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LinuxWorld: Business, Business and More Business
Clarkson University wins a server from IBM. Sun is bringing embedded Linux to its UltraSparc IIe processors. Wired has an overview of LinuxWorld, talking about how it's all business and the joy is gone; and so does Internet.com; and so does Newsforge, which also has a story about LinuxWorld in Paris. The Register has a lengthy interview with Miguel de Icaza, in which he notes "Gnome 4.0 should be based on .NET".
What's wrong with this is that we're intermingling Open Source and vehemently Closed Source ideologies. This isn't making us a serious contender; this is making us a white flag waving wannabe. Yes, we want intercompatibility, but not because we've adopted our foundation from a company known for changing public standards and republishing them into a monopoly environment with every year's mandatory upgrades.
.Net initiative, not to be confused with the ".net" top level domain, is still bound to a company with a long and thriving history of imposing itself on everything it touches. I don't trust their HTML, let alone their XML, let alone their fill-in-the-blank that's supposed to be "open" and "cross-platform". I'd rather work in an environment where my desktop won't just be 'poof' expensive, closed source, and reporting home to a monopoly every time I open a web page or a file manager. Microsoft's "beautiful security model" has landed them more exploits and holes than a block of swiss cheese with telnet, plus an FBI warning. No thanks. Not for me. Not in a million years. No offense intended, but I don't see what's "right" about this.
Microsoft's
-j
I am not a linux world attendee, so I have not experienced the letdown that these people are describing, but it reminds me of people lamenting the loss of the "cool" internet when it was just a bunch of random people putting up sites, before mass commercialization came in and "ruined everything".
I say the same thing to this as I do to that. There are still plenty of cool sites put up by random people. You still have to look for them just like you used to have to in the early days. YOU DON"T HAVE TO DO WHAT THE MASSES DO. YOU DON'T HAVE TO WATCH THEIR TV SHOWS OR LISTEN TO THEIR MUSIC.
Getting depressed about what the masses do with a new concept is silly and counterproductive. All that does is shows how much you are buying into what Madison Avenue is trying to sell. You get irked because some knockoff is getting all the attention. Well, why do you care who all the masses are being told to pay attention to? Why are you letting them tell YOU what to pay attention to?
Britney Spears does not annoy me--that may be because I never see her or hear her music. If I want to hear edgy, innovative, gutsy music I know where to look--off the beaten track. Lamenting the fact that it isn't on the radio is a waste of a lament.
Enterprise stuff may be getting all the industry/press/expo attention right now, but that doesn't stop a single GPL/open source product from getting done, nor should it have any bearing on our passion for the freedom, quality, and community of open source/free software.
Personally, I am thrilled to see people there to make money. And an important part of that is just the "to see people there" part. With this economy we should totally expect that a lot of the fun, innovative, exciting, and cutting edge stuff would be gone. A lot of that was funded by the pre-bubble-burst wild-eyed investment community. The fact that ANYBODY showed up this year is wonderful. And if IBM and HP are not only there, but completely bullish on linux's future, well, I'm ecstatic. It's a huge victory for us that they are there at all, and that they are as enthusiastic as they seem to be.
Linux in the enterprise might not be what excites you about Linux, but it is still an exciting possibility.
These may well be the people that create your next Linux using job--I say we welcome them with hearty handshakes and reciprocal enthusiasm.
Liberty uber alles.