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RMS Accused Of Attempting Glibc Hostile Takeover
Bram Stolk sent a bit in thats been floating around lately where Ulrich Drepper, glibc maintainer announces the new version, and sidetracks to discuss an an RMS takeover attempt and how he feels about it. He raises several good points and I tend to agree with him. The FSF has done, and continues to do so much good, but more and more tension continues to grow between the extreme free speech faction and the more moderate folks. People have asked my opinion, and I'll just leave it by saying I don't prefix "Linux" with those 3 little letters and a slash even tho I've been asked.
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One of them is keeping every part of "GNU/Linux" as cheap as possible. This is really necessary, if you look at the facts:
If you put Linux next to some other operating systems out there for a cost comparison, the conclusions are devastating for Linux.
Linux costs not only more because of the frequent updates which require new cdrom's to be bought if you don't have a high speed Internet connection.
Another factor in Linux cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously.
Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose loses water, when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other unix file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows EXT2FS out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.
Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally.
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
I can go on and on and on, but the message is clear. In this world, there is no place for Linux. It's not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc. The best place it should ever reach is the toy store, and even that would be flattering.
I'm sorry CmdrTaco but during the infamous KDE/Gnome flamefests you added way too much oil to the fire to be considered even remotely moderate on the issue of Free Software and the GPL. Don't try to make yourself look so objective and balanced when all the long toothed /. readers know exactly what your views on anything non GPLed are.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Seems to me like this developer dosnt feel he should have to 'answer' to anyone. In his rather flaming screed he stops to say "and I reserve the right of the final decision. ".
One cannot dicatate the terms to a project and treat any act of anyothers will, with regards to that project, as an afront on his unchallengeable-word. If he cannot deal with group decision making, than maybe (as he suggests) he can fork his code and stop receiving contributions. IF however, he wants to keep an open project, he must give some credit to other developers.
RMS may have, at some time, contributed some code to this project... he then deserves to have his voice heard. The majority rules in GNU/Linux and if this developer dosnt like it, again, he is simply invited to fork.
also... i do recognize that he began the porting project (as i learned in the article) - but once you accept patches you accept considering others opinion. Looks like this developer is a little upset at having someone (RMS) use his weight to challenge his fiefdom.
On a more ancillary note: His email was tremendously 'trollish' - his tone and demeanour would tell me that this person's ego had a LARGE part in his reaction to RMS... that tells more about hims own personality than it does RMS's.
GNU and the FSF are about a political and philisophical ideal.. and I am glad RMS defends those ideals endlessly. I am amazed by his tenacity and single-minded devotion to his alturist cause. Anyone who mistakes RMS as being a 'egotist' I believe is really simply incapable of understanding someone with this level of dedication, determination and self-lessness. People hear him demand the "GNU" and think its his ego, I bet he would rather not have to repeat himself over and over and over and just let it rest - but there are people who still dont understand exactly what libre software means... and RMSs adherence to that goal.
"People have asked my opinion, and I'll just leave it by saying I don't prefix "Linux" with those 3 little letters and a slash even tho I've been asked."
Never mind that when I purchase or download a Linux version 70% or more of the included software is GNU. Right?
Wow, Rob. Colour me surprised
If you want to boot to a good OS for free in all it's connotations try the Linux kernel. If you wish to also be productive, your almost certain to be using GNU software. And even if you aren't, chances are that your kernel was compiled by the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). Linux sans GNU ? Please at least try to be serious.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
And you say yourself that's part of my freedom of speech. So there! :)
Actually, yes. It is your freedom. Now you're starting to get it. Anybody who fully believes that Freedom of speech includes the freedom to complain loudly about other's speech would certainly welcome you excercising your opinion.
Feels good to be free, doesn't it? Too bad few people can let go. The ones who haven't figure it out yet are the ones so tense, and ultimate the ones who want to shut the rest of us up.
GNU/Linux. Linux/GNU. Where'd that TCP stack come from again? *snicker*
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
It isn't relevent to the story, so I don't complain. I loathe Linux, and I hate Linus. He's a moron and has no idea about how to run an open source project. Not to mention the fact he has benefeited infinitely from it and STILL refuses to open it up to the community that worships him. If he weren't a self-indulgent prick just like RMS, Linux would be kept in a CVS repo controlled by an objective third-party group of developers, picked by Linus, and the community.
Just out of curiosity, are there any movements out there to rewrite all the GNU tools? I would think there would be a lot of people in favor of something, with all the pro-BSD license folks, and just people who generally think that having one, let say, socially challenged guy in charge of a lot of software is a bad idea.
It could even be GPL (although I think the BSD license is "freer"), but to tell you the truth, I think there would be a lot of benefit of moving beyond the FSF. To quote the movie Lawrence of Arabia:
Feisal: The world is delighted at the picture of Damascus liberated by the Arab army.
Allenby: Led, may I remind you, sir, by a British-serving officer.
Feisal: Ah yes. But then Aurens [Lawrence] is a sword with two edges. We are equally glad to be rid of him, are we not?
Allenby: I thought I was a hard man, sir.
It's almost always better when revolutionaries die in the revolution.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The main problem with communism and free software is that, in order to get get to the blissful anarchy that Marx promises, you need a period of totalitarian management to restructure from the existing system to the new one. Unfortunately, absolute power corrupts asolutely, and you're stuck with a totalitarian system that doesn't want to give up.
This really rears its ugly head when the philosophy starts to expand. As both communism and free software started to catch on, the bigger proponents of the philosophy would rather expand the power of their own totalitarian regimes rather than help establish autonomous regimes. In the eyes of Moscow, for example, the Ukraine Socialist Republic was good, but the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic was better (it wasn't until later that they learned of the advantages of puppet states). And the same is true with the GNU: Instead of presenting themselves and their liscencing scheme as one out of a list of alternatives, they'd rather all free software be written under the GPL.
Fortunately, when all is said and done, we're talking about an operating system and not a system of government. No matter how much people like Stallman bitch and moan, dissenting voices never have to worry about the GNU/KGB descending upon them and the Coders' Army won't send in the tanks to prevent code forking. So when all is said and done, short of brainwashing, people are still perfectly capable of making up their own mind about what they want to write or run, Which is good, because I find some GNU tools to be a pain to learn...
At any rate, in the game of Axis & Allies that is the OS war, we'll call Microsoft facist Germany, GNU will be the Soviet Union, and for the role of the political moderates (relatively speaking), we have corporations like IBM and RedHat as the US and the UK. Now all we need is somebody to play Japan...
Oh, yeah, Apple. Duh...
I'm sorry but this has been building for quite some time.
I enjoy some of the news summations but I was probably one of the first people to use this website back 3 or is it four years? Hell, I've lost count.
Anyway, the de-evolution of Slashdot has been remarkable. It used to be a place where one could have a reasonably intellectual discussion on technology, politics etc.
I've been away for the last two years having started a company (profitable since month three and now into year two), had some more kids and generally been experiencing life. I'm pretty disappointed with what I see when I come back.
As a 40 year old technology executive, I find as I've gotten older, my time is significantly restricted. I need to make every second count and have it be as productive as possible. News and events are a huge part of my life. I relish good news sites. Slashdot is not what it once was however.
It has de-evolved into a mindless, childish idea inferno where ideas and logical debate are burned and replaced with chaos and a general lack of demeanor. Maybe I'm just getting old but I don't have time for it.
As a marketing note to the guys running this site, it's time to decide who your audience is. Is it the pimple squeezing loudmouths or professionals who, while they may disagree with each other, are still able to carry on an intellegent debate and understand the difference between logically defined arguments and gratuitous nonsense.
Cheers,
Nicholas Donovan
So let me get this straight: some guy accuses RMS of "hostile takeover" of a *GNU* project. This guy makes some strong claims in his article. He uses terms like "conspiracy", "embrace and extend", "stab in the back", etc. Such extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence... and he offers none. There are only two pieces of information in the article:
1) Steering Comittee was formed so that one person (the whining guy) does not have complete control over the project
2) glibc license was changed from LGPL 2.0 to LGPL 2.1.
And this is supposed to be bad how? How does that justify the claim that RMS is a "control freak"? Everything else in the article is pure rhetoric without even a shed of evidence.
People, please, before you do your usual "some guy good, RMS bad" knee-jerk reaction read the damn article and think. glibc is GNU libc, it is not a one man's project. It sounds to me like this guy is a control freak -- he started whining after he realized that other people have a say in the project development. So yeah, this entire article is a troll.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Linus did not choose the name `Linux'. Linus chose the name `Freax' and the guy running the funet.fi archive decided that was a horrible name and renamed the kernel for him.
People gathered around this new operating system that was being written from scratch, and they wrote piles of tools that were missing for this new Linux thing. Many tools came from GNU, yes, but many others were assembled and contributed by many people specifically to make Linux run.
It is funny how history is rewritten these days. If you ask the people who were around rms on the early days of Linux, you will see that they tell a story from different angles: `Do not work on Linux, work on the Hurd, anything else is a waste of time'. At least this is the story as told by Donald and now Ulrich.
how about we call it goatsex/linux, since that's all it's members can think about
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