterious "fundamentals" that we've already mentioned.
Hmm....so Netscape doesn't "matter much anymore"? And what, pray tell, matters now? The Internet Explorer. Last time I checked, it crashed if you attempted to look up the word "stability" on dictionary.com. You mean Mozilla still has bugs? So does every *released* Microsoft product. But this was already mentioned.
Uhm...the stock market took a dive not too long ago? Have you heard? But beyond that, just because the company's market value isn't over 200, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's doing something wrong. That may actually *be* the company's market price, instead of being horribly out of proportion to the company's actual worth, e.g. amazon.com. Furthermore, Linux is an OS - Not a specific type of service (e.g. making microwaves). The point of buying other companies may be to increase the base of programs that work on Linux. Or just good-ol' market capitalism. Most large corporations own subsidiaries that have nothing to do with their primary fields. (Specifics escape me at the moment, but I know that one conglomerate owns a tire company, oilfields, a car line, perfume, software, etc. This is done to prevent the conglomerate's failure through being *too specific*)
Basically, John is reliving IBM's heroic past as the Evil Empire. He's pissed cause Microsoft stole the title. Otherwise, the comment is so purely assinine that it doesn't merit further bashing.
Put up some goods or your establishment will be ripped apart, too [like ours was]
See, what'd I tell you? John must be forgetting the heady days of OS/2's success. Wait...what success?
Are you an open-source advocate or do you just not care? Let me know in the talkback below
Actually, the whole thing is more like a flame than a troll - the troll is clever and catches suckers. A flame is just stupid, powerless bashing, and this one more so, because it begs a responce.
Personally, if I was one of the execs at IBM, I'd fire this guy. For being an uninformed, partisaned bigot, who's become an embarassment to the company. Or simply for being a stupid ass, it doesn't matter which.
error - sigfault. Witticism dumped.
The guy got one point right:
Open source is more critiqe than code, more talk than development.
For every 1 person actually writing open source code, there are 20 (and I'm being optimistic here) that rant, criticize, talk about the good and bad points of the license, talk about geeks, talk about community, talk about which language should be used and what can be done and what shouldn't be done.
Just try to raise an idea for a project in your local lug mailing list - its very likely to be shot down from 15 diffrent directions, less than 5 people will actually offer help, less than 2 will actually help.
This is not a good enviroment for creativity and productivity.
Get a Clue: real coding hackers are hiding from the hoards of "open source community" - they are hiding in basments and coding the future.
Ballerinas have fins that you'll never find
Eeep.
I spend more time that I'd like to admit trying to get around the "but if they aren't doing it for money it must suck" arguments. "If its free it must be bad" sort of thing.
This doesn't really surprise me with various non-technical relatives and friends, most of whom have a simplistic grasp of economics to begin with, but coming from people who are supposed to follow the industry to some extent -- its like hearing an actor say "well, that Shakespeare guy, he's not so good. I mean, let's face it, Timon of Athens is terrible"
Sigh. What can you expect. My husband's boss (software developer no less) asks me "what's linux" and I am shocked. I mean, bud, you work with computers for a livng, get out more. All I can do is thank god I get to work with java, not VB, so I am spared the total idiots. I get the partial idiots.
I'm rambling. I'll stop now.
This IS Slashdot right ? Zealot central ? Well then why should we be "calm & intelligent" ? Everyone knows that the open source "community" has a "robust" approach to this kind of thing. I would suggest that instead of lying down and taking this crap and being polite, its time we let off steam. Hell ZD are NEVER going to change their opinion of us. And we SURE AS HELL DON'T CARE WHAT ZD thinks of us.
Maybe this is where we start to reclaim Linux and Open Source for the elite nerds, and get it away from all this hype and marketing BS.
By responding politely to ZD you give them a credibility they scarcely warrent.
Flame them to oblivion. They are a bunch of clueless Windoze & Micro$haft supporters who don't "get it" and never will.
Please do not censor yourself on behalf of these FUD-spreading misinformers.
And as a zealots site, I would expect the editorial to reflect the zealous nature of the community it serves, and not advocate the non-flaming approach, when the flaming approach is equally as (in)effective, but so much more fun and in keeping with the elite spirit of Unix and Unix derivatve hackers.
thank you
No, some of represent the free software movement. Didn't anyone *read* the Stallman interview?
This article was on Linuxtoday.com yesterday. There were 29 comments when I read it.
The overall opinion was that it wasn't worth reading. A ton of people posted that they didn't read it after the first paragraph and the rest posted that they read it but wished they hadn't because the guy was so dumb.
aparently he's the same fellow who didn't apply the security patches in the hack the box contest between windows and linux. (it was too complicated to download them from redhat.com if you will remember.)
I say the people at linuxtoday are right.
this article is such obvious flame bait.
everyone knows zdnet sucks.
move along. nothing to see here.
Linux was not the first "free and open source" kernel. How, then, is its "free and open source" nature "earth shattering"???
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