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Red Hat CTO Responds To Allchin's Comments
A reader writes: "C|Net has a small interview with Red Hat's CTO Michael Tiemann rebutting the remarks Jim Allchin made about Open Source being bad for innovation. It's in Windows Media or Real media." It's a pop-up window on the right side - and this is continuation of the Allchin story.
Innovation, (n): Anything that does what it's supposed to do. See also "freedom"; both definitions have been recently updated.
Last I heard, you can play RealMedia from within Linux, but not Windows Media files. This is an issue of practicality.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- Jeff
Well, it's not that hard actually. I could answer him this way..
Jim boy - do you use the Internet? maybe surfing a bit? writing an email? downloading a file maybe?
Well, if you do one of these - most chances that they are working on an open source operating systems (like DNS, web servers, email servers, ftp servers) AND they are based on open industry standard...
So Jim, could you say it for at least 2 microsoft "technologies"? I hardly think so..
Hetz (Heunique)
We should treat Microsoft as the irrelevant, proprietary 80's company that they are and concentrate on making our software better. Oh, and lobbying Congress to save taxpayers millions of dollars by using open source software.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
At RedHat and VA Linux's burn rate of investment capital... Will they still be in existence in 3 years?
2 years?
The end of 2001?
Then will Linux be supported by Catholic Charities?
Will programmers feed their children at soup lines?
Whoa, soldier!
Many points I would make here, hoping they fall on open ears. I think Tiemann would agree with you off the record that Allchin is a lunatic. He fairly called MS evil, but there are things I don't think you understand.
First the premise that MS is dead in the water (waitaminute, is this flamebait?? oh well...). It's hard to believe that a katrillion dollar company is dead in the water, but if they are dying, then let's make sure they don't take too many of us down with them. I don't know if you noticed, but they are starting to lobby legislators A Lot - check out today's Wired News . If they succeed in gaining credence with legislators who then make laws stifling Open Source (what kind of laws? Someone mentioned the licensing of programmers yesterday...), we may indeed suffer as 'we' become outlaws.
Linux and the open source replace MS? Not likely. Not until the Linux OS matures at least enough so it becomes a viable alternative to Windows. Before you consider this point flamebait, you must admit: our Moms would have a terrible time getting Linux to run, but they are comfortable with MS. I can't say much more, as I am only a reluctant Windows user (but some day...).
Your line, "The truth will out, as it has been shown throughout history" makes me wonder if you 'read' the piece. Tiemann actually addresses the arrogance of MS in believing that it can control the truth much in the same way that the Church sought to control the Truth a thousand years ago. This brought on the Dark Ages until people realized that the Truth exists independently of peoples wishes. We could actually experience a Dark Ages in computers, you know... what would it be like? I don't know, but it's got a crappy OS running the show and every click you make can be heard clear up to Redmond and D.C. I think it would involve loss of privacy And innovation as open source programmers become dispirited and disjoint. We would then live in a kind of 1984 where life is crappy as hell but we are told things are getting better every day. And I damn sure would not be allowed to type this stuff. Or maybe I could, but I would find out that my OS liked me less and less and I get the BSOD every three minutes instead of twice a day...
Is MS evil? Would they do anything to keep themselves on top, including lowering the entire world so they are relatively superior. I don't know, why don't we ask them?
This 'rebuttal' is absolutely essential so that the snide remarks of a very very powerful lunatic don't go by unchallenged. I salute Tiemann for stepping up to the plate and calling a spade a spade, standing before the Great Evil like David to Goliath...
...or maybe Galileo to Pope Urban VIII...
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
It was Paul Joseph Goebbels, who was made propaganda leader of the Nazi party in 1929. When Hitler gained power in 1933 he was made the minister for public enlightenment (nothing to do with the WM) committed suicide on May 1, 1945, as Soviet troops were storming Berlin.
In fact the translation of Goebbels' idea that you refer to is "Is people as told something oftern enough and long enough, they start to beleive it".
His diary's maybe availible on the net somewhere as they were published in English many years ago. A real evil fucker but a genius at mass mind control.
Here ends today's history lesson.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
That is an incredibly blantant ripoff. SOME credit should be given to the origonators (AFAIK):
Modern Humorist
MP3 Poster
Yeesh.
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"A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." - Doug Linder
>There will always, always be a need for commercial software. First of all, some software is DULL, and no one will want to code it for fun. Secondly, there will always be companies with deep pockets who can fund a very competent closed-source project. And what about apps like air traffic control?
Why do you assume that commerical software must be closed-source? You can be paid to write open-source. There are examples of how that would work in an open source world. Suppose you ran a hostpital, or an airport or something. Now you would not particularly care about computers, but you would need the benefits that a custom-built, complex (and dull) software system can bring.
You will need to pay someone to write software for you. But why does this imply that it must be closed source software? *It does not*.
You get several important benefits on demanding that the source for the software made for you be opened:
- You are not locked into a single provider of enhancements and fixes. You are not forced to pay a single provider whatever they want to charge.
- You can pool costs with other institutions with similar needs for the same or similar software.
Given time and effort (and a corporate sponsor, which is guaranteed in cases like this) open-sorce softaware can and often does suppass closed-source software for functionality, reliability and flexibility.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Well, my friend...
Go ahead, grab Redhat 5.1 (if you can find one) and try to compare Linux to what Linux is today. Compare the X windows, desktop enviroment, compare hardware support, applications, gaems, usability, stability, performance..
Do not forget - it took Microsoft 15 years of some hard work, some hand twisting, companies/technologies buying, stealing/copying from others (I'm sure apple fans will be delighted to tell you about that), and lots of threatening - and what do you got in terms of operational and stability? this!
So yes, today Linux is not supporting all the hardware - but go out and ask ANY company about this hardware support and all of it within 2 years and without much co-operation from the vendors - and you won't find a single company who wouldn't want this achivement!
So how will Linux be in 3 years? my bet will be: totally different, much more easier for newbies/Windows users, and much bigger install base.
Hetz (Heunique)
Right. But consider large, complex, and specialized software projects - I don't mean stuff you find shrinkwrapped at Best Buy, or downloadable off a web site, I'm thinking of the software that runs things like phone system. That sort of work can't really be carried out by J. Random Hacker in his basement. (Do you have a telephone switch in your basement?)
Instead of free (as in beer) patches that you and I make to "scratch our itches", telephone companies would be asking for bids for free (as in speech) patches and improvements from the likes of IBM or Lucent. So there wouldn't be people working just "as they see fit", there would be sustained well-managed efforts with real money changing hands, as well as all the usual free software benefits.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
But neither set of arguments matter. The current situation-- where some software is developed open sourced and some closed --works to produce diversity, as well as providing economic incentive to programmers.
--
Kid, I've seen NeXT systems stay up for years.
Microsoft products only look reliable in comparison to other microsoft products.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If I had ever endorsed Linux anywhere, I'd be ashamed now to be connected to people like those.
why? I don't use their slant on Linux. And honestly in reference to Microsoft, if they'd kept things at a level more like that of Windows 95 before trying to go megalomaniac on destroying other companies, I'd probably not even really detest them.
Red Hat Software has done some really good things for Linux. They made a relatively easy to install version, developed one of the better (not the best IMHO, but so?) package management tools, and they support their product. In short, they take all of these wonderful little things that people write, bundle them all up and get them working together relatively well. Back in 1995 when Microsoft was not concerned with markets and domineering (at least as overtly as now), I liked their stuff. Windows 95 (no bloody a, b, or c) was not a horrible product, especially for someone like me at that time who didn't have very much background. Its interface was decent, it had faux-3d dialogues and window borders that looked really classy, and since I didn't leave the computer on at night, it was irrevelant how much it crashed. Now, this is a different story, with them tiring of their UI and integrating a web browser into the OS Kernel, as well as their attacking and destroying other companies who actually do build good products, I would very much like for them to be slapped around and disciplined. I doubt it'll happen, but I think they've gone past their heyday. The exec who made the comments recently is proof of that. They won't evolve, so they're trying to force all of us to stay back.
Back to what I was originally hinting at, if you don't like something that the Red Hat people say, then Don't use Red Hat. Remember, they are a company, and there are other companies too, like SuSE, VA, etc, and if you really don't want corporate, go Slackware or Debian, or roll your own. I don't see what good trashing on others who work hard to deliver a product is going to do, but if one doesn't care, oh well.
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Try this link to go right to it. (This is the 220Kbps realplayer stream)
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There is a floating point of equilibrium between monetary cost and quality/support. A certain quality of software/support is available "for free". Higher quality software/support can be gotten for payment (even open source software is better if the developers can afford do it full-time).
Microsoft is complaining about where the equilibrium point may be drifting. Microsoft is effectively saying that there is no commercial value in (some of) what they produce because you can get the equivalent for free.
OpenSourcerers
Why? Because the top programmers will no longer program, if they don't get paid.
riiiiiiight. just like how writers will stop writing books when people can read them at the library for free. just look at how cd sales have dropped since people can download mp3s. what a shame it was when the whole porn industry died with the creation of jpegs!
obviously, nobody ever does anything without being paid! creative impetus, p'shaw! all the great creative works in the history of the human race were done for a salary, right?
oh my people, what have i done unto thee?
a
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
What I am trying to do with the Linux Quality Database is twofold - make it easier for regular users to participate in the quality process for the Linux kernel, and to encourage improvement in the quality of free software in general, by giving tips on how to do so and links to resources that enable you to do it.
I think one problem is perfectly natural - a lot of programmers are just not very experienced, and have not had the opportunity to work in a way the encourages quality yet. And this goes for both closed source and open source programmers.
It's a matter of education; a lot of people may try to get the bugs out of their products, but simply struggling valiantly is not the right way to approach it - I hate to repeat this tired old phrase, but "Work smarter, not harder".
Mike
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
A message from your friends at Microsoft
.sig: Now legally binding!
You know who you are. Maybe you use Lynx, maybe you haven't got a sound card or maybe real player crashes when you open it. Any way, here's what went on in the video for you:
The clip begins with a head shot of Michael Tiemann
Michael: Recently Jim Alchin made some comments about open source, microsoft and innovation. He said open source will suppress innovation. Well I'm here to tell you that the open source movement, which we at Red Hat are proud to be a part of, is constantly innovating. In fact, I'm so innovative, I'm not even wearing pants right now!
Camera slowly zooms out to reveal that Mr. Tiemann is in fact nude from the waist down. He is also obviously excited.
And let me tell you something else Mr. Alchin, we know what innovation means. Open source has allowed thousands of volunteers around the world to collaborate on code for the passion of it. Michael grabs his crotch to emphasize the word passion then releases it.
Why don't you go check the SpecWeb99 benchmarks Mr. Alchin, you'll notice that our innovative new kernel support for http enables us to blast right past IIS 5.0 on equivalent hardware.
And look at our desktop code, we've got skinning support in every layer of our gui, hows that for innovation you dissapated fuck?
At this point Michael Tiemann abandons all pretense of reasonable discussion and begins howling obscenity at the camera and punctuating it with frequent pelvic thrusts. this continues for about 15 minutes.
Over all, I thought the rebuttal was somewhat unprofessional but nevertheless quite compelling. I could watch it again and again and again. Mr. Tiemann may lack self controll, but DAMN - he could run a 3-legged race all by himself.
--Kara
--Kara
Before you ask, I already have a boyfriend and he's more of a man than you'll ever be.
and I'll say it again. Microsoft has a good point about open source and inovation.
I would disagree. In fact, I would say that Microsoft hasn't a clue as to what innovation is... or more like their definition of innovation is more like what I'd call 'immovation'.
Basically if open source gets out of hand,
What do you mean by 'out of hand'?
normal software development will cease,
That will never happen. If for no other reason than the fact that the type of thing that Open Source is most a threat to (shrink wrap boxed software) is what only a small percentage of programmers are paid to work on. Most programmers work in the IT departments of companies where they are writing primarily software for a specific business. Open Source greatly benefits this type of programmer because they can re-use other people's code instead of inventing everything from scratch.
At most what will have to happen is that a different way of rewarding programmers will have to be developed. There are a lot of people working on different angles for this, and we are still a ways from seeing which method or methods are going to win in the long run.
and the quality of software will go down. Why? Because the top programmers will no longer program, if they don't get paid.
Not only does that make assumptions that aren't necessarily true (that the only motivation of "top programmers" is monetary), but it completely ignores the fact that if more code was open sourced, more of the top programmers could review and fix each other's work, which would lead to an improvement of software quality.
I just don't see how you can refute this argument.
Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it can't be done.
It is really a pretty flimsy argument. Microsoft is just spreading alarmist fears in order to try to protect their own interests.
They went to Congress to whine rather than competing against MS with their own products
No, MS was brought to court by the DOJ because they broke the law, plain and simple. Tying the two products was the LEAST of the many things that MS did to stifle competition and keep Netscape out (in fact, it is quite possible that nobody would ever have complained about the product tying had it not been done in conjunction with so many other anti-competitive practices) - I recommend you go read the findings of fact and other documents resulting from the case. You don't seem to know much about antitrust laws and the reasons for their existence. I recommend you go do some reading.
Um... I was being sarcastic. Obviously books and snail mail are still around. (and they will be forever I bet.)
Microsoft has been pounding on the word "innovate" and the phrase "freedom to innovate" so hard in an attempt to beat it either into submission, or to bend it into meaning what they want it to mean. There is innovation going on at Microsoft, in their graphics research division, but damned little of it to do with Windows.
They seem to have adopted Musolini's theory of "The Big Lie" that if you shout something at people loud enough and long enough that eventually they will will believe it, no matter how perposterous.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
An awful lot of academic research is funded by corporations these days. Often part of the agreement is the resulting technology will be licensed back to the businesses which funded the research.
I just don't see how you can refute this argument.
Bah! I say the end result would be the exact opposite. If money were to leave the industry then the people still programming will be those who love to program and who are passionate about their work. Having the money leave would do a good job of weeding out all of the lousy hacks who write crappy code because they only care about getting their fat paycheck. Fewer crappy programs being churned out means the quality of software in general will rise. The quality of software today sucks and getting rid of the programmers who don't actually like programming would be one of the best ways to improve this.
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Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
There's absolutely no reason that open source software can't be produced by people working in a more typical development environment - the only difference is that instead of handing the customer a tape or CD with just binaries at the end of the development contract, they also get source and freedom to do with it as they please. In this case, the "bazaar" is not composed of individual developers, but of companies vying for development contracts.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
invaded by honest but mind-controlling aliens
They should go here to obtain the software and hardware to deal with this problem.
MOVE 'ZIG'.
Some of the most amazing excuses for "software" get packaged up by commercial companies all the time and sold to an unsuspecting public.
This is not always what the companies want, not by any means, but often they feel they have no choice.
Scientific American did an article called "The Risks of Computing" a while back, I'm not sure if Neumann wrote it but it was where I found out about the Risks forum, and what it documented is that in any software system, the number of bugs steadily increases over time but the reproducibility of each individual bug goes down, so in the end you have 100,000 bugs each of which you will experience just once in your career.
There are ways to lower the upward bound of bugs, for example on Linux you can use Bounded Pointers for GCC and make great strides in a hurry - but then although you'll have fewer bugs you'll have different kinds of them.
Improving QA by using test suites is another important step, as I discuss in this article on Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel.
You think your commercial vendor uses test suites? Guess again. It's so frustrating when I have a client who I cannot convince there's a reason to actually perform QA of any sort, let alone use test suites.
Another way of lowering the upward bound is to use Unit Tests - but despite the fact that I've seen unit tests advocated in many places, and I guess they're more popular, the one time I have ever seen them put into practice on a project I've personally worked on is when yours truly used them on a consulting project last year.
Mike
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
I'm not saying he's hard to answer- the BS about "freedom to innovate" was also easy to answer. But despite that it had a lot of impact. This could have the same impact, if we aren't careful.
IAAL,BIANLY
Basically if open source gets out of hand, normal software development will cease, and the quality of software will go down. Why? Because the top programmers will no longer program, if they don't get paid.
I just don't see how you can refute this argument.
Easy to refute..faulty logic..you assume that no one will pay for software that is open source.
In a free market, things that need to be created will be created. And that goes for innovation too.
1.Microsoft's server software is used by most websites
Actually IIS is used to run less than 1/3 of websites. Most web sites use Apache, about 60% according to Netcraft.
2. Microsoft makes the best browser
Matter of opinion, which some people disagree with.
and actually innovates with this browser. No other browser supports the technologies MS's browser does.
What, if any, useful features does IE have that current versions of Netscape Navigator or Mozilla not have? What 'innovations' have they made in browser technology? They've certainly been trying to proprietarize the web, but that isn't something I'd consider a good thing.
3. MS made the modern internet possible.
This is the most laughable comment of all. Microsoft didn't know what a network was in 1983, which was when many consider the birth of the 'modern internet'. Microsoft was even late to the web party, not showing up until 1995 after Netscape had been there for a while and even then they just licensed Mosaic, which was already in existance for UNIX, Linux and MacOS as well. The original web browsing platform was NeXT Step, followed by UNIX, MacOS and trailed by Windows.
What has Linux done that can even compare to what Ms has acheived.
Linux has become one of, if not the, most popular web server platforms, and it has done it with virtually no advertising budget. Microsoft has spent billions advertising NT/W2K and IIS, and they keep running into a brick wall trying to grow their market share.
If Microsoft wasn't worried, they'd still be pretending Linux didn't exist.
More to the point, Red Hat only lost $0.01 per share last quarter, and still enjoys strong revenue growth. Their "burn rate" has gotten extremely small. Even if a stalling economy slows their quest for profitability by a year or two, they still have cash to make it through.
Now, as for VALinux, the situation does not look nearly as bright. There are more and stronger potential competitors out there for them, and no hardware maker is making any money really for the next quarter or two.
Babar
The big one is cloning. Every time a really good new program idea comes out and someone tries to sell it, a thousand hackers jump on it and clone it, guaranteeing that the originator won't make a dime. Sometimes, the clone is even inferior, but at $0 it's impossible to compete against.
Don't get me wrong, proprietary software companies do this too. In particular, MS has done this many times, so the entire software industry is terrified that if they try to sell a new product based on a new idea that it'll hardly be on the shelves before MS has their own version with a giant marketing budget and a hundred tied-sales.
The important question is, does Open Source innovation outweigh the Open Source threat of cloning?
I'm not convinced that it does right now. The conflict between open and closed source models is wasting a lot of effort and discouraging many people from creating. However, when the conflict is resolved, I'm sure the situation will be much better than an all-proprietary market.
Programmers need to be paid, somehow; there are some altruists, but in general people need a reward to expend their time and energy. While there are many indirect ways for Open Source software to be paid for, there is still no way to guarantee that just because you make a good piece of software that is widely-used by people who can afford to pay for it, that you will be paid for it. This is the heart of the conflict: Open Source is kicking out the old sources of income and hasn't fully established new ones.
I think the answer is the simplest possible one: just give money both to the people who make the best implementation, and the ones came up with the idea behind the software; by rewarding them, you encourage future innovation for your benefit. It's called Mass Market Busking.
If you hold on to your money unless someone finds a way to pry it from your hands, you can expect that people who want your money will try to pry the money from your hands. If you give money to anyone who benefits you, you can expect that people who want your money will just do work that benefits you. It's that simple.
Just as the people who bought Wolfenstein paid for Doom, and the people who bought Doom paid for Quake, Half-Life probably wouldn't have been made if nobody had paid for Quake. It isn't just the people you're paying who are being encouraged to do work for your benefit, but anyone who is capable of similar work.
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Well, stifling or no, we won't destroy Microsoft. We can't, really. They have a lot of momentum, enough to keep them floating for ten years or so. But remember--their biggest competitor is old versions of their own products.
--
This is not my sandwich.
''I'm an American, I believe in the American Way,'' he said. ''I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat.'' People like Allachin sicken me. I plan to serve in either the Army or the Navy after college and willing to die in defense of this country if need be. Yet I almost completely abhor Microsoft-the-institution, Microsoft-the-products and above all else, Microsoft-the-business-model. I believe that our country's IP laws are treasonous to the values of the American revolution and that anyone that supports the DMCA and the like is equally a traitor to the spirit of the revolution and the United States Constitution. These companies know that in a free market they can't make a honest buck. Allachin and his fellow big government stooges at Microsoft are just pissed off because within a year or so, RedHat will cut a profit and so will perhaps other open source companies. That is what they fear the most, the vindication of the open source ideal that freedom of speech/ownership of software and profit are NOT mutually exclusive. So Allachin or however you spell it, I have one thing to say about your comments about the dangers of OSS... don't talk to me about patriotism. You don't know what real patriotism is. It isn't loyalty to a bloated corporate burearcracy, it is loyalty to an ideal that forms the basis of the best nation ever created by Homo Sapiens. The loyalty to the ideal that each man and woman is free to live a peaceful, productive life, without people like you micromanaging them. To me, OSS is the epitomy of that ideal and a government which doesn't at least start planning the implementation of OSS-based systems is not a government that has any claim to calling itself the government of a free people!!!
Basically if open source gets out of hand, normal software development will cease, and the quality of software will go down. Why? Because the top programmers will no longer program, if they don't get paid.
There are so many things wrong with these statements that I don't know where to start. But I think the real problem is one of mindset. You're used to a world in which crappy software has made billions of dollars for a few companies over the last twenty to twenty-five years or so. Much of that value has been gained from the secrecy of source code.
Thus it seems suprising to you that another model has emerged - where top (yes top) programmers work on software and make the source available for nothing. Not that there's no value - there's plenty of value in distributing that code, supporting it or paying people to improve it (a la Cygnus) - but the inherent value of secret source itself will never be as great as it was.
Want proof of this? Open Source is already "out of hand." The entire Internet, the majority of its mail infrastructure, the majority of its back-ends and a third of its Web servers run code which is freely available. Funny thing is, top programmers seem to program whether they get paid or not.
Normal software development (um, what does that mean by the way?) will not cease because there will always be solutions for which the code need not be opened. But if there are better ones where the code is freely available, the market will decide.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
Anybody notice all the new features built into Windows ME?
How about the SFP (Software Protection Feature)? This feature was added to ME and 2000 (as WFP) to keep virii from overwriting important files and infecting your computer. This is just an answer to the fact that Unix users don't log in as root (if they are smart) when reading mail and virii can't overwrite system files. If it weren't for GNU (Linux) I doubt this feature would have been added at all.
Seems to me Linux is forcing Microsoft to innovate. Without competition Microsoft can just keep creating crap that has to be rebooted every 10 minutes.
Chuck Flynn is correct: Jim Allchin is a first class lunatic.
I wish I'd saved the article: this is a guy who claimed, back in November 1997, that Windows NT would become the full equal of a mainframe in three years. Well, November 2000 came and went, and mainframes are still light years ahead of anything Microsoft can do.
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Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Huh? Most of the major open source programs
I can think of are imitative rather than
innovative. Linux is an OS implementation
of Unix, Gnome and KDE are attempts to clone
MS Windows on Linux, etc.
The innovative OS programs I can think of
t(httpd, Mosaic, BSD) tend to come out from
universities and are more properly the side
benefits of research rather than the direct
result of the open source movement.
Innovation is usually the result of the
work of a few people rather than the
output of the million monkeys of the
Internet.
Besides, it isn't the job of the government to resolve this situation. In a free market, the person who provides the best value is supposed to win the competition, not the person who has the best pull of the government. If this means a few programmers end up switching to a different industry, hey, I have sympathy with them -- but then, as when the automobile put buggy-makers out of business, sympathy only goes so far. Should the government have stepped in to protect the buggy-makers? Or should the buggy-makers instead have switched to making automobile? Most of the buggy makers decided to get government protection. Only one buggy maker decided to switch industries, and that buggy maker (Studebaker) was the only one that survived.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
There's two problems with the above.
One: IBM doesn't want to make their own distro. They've said so themselves. This is a good thing. Since they're playing fairly even handedly with the top few major distros, folks haven't been too jealous/frightened of the massive resources and clout that IBM has.
Two: Linux doesn't have "a lot of fragmentation" -- it has a lot of specialization. Buy Red Hat for servers and Mandrake (or maybe Corel) for the desktop. Buy SuSE or TurboLinux because they're good solid distros and have the appropriate language localizations. Choose Debian or Slackware for OSS purity. ;^) Select one of the scads of
specialized distros for routers, firewalls,
X-terms, and rescue floppies. Each distro tries to
find its own core competence and to fill its own
market niche. And yet, they are all Linux, running
a Linux kernel and the GNU libraries. There's less
variation between the different Linux distros than
there is between Windows 3.1, CE, 95, 98, ME, NT,
NT/Embedded, 2K, etc.
Also, don't forget that Linux is acting as to defragment the *nix market. The *BSDs can run nearly all Linux apps if you turn on the appropriate kernel feature. SCO invented "lxrun", a program that runs many Linux binaries without kernel mods. IBM is porting its LAE (Linux Application Environment), a package of kernel+library interface changes, to most of its product line, and has done the S390 VM port. Who's left? Maybe HP and Sun will get into the act soon.
They can do all that without releasing their own distro, just by throwing their support behind the appropriate standards bodies. IMHO, that would accomplish the same thing with less screaming/suspicion by the anti-corporate crowd.
--
"You've crossed my Line of Death!" "What? No! Where is it?" "Here in the fine print...."
But, the Open Source Community was derived from (or is closely related to -- take your pick) the scientific and academic communities, just sharing software instead of research, and updated to use the Internet. ESR's essays touch upon this topic. Check out: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/
While I agree that true innovation (not M$FT's fake variety) does indeed happen on a personal level, why the elitism? Do you really think that only academics can innovate?
I suggest that the OSS process brings us back to the days (1600s - 1700s maybe?) in which anyone with a sound mind could contribute to science. You didn't have to go through a 4 to 8 year scholastic meat grinder and become a narrowly focused professional first. Likewise, now anyone who is a good programmer can pick a project and make significant progress. Those who aren't programmers but who can write, can help with the docs.
The "Next Big Thing" may come from someone in Bangladesh or outer Mongolia, yet they are some of your "million monkeys of the Internet".
Come to think of it, so am I. We need a new motto:
8^)--
"You've crossed my Line of Death!" "What? No! Where is it?" "Here in the fine print...."
Go to Neumann's page above and search for "Robust" using the "Find in Page" function of your browser.
Neumann is the moderator of The Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems and the author of the book Computer Related Risks, so he should know whereof he speaks.
Please also read Open Source and These United States.
In the previous article, someone suggested the problem of how to compose a letter to congressional representatives to promote open source - perhaps simply printing out that paper and mailing it to them with a brief cover letter explaining how you've found a way the U.S. Government and Military can achieve substantial savings in its software purchases, along with gains in reliability, would be helpful.
Mike
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
And I don't see how you can maintain it. Just look at, to pick three obvious examples off the top of my head, Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, and Larry Wall. None of them was getting paid for their work when they started doing it, but they went ahead and did it anyway. Each one was brilliant and managed to find a way to underwrite his software writing that didn't compromise its status as Free Software. None of them has stopped writing great and often innovative software, either.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Everyone knows that Microsoft is dead in the water in three years, and everyone knows that Linux and the open-source movement will replace them. These things are beyond refutation...
Exactly -- just as irrefutable as these truths we all know:
- Email has totally removed our need for physical mail
- The web has totally supplanted the old-fashioned print industry
Look, just because something newr, better, cheaper comes along doesn't mean that the old way of doing things is dead. Open source may put MS in trouble -- in SOME areas. But saying they'll be "dead" in 3 years is crazy.
There will always, always be a need for commercial software. First of all, some software is DULL, and no one will want to code it for fun. Secondly, there will always be companies with deep pockets who can fund a very competent closed-source project. And what about apps like air traffic control? You want to fly into an airport running GNU-ATC v0.9B? Assuming it even got written, no one would use it because for some applications you need a company backing the product -- uptime, reliability, support. And I doubt that open-source support firms like VA Linux can fill in ALL those gaps.
Open source is great. Just don't make it a religious crusade.
/me wonders for a moment at why he codes for free.
/me remembers that coding is fun.
/me remembers the e-mails he has received praising his work.
/me goes back to coding. For Free.
------
Almost slashdotted already.I could only see the upper half of the image.
I think we've met, or at least corresponded when I was at Apple.
I was on the Traditional OS Integration team during System 7.5.3 and 7.5.4, and then later worked on PowerBooks. When I started, my manager was Jennifer Ahlquist. I worked with Dave Lyons, Jim Murphy and those guys.
I'm afraid my work on PowerBooks didn't lead to much, but I managed to do some good as a "debug meister". Some of what I learned I pass on to other mac developers in my page:
-
Secrets of the Debug Meisters - tips and tricks for MacsBug
You might be a little shocked by what I have to say on the next page though. I don't think there could ever have been anybody more loyal to the Macintosh platform than me (bleeding in six colors, etc.) - but then read:-
Freeing the Developer from OS Vendor Shackles
I'm afraid the page about why I became a BeOS developer is temporarily disabled. It's at my old ISP in Santa Cruz and I'm always late paying my bill now that I'm living in Maine. Once I send them a check you'll be able to read it again. Eventually I'll move it to my own domain.Anyway, one more way to lower the upper bound on the bugs is to build assertions into the core of one's development framework. Lots of people use assertions when they're looking for a specific bug (and that's my style), but the ZooLib cross-platform application framework is riddled with assertions, and the more frequently a class is likely to be used, the more likely you'll find an assertion in it.
This is something that's available to anyone, but ZooLib was the first time I found it very widely used, and the result was that the product I wrote with it had the least bugs of any substantial program I've ever had the pleasure to work with (note - I also did a little unit testing).
While Instant Makeover is not open source, ZooLib is, under the MIT License.
By the way, the reason the Mac version of Instant Makeover is "coming soon" and not already available is because those deadbeats stiffed me for seven weeks pay - and told me they were going to at the end of a 29-hour workday trying to get the beta out.
During the development of Instant Makover, I usually delivered Mac and Windows builds simultaneously from the same source base. My guess is they can't find a Mac programmer since we parted ways.
I didn't even take a honeymoon after I was married last summer because of the pressure they were putting on me to ship.
It was the largest program I'd ever written by myself (but note the extensive use of libraries), although the one thing I feel was worthwhile is that working on it made me a better programmer, something I'm trying to pass on.
And yes, I did use Radar quite a bit, probably more than most software engineers at Apple because of my job debugging the system software, but read about what I'd really like to see in a bugbase - the idea of having preset, named hardware configurations that a tester can quickly select when they file a bug report is a feature that I was asking for in Radar when I was at Apple.
Not afraid to speak my mind....
Mike
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
More like a huge disaster. Open source does best when it's fueled by individual enthusiasm, not corporate/government mandates. I don't want Open Source software replacing Microsoft in a government agency because of some fiat from above. I want it happening because the the responsible IT managers decide that it delivers the best benefits at the least cost.
Likewise, if the government funded tons of Open Source developers, the results would suck. If the developers are dumb, they'll write bad code. If they're smart, they'll build overly complex application frameworks and stuff that nobody wants.
We don't need government support, just freedom from government interference. I'd agree that government employees and employees of government contractors should not be prohibited or hindered from writing Open Source software on their own time.
(The only thing even marginally innovative here is apt-get, a lame command line tool that works around the lack of software packaging standards in Linux. It's not present on other systems only because they have no need for it.)
:) Then there's gnome-apt, console-apt, aptitude, dselect, etc. The reason why APT is not present on other systems is because those systems are inferior, not because they don't have no need for it. Just remember that the next time you have to personally retrieve your software (even by going to the store, or downloading it from an FTP site) and all its dependencies.
1.
You have no idea what APT does, do you? It handles the retrieval and installation of packages, all with minimal effort by the user. Don't like the command line? (Why would anyone not like the command line?
2.
What is so "innovative" about the WYSIWYG word processor? It's an imitation of a typewriter! The WYSIWYG word processor is the biggest waste of time for someone using a computer. You have this awesome computing machine, it can do billions of instructions per second, and yet you are doing all the work required to manually typeset and format just like you were still using a typewriter? Fortunately there were some smarter people in this world than those who designed Microsoft Word. Check out LaTeX (using an implementation such as teTeX) and LyX, a graphical front-end for LaTeX that provides a different metaphor for word processing that I would argue is superior to the run of the mill WYSIWYG.
Those who do not know the past are doomed to reimplement it, poorly.
Well thankfully it is availiable in two closed-source formats..
air and light and time and space
But you didn't invalidate his point.
Just because NSA/FBI wants high security Linux for some people ("We're from the NSA, we're the good guys"), that doesn't mean that they couldn't still want closed source backdoors for the bad guys.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, get their MCSE.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
It can often be extremely difficult for a project leader to keep on top of things, with the result that the development process can *sometimes* fork, or spiral out of any real control.
I think that innovation is the greatest strength of the OSS community. However, in order to harness it properly, a model of how to control and tap it properly and effectively has to be introduced.
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
Open source does best when it's fueled by individual enthusiasm, not corporate/government mandates.
Howdy. I work for MontaVista Software, and support open source software professionally, as do my coworkers. Our business model works great -- our customers are happy (as the software they use gets the features and bugfixes they need), our fellow non-corporate developers are happy (as they also get the fruits of our labor) and we're happy (as we're getting paid to work on open source).
If we hired lousy developers, maybe our results would suck. We don't, and our quality of output is excellent. (It may be an interesting data point that the average age of our engineering force is waaay above average in this industry... related to our choosy hiring practices? You decide!).
Also, I object to your objection that good coders write useless code. If dumb coders write bad code and good coders write useless code, who writes all the actually usable, interesting stuff you use? Mediocre coders? I doubt it. The folks who write the useless code are the impractical coders, not necessarily the smart or dumb ones -- and it doesn't really matter who they're working for.
Really now. And where is your evidence of this?
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
* Sendmail
* WU FTPd
* Bind
* Squid
* Apache
All these Open source products dominate their markets over all their proprietary competitors (and often, all of their competitors combined). Open Source innovated by building the Internet - except back then it wasn't known as Open Source, it was just software typically licensed under the BSD license.
The internet is still reliant on Unix and Open Source forall its core architecture. Exactly what has Microsoft innovated? How well did NetBIOS and WINS succeed in the market place? Did they make Microsoft lots of money, or were they abandoned in favor of Internetworking standards?
Now, if the development of these closed source products is expensive, the development will only take place if the Microsoft or whoever believes the cost can be recouped, e.g. through monopoly profits when the product is finished.
I doubt it'll come for that. I work for a company which treats software as a service. We service and maintain open source software for clients doing embedded-systems development. Some of our products (like HHNet, a networking layer which works over the Compact PCI bus) are things I'd describe as pretty damned innovative. Is the fact that we're releasing our work as OSS stopping us from making money off it? Hell, no!
Also, a great deal of innovation occurs in non-commercial (academic and otherwise) environments, only to have the final, succesful implementations occur commercially; the success of these commercial implimentations is often due to the availability of documentation, support and the like -- which can be sold individually. Even were commercial development not feasible, however, there's no reason to believe these academically developed innovations won't continue to be implimented by non-commercial interests.
Good point, and one that needs to be repeated when this silly meme of 'programmers will starve' comes up. I know a reasonable number of programmers (including myself) and not one of them is working on shrinkwrap software. In some cases, our employers (reluctantly) open source the code. In others, the code is buried in the bowels of the corporation.
So this guy making generalizations about 'top programmers' is just silly. First of all, it may be that all the top programmers are maintaining legacy apps at big financial companies. In which case, whatever happens to Microsoft or Linux has almost no effect on them. But its more likely that 'top programmers' are distributed evenly across the different kinds of programmers, which would still mean that the majority of them never come anywhere near the commercial software market.
To turn this nonsense around, imagine if medical doctors in the 19th century had started patenting their medical procedures and trying to extract royalties. The small minority of doctors who successfully did this would be highly visible. Then if some doctor hit on the bright idea of *not* patenting his discoveries, it would seem like a radical movement that threatens the survival of doctors. Of course, the majority of doctors weren't in that racket anyway!
So far, it looks like it could be either. And either way, it'll be messy.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
And musicians were paid to play the music that's distributed over Napster. And I think you're completely wrong about CD sales. I think they would've been lower. Why's your opinion on this better than mine? Also, what about mpg's, or any of a number of other video formats? Stil doesn't look like porn is dying to me.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Alchin claimed two things:
This is demonstrably arrant nonsense. The whole Internet is built on Open Source software and was innovated through Open Source software. The claim that software developed as part of research projects somehow doesn't count is nonsense. If the source is open, it's open source.
However, one of the most important innovations in recent computing, the World Wide Web, isn't the result of a research program. It was created at a research centre, yes, but one whose research was into sub-atomic physics. The World Wide Web was developed to solve an administrative problem. It is open source in the classic sense of scratching the developer's itch.
I can't refute this and neither would I try to. Businesses based on information hiding and artificial scarcity are going to get caned.
They're going to get caned anyway. Basic economic theory demonstrates that price varies directly with scarcity. There is no natural scarcity in goods which can be copied at marginal cost. Businesses built on artificial scarcity will fail and should fail. It just isn't a stable economic platform.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
If the available open source software in a particular field is lacking in quality, people will always pay money for software that is of better quality. Unless they are zealots. Fortunately, most people aren't zealots.
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The problem is that he is a lunatic with millions of dollars of lobbying and marketing behind him. Government support for opensource could be a huge boon to what we are doing, and MS could easily kill it. Rebuttals will be necessary, because MS and other threatened companies will start parroting this line to their congressmen and to others, and pretty soon it'll become conventional wisdom- just like "Freedom to Innovate." Sure, we all knew it was BS- but we don't matter. People who do matter (congressmen, an unfortunately deluded majority of the populace) believed it. If MS makes this a major theme, we'll need to deal with it, and deal with it often. In other words, ignoring MS because they are lunatics doesn't make their power go away.
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
Having read Allchin's statements, and listened to the interview with Red Hat's CTO, I get the impression that MS is growing afraid of not just Linux, but any open source OS or software. Allchin's statement ''I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policymakers to understand the threat'' raises my eyebrow a bit: here's a company under government scrutiny (not to mention the potential breakup) suddenly running towards that same government for protection??? Anyone else see just a teensy bit of hypocrisy here? Personally, I think MS is slowly killing itself, with new OS versions that appear to be little more than upgrades / bug fixes / new bugs, demands for fast performance on only the latest-and greatest hardware, and insanely high prices for OSes and software. We don't need the DoJ to stop MS, they're stopping themselves just fine, and trying to blame the Open Source community for their failings.
"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." Bill Gates Yeah Right!
There's no reason you can't pay someone to develop open-source software. Why would you think that open-source == not getting paid? It happens all the time, actually. You pay me to develop something you really, really need -- and it's boring or so application-specific that there is no existing interest in open-source solutions.
:-)
I take your money, and we both agree to release the end result as open-source, in hopes that once the hard part is done, people might be encouraged to build on that platform and improve it.
I mean, look at Mozilla. People are getting paid for that -- lots of people.
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
Read linux-kernel much? I assure you, the maintainers are quite picky about what gets in.
Or have you spent time at a company doing professional OSS work? Mine is such -- and I assure you, our process is indeed diciplined.
Individual developers will often produce bad code -- heck, look at the masses of poor-quality freeware available for Windows. However, well-managed OSS projects do tend to produce good code; take a look at many of the FSF's projects and nearly all major perl modules for examples of OSS projects which have and use extensive test suites.
The key is well-managed. Poorly managed commercial software produces bad code. So does poorly managed OSS. There may be more poorly managed OSS than well-managed stuff -- but if anyone thinks this isn't so elsewhere, they ought to spend a little more time at winfiles.com.
I could not browse to the 56k stream of the video. I had to guess the location. Here it is. It's the realmedia 56k stream. The video really sux, but you can hear the whole thing and get a few pictures. :) I had to open the realplayer app to use it becouse the plugin just would not work (in Konqueror or Netscape).
http://video.cnet.com:80/cnet_news/template/ramgen .cgi?cpcode=674&asset=http://cnetnews.download.aka mai.com/674/t021501_1500lo.rm&start=0&end=314566&x tn=.ram
BTW. I'm one of the guys that hacked his system (DL the RP-8 RPM) to to hear the "pro-linux FUD"
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
Then how do you explain the programmers paid by VA Linux, Red Hat, SuSE, IBM, etc.?
Open Source allows innovation to occur at a rapid pace, since even people who may normally be competitors can team up with a common goal - better software.
You're also forgetting that certain quality and innovation can only be carried through in the OS world.
Look at the PC BIOSes. They all suck hard. Online help that simply lists the options you can choose from? I could have fscking figured that out with with the PgUp/PgDn keys jackass. (I'm talking to Award here)
Do you really think it will get better? Can you really make money by pouring into R&D and creating a better one? Companies have tried, but I've seen significantly more Award BIOSes these past year than any other. They all suck and you generally have to go out to the web to figure out what BIOS settings will get your computer working properly. That's much easier when your computer *is* working.
Then they decide to try sticking advertising in your bootup? It thankfully didn't happen, but they were going to. Why not use that space for some plain-fscking <insert your language here>?
A project like OpenBIOS has much more of a chance of going somewhere interesting, because money is not a factor. Given proper time, it could provide much better, innovative, software.
Allchin is a lunatic. It doesn't take any intelligence or balls to rebut a lunatic. It takes no originalty to take something that no one agrees with, hold it up to scrutiny, and announce that you yourself also disagree with it. It's like ridiculing the mentally handicapped. It lacks all tact and propriety.
Stop giving Allchin his soapbox. Let Allchin's ludicrous statements fall on deaf ears. Everyone knows that Microsoft is dead in the water in three years, and everyone knows that Linux and the open-source movement will replace them. These things are beyond refutation, so stop pretending you're so innovative for pointing them out.
When a company like Microsoft makes such ridiculous comments, just ignore them. Let the press decide to report on them however they want; don't sully your own reputation by stooping to Allchin's level. The truth will out, as it has been shown throughout history. Passive resistance is a far more powerful tool than vocal outrage. Just ask Gandhi.
In short, this "rebuttal" was unnecessary. I hope it's the last of its kind we'll be subjected to.
Read the rest of this comment...
"It's in Windows Media or Real media."
Hmmm. Okay, this is annoying. There's a link to RealPlayer media, but no link to Windows Media Player.
I'm running Windows 2000 here, my Linux box is in the other room, and my FreeBSD machine is in the kitchen.
One of the few benefits of using an odious operating system like Windows is that I have the choice between Windows Media Player and RealPlayer.
Of course, because of Real's tendencies to change default file associations and "help" you out in other ways, it's one of those rare and special things that sucks harder than Windows 95 Upgrade Edition.
Across the LAN that I administer at work, I've banned the installation of RealPlayer. For one thing, when it's installed, it takes over some electronics CAD files.
Until Real stops putting out spyware that changes all Windows file associations, they'll stay off my LAN. Windows Media Player really is the lesser of two evils.
Anyone know of a port to Linux?
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I found today's User Friendly on the subject to be particularly appropriate :).
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Open source doesn't just mean community development. It means that everyone can audit the code. This includes the FAA, the airlines, the control tower engineers, the airplane manufacturers, anyone who has an interest in it being as good as possible and who can benefit from knowing its weaknesses.
The reason I use Linux and FreeBSD in production environments isn't because I have a pressing urge to write kernel code. It's because I want to see the code when something unexpected is happening, so I can maneuver my environment back into the realm of the expected.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
voice recognition to convert streaming audio into streaming text for the sound card impaired drones
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }