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Zero-Knowledge Ceases Linux Support
My brief experience with Freedom's software - I attempted to run their first version, on Windows. It didn't work on my machine, and totally killed networking when I uninstalled it.
Fine, I said. I'll wait, because the concept here is great, and obviously what they're doing is pretty technically challenging.
So when version 2 came out I tried again, this time on my Debian GNU/Linux system. (I had defenestrated myself in the meantime.) They only offered support and downloads for Red Hat systems. However, if I compiled from source, including a "kernel shim" and some modules and a half-dozen other knick-knacks inserted into the system at various places, it should theoretically work, they said. (Zero Knowledge described the process as "non-trivial", hah-hah.) I tried. I think I almost got it working. I asked for help. Couldn't get any. I gave up.
Oh, and while I'm at it, they never made it easy for broadband users to use their system either - it was (I'm not entirely sure this is still true, so I'm hedging a bit) geared entirely toward dial-up users. Hmmm, they have a product which is attractive to technically-inclined people, and they're limiting it to inferior operating systems and slow internet connections. What is wrong with this picture?
So, that's my story of attempting to use Freedom. The Zero Knowledge people badgered Slashdot for a while, asking if we would do a review of their software. See above for why we never did. Frankly, I'm not at all surprised that the population of Red Hat Linux users is much smaller than the number of Windows users using their service. Linux users probably would have been a bigger chunk if they had ever reached out to people not using Red Hat. I suppose it's a pretty good thing that I didn't end up actually using their system, because they would be cutting me off with this decision - I'm obviously not going to "upgrade" to Windows.
Cryptobox has been in the news recently. They're another project trying to do roughly what Zero Knowledge is trying. Secure, anonymous communications over the internet is obviously a nice target, but just as obviously a very hard one to hit. I'm still waiting. I'm willing to pay. Here's my optimum criteria:
- Easy installation packages for both client and server (apt-get install foo)
- Must not fsck up the the machine upon installation or removal
- Both client and server source available
- Reasonably low service fee, if there's a fee (ideally, the server cloud would be provided by volunteers, I'd be happy to be one)
- Best possible anonymity and security
These are in rough order of priority. A system which offers a significant improvement in anonymity but perhaps has various attacks which could be made against it, BUT is easy to install and meets all the other criteria, is far far better than a system which is theoretically invulnerable but impossible to install, or worse, not deployed at all. Everyone building these types of systems keeps attempting to get it perfect on the first try, and as a result, there is nothing.
Sorry - this is blatantly false.
Among its other services, ZK provides a "Freedom Internet Privacy Suite," which is essentially a large VPN. WHen you use their "Freedom Network," you're sending the data through a 128-bit encrypted network prior to hitting the internet at large. All the rest of the Internet can tell is that you're coming from Zero Knowledge.
Freedom is no longer available for free.
I need more coffee to fully comprehend that.
The phrase "zero knowledge" will no longer be associated in any way with the Linux community. So, what's the problem?
I will pay for a given piece of software with money. I will pay for a given piece of software with time and effort. Very rarely will I do both.
Although KDE has no download managers, it does a greater range of religious software than is available for another platform, including a handy bible study program and a biblical quote generator. Therefore, rather than being the OS of "1337 h4x0rs", Linux is the OS of all good, honest God-fearing people. Rather than being a "strange anomoly", Linux is an operating system with impeccable moral credentials and is the obvious choice for all good citizens. And, as we all know, the only people who need privacy and products such as Zero-Knowledge are those evil scoundrels who have something to hide. Therefore, the fact that the Linux community, with its inherent honesty and strong belief in the teachings of Christ, shunned Zero-Knowledge is no real surprise.
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Donald "Don Juan" Kerr
So to those in the know, it's a pretty good name. When a user doesn't need to disclose their personal information, they don't have to.
Face it: Linux is harder to support than Windows. Moderate this down if you want, but it won't change that fact. How many times have you seen a product released for one distribution of Linux that won't run on some other? Your support staff has to be familiar with Gnome, KDE, IceWM, and every other GUI that's been pasted on Linux.
There is a Linux contingent that gleefully proclaims that the various distributions and the flexibility of Linux makes it superior to the one-size-fits-all installations of Windows. Well, those choices and the flexibility are what makes it so expensive and difficult for companies to support.
You want companies to support Linux? Then there has to be standardization:
1. Pick KDE, Gnome, or some other GUI and cease development and inclusion of the others.
2. Standardize where files go, a minimum file set in any standard install, and so forth.
3. Stop releasing distros that break things. If company X produced a product for Windows 95, six years later, it probably runs on Windows Me and probably ran on every version in-between (Windows 95 OSR2, Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition). There's a very good chance that it runs on Windows NT and Windows 2000, too. Compare that to the dismal compatability between different versions and distributions of Linux.
4. Stop competing with every company that releases a commercial linux product. If a company invests 5 man-years creating an innovative commercial product for Linux, within six months of its release, there will be a GPL copycat program to perform the same function for free.
When you consider the limited market share that Linux has combined with the aforementioned problems and "herding cats" lack of standardization and it's no wonder that it does not enjoy a wealth of commercial titles.
Ha. This is my favorite phrase coming from most Linux users, because it is so typical of the predominate attitude in the community. Linux users never pay for anything -- they complain when a company goes pay-for-play with support, they complain about difficult to find cvs systems or when a download is too big (but available on CD for $30), they complain if an O'reilly book doesn't have a web parellel. And yet, whenever one of these "mostly for free" service goes under, somebody pulls out that line..."I would have paid."
Then goddamn it, why didn't you? Because the software was beta? Because it required a little hacking? This never would have stopped you if it was GNU licensed software with a Makefile or an rpm and available on every street corner distro ftp.
I'm an OS-X user, and I have to fight for nearly every piece of software I use -- fight x86 only binaries, Linux makefiles that are unfriendly to BSD at times and unfriendly to the G4 at others, and I have to fight against companies who think that, since Classic will run their software with 75% functionality and very slowly, they don't need to devote time to a rebuild. And though I complain, I never really let it bother me -- in the Mac world, I'm still in a very elite minority. I don't scream that I would pay for a version of AppleWorks, or a good build of instant messenger. I'm used to Apple getting the shaft from every company out there whose decision makers don't realise that though the market share is small, Apple users buy software like nobody's business. That's right, buy -- not compile or extend or pay for service. And yet, we get shafted by everybody...IBM (and they make our bloody processor, man), Corel, Microsoft, and even Adobe sometimes. It's a way of life for the mac user...you feel everything about your platform is superior, and yet nobody in the computer world will share your joy.
I guess what I'm saying is, if your platform prides itself on the freedom (as in beer) and hackability of most of its applications, you can't complain when a company decides that maybe this platform isn't the right space for them to devote their limited resources on a product which should be unhackable by design. It's more work with very low return, and ain't a CFO alive who will fight for that philosophy -- even if it does mean a free (as in love) society.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I'm a mac user, dummy, did you read the rest of the post?
Either way, i apologize for being so general as to use the term "Linux users never pay for anything"...but I was trying to be a bit reactive to what is essentially a complaint beyond the scope of Linux development. The OS is made free, and users -- at least, the class of users most vocal in the realm of Slashdot -- often complain when any development for their OS is closed, made available for fee only or stops production entirely. This is, you have to admit, a little silly under the paradigm that programmers should release everything free for modification and manipulation; if an app is closed, it was never GNU-Linux to begin with (the old Straight Edge philosophy that, if you aren't now, you never were). Freedom is a perfect example of a software company not understanding what Linux is -- a tremulous entity with no reliable reference installation and no absolute commonality of libraries. A windows company tried to bring their software, designed by programmers used to unhacked, straightforward platforms (so straightforward they apparently didn't account for advanced settings, advanced connections or advanced users), to a platform that is neither stragihtforward nor unhacked. And they gave up on it -- just like so many others have given up on the idea that Linux is a viable commercial platform, because it is so difficult to be sure what goes into it. Part of this is due to the lack of common libraries and APIs, something Linux users are proud of, and to a certain extent should be. Part of it is also that Linux users are too well informed to pay for a product that's already been built, for free, and requiring only a moderate amount of monkey wrenching before it works better than a commercial product with set abilities, set preferences and set failings.
If you buy commercial distros and don't hack them, if you rely on RedHat out of the box and never use Make or rpm or vi, you're a different type of user entirely (and, consequently, one who has no right to 'dis the windows crowd because you're essentially no different...same mindset, different OS).
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Suppose you came up with a novel product/service for Linux. It turns out to be so good that Linux users are actually buying it. It runs on most distros. You're making making good money and a name for yourself in the community. People like you.
Now, you decide that you're going to branch off and do a Windows port. Hey, its a big market, right? So you hire on some Windows programmers and start up a Windows version...
What would you do? Simple - ditch the Windows product, and tell your existing Windows customers that if they want to keep using your product/service, you recommend they switch to Linux.
ZeroKnowledge is simply focusing on profits, and they'd be remiss as a company if they didn't. There is no conspiracy. They simply had the intelligence to realize that, "Hey - our Linux product sucks and we're losing money on it," and act accordingly.