OSDL Answers SCO With Kernel Awareness Campaign

prostoalex writes "Open Source Development Labs announced a new initiative to increase customer confidence in using Linux in business. The initiative is launched in answer to legal claims by SCO Group. So far managers and developers around the world are supposed to boost their confidence in Linux with the help of this little poster, which explains the kernel development process."

Comments

I'll just wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

... until fark hosts a photoshopping contest of the poster.

SCO can make LEGITIMATE money!

[pridefinger]

What if they went on tour? 32 cities in 25 days...

Make sure all the big guns are there...Darl, et al...

And have a dunking machine...:)

I'd pay money for that!!!

-Pride

kernel smernel

[Anonymous Coward]

Now why would kernel development impress decision makers? They think in terms of support, reliability, standardisation, following market trends, etc. Geek terminology only alienates managers.

Re:kernel smernel

[d'fim]

They also think in terms like:
"Linux? Aren't those Linux guys getting sued? I ask for an IT solution and you bring me a lawsuit?"

Re:What I want for xmas!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you run Windows.

OH!

CASH! I thought you said CRASH.

In wonder

[Leroy_Brown242]

How many of you linux boy and girls hav a new desktop image now? ]:3}>

Re:In wonder

[Karamchand]

I didn't know linux girl even exist!

Re:In wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm, never been to the linuxchix website I see....

Re:In wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

what is that ghastly emoticon depicting?

Re:In wonder

[Leroy_Brown242]

A cow.

Re:In wonder

[Urkki]

Uh. The picture does not have neither sexy-looking girls, nor "pretty" abstract computer graphics art, nor anything scifi/fantasy related. What kind of geek would want it as a wallpaper?

Re:In wonder

[Laplace]

There is a Linux girl. Apparently she runs Linux on an iBook.

Re:In wonder

[adrianbaugh]

What, you mean Darl's head poorly cut-n-pasted onto the goatse image? Not on my desktop, mate :-)
It's good, but I prefer my current desktop, even though it is shamelessly hacked together from a gentoo desktop.

Re:In wonder

[IM6100]

A cool thing I did a few times in our development lab was take a screen capture of the machine with various apps loaded and open on the display, and make that into the desktop image.

You can leave such a machine up and running with no actual apps loaded and running. People will walk in and start using the machine. When they discover that none of the 'windows' open on the machine are responsive to the mouse, they power cycle the machine. Which boots up and loads the desktop image again.

Re:In wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently she doesn't wear pants too.

Re:In wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

she sure is perdy, just makes my heart go pitter/patter...

Re:In wonder

[platypus]

Is it funny or sad that you got a +5 Informative for that post?

Re:In wonder

[Phantasmo]

Re:In wonder (Score:4, GodWeNeedGirlfriends)

Re:In wonder

[brysnot]

I doubt the geeks here even know what a girl is.

Re:In wonder

[scavenger87]

This little wonder sure is linux girl: http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/torvalds/pat.gif :P

Re:In wonder

[WWWWolf]

(Whisper) "I see female people..." ... "All the time..."

The local skeptic society was, of course, very critical when they heard my reports of seeing females, and in all cases, rather attractive ones, using the computers in the University of Oulu UNIX lab (mostly Linux, some IRIX). Some of them were even attending the X11 programming course exercises.

Of course they doubt. These doubts were further boosted by the fact that I didn't have my camera with me, even when I usually carry my cameras everywhere!

They did, however, note that there was ample proof that the female users had used Pine through SSH and terminals on the corridors, on the mail servers based on Solaris and MacOSX.

Re:In wonder

[scavenger87]

The same here in Southern Finland. 25 % of HUT's students are female and they have to use PINE to access their emails. But hey somebody male system administrator had to put up those Solaris mail servers for them, but there is still some hope that some females get enthusiastic over LINUX. Maybe it we need marketng for those girls. Some of nerd boys had to take a heed and guide those girls into belief? Remember, if they don't look like the most delicious girls on the planet they know somethin about technology etc. The nerd boys don't usually look good either, so there you have very compatible people! There are always exceptions like This who took a part in local beauty contest. She was studying chemistry, but AFAIK doesn't study here any more. Maybe she got fed up with horny geeks. Oh well...

Re:In wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeez, what an ugly baby.
Destined to be a geek for sure.

Education is great and all...

[IANAL(BIAILS)]

...but do we really expect management, who has no idea about technology and IP rights to be swayed by a pretty poster vs. massive lawsuits that they hear about on the morning news?

Re:Education is great and all...

[grasshoppa]

...but do we really expect management, who has no idea about technology and IP rights to be swayed by a pretty poster vs. massive lawsuits that they hear about on the morning news?

This is the exact thought going through a management type's head:

Lawsuit...bad.

Poster...pretty! Sign me up!

Now, if we wanted to really influence them, we'd put flashy things on it.

Re:Education is great and all...

[Telex4]

...but do we really expect management, who has no idea about technology and IP rights to be swayed by a pretty poster vs. massive lawsuits that they hear about on the morning news?

But... but... look at the arrows! There's a flow between me, the market, a funny fat penguin and even some big magnifying glasses! Now I just need a seminar to learn what it all means!

Re:Education is great and all...

[t0ny]

Maybe the problem is that Management is more focused on something as petty and irrelevant as running their company/department. Lack of concern about IT issues used to bother me, but then I finally realized that IT is only a piece of the pie- it isnt the whole pie.

My only peeve is when companies do stupid things like outsource. It's basically selling your company's soul, and it actually costs MORE than having your own department.

Anyway, my point is that managers arent supposed to be 'clued in' to technology and IP rights. Thats why they hire IT staff and legal departments.

Re:Education is great and all...

[adrianbaugh]

I can provide you and all your colleagues with such a seminar, at the very reasonable rate of 500($750) per day, plus expenses. I anticipate you will need to hire me for 3 days.

Re:Education is great and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

And their diagram shows no communication between the contributors and the marketplace! http://www.osdl.org/newsroom/graphics/linux_dev_pr ocess.jpg

Re:Education is great and all...

[commodoresloat]

Now, if we wanted to really influence them, we'd put flashy things on it.

Nah. We'd just prepare a powerpoint presentation.

Re:Education is great and all...

[Geno Z Heinlein]

... IT is only a piece of the pie- it isnt the whole pie....

Well, yeah, that's true, but management wants to pretend that management is the whole pie. Despite the fact that the tech people have a lot to contribute to the qualitative running of a business, tech people are treated like line workers (who also need to be treated better, but that's a whole other post) because of the two distinct worldviews of corporate culture and IT culture.

IT culture is open and flexible, based on "what happens if we do this?" and "does it make sense?"; corporate culture is built around conformity, procedure, and (sometimes) personal prestige, which few geeks have any patience for.

Re:Education is great and all...

[IM6100]

Ummm, where management isn't 'the whole pie' you're talking about a mismanaged and out of control company.

Re:Education is great and all...

[IM6100]

It's been a few years, but I know for a fact that Linus T. used to hold Powerpoint in pretty high esteem.

But my Linux Journal subscription lapsed over three years ago, so my Linus-isms are out of date.

Re:Education is great and all...

[autopr0n]

My only peeve is when companies do stupid things like outsource. It's basically selling your company's soul, and it actually costs MORE than having your own department.

Well, if it's not an IT company, there's no reason not to do it. Why deal with having your own IT department, where you might not be able to hire the best people, when you could let someone else, with more infrastructure to deal with that kind of thing, do it?

Re:Education is great and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know for a fact that Linus T. used to hold Powerpoint in pretty high esteem.

Yeah but Edward Tufte hates it, and he would know better.

Re:Education is great and all...

[Geno Z Heinlein]

Ummm, where management isn't 'the whole pie' you're talking about a mismanaged and out of control company.

So a company's entire business should be management? The whole thing? No quality assurance? No marketing? No manufacturing? No providing a service? No profit?

Let me get this straight. The people who at their best merely support and co-ordinate the actual money-making work of the business, and at their worst cripple a business with meaningless rules and regulations, un-needed paperwork and egotistic power games... those people?

Management?

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Re:Education is great and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but that poster sucks ass. That does nothing but confuse me-how's it going to convince some idiot CFO that Linux is "safe"?

Re:Education is great and all...

[Floody]

Well, if it's not an IT company, there's no reason not to do it. Why deal with having your own IT department, where you might not be able to hire the best people, when you could let someone else, with more infrastructure to deal with that kind of thing, do it?

The problem is that a cultural disconnect occurs between the employees of the main company and the employees of the out-sourcing company. The main company employees should be focused (at whatever level) on the products and services offered by the main, while the outsourced employees are more interested in keeping *their* employer happy and thus typically have little "buy-in" to the goals of the primary company. The end result of this disconnect is a breakdown in communication and IT infrastructure.

One needs to weigh the benefits of the cost savings versus the IT degradation that will occur with out-sourcing. As a company continues to grow, there will inevitably be some point at which the cost savings simply no longer make sense. It's my belief that a common management error is to not take this cultural disconnect into consideration.

Re:Education is great and all...

[MsGeek]

Yes, but David Byrne loves it and uses it to make art. I suppose we should introduce him to OpenOffice.Org Impress...

Re:Education is great and all...

[dipipanone]

I anticipate you will need to hire me for 3 days.

Your pitch for this contract was very compelling, and my company strongly favoured your tender for this lucrative and none-too-challenging work.

Then we saw your .sig....

Re:Education is great and all...

[IM6100]

Okay, you made fun of my awkward syntax. I knew that was coming right after I hit the submit button.

"Where management isn't involved and/or overseeing 'the whole pie' you're talking about a mismanaged company."

Re:Education is great and all...

[tomhudson]

... but if you REALLY want to educate management, go to your favourite bittorrent site and snag a copy of ^H^H^H^H^H^Hpreview Pirates of Sillicon Valley (someone put it up 2 days ago, so it downloads quickly ... enjoy) show them who the real crooks are.

Re:Education is great and all...

[Geno Z Heinlein]

Okay, you made fun of my awkward syntax. I knew that was coming right after I hit the submit button.

"Where management isn't involved and/or overseeing 'the whole pie' you're talking about a mismanaged company."

Well, you can see how the omission could give a misleading impression. :-) Nonetheless, thanks for the clarification, as I'm not opposed to managment per se.

In fact, your word "involved" is exactly what I'd like to see more of. I'd love to see business management more committed to the explicit goals of business. As a libertarian, I'd like to see the people who run businesses become emotionally involved in the process of manufacturing the best possible product, or providing the best possible service.

What tempers my libertarianism IRL is that a state of mind like that is un-natural. It's completely biological to want to take care of yourself and those who bear your genes. You have to be trained to see el photo grande, to realize that making the best product and giving the best service require short-term sacrifices, but result in maximal long-term benefit, even to yourself.

And that's the day-to-day problem that results in my coming on strong to the all-management idea. You said it by accident, but a lot of people do mean it; many who aren't literate enough to say it in so many words follow such a philosophy instinctively. People way too often has a here-now-and-me take on things. People's duration in xyz-space, t-space and social-space is minimally-existent without training, and management is just people.

The outcome is that management, like people in general, make decisions to their own immediate benefit; this is to the detriment of profit, the other people involved in the business, and their own long-term benefit. The people in managment don't just see managment as "the whole pie".... they, like everyone else, have an instinctive view of themselves as the whole pie, even to the exclusion of their own future selves. Managers (and leaders of all sorts) require training to see the long-term outcomes.

Re:Education is great and all...

[vsprintf]

...but do we really expect management, who has no idea about technology and IP rights to be swayed by a pretty poster . . .

Just add an arrow and a box that says "Stock Options Become Profitable". They'll be all over it.

Re:Education is great and all...

[vsprintf]

Well, if it's not an IT company, there's no reason not to do it. Why deal with having your own IT department, where you might not be able to hire the best people, when you could let someone else, with more infrastructure to deal with that kind of thing, do it?

It depends on the size of the company. What large company does not need IT, even if it is not the main product? From working both sides of the fence, I can say that in-house IT is better for the company. The workers have a vested interest in the company and have a better understanding of the business. Outsourcing is just the latest fad used to generate headlines in the financial news and bonuses for CEOs.

Re:Education is great and all...

[t0ny]

I know, I feel your pain. Ive worked at places where the IT staff gets no respect, and seen places where the support people are treated no better than janitors.

But now I make sure to work at places where my contributions are respected, and I am treated like a professional. There are ways to actually change the culture regarding IT staff, and I have often started the ball rolling.

The most important thing to make the change is to have a manager who will back his people. Second, and almost as important, is to have quality staff. I say almost, because if you have #2 w/o #1, nothing will change. If #2 is only a few quality people, the manager could possibly shuffle the slackers into minor positions, where they can at least do no further harm.

Now, to start the process, you need to clean up the infrastructure. This is important, because a good help desk can do nothing if the email server keeps going down, or the LAN is unstable.

Once that is done, you can just let the quality start speaking for itself. Then, when you have problem users who like to disrespect the IT staff, just make sure their problems always get lower priority. People who treat you like a professional, they get priority.

Another important thing is to have tracking software. You will generally find that maybe 10% of users account for at least 50% of the issues. Identify what their major malfunction is, and if it is them doing things they shouldnt (installing non-approved software, for example), lock their computers down so they cant mess up the machine, and make sure they dont spread their problems. Another issue is user's having software. You need to make sure that the IT staff is the only source of acquiring software for installation. If their are custom apps, one of the staff needs to take "ownership" of support.

One of the last, is YOU MUST HAVE GOOD TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION. This should be written by and for technical people: it shouldnt need to go into detail on how to do things like using a command prompt, editting the registry, etc, but it needs to have at-a-glance schematics of how the application works, installation, etc. Flowcharts are great for this.

Anyway, things can change, but its not easy. Once you master the 'psychology' of turning things around, you see it follows a common pattern.

BTW, you may want to read "The 48 Laws of Power": its an interesting book (if you like stories about history), and it lays out great ways for turning events to your favor, and how to avoid common and predictable mistakes. IMO, its better than most management and success books, and isnt even trying to be either.

Re:Education is great and all...

[t0ny]

You raise some common points, but I will give you my opinion on why they are flawed (for what its worth. I have experience in the area).

Why deal with having your own IT department, where you might not be able to hire the best people

Well, outsourcing doesnt guarantee you will get the best people, either. In most of my dealings with consultants, I find most of them to be technically useless (and I *AM* a consultant). The problem with most of them is that they can go into a place, tell them they need to change everything they do, then once the fit starts to hit the shan, they can just leave and move on to another job. They are what I call "Outsourced Serial Killers".

And this pattern can often happen over and over and over in the same company, and nobody learns their lesson. This is especially true in banks, where they have lots of money to spend, but their success in one area makes them think they are a good judge of people. Strangely enough, the most talented technical people are somewhat antisocial (or worse).

My opinion for why this is would be technical people want to see the world follow some kind of order (having ordered minds themselves), but it really doesnt (for the most part). I often say that "Why" is both the most important and the most useless question: this is especially true when asking what a person's motivation for some action would be. The answer is generally either their decision was made on a whim, or else there was some self-interested motivation to which they would never admit anyway. Thus, the "Why" is worthless. But I digress.

Anyway, the answer is that while you may not be hiring the best people, you need to at least hire adequate people. Its more important to hire technically inclined people than it is to just look at their resume; a resume is a one-sided story which will always make the candidate look good. You will never see somebody say they were riding a desk for four years until somebody found out what an incompetant they were and had them fired, or mention the time they accidentally turned off the email server or tripped over the powercord of the WAN router, or installed "hotbar" on their computer and told users about it as well (all real incidents, btw).

when you could let someone else, with more infrastructure to deal with that kind of thing, do it

What kind of infrastructure are you talking about? If you mean HR or being able to judge technical people, if you dont have that you cant expect to acquire it by an outsourcing injection. If your HR people cant judge good candidates, maybe you need to start outsourcing THEIR work instead. Recruitment firms like RHI are quite good at judging IT talent, and often look to connect prospects with employers. They require a fee to do so, but nothing in life is free, and they are also in a good position to judge good people.

Now if you are talking about an IT infrastructure, thats honestly the kind of thing a company needs to build for themselves. When you rely on another company to do your IT work, any added functionality or improvements you may need then become something you need to pay extra for. If you have IT staff, its just a project.

Another thing you need to take into account is normal wear/tear and growth. When stuff breaks, it should get replaced. When stuff gets old, it should be replaced. When new people are added to the network, the network may need to be expanded to accomodate more users. But when you are outsourcing everything, you have a static relationship, and any wear, growth, or improvements are something which will ultimately cost more money for the company footing the bill.

ALL companies who do IT outsourcing that I have seen are more content to let a network just decay than to proactively fix it. After all, if they get paid more to fix problems, why are they going to take money out of their pockets? Whereas staff, who get paid salaries, dont want to work overtime, and stuff breaking = staying late, which is to be avoided.

The only situations where outsourcing makes sense is in small businesses. In medium sized to enterprise corporations, outsourcing is the height of stupidity.

As SCO might say....

[justsomebody]

We can still change our mind after contributing.

Hella, mister! GePeeL, wtf is this??

Re:As SCO might say....

[justsomebody]

Offtopic? C'mon /., SCO has proven that contributing to kernel and forgeting can be done. It has also proven that not knowing what GPL is after distributing it.

So why would this new specification of kernel inspection and maintenance do any good against some SCO that just doesn't want to remember.

Business model of OSDL

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Make poster with pictures of penguin
2. Randomly connect the lines
3. Draw stick figures.
4. ???
5. Profit!

Re:Business model of OSDL

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean:

5. Share!

Re:Business model of OSDL

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new penguin-shaped overlords.

(see the poster)

Re:Business model of OSDL

[mabhatter654]

4. Have CMDRTaco show it to lot of geeks!

hint: OSDL owns slashdot! So they get all the banner ad revenue....we're suckers aren't we.

Re:Business model of OSDL

[Anonymous Coward]

No you idiot, OSDN owns Slashdot, not OSDL, try actually using the halfa-brain you have and read.

Re:Business model of OSDL

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy makes a simple mistake, so you flame him.
No wonder you've never been laid.

Perhaps you should adjust your attitude, you anti-social cunt.

Re:Business model of OSDL

[Anonymous Coward]

In soviet union, penguin-shaped overloards welcome you.

Re:Business model of OSDL

[Anonymous Coward]

That's in soviet RUSSIA, you insensitive clod!

Re:Business model of OSDL

[JaredOfEuropa]

You jest, but if you want to convince managers, I have one word for you: Powerpoint!

Managers understand 2 things. Short lists of bullet points, and diagrams. Anything over 2 pages is too much info for them.

And no, they're not too dumb to absorb any more information than that, they simply don't have the time.

Re:Business model of OSDL

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, why are the subsystem maintainers penguins? Oh, and why does the market place feed directly back into the production kernel? That bit worries me.

--
James G

Re:Business model of OSDL

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. I am a manager of a medium sized IT related company, and I can say for certain that I have plenty of time to look at more information, I'm just too dumb to absorb it. QED.

Re:Business model of OSDL

[Curtman]

the rigor imposed by Linux himself and the development community at large

And who is this "Linux" guy? Fantastic reporting.

Re:Business model of OSDL

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't mean to nit-pick, but you've dratically mispelled a word in your statement. You have also made a horrific grammatical mistake, but it is forgivable since you are from *the* Soviet Union and English is your second language.

Re:Business model of OSDL

[Anonymous Coward]

and of course your arent mabhatter are you?

Re:Business model of OSDL

[vsprintf]

And no, they're not too dumb to absorb any more information than that, they simply don't have the time.

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with both assumptions. I've been in meetings where managers spouted complete nonsense about a project and refused to be corrected or to listen to the truth. They have plenty of time to think up weird *team-building* things that annoy the staff and actually balkanize the department. They have plenty of time to send out pointless emails and travel to offsite meetings so they aren't disturbed by doing their job while they talk about doing their job. I could go on.

People who can, do. People who can't are promoted to management, and I've seen two cases of that in the last month. This is not sour grapes, I have declined promotion above team lead, but I resent being *managed* and evaluated by people who cannot even understand what I do.

fark?

[Anonymous Coward]

what's that?

Re:fark?

[helzerr]

Woah, someone who hasn't heard of Fark?!? It's not news... It's FARK!

Re:fark?

[Anonymous Coward]

what's that?

much laughter ensues

Re:fark?

[FatAssBastard]

Actually, hilarity ensues, you asshat! ;)

Re:Greatest poster ever!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you just print it using a color printer, or take the image to kinko's on a CD and ask them to print it for you. A fool and his money are easily separated.

Mirror

[rf0]

Mirror here

Its very managment speak with a few differenet coloured tux's

Rus

Re:Mirror

[EverDense]

IE6 scaled the picture so that the words "ongoing peer review of code", looked like
they read "ongoing poor review of code". ;-)

Re:Mirror

[JonnyQabbala]

IE6 scaled the picture so that the words "ongoing peer review of code", looked like they read "ongoing poor review of code". ;-)

Thats just another example of MS using bad business practices to discredit linux.

Imagine what they'd do if they owned Google.

Re:Mirror

[stephanruby]

Same thing for me and I'm using Firebird.

Re:Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because Microsoft was able to predict the creation of this specific document and optimize their browser to ruin it.

I'm hoping that was a joke?

Re:Mirror

[adrianbaugh]

Ah, only now do we see Microsoft's no-expense-spared booby-traps in IE come out to bite us :-)

Re:Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

You can turn that off... I can't remember how, but it pissed me off so much I spent 10 minutes one day trying to find out how to tell IE not to do that.

Re:Mirror

[spitzak]

Why that just proves what evil geniuses those programmers at Microsoft are, to have planned that so far in advance!

Re:Mirror

[smiff]

IE6 scaled the picture so that the words "ongoing peer review of code", looked like they read "ongoing poor review of code". ;-)

Sadly, it looks like the press release was written on Windows. In the second paragraph, Konqueror displays:

Among the Lab?s first steps...

Mozilla on Linux shows the same thing. Did no one notice that? Or do most Slashdotters use Windows these days?

The '?' really is the ASCII value for a question mark (0x3F), so maybe it was just a typo. Or maybe some other software translated it...

Re:Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

It is the same on Windows. Why would it be any different?

Re:Mirror

[tiger99]

It is one of the hazards of too much jpeg compression, an artifact puts black on some of the pixels which would be white in a well-rendered font. Oh, the hazards of low-bandwidth communication! The damage is done on compression, it should always uncompress to the same in any browser, unless it is simultaneously re-sized.

Better to use pdf, or a vector file format, or png for diagrams with text, or do a bit of clever work with the html, and overlay true font-based text on a jpeg (or whatever) picture (but that last method would find out the bugs in certain browsers, notably those from Redmond, which have no respect for the notion of standards compliance).

This Slashdotter uses Linux exclusively at home, Konqueror and/or Mozilla, depending on which I have open at the time (i.e. for no good reason at all), but at work the company is moving even closer to M$, and I only have a junk PC with NT4 and all its service packs and even more bugs. Still, it is only a temporary contract, next job may have more enlightened management. Last employer had a very enlightened IT dept, they left me with local administrator privilege on Win2000, so I had Mozilla and lots of other good things. OpenOffice.org was frequently in use to rescue corrupt Word files, which perversely it does much better than anything from Bill.... Given free choice, I would never use a Microtrash product again, ever.

It would be very interesting to know what others use, what they may be forced to use at work, and what they choose to use at home.

Poster

[SnprBoB86]

Ah yes, everything makes more sense when it is in color.... wait... what?

Mirror

[markclong]

http://slushdot.org/mirror/poster/linux_dev_proces s.jpg

I'm liking it.

[ActionPlant]

This is going on my redhat server, my three XP boxes, and all four of my Macs.

I've been wondering lately if maybe the SCO got some secret stock options from a certain large corporation to start a scare campaign of litigations so that more people switch to less than adequate operating systems.

Curious curious curious.

This is terrific!

Damon,

Re:I'm liking it.

[Anonymous Coward]

May as well just put up a sign that has the word "CHICKS" inside of a circle with a slash through it... Same effect...

Missing arrow

[arendjr]

I'm just missing a big red arrow with the text "You are here."...

Re:Missing arrow

[Feztaa]

Unless you happen to be a subsystem maintainer, a contributer, or Torvalds himself, then I'd guess you fall into the "Marketplace" category.

Exploding kernel

[mezron]

The only thing that stands out to me in the picture is the red penguin sitting next to... what? a little volcano? Is that supposed to signify that the development kernel can blow up at any time or something? *confused*

Re:Exploding kernel

[bwh265]

The "volcano" is actually an erlenmeyer flask. I'd guess it's supposed to conotate "experimental".

bwh

Re:Exploding kernel

[mls]

Urm... That is a beaker. As in a Lab environment.

Re:Exploding kernel

[The One KEA]

That's not a volcano, it's an Erlenmeyer flask. It's a metaphor for the churning, volatile, active state of the development kernels. That's why it's red, too - red means "Use at your own risk! If it breaks you can keep both pieces."

Re:Exploding kernel

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's a broken beer bottle.

Re:Exploding kernel

[Anonymous Coward]

Use at your own risk! If it breaks you can keep both pieces.

When is this not true? A production release is less likely to break is all. Pieces are pieces.

Re:Exploding kernel

[Anonymous Coward]

That Volcano actually belongs to the Scientologists who believe Darl is the reincarnation of Xenu!!!

Re:Exploding kernel

[red floyd]

So there's an alien fetus there?

Re:Exploding kernel

[Suppafly]

Urm... That is a beaker. As in a Lab environment.

Close, its an erlenmeyer flask.. a beaker doesn't have a tapered neck, a beaker is the same width all of the way up and has a little beak on the rim.

Re:Exploding kernel

[sharkey]

Erlenmeyer flask. It's a metaphor for the churning, volatile, active state of the development kernels.

It doesn't stand for "brewing your own"? Is that why I flunked Chem in college?

Re:Greatest poster ever!

[rf0]

The horrible thing is that I understand it from a managment point of view. Oh dear what is happening to me

Rus

Re:Slashdotted?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were running linux, you would use "wget http://www.osdl.org/newsroom/graphics/linux_dev_pr ocess.jpg" in order to get the graphic.

I don't have much confidence in YOU!

Sorry...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to poop on anyone's parade, but if I had submitted code in college that contained the same level and quality of comments that exist in the Linux kernel, I would have recieved a B before the TA had even tested the code. If you're not going to take the time to write decent documentation, at least use comments liberally and intelligently.

Re:Sorry...

[EmbeddedJanitor]

That is perhaps why nothing really useful comes out of most colleges. Comments are so often BS anyway, so often I see code (Linux and other) that has out of date comments - more damaging than no comments.

Re:Sorry...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have only reinfoced what I just said - that the kernel is poorly commented. But that in and of itself is no excuse to proceed in this manner. Write meaningful comments and maintain your code!

Re:Sorry...

[EmbeddedJanitor]

At university I wrote a lot of comments that were very BS because we had a quota of comments/lines to meet. You probably would get bad grades for submitting Linux code, but Linux is about making a good OS - not about trying to get good grades.

Yes, in places the Linux code is under commented. The code is, IMHO, structured in a way that in makes the meaning obvious in most cases and the code easy to read. This is far more important than comments. Comments do not make good code.

Re:Sorry...

[nuser]

the code easy to read. This is far more important than comments Quite agree. The problem with comments is keeping them up-to-date. The amount of time I've wasted believing comments that say a function does one thing, when in fact it might have once, but doesn't any more....

Re:Sorry...

[strudles]

So true

Add to list of things never to do. Mirror here

[Camel Pilot]

Never link a big uncropped jpg image from slashdot.

Mirrored here

What I'd like to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

How come the green men never hold hands with the blue men?

Re:What I'd like to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

How come the green men never hold hands with the blue men?

Because they're hetero.

Re:What I'd like to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

The green men use KDE, and the blue men use GNOME. The yellow men use WindowMaker.

Linux 2.6 when, again?

[Trejkaz]

While OSDL attempts to raise awareness of how Linux is made, the new production Linux 2.6 kernel is still scheduled to be released by early next year.

Ho hum. Can the media please make up their minds?

Linus?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which penguin is Linus???

Re:Linus?!?

[rowanxmas]

Linus would be the Penguin with the flask, aka Fux, Andrew Morton would be with tbe briefcase, aka Bux.

One question from the poster?

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Linux have to do with foot fetishism? Never have I seen so many hand-holding shrimpers in a business poster. And I want some of what the orange penguin is drinking.

Good freaking Lord!

[Otter]

OK, the next time someone spouts off about "Joe Sixpack", "marketdroids" or "lusers", keep this helpful bit of highly technical documentation in mind:

A diagram explaining how Linux code is written by humans, approved by two layers of penguins (one with a briefcase) and then passed on to human users.

What is the target audience supposed to do, go to their legal division and say, "No, there's no problem with Linux! See this explanatory document? All code is approved by a penguin. And yes, the GIMP is a perfectly suitable professional replacement for Photoshop. Notice the beautiful use of the select and fill tools?"

Am I the only one who thinks this diagram looks like an outtake from a Troy McClure film? "Mr. McClure, SCO says Linus stole their code!" "Not true, Timmy! As this diagram indicates, all code in Linux is approved by two levels of penguins!"

Re:Good freaking Lord!

[Malcontent]

"What is the target audience supposed to do"

The target audience are CIOs. This is a perfectly good chart for CIOs except of course for the fact that's it's not written in powerpoint.

Note to people who make charts for CIOs: You must make liberal use of RED and YELLOW in your diagrams. If your charts do not contain red or yellow your products probably suck real bad. Also make sure all lines are large and bold it's hard to see dotted lines on your palm pilot when you are out on the golf course.

Re:Good freaking Lord!

[bfields]

What is the target audience supposed to do, go to their legal division and say, "No, there's no problem with Linux! See this explanatory document? All code is approved by a penguin...."

Well I suppose the hypothetical target audience has a legal department that takes a sheaf of press releases backed up by no evidence whatsoever as adequate support for a claim of copyright infringement. So maybe it's understandable if the OSDL comes across as a little condescending....

Re:Good freaking Lord!

[Jeremiah Blatz]

Mod parent differently!

YM "Insightful". HTH, HAND.

Seriously, I even kinda understand how the linux development process works, and that poster doesn't make any sense at all.

Re:Good freaking Lord!

[Otter]

In fact, that probably _is_ the logic, fighting stupid with stupid. I'm just wondering if it's maybe targeting a little too low -- press releases are one thing, but a cartoon penguin with a magnifying glass may be seen as insufficient legal advice.

Still, Malcontent is right. You need to send this out as a 3 meg .ppt file (ideally with each round of penguins or humans sliding in from the side with a car crash noise) if you expect your technology to be taken seriously.

Re:Good freaking Lord!

[Guppy06]

"No, there's no problem with Linux! See this explanatory document? All code is approved by a penguin."

No, man! The penguin is just a metaphor! All code is actually approved by a nun.

Re:Good freaking Lord!

[vsprintf]

All too true. If I hadn't already posted here, that would get a +Insightful.

Re:Slashdotted?!?

[Telex4]

If it is Slashdotted, here's a mirror.

Re:Slashdotted?!?

[mabhatter654]

That's OK. We're among friends...or at least they could have posted the image on slashdot's own [i.e. their own] servers...

or did we slashdotters just slashdot slashdot's parent by posting the link on slashdot's front page?

gotta see how many times I can say it in one sentence!

Son of Tsarkon Reports - What the ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else find this disturbing?
OSDL (comprised of arguably some of the best minds in the industry) have a strategy whereby they release a jpeg image !?!

Re:Son of Tsarkon Reports - What the ???

[Brandybuck]

Well, it's still better than the SCO strategy, which is feed Darl McBride beans, point a microphone at his butt, and call it a press release.

Re:Son of Tsarkon Reports - What the ???

[drinkypoo]

What I find disturbing (besides your lack of faith) is that apparently no one at OSDL is a graphic artist. That poster is half whitespace, and it's unbalanced to boot. I haven't figured out what the big whitespace at the top is for... are they trying to save money on ink? Or maybe it's so you can use that space to attach your darl mcbride dartboard? Inquiring minds want to know.

Re:Son of Tsarkon Reports - What the ???

[neillewis]

The 50s retro Pan-Am business colors are spot on. It's a decent start. And I can't wait for the SCO version...

Re:Son of Tsarkon Reports - What the ???

[WuphonsReach]

Worse... given the fact that there are large swatches of flat-color, a JPEG is one of the worst formats that you can save an image like that in (even if you kick the quality way up).

That image needed to be cropped and saved out as a GIF, PNG or TIFF (e.g. a compression format that is lossless). It would have resulted in sharper edges with no blotchiness.

Re:Son of Tsarkon Reports - What the ???

[drinkypoo]

SCO doesn't have graphic artists either. It used to, but it fired them. It's all lawyers and company officers now, remember? Plus, presumably, some people in PR, HR, and accounting. You've got to manage all that source license revenue somehow.

Re:Son of Tsarkon Reports - What the ???

[Wolfrider]

--Hey now, I liked it. It was really easy to understand, given that I once had to do Cobol flowcharting. (shudder)

Since OSDL is kinda slow...

[bruns]

Since OSDL is kinda slow and lagged, heres the image:

http://www.sosdg.org/images/linux_dev_process.jpg

Re:Since OSDL is kinda slow...

[koa]

Here is the devel process that SCO sees instead:

SCO Linux Devel Process

Re:Since OSDL is kinda slow...

[sinserve]

Nice work man, looks great :-)

Re:Since OSDL is kinda slow...

[koa]

Thanks!

I thaught I might bring some good'ole fark-like photo-shop goodness to slashdot..

Re:Slashdotted?!?

[mabhatter654]

Why not post a mirror on SourceForge!

Re:more Info

[Vaevictis666]

Wow - and to think that anyones browsing slashdot using IE clicking on that link would have their C: formatted... provided that the URL got pasted right, and that they didn't have anything invariably using that drive (like windows)

Silly trolls getting modded interesting by mods that didn't even look at the link, let alone notice its sinister purpose.

Why do I have this horrible feeling...

[Trolling4Dollars]

...that someone with WAY too much time on their hands is going to take this and animate it to do something obscene in Flash or something?

Re:Why do I have this horrible feeling...

[Cplus]

Is that a challenge?

duck and cover

[fermion]

I think the poster is somewhat reasonable from an educational point of view. I question whether anyone other than experienced developer can understand it. It took me a minute to understand it. I wonder if the people who make OS decisions will even take the time.

It kind of reminds me of those posters with instruction on surviving the nuclear holocaust the US government distributed ages ago. They kind of fulfilled a moral need, and made people feel like they could survive, but I doubt they would actually do any good in the event of a nuclear exchange.

Re:duck and cover

[adrianbaugh]

fermion, I think that may be because you haven't wsted your time learning to interpret shitty management diagrams. To those who have (PHBs) these are probably very understandable.... Good to know our top business minds can be so easily pleased, eh?

Re:Add to list of things never to do. Mirror here

[damiam]

It's only 72K. The average /. comments page is probably twice that size.

No QA step?

[CaptKilljoy]

One of the things from the poster that mystifies me is the lack of mention of testing. How does each new build of the kernel get validated for release? What types and levels of testing are done (e.g. integration, HW compatibility, etc.)? Can anyone explain?

Re:No QA step?

[Brandybuck]

You're new to Linux, aren't you?

Article

[Scholasticus]

No comment about the poster - it speaks for itself - but the article on internetnews was really quite good. It looks like OSDL is making a concerted effort to explain the kernel development process in such a way to factually counter SCO's claims. Peer review isn't perfect, but it is a very powerful tool for oversight of a project such as software development. With the information from internetnews it should now be possible for people who were otherwise in doubt to see how unlikely it is that "one million lines" of SCO-owned code could make it into the Linux kernel.

Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh joy of joys!

*Two* SCO stories in one day!

Slashdot, you have truly blessed us!

FS: One copy of SCO UnixWare

[Anonymous Coward]

$698 - save big over Linux and do the right thing at the same time!

whew

[Anonymous Coward]

that is one LAME poster

penguins??

geez...........

it's simple

[bhny]

I think I've figured it out. The source code talks to the penguins and the little penguins hand the source code to the contributors and the fat penguins compile the source code and give it to the market place and somehow the market place gives the code back again

whoever did that flow chart is insane

Re:Greatest poster ever!

[theGreater]

Correction: Greatest WALLPAPER ever. I'll download and it and reuse it under their lenient licensing and fair use doctrine.

-theGreater Advantage.

misguided campaign?

[walterbyrd]

Linux end users need to understand that *they* can not be sued. Forget the ibm v scox case - that is a case between ibm and scox.

The idea that scox can sue linux end users is completely absurd - even if ibm did break some contract, even if there is illegal code in linux.

Companies and individuals that buy linux in good faith, have done nothing wrong. They have not violated any copyright - and certainly they have not violated any patent, trademark, or trade secret. Therefore, scox has absolutely no grounds to sue linux end users. I don't care if ibm broke one hundred contracts with scox. That is the message that the needs to get to the linux end users.

Re:misguided campaign?

[Ricin]

Correct. End of discussion. That's what matters, that's what should be communicated.

Re:misguided campaign?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about US copyright law, but certainly in British copyright law "It was done in good faith" isn't a defence.

Re:misguided campaign?

[Radical Rad]

So why has SCO made the claim that they can sue end users but that they have no current plans to do so. Also why did Redhat suddenly get out of the desktop market? Why is it that the company which jumped into the Linux on desktop market used to own Unix and retains rights to use the code?

Re:misguided campaign?

[cgenman]

Not actually true. Patent violation in this (weird) country applies even if there was a good-faith effort to avoid such tussles. Most courts would look kindly upon a group that, upon discovery of the problem, removed all areas of offence. However, as a proven by microsoft's previous tussles in this area, ongoing usage once a patent violation is discovered requires payment. If SCO had any evidence, and Google was found to be in violation, a court may waive an initial damages clause but would require that they either pay up for a license or switch to a different OS.

If mere Copyright violations are found, suits against end users would have no basis, but the result would be the same. Distribution of Linux would become illegal, therefore Google would still need to pay a gaggle of *bsd programmers for a port. I may be off in this regard, but I believe Google would retain the right to their current server farm... but without security patches, the system would be quickly hacked. Maybe.

Either way, Linux end users need to understand that they cannot be sued *without proof.* So far, SCO has dodged every possible opportunity to provide proof, and likely will continue to do so. They have already been banned from this extortion racket in other countries, where they declined to show any evidence of their claims. Why would they behave any differently with any other company? A year into the IBM case and they are still stalling on procedure.

It brings up a very interesting question. Which will die first... The case, or the company?

Re:misguided campaign?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, under British copyright law, if your friend gave you a CD full of obscure tribal music, and said it was performed live by friends of his and he had permission to give it to anyone who wanted it, you would be guilty for accepting it if it turned out to be illegally copied?

If not, then STFU.

Re:misguided campaign?

[walterbyrd]

Maybe you don't understand. Doing something "in good faith" of itself, may not be a defense to anything.

But, buying linux in good faith, is like buying a book in good faith. If the book contains plagerized matterial, it's not your fault, and you had no way of knowing. You have done nothing wrong. The guy who wrote the book, and plagerized the matterial may be in trouble - but not you.

When you download copyrighted music from the internet using kazaa, you are not acting in good faith - you know that music is there illegally. Even though you didn't put it there, you are partially guilty.

Hope that clears it up.

Re:misguided campaign?

[walterbyrd]

WTF? Either you completely missed my point, or I am completely missing yours - or both.

>>Patent violation in this (weird) country applies even if there was a good-faith effort to avoid such tussles. . . If SCO had any evidence, and Google was found to be in violation

WTF? Patents? Scox doesn't own any patents. Even if scox did, google would not be violating those patents by simply using linux.

Re:misguided campaign?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Linux end users need to understand that *they* can not be sued."

Anyone can be sued for anything.

A company that pays significant money for linux services needs to know their legal liabilities are covered as part of the deal.

Re:misguided campaign?

[cgenman]

Sorry. I know SCO doesn't own any valid patents. You know SCO doesn't own any valid patents. SCO, however, believes that it is "the majority owner of Unix intellectual property" and "has full rights to license this technology, and enforce the associated patents and copyrights." It licensed one of those patents to Microsoft earlier this year, though it refused to mention which one.

If Linux incorporated technologies that were covered by those patents, anyone using those technologies would, in fact, be liable... Like how several years back people who had purchased software that processed GIFS were found to be in an actionable position even though they had nothing to do with designing the software. Copyrights are active, and require choice by the end-user to violate. Patents are passive, and can be violated by, for example, happening to come up with a solution that is similar to an existing patent without checking, or simply using a system purchased from another company whose product they hadn't done sufficient background checks on.

If Google were using any of the technologies covered in SCO's ghostly patents, they would be. Of course, SCO's lawsuit up until this point only covers "trade secrets," which is a sufficiently murky area of law as to provide at least a minor chance of victory. A trade secret violation would not stop the distribution of Linux, nor indebt anyone to SCO. SCO has been claiming patent violations, and as such can cause legal problems for end-users.

Re:misguided campaign?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey stupid shithead!!!! SCO does not own anything in Linux!!! How difficult is that to understand?

Re:misguided campaign?

[walterbyrd]

>>SCO has been claiming patent violations, and as such can cause legal problems for end-users.

Scox has not claimed patent violations. Scox lawsuit against ibm is about trade secrets.

Also, if something is patented, it can not be a trade secret. Patens are open for anybody to see.

Re:misguided campaign?

[walterbyrd]

>>SCO, however, believes that it is "the majority owner of Unix intellectual property" and "has full rights to license this technology, and enforce the associated patents and copyrights." It licensed one of those patents to Microsoft earlier this year, though it refused to mention which one.

I would be interested to know where you got those quotes. Also, scox absolutely did *not* license a patent to msft earlier this year, nor did scox make such a claim. Please do not confuse what moron pop-media "jornalists" print with what scox actually claims.

I have corrected those jornalists several times, and have had their articles edited.

Where??

[LittleBigLui]

BEAVERTON, Ore. - November 26, 2003 ...

just when we thought we had enough beaver references...

Re:Where??

[dietz]

Beaverton is a boring strip-mall suburb of Portland. It's about tied (with Hillsboro) for the second largest suburb with around 80,000 people (the largest is Gresham). It's home to Nike's world headquarters, Tektronix (remember them? They used to be Oregon's largest private employer... now it's Intel) and OSDL. OSDL is housed in the old Sequent campus, which then became an IBM building when IBM bought Sequent).

The beaver is Oregon's state animal, and is on the back of our flag, for some reason.

Re:Where??

[aled]

That's my question: where should we send our check to SCO.

Re:wow!

[FatAssBastard]

Whoa, dude, that's kind of cool. Can I use it? I wanna write a little punk-rock-ish ditty to it.

The Linux kernel development process EXPOSED!

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Decide what new features should be in kernel.
2. Look at SCO's code and steal features from IT.
3. Claim you didn't do it.
4. ???
5. PAY YOUR $699 LICENSING FEE TO SCO!!!!

I don't think I would pay $699

[kjj]

to dunk Darl, but $6.99 would definitely be worth it.

Re:I don't think I would pay $699

[Dr. Dew]

Depending on what he would be dunked in, I might find a way to pony up $699.

Re:I don't think I would pay $699

[Anonymous Coward]

$699 for being dipped in a vat of molten lead?

Fuck... I'm broke and unemployed, but I'd sell blood to watch that.

Re:I don't think I would pay $699

[gladbach]

Actually, the first thing that came to my mind was a scene from that spoof/comedy van wilder, having to do with some home made "eclairs" or what ever those things were....

Re:I don't think I would pay $699

[tesloni]

Wrong payment direction.

Darl and SCO must pay to all of us for stop using an "damned" GPL software.

I think that some kind of 1 million USD which SCO must pay to any per person who used any GPL-ed software is worth enough.

:))))

Not the idea

[gurensan]

The idea is to show that there is continuous public review of the code, and that there is no real way to add malicious or illegal code into the kernel unnoticed. It's no show managers that their systems are plenty legal with the SCO tax.

news?

[gurensan]

WHAT morning news???? I ain't seen NOTHIN on this that I didn't get from /.

You can't spell SCOundrel without SCO

[B0mbtruck]

You can't spell SCOundrel without SCO

Come on, we all new it from the start !!!

Re:You can't spell SCOundrel without SCO

[Mr_Perl]

As you can't spell knew without the k.

Re:You can't spell SCOundrel without SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't spell at all, so I have no problem writing "new" - or "skoundrel".

Mod parent funny

[daniel23]

(I#ll mod your request when I got points next time, promise!)

great idea

[humankind]

I think this is a very good idea. Most techies think this is a battle of intellectual property, but in reality it is a PR/marketing-hype battle. The tech community should have more efforts like this to educate people so they understand the issues and are not misled by the legal meandering.

The Tuxes with the flask and briefcase are so cute

[Anonymous Coward]

Not much is cute to me, as I'm a privates-scratching manly geek Guy, but damn if those pictures of Tux aren't adorable. I'd love a t-shirt with them-- possibly with the slogan "Developers love Linux" (under the tux with the flask) and "So do Businesses" (under the Tux with the briefcase.) Please GNU can we get an open-source graphic of that to print out? Pretty pretty pleeeeeeze?

As we're on the subject of publicity...

[herrvinny]

As we're on the subject of publicity, what about mentioning that I regged scoreport.com, scofiles.com, scofile.com, scolawsuit.com and scolicense.com, and pointed them all to a small website?

I also regged a few more domains, and I'm planning on pointing them to a second website, which is going to be a little more fun.

Hey SCO, if you're reading this, you are a moronic bunch of jackasses.

Re:As we're on the subject of publicity...

[Haeleth]

Quote from the linked site: "Slashdot discussions are lively and filled with smart, thought-provoking comments."

Quote from your post: "Hey SCO, if you're reading this, you are a moronic bunch of jackasses."

Erm...

BTW (SCO's lawyers)

[Anonymous Coward]

I was very disheartened to hear that David Boies is the counsel for SCO. However, it is telling that Boies, who worked very hard and very Pro Bono for Al Gore's campaign in 2000, is seeking a huge amount of money for his work. And while it is still unfortunate that Boies has chosen to work for a company that wishes to annihilate certain rights that he wanted to protect during The Florida Affair (by Robert Ludlum, starring Ben Affleck as a young Al Gore, and Patrick Stewart as Governor Jeb Bush,) and The Microsoft Debacle (starring Robert Ludlum as an author running out of ideas) it does indicate he's not liking it. And (and here's a very offensive comparison that is still fitting) a prostitute will flash her tits for comparitively little, while she won't have sex with your aging doberman for less than a grand, maybe $875 if you don't need a money shot. Don't ask me where I got those numbers.

Maybe

[autopr0n]

A message told to you by someone you employ to know these kinds of things is going to be more powerfull then crazy ranting on TV...

This assumes managers don't automaticaly assume they are smarter then those they manage...

You should link to greplaw

[autopr0n]

They have lots of SCO news on their site.

OSDN != OSDL

[autopr0n]

A couple of people aperantly havn't realized that OSDL, the group that released this isn't the same as OSDN, the group that owns slashdot, source forge, etc. OSDL is a multi-company group including IBM that funds Linux and other OSS software, and employs Linus.

Yeah that helps

[blanks]

"So far managers and developers around the world are supposed to boost their confidence in Linux with the help of this little poster, which explains the kernel development process." "

Yeah and the food pyramid poster I have helps remind me that the beer and junk food I eat and drink are going to kill me.

Time for another beer.

Suggestions for the poster

[RealProgrammer]

Oh, but first:

strings poster | perl -n -e '
foreach $_ (split)
{ s/$/ /; if (uc eq $_ ) {print ucfirst(lc)} else {print};};
'

Ah, that's better.

Also:

• It should be a .png file
• The Contributors are on the opposite side of the drawing from the Marketplace; it's important to say that the Contributors are a part of the Marketplace
• There are no lawyers anywhere in the poster -- how does that work?

WBT: 10 SCO licenses for Honda Civic

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a Honda Civic I am willing to trade for 10 SCO licenses. The car runs fine, economic, 1989, 4 wheel drive, windshield is missing, no front left tire.

Re:WBT: 10 SCO licenses for Honda Civic

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a Honda Civic I am willing to trade for 10 SCO licenses. The car runs fine, economic, 1989, 4 wheel drive, windshield is missing, no front left tire.

Forgive me for plagiarizing you, but that just got pasted into scox's feedback form and sent about 100 times...

Not that I would encourage others to do the same, nor would I encourage anybody to do it with a subject line like "Mormons are FAGS!!!" or "Darl McBride is a Gay Nigger!!"

Development Penguin on drugs?

[denks]

Is it just me, or does Development Penguin look drunk or on drugs? Especially with that flask next to him. As the 2.6 development kernel is named Detox Beaver or something similar, does this tell us something about the kernel developers??

Re:Slashdotted?!?

[bcastagna]

Slashdot is owned by OSDN, not OSDL.

Audit Linux?

[ILikeToWatch]

I can't believe no one has proposed this yet. Maybe I just missed it. How about an independent audit of the kernel, etc. source code? You know; something like what the OpenBSD guys did, but with an eye toward the heritage of the code. Three advantages: if there is any questionable code, it can be replaced, it will increase customer confidence, and Darl and his ilk will be left standing there holding their tiny, little ... uh ... stock options. Of course, I have no idea what this would entail. Someone's got to pay for it. It might be worth it for Red Hat to pick up the tab.

Don't penguins live in Antarctica?

[tiger99]

Now we know where Linux is REALLY developed! And to think that most people always thought it was an empty wasteland, with nothing but a few well-insulated huts, occupied by scientists of various nationalities, at the pole.

ARGGHHHHH! feel the burn!!!!!

[mabhatter654]

My bad. OUCH!

There oughta be a TM violation or something...they've got a lot of the same letters...