Slashdot Mirror
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.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
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.
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!"
Carousel is a lie!
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.
> Not that similar things don't happen in the U.S., but i don't think Dubya has ever attended one of these
;)
MS might get him to show up if they start(?) touting embedded windows for ICBM missle guidance systems, with one-click 'Kill Evil Axis' processing.
"Old man yells at systemd"
> .. 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"
that picture at the top..
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
That was pretty much how the quake3 install went under linux.
Most software I want under linux doesn't come on cds anyway... it's freely available on the net, and generally I just run apt-get to grab the program I want... which is pretty easy. There are even some GUIs for it. The end user can kind of look at it like they look at Napster or Morpheus... a list of all the files and programs they can install if they click the button, except in this case it is all legitimate.
Ease of installation isn't really what's holding Linux back... Linux won't really do much on the desktop until it's preinstalled by OEMs and the user just buys their computer. The majority of desktop users out there aren't going to install any new kind of OS on their system, much less an upgrade to Windows. They get the latest version when they get a new computer. Until Linux is an option in that arena (and given MS's tactics with OEMs, it will be slow going), it won't make too many grand strides. But again, the reason isn't that it's too hard to install a program, it's just that people don't get it by default.
Most people keep the defaults.