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

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.

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

[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

[platypus]

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

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...

[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...

[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...

[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.

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

[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.

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". ;-)

Mirror

[markclong]

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

Missing arrow

[arendjr]

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

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

[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:fark?

[helzerr]

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

Add to list of things never to do. Mirror here

[Camel Pilot]

Never link a big uncropped jpg image from slashdot.

Mirrored here

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.

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!

[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: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 ???

[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.

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

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?

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:What I'd like to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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?

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.

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...

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?

[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:fark?

[FatAssBastard]

Actually, hilarity ensues, you asshat! ;)

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.

I don't think I would pay $699

[kjj]

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

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.

You can't spell SCOundrel without SCO

[B0mbtruck]

You can't spell SCOundrel without SCO

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

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.

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.

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.

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??