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Alan Cox Interview
cuvavu sent in a lengthy interview with Alan Cox. He talks about his responsibilities at Red Hat, Microsoft, the Linux Standard Base, etc.
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I wish they would've went into more of the begining details of how he got involved though.. it is a really interesting store.
He was great to talk to. This interview is exactly how our conversation went. Alan is very forward thinking and understands the role that larger companies take when partnering with Linux. Interesting to note that he said in the article that Linux has had a tough time entering the desktop market. When I met him, he was claiming that the desktop market had already been penetrated. I wonder why the switch in ideology.. Go figure.
Alan Cox is one of the most influential IT innovators in the world. A graduate of the University of Wales, Swansea, he has been a key developer of the Linux kernel for nearly a decade. Currently working for Red Hat® writing kernel and application code, Cox was previously responsible for the original Linux multiprocessing support, and for much of the early work on networking. Here we ask him about his changing role at Red Hat, and learn about the benefits Linux brings to business.
itwales.com: You're a leading kernel developer on Linux. What exactly does your role entail?
Alan: Mostly I am involved in making sure changes get integrated and that the changes are of a high enough quality. Often this also means working through longer-term plans for the Linux kernel. It also gets to be fun because many of the contributors have conflicting aims and it is necessary to find problem solutions that work for all cases - from Linux on a PDA to Linux mainframes.
itwales.com: The Linux kernel is a modular one. What benefits does this bring to the OS user?
Alan: Modularity is an essential part of a reliable system. If you cannot change one part of the system without needing to modify the rest of the system you cannot fix a bug without risking introducing thousands more.
The modularity is more important to developers. With developers working on Linux on all continents its essential that everyone can make changes without full communication.
itwales.com: You recently stated that you plan to work more closely with customers
How do you see your role changing in the near future?
Alan: Red Hat is starting to pick up a number of enterprise customers. These people pay for - and expect - a very high standard of service. That includes improving the OS kernel to provide facilities that they depend on in legacy platforms they want to discard. One of the things Red Hat has to be able to do is to deliver those facilities.
itwales.com: The Linux OS is renowned for being stable, fast and virtually virus-immune. How have you achieved this?
Alan: Open development. People have spent ten years looking over each other's code able to refine the existing code and to spot security holes. The same process of peer review that ensures university research quality and that bridges don't fall down has simply been applied to software, which as an engineering discipline should always have been the case.
itwales.com: As a student, you installed Linux on the Swansea Computer Society computer. Is this how you began experimenting with the Linux kernel and became interested in Linux?
Alan: At the time the 386 based PC began to take off it was apparent that this was the better longer-term option for the society. We had two old minicomputers kindly donated by the computer center but we needed to move on. It also appealed to quite a few of the society people because it was not a closed box. The computer society's goal was educational and a bunch of students attempting to debug their own kernel certainly proved that.
itwales.com: 'Open source' means software is owned by everyone, and anyone can contribute to it. Is the sharing of ideas important to you? Was choosing to work within the free software community an ethical decision?
Alan: Technically the software is still owned by the person who wrote it, but that is more of a credit thing - which is important in the community. For me it wasn't really an ethical decision, it's simply the right way to do engineering. You don't build reliable bridges by refusing to let anyone see the plans.
There is a real problem in both the US and Western Europe today with people trying to own and control ideas, but that is something bigger than just software or free software. Ironically it is having the same effects on free software as other things - all the great innovation is moving to Eastern Europe, India and South America.
itwales.com: What are the advantages of an open community when it comes to product development?
Alan: From the developer point of view it means there is a huge range of talent. No matter how obscure a problem or a requirement is there will be someone who wants to solve it and who understands the field.
It also allows the sharing of development work. A large part of a computer system nowadays is generic and the revenue is in customisation and services. In the open community the cost of building the generic parts of a system are shared not duplicated. For researchers it has turned out to be a very big blessing too. It is possible to take an open source OS and modify it to test research theories and algorithms in real world environments without building costly throwaway mock ups. Furthermore, if it works out, it can be folded into the main project.
itwales.com: Linux has yet to be widely adopted as an OS by businesses, but the expense of Windows new XP operating system might change that. How are you targeting businesses?
Alan: Larger companies are adopting Linux rapidly for server systems in particular. Getting further into that market is now mostly about growing the quality of high-end support services.
The desktop is more challenging because desktop users are an extremely varied bunch of people. It demands a high quality and an easy-to-use environment - which is now mostly there - and it demands a large application portfolio which tends to be the chicken and egg problem.
At the moment the desktop market for Linux is growing in two areas. Firstly in providing large numbers of easily managed desktops running either custom or very standardised software (such as the Star Office suite), secondly in the technical desktop market where the tools wanted are primarily the powerful development tools Linux has had for many years.
The ever-rising price of MS office is increasingly pushing companies to look at Star Office both on Windows and on Linux. In many ways the effective forty per cent price hikes in Microsoft pricing have been the biggest driver of Linux on the desktop.
itwales.com: Are the merits of Linux's business applications attracting users?
Alan: The main things that attract business at that level are the pricing, reliability and the reduced business risk. The fact that there are multiple suppliers of the operating system gives a great deal of comfort to companies using it. In addition the license ensures that they can always get a custom change made for their own use, even if the main distributors are not interested. In the open source world one example of this was Y2K. When packages had Y2K problems and were no longer maintained by their authors, anyone or any group of users could fix or pay for fixing work. There was no "enforced upgrade" risk.
itwales.com: It's been said that in the last year, particularly with IBM's use of Linux technology, Linux has become a mass-market alternative to Windows. Was 2001 a turning point for Linux?
Alan: It didn't strike me as a turning point. There has been a continuous trend in the increasing use of Linux particularly server side. With some of the big names now using and supporting it, visibility has increased.
itwales.com: Do you think Linux markets itself effectively to businesses?
Alan: That is really a job for the vendors, and I think they are doing a good job. There is a difference between effective marketing and claiming to be the one true solution to all problems. Linux is not the one true solution (if such a thing truthfully ever can exist), but we are working on it.
itwales.com: Why should an SME choose Linux as an operating system?
Alan: Because it will save them money and do the job better. If at this time that isn't true for their application set then they shouldn't choose it. The desktop monopoly has perhaps clouded things but with any tool the same fundamental rules apply, be it a hammer or a web server. Is it the right price, is it reliable, will it do the job?
itwales.com: How does it save SME's money, specifically?
Alan: As an SME you can pick from multiple vendors, or download it yourself. You can install it on as many machines as you like without expensive software auditing. If you need specialist features you can go to a company with experience directly in the matter. You can buy support from where you feel happiest, including companies that actually listen to their customers. No single company controls the ability to modify the software.
In many ways the lack of a per seat license to install the software is a side effect of the recognition that it's more efficient to develop openly. The better overall pricing, improved reliability and removal of vendor lock-ins are the really important factors.
itwales.com: How can Linux overcome Microsoft's dominance at the desktop? Will you have to come up with radical new technology?
Alan: In part this depends on the legal settlements. One of the big problems right now is getting Linux pre-installed on a PC. When you investigate why this is hard you end up looking back at questionable monopolist influences.
With the settlement, the large number of civil lawsuits pending, possible EU action, and the question now raised in the US about whether business practices of not paying dividends are in fact allowable or an illicit tax haven there are several chances for justice to be done.
Beyond that, the open source model is faster and more cost effective. It improves more rapidly, and for less investment. It's very hard to compete against a fundamentally more efficient model.
itwales.com: Microsoft recently implied that it's going to seriously target Linux in 2002 as a competitor, plus any vendors that support it (such as IBM). They are especially concerned with the server marketplace, and aim to find out about the use of Linux in their customer base. How can Linux combat this 'assault' from the IT giant?
Alan: Primarily by being cheaper, more reliable and higher quality. End users believe their own experiences over a salesman. Company directors talk to each other as well as to sales people. In terms of advertising, IBM have already been running Linux TV advertising in the USA.
itwales.com: In recent years, commentators have warned of a fragmentation of Linux (in a similar fashion to Unix). Because the OS is open source, programmers can come up with different versions, and applications may not run on every version of the OS. Do you think a level of competition will be introduced by this?
Alan: Competition and product differentiation don't have to mean incompatibility, and in fact the incompatibility story is mostly a marketing myth put about by a certain large vendor. The Linux companies care about compatibility a great deal, and one recent result of this was the Linux Standard Base, which defines precisely the base behavior of the core Linux software that applications rely on. You can expect to see compliance statements in the next series of vendor releases.
itwales.com: You resigned from the Usenix ALS committee earlier this year, reportedly because Dmitry Sklyarov, the Russian programmer, was arrested in the US. What do you think of the situation in the US at the moment with regard to the Digital Millennium Copyright act?
Alan: At the moment I consider the USA not a safe place for a software engineer to visit. Money and lobbyists buy many things but when it comes to the courts I don't think that the DMCA aim to send people to jail for even discussing security flaws is going to stand well against the US constitution. Until then I'd rather play safe.
These things happen. Right now the UK government is busy trying to pass the similar European copyright directive into law in a way which may well make it a criminal offence to help a blind person read an electronic book if it has been protected by some mechanism that interferes with their screen reading software. It also puts web caches that do filtering (for example pornography filtering for schools) on questionable legal ground.
itwales.com: What is your opinion on the government's involvement with Microsoft? Do you think that governments, as a rule, should use open source technology?
Alan: When the prime minister is appearing at product launches by a company twice found by courts to be abusing a monopoly, and facing billions of dollars in lawsuits you have to ask questions
Governments should evaluate open source technologies certainly. The fact they get the source code and can audit it has been a reason for some countries to adopt open source, pricing is another. However, I don't think its right that government should have fixed rules beyond "fair review". There may be situations where proprietary software is genuinely the right choice.
itwales.com: In terms of its skills base and its WDA initiatives, do you think Wales is improving as a venue for software development?
Alan: In some ways - and the lack of London pricing means it is cheaper for an SME to get the staff (as well as a higher standard of living for the staff) than in the South East. Right now we seem to have a problem in that all the IT literate people move to the South East because there is little Welsh IT employment. As a result of them moving there is no expertise here so there are not enough Welsh IT companies. Thus the cycle continues.
It is a very hard problem, and one I am glad I don't have to solve!
Before even seven comments were posted, the server fell down and went boom. There are times when I fear the raw destructive power of Slashdot readers, especially when someone says, "Look! Over there! It's Alan Cox!"
I have read interviews with him before , there mostly pretty good. when this one is done being slashdoted i will read it too.
RedHat payes him to be a kernal hacker...
Pretty cool.
Nex6
Carousel is a lie!
Not that similar things don't happen in the U.S., but i don't think Dubya has ever attended one of these.
In fact, I think that AC provided a fair and balanced overview of the state of Linux and open-source software.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
A must read for Linux advocates. I have book marked it in my Linux advocacy section.
http://www.ajaygautam.com
From the article (sidebox):
Oops, I didn't know that "source code" and "kernel" are synonyms. ;-)
- "A powerful all-purpose industry compliant web server built specifically for windows 95/nt4 platform...".
Sigh....I guess I'll have to wait a few hours to read this one.-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
When did he get responsabilities at Microsoft? =)
Best Slashdot Co
Q: So, Alan now Linus has merged himself in the kernel, how do you feel about running linux on Alan-Cox-on-a-chip?
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
This is a very pragmatic way to look at it. Obviously, moving government offices to (GNU/)Linux and KOffice or StarOffice would save taxpayer money in per-seat licenses. The costs of platform migration, service, and especially user training might eat up those savings, however. In addition, the public, which is under the Desktop Monopoly's thumb, would demand interoperability with government agencies. ("I'm sorry, I can't read your .doc file. Could you reformat it to take out this feature which StarOffice can't handle?" "It's a freaking Word document! How hard does it have to be for you to read it?!")
I also wonder about the unfair competition argument which MS and any other proprietary developer might raise. If governments mandate -- and contribute code to -- free software, is that government unlawfully competing with private enterprise? And even if it's lawful, is it politically feasible? Here in the U.S., folks would be skeptical if they felt like the U.S. government was setting up their own computing standard as a public monopoly in order to take down Microsoft.
The political considerations aren't limited to the perception that (pick a government or agency) is in Microsoft's pocket. It also raises questions about the government's role in steering the direction of technology, and whether government could usurp the roles of both software companies and free software developers in declaring standards.
Hmm, could be used as an interesting variation on the DoS attack-- that would be too funny
J-aims
--
Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
This interview was very informative. Not.
itwales.com: The Linux OS is renowned for being stable, fast and virtually virus-immune. How have you achieved this?
When it first started getting good recognition for being usable on the desktop, he probably thought it would take off. Unfortuneately, that hasn't happened yet for a number of reasons. That is mainly the result, I think, of the chicken and egg problem.
With increasing usage in servers by large business, and also for cool stuff like doing graphics rendering for big movie studios, hopefully it will steadily gain recognition and people will start using it.
I think first it needs more support from manufacturers. At least one of the big ones needs to push Linux in a big way and include a ton of apps, and it would probably help for it to be on a really slick iMAC-like PC.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
what's the code to do this?
First let me say I an a fan of Alan Conx, from a purely technical point, I dont know him personally, and therefore cannot make a determination if I like him or not.
The answers given were good, to the point and basically good answers.
THE QUESTIONS SUCKED !
This has too be one of the shortest most boring interviews with Alan Ive seen. Alan doesnt seem to be as forthcoming with tangents as some interviewees. But thats him, me id talk about everything under the sun.
Long story short, and a note to interviewers, If you actually get time to ask someone like this questions in the future, give some thought to the questions youre going to ask, this one about put me to sleep.
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
itwales.com: Do you think Linux markets itself effectively to businesses?
Alan: That is really a job for the vendors, and I think they are doing a good job. There is a difference between effective marketing and claiming to be the one true solution to all problems. Linux is not the one true solution (if such a thing truthfully ever can exist), but we are working on it.
For as much grassroots effort there is in marketing, there's still a long way to go, and I don't really see linux vendors attacking this at all. I'm talking about general mass media. MS has ads in every magazine (even linux ones!) but I don't think I've ever seen a RedHat ad in anything but linux magazines (preaching to the choir).
Some distros are in BestBuy and CompUSA these days, which is a good first step. The next step, imo, is some general print ads to get the visibility up. Perhaps RH could trade some consulting/installations with some regional business magazines in exchange for adspace? I'm thinking about something like Crain's in our area (detroit, and I know it's in some other areas too).
People reading magazines are often decision makers, but they don't want to get too technically savvy. Move the mountain to Mohammed, take the message to the streets, etc.
Thoughts?
creation science book
The desktop is more challenging
The is nothing I would like more than to see Linux take over the desktop. But I cannot see that happening any time soon.
Right now Linux can fill the basic requirements for the desktop - even though it might be a little challenging setting it up just right if you not a techie.
However, as soon you want to do anything remotely advanced like knowledge or document management (that is integration between office products and content management systems) I see no real alternative to MS Office on a Windows platform.
You can do really amazing things integrating Word, Outlook and Internet Explorer into a content management system. On Linux we are still waiting for StarOffice 6 to be released.
I have used StarOffice 6 beta and I am impressed, but on the Windows platform we are talking advanced systems integration and not just regular word processing or emailing.
That is why I think that the question of using Linux on the desktop is a question of ambition. You can use Linux all you want, but you will not be able to integrate you work processes any time soon like you can on a Windows platform.
HA! it doesn't do ANYTHING on Konqueror!
"("I'm sorry, I can't read your .doc file. Could you reformat it to take out this feature which StarOffice can't handle?" "It's a freaking Word document! How hard does it have to be for you to read it?!")"
Have you used staroffice or do you just enjoy spreading more FUD? Maybe you just like to see your words in print... Anyways, 5.2 handled .doc's for me just fine, ones created in officeXP and then modified and saved in staroffice5.2 and then transmitted back to officeXP. 6.0 is supposed to be even better although I missed out on the beta trial time period.
It's better to get it all over with sometime, and then you'll be out from under MS's thumb for a long time. And if the government can afford to pay a billion dollars for a big airplane to drop bombs on people, surely they can cugh up some money so they wouldn't be supporting a monopoly!
As for document compatibility, hopefully StarOffice and friends can gracefully deal with features it can't use. And anyway, is it really that hard for people to save as HTML?
And as for government support of Open Source, is using open source stuff any worse than using MS software?
You obviously have never used that piece of
malodorous software.
Red Hat can't "sell" Linux using ads, since none can "sell" Linux. So IMHO I don't see Red Hat promoting Linux by itself, but instead, with their own services, perhaps trampling the idea that what you need is NOT Linux, but what you need is Red hat (services).
And the Operating System itself would be promoted by hardware makers.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
Alan: Open development. People have spent ten years looking over each other's code able to refine the existing code and to spot security holes. The same process of peer review that ensures university research quality and that bridges don't fall down has simply been applied to software, which as an engineering discipline should always have been the case.
Finally, a good quote! Seriously he has a great point. When anti-Open people talk about 'Free Software' and the such they almost always talk about the economics of it.
Open Source isn't about money, it's not about economics. Red Hat shows that they can be the builders of the bridge. They can put together all those pieces of steel. Alan has just helped go over the plans and helped make sure they bridge doesn't go down.
Hell, I can get bridge plans off the internet now... but I need someone to build it for me! In this view Red Hat would be the people to call.
Get your Unix fortune now!
> .. government unlawfully competing with private enterprise?
The real question is, what services are considered so basic as to deserve to be free of the shackles of private interests. Private interests are always directed at a profitable consumer base, not a consumer base with needs. I think, if you say that computing is going to be a fundamental part of your infrastructure (like, broadcasting, roads, etc), you have every right to prefer solutions that are free of private interest influences. Sure, it might cost more in training, migration, etc, but at least you arn't placing important services that your country relys on in the hands of so-and-so's markting plans. The justification is doubly so when the only (real) private-interest solution is doing everything in its power (and thats a lot of power, in MS's case) to minimize competition. The government has every right to say, "Look, if MS allowed competition, then sure, we'd favour domestic market stimulation over the costs associated with riding on the back of private interests. There are enough disperate private interests to garauntee long term viability of this buy-in should this investment fail or suddenly change horses." However, when you go with an MS infrastructure, you're placing all your eggs in one basket, thus giving you a vested interest in their success. In the governments situation, thats the very thing they should be free of. (Good example: Enron. In hiding the details and placing all their eggs in the Enron basket, old boys club notwithstanding, the government effectively screwed a fair number of its citizens in not 'tampering with the market'.) If anything, staying with MS software interferes with the market more than trying to knock MS down a few notches by preferring the only real cost effective alternative, free software.
If there were more than 2 truely viable commercial OS's, I'd say, who cares, but the government is really just doing the market a disservice by not placing a 'preferred' status with 'competitors' (even if said competitor is being forced to give away said software for free because of the barrier to entry of the market that the Intels and MSs have created).
Just my two cents. The whole blind-faith thing that the market works itself out is a successful sell on behalf of large companies. When you look at countries that have fostered the fastest growth in their economy, they've done it through government regulation and placing 'preferred' status' on solutions based on their long term benifit to the economy. It's not by bolstering up the champion of the market at the time the decisions are being made, which is why I think the government, for the sake of their citizens at large, should be going out of their way to not do MS any favours (and the way MS acts, leaving MS alone is a favour in itself.)
"Old man yells at systemd"
Alan, write a book!
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
that picture at the top..
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
Alan is a smart guy but his comments about how he thinks Linux isn't on the desktop because of Microsoft's monopolistic practices clearly demonstrate the myopia that a lot of Linux boosters have.
So, what exactly are his responsibilities at Microsoft?
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
He's surely the one who talks best in behalf of Linux and Open Source
The costs of platform migration, service, and especially user training might eat up those savings,
.doc file. Could you reformat it to take out this feature which StarOffice can't handle?" "It's a freaking Word document! How hard does it have to be for you to read it
.doc with star office.
First off, there are costs involved with training for MS products.
Everbady says "Everybody knows how to use office" yet corporations spend million off dollars traing people on these tool every year.
So its not totla trainng costs, its the training cost difference.
The initail incorporation of a GUI running on Linux might have an incresed cost, but that would lessen to todays training costs in a year.
So it would be cheaper to go with an OS desktop.
Thats just training and liscencing. A much bigger piece of the IT budget goes to hardware upgrades and maintainance. properly intergrated, all those cost go down dramatically.
I'm sorry, I can't read your
this would be a need, which would get filled. probably by Microsoft.
Plus I have yet to have a problem opening a
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The costs of platform migration, service, and especially user training might eat up those savings, however.
.doc file."
...government unlawfully competing with private enterprise?
However NOT.
"I'm sorry, I can't read your
RTF (Rich Text Format) is a standard. Even that freaking Word can read it.
First of all, government is here for public, not the public for the government. And because open source WOULD SAVE MONEY, the decision should be clear.
I wish you Happy lobbying. But remember that you suck here.
According to this interview Redhat is having a Q&A-session with Alan. Send your questions to (scroll to bottom of interview for this) asktheexpert@redhat.com and they'll send the most interesting questions to Redhat.
No offence, but:
Alan Cox is one of the most influential IT innovators in the world.
Come on.. the guy does a lot of great work and all, but most influential INNOVATORS??? We're talking a Unix clone here.
No, I'm not agreeing with the fact that Bill Gates gets named as one of the great innovators of all time (yesterday). In that light, naming A. Cox one of the most influential IT innovators is a bit over the top. Sorry.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Alan: "When the prime minister is appearing at product launches by a company twice found by courts to be abusing a monopoly, and facing billions of dollars in lawsuits you have to ask questions."
Oh really ? And what about Linux gurus being on the payroll of the hyperlink "inventors" ? Or is this ok because he exploits them ?
"Alan Cox will be conducting the BT sponsored Public Lecture at the Taliesen Theatre in Swansea, Wales, U.K. on the 5th March."
How does one become an ex-graduate?
Left shift 1 for e-mail...
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
...to this day.
"is that government unlawfully competing with private enterprise?"
Law and the free market are the ultimate monopolistic social programs of Government (after all, it's not like there are privatized courts). So how would this be "unlawful"? Unjust is another question. But since government defines law, I doubt it would be "unlawful".
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I was joking, hence the :-)...... You guys need to get out more.....
Even if you can doubletalk the training and support issues, you haven't addressed migration costs. (And your training argument reads more like an argument against rather than for. Why would I want to respend "million off dollars" that I've already invested in training?)
The fact is that migration/transition is very expensive. There's virtually no way that you can cost justify moving from {X} to {Something Just Like X} -- even if the latter is substantially cheaper, the transition costs will be so high that the ROI will be decades out.
On the other hand, most businesses will glady move from {X} to {Y}, IF {Y} offers substantially increased profitability. The software cost might increase, but if much more substantial business costs and inefficiencies can be eliminated or revenues can be increased, you've got a winner that can provide ROI within a couple years.
And that, my friends, is what Microsoft and most of the rest of the commercial software industry understands and you do not. They are at least trying to develop tools which offer benefits on the _profit_ side of the ledger, not the cost side. The OSS 'taillight' strategy just offers more of the same, except cheaper -- and that is just is not compelling enough.
Linux is NOT based on the Minix source code!!
"They are at least trying to develop tools which offer benefits on the _profit_ side of the ledger, not the cost side."
Yes, the hours moron managers spend fiddling with the formatting in MS Word for a memo that won't be read definately shows up on the profits side of the ledger. Here's a strategy for you. Decree that all memos must be written in knotepad and fire anyone who doesn't comply.
I also wonder about the unfair competition argument which MS and any other proprietary developer might raise. If governments mandate -- and contribute code to -- free software, is that government unlawfully competing with private enterprise?
Don't forget that the NSA has already released a prototype of its more secure Linux, without a whole lot of complaint along these lines.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
From the interview:
itwales.com: 'Open source' means software is owned by everyone, and anyone can contribute to it. Is the sharing of ideas important to you? Was choosing to work within the free software community an ethical decision?
Alan: Technically the software is still owned by the person who wrote it, but that is more of a credit thing - which is important in the community. For me it wasn't really an ethical decision, it's simply the right way to do engineering. You don't build reliable bridges by refusing to let anyone see the plans.
There is a real problem in both the US and Western Europe today with people trying to own and control ideas, but that is something bigger than just software or free software. Ironically it is having the same effects on free software as other things - all the great innovation is moving to Eastern Europe, India and South America.
i couldn't agree more. it's about time someone was able to put this into just a few sentences.
i wish Alan would write a book using the above as his thesis.
GO Alan, you rock!
Giving the manager a word processor to fiddle with is far cheaper than giving him a secretary to fiddle with. And who gets paper memos anymore?
Cox is correct: The ability of linux to be successful on the desktop is based in part upon the resolutions in the courts. I say "resolutions" because many cases are now before the courts and the EU.
Key will be the requirement for Micorsoft to sell a barebones OS. That resolution is essential. Otherwise, monopoly power precludes any competition in the key desktop markets.
Also key is the Netscape(AOL) law suit to gain a right to fairly market a browser application. Fair means that when an individual customer decides to buy the Netscape browser absolutely no money goes to Microsoft for Internet Explorer. Otherwise, consumers are out of the loop and no longer decide the success or failure of products.
NexuSys - Linux support by the best
With the settlement, the large number of civil lawsuits pending, possible EU action, and the question now raised in the US about whether business practices of not paying dividends are in fact allowable or an illicit tax haven there are several chances for justice to be done.
Stick to software development Alan, you obviously don't know shit about corporate finanace. There is nothing being said anywhere about it possibly being illegal for a company not to pay dividends.
Why do otherwise intelligent people feel compelled to talk about things they obviously don't know a damn thing about?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
"Sadness, because you remember how funny they used to be."
When was Alan Thicke ever funny.
Those interviews usually are posted-- complete with unsubstantiated ad hominem comments from Malda.
That said, I would like to explain my intentions. While commenting the words of Alan Cox "IBM have already been running Linux TV advertising in the USA.", I asked "Is there any place I can download that ad from?". However vulgar and offensive that may have sounded, my intentions were not evil. I am interested in promotion of my favorite kernel, i.e. the Linux(tm), I also liked the Peace, Love & Linux campaign of the International Business Machines, ergo I thought that I would like to see this TV advertising, which Alan Cox was talking about. But there is one problem, however. I do not live in the United States, where that advertising took place, therefore I could not have seen it. That is why I ask you, where could I download the pirated version of this advertising from?
Once again, I am sorry if this post has also hurt anyone's feelings, like the previous one. It was not my intention at all, please believe me.
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
Everything Solaris recently posted a slew of articles, showing that the Solaris community is alive and well. Featuring Open Source software, articles like "Providing Core Customer Services" discuss how to set up that new infrastructure with both Open Source and high-availability in mind. Other interesting articles include, "Replacing Sendmail with Postfix" and "Upgrading to ProFTPD."
i said n/t, right?
riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight???? ??? ? ??
yes, i did, now go away.
And with your rant over with, If the problem persists, please contact your system Administrator.
:)
:) My p100 cost $100 NZ, which is prolly steep.
:)
:)
I have never used Unix, but on my 386 gateway and my new p100 box, potato runs super sweet as. Stable. The only problems I have had are problems I cause, thru miss configuration, or power cuts as you mentioned.
No loss of data for me, In fact, when I was trying to get my 386 running debian ( which involved a lot of swapping the hdd from one box to another ), I even ripped the massive 200 mb hdd's cable out while it potato was booting, and it came up with an amusing error message ( written by a 14 year old with too much time, of course )... curious, I plugged the cable back in, and not only did it continue booting as if it was normal for me to rip ide cables out while booting, the drive had no data loss at all, that I was aware of
And as for cost effective? Well... I got both my 386 AND potato, for FREE.
I use my p100 for doing more intensive tasks, such as compiling bits and pieces... for example currently im working on a part of proftpd so that on my p100 ( internal ), proftpd on each fork_server() the proper external ip address of my 386 gateway is read in and sent out with the PASV command. I notice gcc and g++ compile a lot faster and often give more informative compile error messages than MSVC, which, is not free.
And of course, my 386 being the gateway and all, it gladly provides you with this post at 0 load as usual
ps: Watch your ass, Cost effective is lining up to take a big bite out of it
What the flip is a SME? It obviously isn't a grammophone pickup-up manufacturer
Yea, except then you get him asking you 20 times where his C: drive went.
ALAN has done a fair intergration of linux patches..Problem is the patches have become harder to track........
Let's see HTML handle arbitrary image positionsing, text wrap around, or indexing. Heck I doubt you could even come up with a HTML editor that automatically handeld flowing text across multipl columns on a single page.
Once you are done with that try page specific headers and footers, easy to use versioning tools, thesaurus and a good dictionary.
There are lots of other good word proessors and page layout programs out there that can handle all this. Some, Word Perfect and Star Office, are much cheaper (and buggier even in their native formats) than MS Word. Some, AppleWorks and NisusWriter, run only on macs Some are a pain to use (TeX and LaTeX). And pretty much all the others that have decent features are much more expensive (FramMaker).
RTF is a standard defined by Microsoft. Of course Word can read it.
It integrates a lot of idea from SGML, but it is not a standard in terms of being defined by an outside organizations like the w3c, ISO, etc.
There may be situations where proprietary software is genuinely the right choice.
Ooh, Alan, I hope you aren't expecting a Christmas card from RMS this year. I can practically hear the scratch of the pencil crossing you out.
Not only do I love Alan's kernel hacking, but I also love Alan's comic book writing, especially The Watchmen ;)
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Alan Cox Interview | Preferences | Top | 174 comments | Search Discussion
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Cost efficiency my ass. (Score:0, Interesting)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15, @12:09PM (#3013738)
Let's have a close look at the costs involved when running a Linux system.
An important 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, to keep it from breaking down.
Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, ext2fs, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts 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.
According to Linux advocates, an alternative to ext2fs would be ReiserFS. Unfortunately, ReiserFS is still in beta stage. This means it is not intended for production use (although according to many Linux advocates this shouldn't be a problem, which makes me wonder how (little) valuable they find your data).
The other proposed 'solution', ext3fs, is nothing more than an ugly hack to put journaling into the file system. All the drawbacks of the ancient ext2fs file system remain in ext3fs, for the sake of 'forward- and backward compatibility'. This is interesting, considering that the DOS heritage in the Windows 9x/ME series was considered a very bad thing by the Linux community, even though it provided what could be called one of the best examples of compatibility, ever. When it's about Linux, compatibility constraints don't seem to be that much of a problem for Linux advocates.
Back to Linux' cost. 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. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".
hmm my oracle box on linux has never crashed.
can you say the same for windows?
now linux runs on OS/390 , now it will never crash
you keep posting the smae message, and youre still a loser
in order for linux to make inroads you have to have some conisitent and easy installs for people.
plus a company selling preinstalled linux machines at best buy would help a great deal as well
but I hope to see Linux pre-installed grow out of small companies run by people in the community, not co-opted by large corporations looking for a free ride
Well, i wouldn't call big business giving M$ the middle finger for the oem microsoft tax a "free ride".
For example:
Fry's Electronic's is huge in the southwest US. They're making money and they own outpost.com
They've been putting low cost machines together pre-installed with linux and marketing them as "internet ready PCs". So what if they don't have to pay for it.
Anyways, the more exposure consumers have to linux the better.
Now if we can just get them to change the wording on the adds that say "upgrade to windows xp *"
During the relatively early days of Linux, when I was deciding whether I could implement a particular network test application in user-space on Linux (could, rather easily as it turns out, and the app is still in use), I sent Alan an e-mail with a brief description of my approach and a question about feasibility. The next morning I arrived at work to find a reply that included
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Kind words as to the coolness of the concept,
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An assessment of the basic approach (favorable, to my relief),
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Pointers to sample code that was useful, and
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Pointers into particular places in the source files where I would have to put hooks to do a kernel-level implementation, should the user-space approach run into problems.
Is there a convenient and reliable way that I can buy this guy a beer over the Internet?1) Kill off KDE or Gnome. We only need one. Going with Gnome is my vote. Screw the technical debate, we just need one GUI that works.
/documents and /system and that's it. Regular users shouldn't be allowed to enter the system area.
2) Clean up the file system. There should be:
3) Make a list of all the applets included with Windows and Apple. Make perfect copies. Kill off all the rest of the crap - choice is complexity and complexity is bad.
4) Make it insanely easy to install. One click. Make applications standard to install (like install shield except without suckage).
5) Do the little things: Auto detect mountable drives like floppies and CDs. Printers. Digital Cameras. Make a list of things that DON'T have a driver and put in the back of the box.
6) Include OpenOffice, Mozilla and Evolution.
7) Put it all on one CD. Get Coca-cola to distribute the CDs free with every 2 liter.
8) See what Apple is doing with OSX? Do that. (And remember that Apple is a desktop enemy especially since they're using *nix. Every desktop that uses OSX isn't using Linux...
If I had a clue, I'd make a new distrib called "SuperSimpleLinux" and take over the desktop.
-Russ
Me
Okay, so most of us don't share pre-formatted documents with our governments every day, but the news media do; If the UK Gov't rejected .DOCs from the BBC, requesting say .RTFs instead, the BBC would be sure to do an article or two about it on the radio, and probably on their prime TV news spot. That'd get the discussions going, and increase awareness that .DOC is not the only format.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Lately I've been thinking that owning stock which pays no dividends is really just like participating in a Ponzai scheme or a chain letter game. If the only real value of stock that you "own" is determined by what someone else will pay for it, and likewise for them, then the stock is intrinsically worthless.
I looked on the web for some economist or other deep thinking financial expert to make a similar point, but found nothing except for some people complaining about how few stocks these days pay dividends. Microsoft appararantly prefers to sit on it's huge pile of cash ( something near $100 billion I understand, ) rather then pay anyone *any* dividends.
Then I read this Cox interview, and he makes a passing reference to the "question now raised in the US about whether business practices of not paying dividends are in fact allowable or an illicit tax haven there are several chances for justice to be done."
Son of a gun! Count on an uber-Hacker to notice things that important economists seem to ignore.
Any ideas on how this tax shelter game works ? I assume it has something to do with paying stock options rather then cash.
"In terms of advertising, IBM have already been running Linux TV advertising in the USA..."
Not only in the USA, but in the Europe, too... at least in Finland.
Double taxed ? What a load! The corporate profit taxes before paying dividends are just that: corporate taxes. The stockholder must pay income taxes on the dividends because it's income.
If I go to a store and buy a Tootsie roll, my purchase is taxed *four* times: once when I my boss pays taxes on his profit, once when I pay taxes on my pay, again when I pay sales tax, and once again when the store owner pays taxes on his profit!!
No wait, when the Tootsie manufacturer pays taxes too, and also when my bosses customer pay sales tax, so that would be SIX times.
You are an idiot.