Bob Young Blasts Recent Anti-Open Source Article

buzzcutbuddha writes "Bob Young from Red Hat issued his rebuttal to John Taschek's Anti-Open Source Article on ZDNet. Well written and articulate, and to the point ... He shoots, he scores!" Check out the original article blasting the open-source idea. Good rebuttal, Bob.

Comments

Why?

[Simoriah]

Am I the only person that's sick of seeing and hearing all of this under-educated anti-OSS bullsh*t? Sure, it has its downsides. But there are SO many people that are flying off the cuff, trying to give it a bad rep. If you want to TRY to argue against open-source, go right ahead. Just pull your head out of your ass and get your facts straight BEFORE you speak.
Good job, Bob.

Re:Why?

[ballestra]

I will steal a quote from someone's .sig:

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell

I really enjoyed a recent interview of Andy Grove I saw on The Charlie Rose Show, largely because Charlie kept trying to get Andy to say something really powerful, and Andy was seemed very careful. Andy Grove is known as a survivor of prostate cancer, and did a lot of research into the latest treatments and medical knowledge on the disease. So Charlie asked him what Mayor Giuliani should do (because Giuliani recently announced that his doctors detected he has early stages of prostate cancer). Andy said something like, "I can't say what he should do. I will only say what I have experienced. He may find that my experiences are pertinent to his situation..." This is just an example, but throughout the interview Andy consistently spoke equivocally, or qualified his opinions. I think this is really refreshing, since we all know that on the subjects he was talking about he could certainly be considered an authority. I think it's an academic influence that leads people to speak carefully like that.

So I guess I'm really rambling off topic here, but I just wanted to share this because I agree that too many people (especially ACs) speak in absolutes and make claims that they can't support because they don't have the knowledge to defend their opinions.

"What I cannot create, I do not understand."

Re:Why?

[um... Lucas]

There is some truth to the recent commentaries as of recent.

For one, yes, it's highly doubtful that Linux, Apache, Sendmail, gcc, or any other opensource product will ever go way. Actually, it's just one step from impossible. But that doesn't mean that they will necessarily continue to prosper. What happens when developers decide to start working on other projects? What happens when Linus decides he's through with being the center of Linux development? No on really knows what will happen.

I also think that while open source is great for individuals and businesses looking to use low-cost software. But I fail to see how software companies can stand to generate anything but neglible revenues by opensourcing their products. How would Apple continue to differentiate themselves if their GUI was integrated into every other operating system? They couldn't really. They have nifty hardware designs, but those are just complementary to the software inside them.

Another argument that gets brought up is that of buying a car with a sealed hood. Personally, I WISH that there were cars that were manufactured with completely sealed hhoods, that ran fo 50,000 miles, and were recycleable. I hate the idea of car maintenance. But the opensource idealogy is that if you're using an open source product, then even if the original developer ceases to work on it, one can just bring in a programmer of their own to continue developement. What if one was using an opensource video edittor that almost had all the features of Adobe Premiere, and therefore had all their media assets tied up in it's file formats, had numerous plug ins and extensions written specifically for it, and then they found that the developer had been hired to do something else full time and couldn't dedicate the time to continue work on his or her project? Yes, the company could hire a full-time programmer for $60,000+ per year to continue work, but in hindsite if they'ed just bought 10 licenses for Premiere for $400 a piece, plus $200/year for upgrades, they'ed save money in the long term.

Another advantage to closed source/proprietary companies is that they are indeed competing with one another. Without a profit motive, there really is no long term guarentees that open source projects will continue with their advancement. It's assumed right now, but since the developers are working out of their own good will, rather than ultimately trying to make a buck, again, it's not guarenteed that a project will continue at any given instance, regardless of the number of users. Proprietary software houses, will on the other hand, in all likely hood continue producing a package and support for it if they see that there is demand for it, and money behind that.

Let me just state that i'm not against opensource or free software as a development model. It has created some neat projects. But I don't really think that there's really all that much of a future for it as a business model. How can you sell something that's free? I'm continually baffled at Redhat's position in the market. But companies (VA Linux and Cobalt spring to mind as two) that use opensource projects to add value to their products stand a great likely hood for success, in my eyes.

Okay... I've typed enough for now.

Re:Why?

[AJWM]

So what happens if (for some bizarre reason) Adobe decides to get out of the video editing business and drops all support for Premiere? This time you're stuck with proprietary file formats and not even the option of hiring somebody to continue to support the package, because it's closed source.

(And while Adobe might be an extreme example, I'm sure there are plenty of proprietary software vendors who have gone toes-up and left their customers in the lurch.)

Re:Why?

[neopenguin]

Your comments are interesting, largely correct but somewhat irrelevant...

Reality check: the majority of contibutors to open source projects are not rellying on these efforts to provide their means of livelihood. Whether the GIMP or GNUCash ever make one-tenth of one percent of the profit generated by sales of similar products from Adobe or Intuit will have no effect on whether they continue to be developed, refined and improved. At some point a cuasual user will be faced with the option: pay a high fee for a proprietary application or get the same functionality for little or no cost...

For the business user/IT manager the cost factor becomes more complex... the basic economics of an expensive site-license versus a cheap, reproducible Distro is a strong argument in favour of open source apps, but IT managers will calculate a Total Cost of Ownership based on support, upgrade fees, training costs and support fees. This is where the commercial Open Source Distrubutors hope to make money...

This business model is not competitve with the tradional models, but to say this means it will fail may be like predicting that mammals would not make it out of the Jurassic because they just couldn't compete with dinosaurs as carnivores or herbivores... The changes underway may be larger than you are imagining.

Take your example of an open source video editor that had all the features of Adobe Premiere... You make many false assumptions that betray a lack of understanding of the real value of the open source model:

First you misconstrue the opensource paradigm as "..even if the original developer ceases to work on it, one can just bring in a programmer of their own to continue developement." -- A video editor like Premiere is NOT the work of an individual. In a firm like Adobe, it has a the number of programmers that are assigned to it by management (this is ususally large--check out the credits in Premiere some time!). In an open source project, the pool of programmers is limited to the number of people on the internet with the appropriate skills and the inclination and time to contribute -- almost always a larger number.

Second, you state that the media assets would be tied up in it's file formats... but the open source movement is characterized by a reliance on and the promotion of standard formats... The file format problem is far more likely to occur in proprietary products (do you remember Persuasion? How supported is the user with an archive of media assets in that format?).

Finally, you suggest that the hypothetical open source video user is left with the option of paying a single programmer's salary or abandoning the application and their assets. This goes back to the erroneous assumption that such a project is the work of an individual. You can be sure that such a package would be the result of the collaboration of many programmers in many countries. The editor you are describing would be a hot project, and if one or more of the original developers dropped out, you can be sure that the project would be maintained.

Your argument about the value of competition is belied by the real history of proprietary software development. Good packages with large narkets are frequently dropped because managers see greater profitability in other efforts. Despite the large number of Mac users, many proprietary packages are available only to Wintel users because the software developers see a larger Return On Investment in that market... These are not concerns for open source hackers.

Within the framework of your argument, you are right... but the framework is wrong.

Just because MS doesn't release source ...

[SuperDuG]

Hey just because MS doesn't release source. Okay just because every commercial vendor doesn't release the source code doesn't mean that we have to learn to hate it.

Though I would strongly suggest against using Windows if that source code was ever released. The problems with MS are bad enough ... just imagine the exploits that would come if the source was released.

I think commercial vendors are afraid of being embarassed more-so than having their software copied illegally.

Rig a poll, win a prize!

[scumdamn]

There is a pole on the page. Unfortunately, the lUs3Rz at ZDNet didn't give a Cowboy Neal option. I propose we Slashdot the poll. At the very least it shows that most of the readers of ZDNet.com feel that Open source is "John Taschek's worst nightmare."
A side effect is that it gives them a little more ad revenue, but that's not that big of a deal. Right? They're still losing money anyway, aren't they?

Bob's Article

[Zordak]

This is the kind of response I like to see in the Open Source world. It is calm, well thought out, and backed by fact. I think that the Open Source community, and Linux in particular, often gets a bad rap for being a movement of fanatics and funcamentalists. Articles like Bob's posted on a very public forum (and one frequented by Wintel users) provide some substance to the movement.

Re:Bob's Article

[Fishstick]

Yes, I thought this was excellent as well. One of my cow-workers printed out the article yesterday and tacked it to her cube (thinks Bill Gates is sexiest man alive).

This morning before she came in someone had printed out Young's rebuttal and made about 500 copies which were used to wallpaper her entire cubicle (wish I had my camera today!)

This is the silver lining in the whole debacle of yesterday's article. Instead of only an angry hornet's nest of slashdot 'zealots' giving them fuel for the 'see, these open source types are just a bunch of foul-mouthed kids' slant, we have a well-written, fact-filled response from a very credible source that sets the record straight and makes that PC Week columnist look like the bafoon he is. Great.

Re:Bob's Article

[Lord Kano]

I don't understand why it's bad to be a zealot. What I'm getting at is this. I despise M$ as much as anyone else, in fact on the day of judge Jackson's ruling I called a radi talk show and read the short list of M$'s transgressions to a nationwide audience as I spoke to M$'s director of PR.

His response? None of that's been proven by anyone.

Being even tempered, rational, and polite doesn't mean that you can't be a fundamentalist.

It's the difference between
1. "I'm not going to vote for cantidate X because of the way he feels about issue Y."

and

2. "That c*cksucking motherf*cker should f*cking die! I'm going to blow his f*cking house up, rape his wife and burn his kids alive!"

Person 1 and person 2 both may be fanatics or fundamentalists, but sounding like a lunatic will only get you ignored at best and persecuted at worst.

LK

Wrong focus ??

[HiQ]

Maybe these journalists are concentrating a bit too much on applications for the 'normal end user'; OpenSource apps aren't really big in this domain (yet). All the examples mentioned by Bob (sendmail, Apache) are more or less 'background' applications, outside the realm of lusers.
How to make a sig
without having an idea

Re:Wrong focus ??

[Wah]

Maybe these journalists are concentrating a bit too much on applications for the 'normal end user'

Maybe these journalists have no idea what the "normal end user" is anymore. I would think it is someone who wants to set up a web presence for their business or family. Cheaply, efficiently, and with a minimal amount of blue screens. This is bit of forward thinking on what "normal" people want, but it's just so easy and fun, everyone is doing it. And the smart people are doing it with Free Software.

--

Re:Wrong focus ??

[bero-rh]

OpenSource apps aren't really big in this domain [end user apps] (yet)

Right, but we're definitely getting there.
Take a look at things like KOffice, AbiWord or the project the initial article was condemning, Mozilla.
All of them are already usable, and will definitely be great products with some more time.

Open-Source

[kayser_soze]

The concept of open-source is all about choice and the empowerment of the consumer. This is analogous to the Internet as a whole: the giving of power back to the individual. This is why the open-source movement will be successful.

Companies need to realize that the dominant business model for the future will be geared towards the need and wants of the consumer. We see this already in small things such as increased availability of *designer* styles for home products. Even the most basic of items can be had in any style, shape, or color based on an individual's preference. The individual can make the choice of what they want.

In the same way the Internet and the Web does this for information. Almost anything you could possibly want to know is available and free.

Open-source does the same. It allows us to choose what functionality we want, how we want it, what it looks like, and so on. It lets us do what we want, which ultimately is where the appeal lies. As soon as mainstream media, and companies realize and begin to capitalize on it, the computing world will become a better place for all.

Ants in your pants.

[Kingpin]

Perhaps he just wrote the article as he knew how the community would respond. We've seen it before, flame Linux people a little and your site surely receives an abundance of hits in the week that follows.

why so much attention?

[geekpress]

If, as many commenters (probably rightly) opined, this original ZDNet anti-OSS article was something of a troll, why devote so much space on Slashdot to it?

After reading the Slashdot comments, I dedided not to run the story on GeekPress because I didn't want to give such silliness any more readers.

Nevertheless, the rebuttal was good, a worthwhile article in its own right.

-- Diana Hsieh

Argument/Rebuttal, Argument/Rebuttal

[Uruk]

Seems that every time we have some major piece of anti-free software FUD, we almost immediately have somebody who is "famous" within the community weigh in on the issue with some form of rebuttal to let everyone know what their stance on it is.

It seems to me that sometimes, it's probably just better to let the FUD bury itself, and not even give it the honor of being discussed. Now, there are some times when this is NOT the case, but other times, you have to just let the FUD go, because there's already tons of it out there, and there's going to be more.

remember the "Linux Myths" thingy that MS put up? I can't remember if it was mandrake or somebody else who wrote some multipage rebuttal to MS' "Linux Myths". Guess what? You're preaching to the choir. The only case in which a rebuttal like that would be effective is if it was posted next to the linux myths column on microsoft.com, and if you think that's going to happen, think again.

Well, Bob young's article on ZDNet is a little bit better, since it stands to be seen by people other than those who already know that the article was full of untruths to begin with, but at the same time, I don't understand the motivation to write rebuttals like this. Sure, the original column that he's talking about was bullshit, but everybody knew that.

I'm trying not to be cynical, but all I can come up with in terms of the motivations for writing these rebuttals would be to demonstrate to the community that you are "pure of heart", or just to promote the popularity of linux.

IMHO, linux doesn't need either.

Course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. :)

Re:Argument/Rebuttal, Argument/Rebuttal

[fireant]

I agree that, in principle, we shouldn't try to respond to every piece of FUD out there, as there's just so much of it.

OTOH, an effort should be made to counter some of the more high-profile FUD. Of course, if it gets mentioned on slashdot, it instantly becomes high-profile, so we may be part of the problem... my point is, that when my (hypothetical) boss -- the one that I've been trying to convince to replace that crappy Exchange server, with a more reliable Linux solution -- comes to me after having read the "Linux Myths" page or the Taschek article and says that Linux is a fad, I can either try to counter all of the bullshit myself, or I can say, "Hey Bob Young is more articulate than I am, why don't you check out this article. See? It's on ZDNET, your ever so reliable news source!"

This person could be a boss, a friend or family member that you're trying to convince to give Linux (or *BSD, or whatever) a shot.

"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."

Re:Argument/Rebuttal, Argument/Rebuttal

[Shotgun]

The problem is that people are stupid/lazy and will believe the first thing they read.

IBM thought that OS/2 would weather MS FUD and that technical superiority would eventually win. For the most part, they left most of the MS arguments unanswered. IBM's upper management now has the dubious task of trying to convince some large customers to move off of a technically superior platform onto a hacked toy so that they no longer have to single handedly support an infrastructure for a platform they wish had never been (NOTE: No flame wars about IBM loving OS/2. I worked at IBM for 2 years, and had to actively fight to continue using OS/2 there. The corporate word was that NT was the only official workstation platform. Damn support desk got confused if I even called with an OS/2 question.)

This FUD, like a kudzu, must be destroyed as soon as it pokes its ugly head out of the ground. Else it will quickly grow to completely cover everything in sight.

Young's right, of course, but.......

[Hnice]

the moronic rantings of the original article speak to the fact that, while everyone here understands both the theoretical advantages and the actual successes of various co-operative open software efforts, the vast, vast, vast (99+ percent?) of software buyers don't.

the paranoid part of my mind conjects that perhaps the author is deeply invested in MS or something, a subcionsciously-controlled FUD factory, but at the end of the day i suspect that it's nothing so interesting. Young's response, true as it was, is neccessary in larger quantity, and in more high-profile spaces, because most people just don't get it. they don't see the parallel between welding your hood shut and entrusting a software company to do the right thing, even if they won't let you or anyone else look inside.

for my part, i'm going down to the corner of broadway and vesey with a bullhorn. gonna stand in the sun and scream about open source to passers-by. aw, yeah.

software "mechanics"

[ShelbyCobra]

We demand the ability to open the hood of our cars because it gives us, the consumer, control over the product... But if he overcharges us, won't fix the problem we are having or refuses to install that musical horn we always wanted -- well, there are 10,000 other car-repair companies that would be happy to have our business.

This is a great analogy...

I can see it now, soon there will be thousands upon thousands of software "mechanic" shops, where software owners who do not know much about what they own can take their stuff to have bugs fixed.

I just hope that such establishments do not treat their clients in a similar manner of many auto shops, with the attitude "they don't know anything about this, so let's take them to the cleaners."

Re:software "mechanics"

[Jason Earl]

Consumers are already being taken to the cleaners. Part of the reason that Open Source software has done so well is that you would be hard pressed to find software of any kind that is as well done as Apache, Bind, Sendmail (flexibility wise, anyway), Perl, Python, Linux, etc. Honestly, what commercial software would you stack up against this list in terms of sheer value. There is a whole raft of Open Source software that is a deal at any price, much less free.

Besides, there already are thousands of software mechanic shops. How many small software houses are there that are building some vertical application. The company I work for recently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to a group of consultants and we didn't even receive one single line of code in return.

Open Source software is simply a way of making sure that the consumer has a way of fixing the software that they use. If they buy a lemon from a disreputable software house they can still go to someone else, with a better reputation hopefully, to get it fixed.

Software consumers know when software works in much the same way that I know that my mechanic actually fixed my car. It's quite simple, if the software (or the car) gets you where you are going, then your mechanic did a good job.

Besides, everyone knows that the easiest way to stay clear of disreputable mechanics is to simply seek a second opinion. Mechanics are readily available and will happily bid out prices for fixing your car. If one mechanics prices are way out of line, then you probably won't hire him. Software could easily work the same way if you owned the source code to your applications. If you didn't like the work your programmers were doing you simply get a second opinion.

While our present day automotive mechanic situation isn't perfect it is a lot better than it would be if only the manufacturer could work on your car.

Another ZDNet Columnist Speaks Out Against Taschek

[buzzcutbuddha]

Matthew Rothenberg, also from ZDNet has a co lumn basically highlighting the same key points of the argument against Taschek's article except from posters to the article.

Here's a poll for ya:

[Blue Lang]

Or a vote -

Rob, kids, I'd like to propose that nothing presented on ZDNET or C|Net ever get posted to slashdot again. (C|Net for very different reasons from ZD, of course)

ZD is trolling us, and we're feeding them. As any longtime usenet dork will tell you -

Don't feed the troll!

--
blue

A question

[spiralx]

This isn't meant as flamebait, but is it my imagination or are a lot of people here on /. more fanatical about pushing Linux than the actual people who write it and/or make money from it? The tone of Bob Young's article is extremely reasonable, and that in itself makes a good statement about the open source "community", but there are a lot of very extreme viewpoints pushed in this forum which do give rise to the opinion that all Linux users are zealots.

Personally I think that as Linux enters a new phase in which it becomes more widely known and used and is seen less as a hobbyist's OS it will require more people who are seen to be sensible and open-minded than those who already know the "truth". And on /. I see a lot of zealots doing this, which makes it harder for those posters trying to make a good point (and there are a lot) to be heard.

Re:A question

[luge]

Hehe. Good point. I think the problem is that guys like Bob Young are (to put it bluntly) smarter than the average bear. That's why RH, VA, etc. have been successful- the guys who run them are pretty sharp. As a result, they are aware of the need for reason and calm. If they flew off the handle as often as the average /.er, they wouldn't be running a company. Put the average /.er (even the well-meaning ones) in charge of a company and their tempers and inability to reason would drive the company into the ground pretty quickly.
As far as needing more people like Young... one thing to remember is that Young and many of the others (Augustin at VA springs to mind), despite being able to don the corporate mantle very well, really do grok Free Software (not just Open Source.) We need more people like them, not just the run of the mill talking heads. Given a choice, in fact, between the average talking head (smooth, but no understanding) I'd take the average flamer around here any day.
My two cents...
~luge

Re:***ZDNet doubling its slashdot effect!***

[arivanov]

Stop bitching.

The fact that you do not have a junkbuster properly configured is YOUR PROBLEM. So if you are giving ZD Net money it is once again YOUR PROBLEM.

I do not give them money. Most other slashdotters do not give it either ;-)

on zdnet????

[hummer]

Oh come on...

didn't we dismiss this as advertising hype for zdnet when the inflammatory article was first posted here? And now when Bob Young responds ON ZDNET, the story gets posted again??? Does Bob's article state anything we didn't already know?? Most of his points could have been lifted directly from this forum for God's sake (I wonder if Bob Young reads slashdot).

This might provide a reasonable counter argument for the original article, but it would only be worthwhile reading for non-geeks who might not know this already. Hardly worth a posting on Slashdot.

I'm sure Zdnet are lapping this up. Slashdot effect twice in as many days. I don't know what advertising on Zd costs but I'm sure they'll be making a killing off this. Don't do them the favour.

There goes my theory that timothy and emmett are the source of all the crap stories on here lately too.

hummer

Official response to official flamebait - blah!

[barleyguy]

The original article was intended as flamebait, simply for site traffic. This is simply an official response to that flamebait. I'm not sure it even justified a response. However, I guess if it didn't get one, the clueless masses would think that the article had some validity.

Anyhow....

Re:Official response to official flamebait - blah!

[Caball]

How is what ZD is doing any different than what /. is doing? Both posting articles that they know will get all the OS nuts up in arms.

Did you happen to notice the banner at the top of this page?

Re:Official response to official flamebait - blah!

[barleyguy]

You know, you're right in this case. Just by linking to ZDNet's article, both ZDNet and Slashdot are getting "artificial" hits.

The difference, though, is that many of us would read Slashdot every day anyway, so Slashdot's artificial hit ratio is probably lower.

oss impact on programmers

[oni]

Just last night I started read Stephenson's book _Snow Crash_ in which he makes the assertion that programmers are nothing more than factory workers. Today, I see Bob Young compare programmers to auto mechanics.

Will open-source turn programming into a blue collar job?

Re:oss impact on programmers

[Black Parrot]

> here is the problem with open source: it shows results, but doesn't stay with the times...There's an incentive to add onto, but never revolutionize...Photoshop had features years ago, that the gimp is just implementing now.

Sure, OSS is playing catch-up. And succeeding at a remarkable rate. Once it reaches parity, the traditional software producers will be the ones playing catch-up.

[mccarthy-era trolling ignored]

> I think the one happiness many people would like to have is to make enough money to be "comfortable" off of what they enjoy doing, but OSS doesn't offer these rewards.

Yeah, I was dragging main last night and I saw a whole row of kernel hackers lined up on the sidewalk with tin cups in their hands.

Someone sounds threatened.

--

Re:Call me Cynical...

[BilldaCat]

who the fsck cares? I'm not losing any sleep at night because I gave ZDNet a couple banner views.

Jesus christ people, grow up. If you are so concerned about it, use the time you spend here bitching about it to go get some adblocking software. I'm sick of seeing 30% of the posts in any ZDNet story titled "WE JUST GAVE THEM #@*)&!#@)(*!@ BANNER VIEWS OH NO THE SKY IS FALLING."

*sigh*

Two different arguments

[Amazing Proton Boy]

The problem that I see here is that they are both arguing different points. What I got out of this is:

John says: "Open source sucks because it's not making any money."

Bob says: "Open source is successful because it has produced so many highly useful and popular applications."

They really aren't talking about the same thing at all. Both are mostly correct. There are not very many financially successful "open source only" companies. Maybe ten to twenty at most. Compare that to thousands of successful traditional closed source companies. On the other hand there are countless successful(not in money but in user share or useability or function) open source projects and applications. Bob's list is just the tip of the iceberg. It is just a matter of time before a large open source company becomes truly profitable. Open source really is changing the world, but slowly. It is just a matter of time before we see many more successful open source companies. In the mean time this sort of "not the same point" argument tends to needlessly fan the flames.

Dodgy Figures?

[kernel_sanders]

At the bottom of the article it says :

'Since then Red Hat has become a global company, with a very strong balance sheet and $42 million of revenue, and continues to grow rapidly.' However, from their financial statements :

'For the nine months ended 11/30/99, revenues rose 77% to $12.6 million. Net loss applicable to Common totaled $8.9 million vs. an income of $184 thousand. Results reflect an increase in training revenue, offset by increased advertising costs.' Also :

'Recent Earnings Announcement For the 3months ended 02/29/2000, revenues were 13,108; after tax earnings were -24,609. (Preliminary; reported in thousands of dollars.)'

I should also point out that the $184,000 in training income is nothing compared to Bob Youngs 228K Salary.

I would also point out that the only sucessful OS products he mentioned were apache, and sendmail. How long ago were they written?

I think one point missed by all this is that Mozilla is the most widely known project. Regardless of whether Open Source was sucessful in this case, I think one thing should be considered.

Would the Mozilla case study encourage companies to open their otherwise closed source?

I realize there are a number of sucessful projects, but from the point of Mozilla, I'm just playing Devils Advocate

Best Example/Analogy of why Non-Techs Needs Source

[DG]

Wow, Bob has a great nugget in there!

Ever been asked "Why should I care if I can get the source code to [insert OSS program here]? I'm not capable of hacking it!" ?

Bob has a great answer in his rebuttal.

People would not buy a car with the hood (bonnet for the Brits) locked shut, even though most people haven't a clue about how the motor works.

Why? They're not going to fix the motor themselves.

But by being able to open the hood, people can take to the car to _whoever they want_ to get it fixed. They have choice. They're not locked-in to a single provider of mechanical services.

Wow! Simple, concise, and easy to understand!

Perhaps ol' Bob should get a job as a journalist. :)

Re:Call me Cynical...

[Tim C]

who the fsck cares?

You answer your own question later...

I'm sick of seeing 30% of the posts ...

so at least 30% of us care enough to post about it, and who knows how many others who don't because they know someone else will/already has?

If you are so concerned about it, use the time you spend here bitching about it to go get some adblocking software.

What makes you think that I haven't? I run junkbuster both at home and at work. I'm not moaning about banner ads per se, I'm accusing someone at ZDNet of orchestrating the entire thing to drive up their hits and ad revenue.

Cheers,

Tim

The best rebuttal...

[slim]

The best rebuttal, is to smile quietly, and continue to use and specify Free software wherever it is appropriate.

... and if proprietary software is the only viable solution to your needs, go with that instead.

If I can do my work using only (or even mostly) Free Software, then as far as I personally am concerned, Free Software has succeeded. "I got mine; don't worry 'bout his".
--

Re:The best rebuttal...

[gmhowell]

Now there is an interesting point: if OSS is financially better, how long until some company switches to predominately OSS, and a competitor stay's with binary only? By most arguments, Ford will be in a better position at some point in time. Sooner or later, it will show up on the balance sheet, and then in stock prices.

THAT is when OSS will get noticed.

He might have mentioned GNU

[Laurant d'Affray]

"[Linux] is the kernel of the operating systems that engineers that Red Hat and others, including the Debian team, build". He might have mentioned GNU. I seem to remember that they had something to do with it as well. Not that I want to be fanatical about it...
And no, I could not get a reply on ZDNet either.

Re:Call me Cynical...

[BilldaCat]

You care about something you have no control over, and is pointless to moan about. ZDNet isn't going to stop posting FUD and unresearched stories, slashdot effect or not. They get plenty of banner views from other sources than slashdot, I'm sure.

And so what if they drive up hits and revenue? Is this directly harming you? Why does this bother you so much to the point where you waste time posting about it on Slashdot?

I just don't see why people get in such a fit when they realize companies exist to make money. You know full-well they are going to do things to drive up hits and ad revenue. This should not be such a shock to people here.

I don't see it really as an issue of right or wrong. They are entitled to post whatever they want, and whether it's right or wrong will be determined by how many eyeballs they get on their banners. And you know what? So far, they're right.

I've suggested that in the past

[Greyfox]

I was a team OS/2 member back in the day, and ZD was never anything but trouble for us. The way to their (cold black and shriveled) hearts is through their full page adverts. Buy a full page ad from them and you've got a friend for life. Or at least until the next issue. I've suggested at my current job that we could send ZD Labs a horribly defective product and get a good review by buying a full page ad. Hell, the product could EXPLODE in the lab, KILLING 3 people and setting off the halon fire system. A couple of full page ads later, the review would mention that apart from "Minor technical problems understandable in a beta unit" the product was great. For some reason our marketing guys didn't take me seriously.

Anyway, they've never been anything but prolific Microsoft whores. I'm assuming that their recent Slashdot trolling is nothing more than a series of experiments geared toward boosting ad revenue in the event that MS should be broken up and become a little less free with the purse strings.

Re:Call me Cynical...

[Tim C]

Why does this bother you so much to the point where you waste time posting about it on Slashdot?

I thought this was a discussion forum, a place for people to air their views. That's all I'm doing; if you decide I'm a moron with nothing to say that's worth reading, feel free to ignore me, I always post logged in as Tim C :-)

Cheers,

Tim

STOP READING ZDNET!!!

[sgant]

Stop reading they're site. I don't care if they're they're the only ones covering the second coming of Jesus...just don't go there.

They only post stories and articles/opinions to stir up the controversy. They want people pissed off and incensed to read and write back to them...all the while getting thousands and thousands of hits to their web pages.

Besides, there is NOTHING on that site or any of their sister-sites that has any info that I can't get from somewhere else (like here at Slashdot).

Stop feeding the troll and stop making money for the troll!

Re:Another ZDNet Columnist Speaks Out Against Tasc

[badmonkey]

url here

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,5859 ,2560429,00.html?chkpt=zdnntbtop

Open Source successes are hard to see

[Junks Jerzey]

"Open Source" may be successful in some ways, but they tend to be geeky and underground in the same way that someone in the US would say "Oh, band XXX is very big in Malaysia." Try to explain to the person using Word and Outlook on a laptop next to you on the plane about sendmail and Apache and Linux. Those applications are outside the realm of most computer users, just as telephone switching systems and embedded apps are outside the realm of most Linux zealots. In fact, this is the same trouble that lots of underdog systems have run into in the past, such as the Amiga/Video Toaster combo being good for television production and Forth or Smalltalk being good programming languages. Forth has been used to run airports and is inside those FedEx tracking wands--huge, huge applications--but you can't name a popular game or desktop application written in Forth, therefor it is branded unsuccessful. Almost all open source applications tend to fit the same mold. You can rant all you like about Gnome and so on, but they're oddities.

Bob Young mentions Debian?!?

[V.]

Hey, how about that? Not only did he mention
the fact that Linux is only a kernel and not
the OS, but he actually mentioned a competing
distro. Given, it wasn't a *commercial* distro but
still pretty cool, IMHO.

Open source projects are always so late ...

[Skapare]

... that's why they work so well. They aren't released until they really are ready. When you don't have media advertising for your product in the works, with everything set to a schedule months ahead of time, then what you do have is an opportunity to get it right, even if it does take a few months longer than expected. You might be steamed that Linux 2.4 or Debian 2.2 or whatever is next isn't really out yet. But you can appreciate it working well when it does come out, or go grab the beta copy to see if you can even make it crash.

Re:Open source projects are always so late ...

[generic-man]

That's funny. When Windows NT 5 was delayed until it was "ready," Linux zealots were laughing their asses off.

Technical inclination first, journalism 2nd.

[unquiet]

Both are necessary to write intelligently and fairly about technology. The Open Source community has in its favour that we understand the subject, and many of us can 'fake' being a journalist (or can at least write well).

Taschek is probably a decent enough writer, but he couldn't fake the knowledge he didn't have. Nothing basic research -- taught in journalism class -- wouldn't have fixed.

"Linux-based OSes" vs "the Linux OS"

[doom]

Linux-based OSes have the leading market share of Web servers
powering the Internet's public Web sites, with 31 percent of all sites,
according to a Netcraft study.

Am I the only one who finds the phrase "Linux-based OSes" to be a little disturbing?
Why wouldn't you just say "the Linux OS"?
Is he trying to imply that "RedHat" is
an OS of it's own, which is merely based on a
certain kernel?

(Or is this some sort of nod to the "Call it
GNU/Linux" campaign?)

Read it!

[Black Parrot]

The article is well worth reading, even if it does give the despised ZD another hit. The talkbacks he quotes will make you laugh, as will the results of the poll associated with the article.

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