Michi Henning on Computing Fallacies

Karma Sucks writes "Check out this summary of a keynote at Linux.conf.au by Michi Henning of CORBA fame. It really hits the nail on several points. I especially liked the point about people constantly rewriting letters in these modern times, as opposed to say 1945 where it just wasn't worth the pain of re-typing a letter. The only point that didn't made sense in this summary was the one about "source code being useless"."

Comments

My favorite

[Anonymous Coward]

Fallacy 10: Open Source is the Answer
- Economic model is doubtful

There's no doubt - there is no economic model.

- Source code is useless

It is. It is of dubious quality, often unknown authorship and frequently abandoned.

- Motivation for Open Source is inappropriate for most software

Right. The motivation more often than not is "because it's not Microsoft".

- Nerd culture is counter-productive

Especially the last point. Slashdot denizens often say they want Open Source to triumph. Do they work toward this? Nope... they espouse a culture that is so self-satisfied and unbearably superior that it alienates the very people who would have to embrace that culture for the aim to be satisfied.

Re:A Bit more then that

[gazbo]

I can agree with this, and I realise that Word files can grow hugely for no apparent reason (maybe your quick-save suggestion is correct)

But the fact is, when he claimed that delinkifying(tm) the mailto: cut the filesize by 1.4MB, I repeat: He was lying. Through his teeth.

notice the MS whores

[maxpublic]

Is it my imagination or are the MS whores showing up in greater numbers than usual? Whenever a chance arises to blast Open source, Linux, Linus, or anything not pro-Microsoft they pop out of the woodwork like cockroaches, leaving their infantile rantings scattered about the forum like insect shit. And having about as much value, I might add.

I suggest that we modify the account creation process to identify these pathetic losers so we can filter them, much as (to my incredible joy) we can filter ACs. Questions would include things like:

- do you dream of being Bill Gates?
- do you desperately want to meet Bill Gates?
- is one of your top ten goals to give Bill Gates a blow job?

Anyone who answered 'yes' to any one of these would be identified as a Microsoft junkie, subject to filtering. Then we could read slashdot without having to deal with yet another semi-literate rant on why Open Source or Linux is the spawn of the Devil and Bill Gates is the Second Coming (or whatever, so long as they get a taste of the Big Nerd's load).

Max