Slashdot Mirror
LWCE Bits and Pieces
Well, we've gotten a massive number of submissions with the haps at LWCE. I've distilled some of the good ones below: Chanc_Grokon wrote to us with the press release from Ximian about the monthly charges for Red Carpet, their
installer. He also raises the "Why not just use apt-get?" point. A number of people wrote pointing out LinuxLookup.com's Day 1 coverage and Day 2 coverage. Of particular interest to Daeslin was Larry Lessig's attack on overly strong intellectual property laws. A number of people,
Krismon included, have voiced some disappointment at the excitement of the show - not being there, I make no judgments. Sun has unveiled more details about StarOffice 6. Compaq's CTO also made comments about Linux improving in the enterprise. jrbw sent in Linus' thoughts (dismissive) of .Net/Hailstorm. And KDE has won the "Best Open Source Project" award. Newsforge has also got a round-up and coverage piece. More news as it happens.
"Chanc_Grokon wrote to us with the press release from Ximian about the monthly charges for Red Carpet, their installer. He also raises the "Why not just use apt-get?" point."
Ximian's charges for Red Carpet aren't mandatory. They give users who are willing to pay for it much better bandwidth. Don't want to pay? That's cool. You don't need to. Just use the free service, and you'll be fine!
This is a terrible analogy, and IMHO it is even worse for the point of open source. First off, comparing the creator of linux to the creator of the Word paper clip is a bit off. The significance of the development of a free OS and an animated piece of metal are totally different. Besides Linus, there are 1000s of people who do open source that don't get nor seek any recognition. For example, who is the guy who wrote the Gnome Calculator? Can you name the members of the Mozilla team?
More importantly though, this panelist (Dirk Hohndel, former CTO of SuSE) makes a very disconcerting assertion that if you get into open source, you are going to get tons of recognition from the endeavor. This is certainly not that case. I think that most of the benefits of open source come from collaboration between diverse groups, and the vast amounts of knowledge that can be gained just by *looking* at someone elses code. The idea that open source will get you a lot of recognition is ludicrous. True, people may say "X application is great!", but they will probably not know the person behind it or ever send a thank-you note. A lot of people say the same about commercial software.
Just a rant, but open source should never be about recognition--if it becomes about that, the movement will fade rather fast.
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
Hard as this may be to believe, not everyone uses Debian. If Linux is ever going to make inroads against MS, it's got to have pretty graphical frontends. Sure, apt-get is nice for the hardcore Linux fans, but Joe Average experimenting with Linux doesn't want to fool with the command line; he wants his point and click.
AJS
The FUD point is very clear here: what if, with a little bit of manipulation, it becomes difficult not to use Hailstorm/Passport/.NET for secure or sensitive transactions? What if Microsoft could secure trust in enough governments and major financial organisations to make a majority of Internet transactions use it? Of the current MS innovations I think it is the most dangerous, because it has the potential to concentrate a lot of responsibility in one private organisation. It really shouldn't be scorned just yet.
Congrats to KDE on the award.
I think its time to analyze why KDE manages to sustain such a high quality open source product. I dont have much knowledge of the modus-operandi of KDE developers, so I am not sure what contributing factors lead to such success.
Is it:
- A commitment to a good core design, and core API's. ie, solid foundation.
- A willingness to throw away a component that doesnt work to expectations (not matter how big or ingrained the components\ is). eg CORBA for inter process communication.- Perform more testing than other projects ?
- Some unique development process/philosophy ?
- Better desingers?
- Better coders ?
What makes KDE as good as it is ? Perhaps a KDE'r can shed some light that other projects would find helpful.
The way I see it competition is always good. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.
The main issues with the
Hailstorm
The main idea behind Hailstorm is a good one and the devil is in the details. I actually would pay money if I could be guaranteed a safe, central repository of all my user information currently floating around on the web especially for two reasons.
- A while ago CD Now announced that they may be going out of business. This filled me with dread because they had my credit card info which would probably have been sold along with my CD listening preferences to the highest bidder as part of the liquidation process. At that time I would have loved it if there was some central place where CD Now got my credit card info from that I could just tell, "Hey, no longer share my credit card info with CD Now."
- Also after the above incident I stopped shopping at CD Now and started shopping at Amazon. This meant that all the music preferences I had built up from rating over a hundred CDs at CDNow were lost and the only way to rebuild that relationship with Amazon would be to rate X amount of music or hope Amazon could do similar things with less info (which they have surprisingly enough). Again, some central repository which I could tell,"Stop sharing my music preferences with CD Now and share them with Amazon" would have been ideal.
The way I see it, the Hailstorm idea has merit. The problems I see are- Guaranteeing security and reliability will be a bitch and a half.
- Websites may resist adopting it since customer info is the one valuable thing they have.
- Without motivation (i.e. marketing blitz) and an easy way to sign up, consumers won't flock to it.
- Entrusting all that information to a single entity would make some peole nervous.
All of the above problems can be tackled one way or the other either socially or technologically. Secondly, I think the time foir this kind of technology has come, whether it will be Microsoft's Hailstorm, the product of some competitor or an Open Source alternative is all that remains to be seen.DISCLAIMER: I'm an ex-Microsoft emploee (former intern).
And this isn't just *any* "private organization", either. Let's not lose sight of who we're talking about here.
The big question with .Net is how widely it is adopted by online merchants. Currently, Visa/MasterCard/Discover/AmEx take a few percent of each transaction as a fee, which is how they make their money (well, that and charging huge interest rates and outrageous late fees, but I digress...). If I were Billy and his minions, I'd undercut the CC companies (ever wonder why AmEx is "less accepted" than Visa/MC? They charge a higher percentage of each sale, which is paid by the merchant.), and give the merchant an even *better* deal if they agreed to *only* accept transactions using Passport.
MS can afford it as a loss leader - they're rich. It's the same old story out of Redmond - essentially give away a product to develop a huge market penetration, then once you've eliminated the competition, raise prices out the ying-yang.
Your CC info is less secure with Hailstorm than is is with anybody else. And in fact gives MS direct access to your purchasing infomation because they are directly invloved with the purchase. Much like a a travel agent has access to you itenary when you book a flight.
How many people do you want to have on demand access to your records?
Guaranteeing security and reliability will be a bitch and a half.
Rember MS doesn't even guarentee their software.
Websites may resist adopting it since customer info is the one valuable thing they have.
Websites have products to sell. Customer info simply allows them to gain info to sell products.
Without motivation (i.e. marketing blitz) and an easy way to sign up, consumers won't flock to it.
Of course it's going to be easy to sign up. How easy is it going to be to cancel?
Entrusting all that information to a single entity would make some peole nervous.
It should.
Next thing you know MS is gonna start having Hailstorm exclusivity contracts where realtors can't do business with non-hailstorm customers. Then they can try to force the non-hailstorm realtors out of the market.
This kind of technology is Big Brother at it's best. The idea of not having to type CC and universal preferences it nice, but this is a Big Brother and should be illegal.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.