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What's Wrong with the Open Source Community?
An anonymous reader writes "We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us says a Pogo-quoting James Turner, in trying to pinpoint "What's Wrong with the Open Source Community?" for LinuxWorld this morning. But he doesn't *just* say that it's we developers ourselves, he also has five hard-to-deny reasons, including 'Open source developers often scratch the same itch' and 'Open Source developers love a good feud.' He also suggests we often approach the whole issue of encouraging migration to Linux from Windows entirely wrongly." There's also a decent rebuttal with this story as well - worth reading.
showering, maybe?
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
They're not being paid.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
There is nothing inherently wrong with the Open Source movement.
Think back to when Chiang Kai-Shek took over China: before that no one worked, everyone was poor, morale was nonexistent. Under the benevolent dictator, a term used to describe Linus Torvalds, Kai-Shek ensured that everyone worked, and everyone had a purpose.
Within a few short years China was a world power.
With an identical structure, the Open Source leaders ensure a good pool of talent. Millions of identical workers producing code. There's no way the current method of the Cigar-smoking boss standing on the backs of the coders can continue. Chiang Kai-Shek died in 1975 but his methods and teachings continue to this day in China.
Open Source could learn a lot from him.
c39052b261506f846895cac6e0724290
is entirely wrong.
How do you know that the same feuds and itch scratching don't happen at Sun or Microsoft? They certainly do, but you don't know this because your only interface to the firm is a PR rep. I like the transparency of the open source community. I want to see the debates and bickering take place in public, where maybe just maybe I can provide some input.
We slashdot each other's sites!
I obviously cannot vouch for the maturity and security level of everyone in the Open Source community, but I disagree with this conclusion. The partisanship and the sometimes irrational emotional responses are a problem (maybe the problem) with Open Source, but are not the result of "immaturity" or "insecurity." They are a natural human reaction to perceived attacks on X, where X is something into which a great deal of time/work/hope has been invested.
I agree that the community could advance more rapidly without all of the competing distributions, standards, etc., but that very same diversity is what gives Open Source its strength. The redundancy may slow things in some ways, but it helps guarantee that -- when the standards are winnowed down -- the strongest and best survive. Calling the members of the community "immature" and "insecure" is mere name-calling that is more likely to induce the exact emotional responses the author laments rather than the needed calm, rational debate on this important issue.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
Well, one of the things that is definitely wrong, is that if you go into an IRC channel for any non main-stream OS (os/2, linux, mac, etc) and ask a question, you're going to get beaten up by assholes.
case in point, i just logged into the #debian channel on freenode, and asked why the package servers hadn't updated in several days.. at least 15 people got really nasty, ranging from "read the fucking channel topic" to some very nasty insults. Strangely enough, the channel topic had absolutely nothing to talk about the package servers, and the link in the topic was broken.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Before clicking through, you should know about a little bit of background information.
Check this Linux Today article. James Turner wrote an article about how Linux is DOA on the desktop because it was missing two drivers he needed for his laptop. He was scathing and he basically baited the readers into giving him the takedown he deserved (and possibly was expecting, if as is suspected he was just trolling for clicks).
In response, he announced that he was going to use this as justification for another clickbait article about how immature the Linux community is. The article in question is the new one which this Slashdot story is about.
So don't expect any substance here. This is as much about taunting Linux users for clicks as any piece by Rob Enderle or Jesse Berst -- it's merely that this time, we have someone who writes for a supposedly pro-Linux publication stooping to this level.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
If we view Free Software only as a convenience, we won't progress. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to develop a Free Software package, or to migrate a system to use Free Software. It makes no sense to put a lot of effort into seeking a convenience.
Idealism is a more long term motivator, and it's not unjustified when the focus of the idealism has already proved to be very practical.
This is party highlighted by the OpenSource Vs. Free Software terminology, but we are not enemies, it's just a choice of where you put the emphasis.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
As for the big complaint about the Microsoft shoulder-chip, I agree. Anti-Windows fanaticism is just unpleasant to hear. The point the author makes is valid - many users don't have any love for Windows either, but don't have the level of dedication to hating Microsoft that they are willing to spend hours, weeks or months futzing with their hardware and peripherals getting them to work in Linux, or learning new applications. Developers should redouble their efforts and their committment to making ease-of-use, hardware compatibility, short learning curves, and usable GUIs key elements of major Open Source projects.
His points on "Itch scratching" are well-taken. However, this is not ever likely to change when developers are unpaid volunteers. The simple fact of the matter is that people working for free will ALWAYS be inclined to work on stuff they're interested in. I'm not convinced this is an entirely bad thing as it tends to avoid monoculture, at least in these popular areas. For instance, I LIKE having a number of mail systems to choose from. This is a good thing.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
I've been trying to like Linux (and hece the OS community) since 6.1 days and I keep running across the same old tired issues that prevent me from getting anywhere.
,patient, and understanding than the *nix folks I ran across. Hence I stick with BeOS, because when I run into issues, I know where I can turn and not get attitude and flame-fests.
There are, in no order:
(1) Documentation. I get far too many RTFM when the FM was written for software that is 3 versions old.
(2) 404s or links to other links which ultimately end up as 404s on web-based FM.
(3) Tired old sayings such as "Try another distro" (I have a stack of 20 odd distros burned onto CD, everything from the big players, down to things like ArkLinux and Icepak Linux) which obviously doesn't help in any way shape or form.
(4) The attitude of *nix users. When I was making the switch away from windows, I had two choices, *nix or BeOS. The Be community was (and continues to be this very day) more supportive, helpful
(5) The old re-inventing the wheel. You know gang, instead of slavishly coping MS, why not try being different?
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
I agree totally, too many people try to reinvent the same damned things, just because 'I want it a different color'.
Users only need one wheel, or they are overwhelmed.. Choice IS a bad thing in some cases..
Until there is more unity we are stuck in a rut.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Take HP as an example. What do you think some of the Alpha / True64 guys have conjured up against the Itanium/ Microsoft camp and conversely. That should give you a picture of main stream corporate infighting.
Inside corportions peoples job's are at stake and they fight hard and nasty.
Open source is a polite debating society in comparison.
Help fight continental drift.
The author should stop griping about the difficulties of playing DVD's, because the MPAA has not allowed linux users a free, legal way to play dvd's. DeCSS, which is what most dvd-playing software is based upon, is illegal in the US. The author loses a lot of credibility by not having his facts straight....he looks like a damn n00b.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Uh-oh... did linuxworld need to increase its ad impressions?
:)
Seriously, you can't expect to start a reasonable discussion by spouting as many half-assed examples as you can think of, and then not backing any of it up with either facts or history. Although some of your points have a grain of truth in them here and there, your blind assertions do not help your case.
First, let us assume that many developers do "scratch the same itch"... why do they do it? Well, generally it's because there's something about the other solutions that are already out there that doesn't meet their needs. Sometimes it's a licensing issue, sometimes two projects spring up at the same time.
Starting with "sound systems"... the two main ones we have now are OSS and alsa. Originally OSS had two different versions--free and non-free. The free version included in the kernel had iffy support for some cards, and comparatively few people purchased or used the non-free version. Then alsa was born (originally just for better Gravis Ultrasound support!), and it will be replacing OSS in the kernel. What's this? Consolidation of sound systems? Uh-oh... Well, perhaps you meant to say sound daemons or media players or something... let's move on to another example.
BSD vs. Linux, here's a great one. Why didn't Linus Torvalds just use BSD instead? Well, he couldn't at the time, due to licensing issues. He started writing Linux both to learn about the 386 and because he couldn't afford to buy a workstation from Sun. And by the time the *BSDs were unencumbered, Linux was already a viable Unix system on its own, and certainly more functional than Minix ever was. Oh well, I guess he wasn't writing code just to scratch the same itch... let's move on.
Gnome vs. KDE. This one boiled down to--you guessed it--a licensing issue! In this case, it was the licensing of Qt, the toolkit used in KDE, that was the issue. Some of this has since been resolved, but there are licensing issues surrounding Qt even today. That's because Qt was written by TrollTech and is sold as a commercial product, whereas GTK was written for The GIMP, "to scratch an itch". Interestingly enough, The GIMP doesn't have a lot of competition--maybe that's because of its quality, its licensing, and its extensible nature.
Debian vs. Red Hat. Yet again, two different products with two different ideologies, one of which is backed by commercial interests, yadda yadda yadda. Interestingly enough, Red Hat's successor, Fedora, is using Debian's package manager now. So maybe they aren't such bitter rivals as you may have thought?
As for the rest of your generalizations, I resent being painted with such a broad brush. Sure, there are zealots in the open source community; they're present in any and every community. If those are the only people you talk to, then you might get some odd impressions of how that community works. For example, most of the people in the US are Christian, but the few people who come up to you on the street and shout about Christianity are inevitably zealots, crazy people who can't be reasoned with. Does this imply that most of the US consists of crazy zealots who can't be reasoned with? No, it doesn't, the sample size is simply too small.
Similarly, I won't just read this one article and conclude that the people at Linux World are totally clueless about the Open Source Community and its history, that they're all too lazy to do research, and enjoy making grossly inaccurate generalizations instead. That would be unfair of me. Nevertheless, I hope this article is just an isolated incident, and not the start of a disturbing trend. I recognize that this is an opinion piece, but that's no excuse for FUD, or sloppiness.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I don't claim to be any kind of guru of, well, anything, but I've been working with GNU/Linux for a good 5 years now, setting up servers (Samba, Apache, etc).
About 18 months ago, I got a Powerbook, and while I still like Linux on the server end, man oh man, do I like OS X - for exactly the reasons that Mr. Turner brings up.
Simply put: it works.
I plug in a device - and it works. No compiling, no fiddling with conf files - works. I put in a game, and without once having to find Mesa drivers for X Windows and figure out why I can get video in Quake III but no sound - wait, not I get sound but no video, let me try another sound card and figure out of the chipset is the right kind - AGGGHHH!
The greatest strength of Open Source is its ability to evolve and grow and fill in gaps. It's truly software evolution - species of software fill in evolutionary needs, and the ones that work best (or are the luckiest in support/notice) get to grow.
The problem with Open Source, as Mr. Turner observes, is in some ways that same community. How many truly clear, concise, "idiot proof" manuals are written when we need to understand why some piece of Open Source (OS) software isn't acting the way you want? A cry for help will often be answered - all too often by "RTFM", though there are times when a more useful answer is given.
Probably the best thing that can happen for OS is the continued interest by businesses who want things for thier clients - like easier to use desktop operating systems (like OS X), or better office suites that can be used by secretaries (like Open Office) or administrative tools that can help configure the multitude of options easily and quickly (like what I hope Novell will do with their Suse merger).
I think that there will always be the dynamic Mr. Turner talks about - which isn't always a bad thing, but I hope the dialectic of Open Source and Business Needs helps to create a better hybrid software animal more suited to survive the wilds of the computer world.
Just my opinion, of course - I might be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
1) Too many developers "scratch the same itch."
So what? It's not my responsibility to write code for you. I write code for me, and release it under a license that happens to allow for other people to use it. Don't tell me what code I'm allowed to write and what I'm not.
2) Open Source developers love a good feud.
So what? You have no right to tell me how I should be spending my time. Sure it's not the most productive use of it, but again, it's MY time. If you don't like it, go away.
3) Open Source developers often scratch the wrong itch.
WTF? Scratch the wrong itch? Maybe I'm not scratching your itch, but see point 1. If you don't like what I'm doing, write your own. That's what I did when I wrote this software that scratches the 'wrong itch'. It scratched mine just fine.
4) In the Open Source Community, you're either "with us or against us"
Against us? If you want to point out flaws and the people in the group don't appreciate it, you can take the code and apply your own patches and start up a distribution of that code. If the community agrees with you, then you'll be successful. If you end up being the only one who uses your new version, then maybe you're actually wrong about what you were doing and that entire community against you was actually that you were wrong and too dumb to realize it.
5) The Open Source Community has a huge chip on its shoulder...called Microsoft
So? This really is the same point as Point 2. And the arguments are the same. So most of us don't like Microsoft? I don't think there are many that won't admit they do some stuff right, but that doesn't matter. It's my time, and I will do with it as I please. If you want to lead by example and convince people there's a better way, a high road, then please, by all means, do so. But telling people who write software that you can use at no cost and have full access to the source that they need to be doing things differently is about the most egocentric thing you could possibly say.
In closing, go away and write some code. If you can't do that, then just go away.
OSS, for all its strengths, lacks a commercial leadership.
That may sound like an oxymoron, given what OSS is. However, look at the successes in the personal computer world, and who they are led by. Bless ol' Linus, but is he really the leader of all of the Linux community? I'm afraid not. Linux is a distributed OS, with no leaders. Red Hat has come closest to this concept, but is not a popular brand name (yet).
OSS needs a common identity that ties all its parts together into something that can be recognized by the Joe and Jane Users they try to sway. I don't know if that should be a commercial company, or an not-for-profit, but if OSS wants to see itself as a true alternative to MS, it has to look like an alternative in the business and home computing worlds.
Oh, and the writer of the article was quite right in that Windows users aren't tolerant of trash talk, but can and will listen to why an alternative is better. Some Macintosh users work that way and get others to make the move, and so should the OSS community.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
I think it is high time for the community to get over its self-delusion of being "libertarian" and realize that it is, actually, authoritarian communist. Every successful open source project is run in a top-down authoritarian structure. There is no room for dissent (just watch this post get attacked) and alternative (and profitable) business models are attacked ceaselessly and characterized as "evil". You guys are re-living the soviet revolution, only entirely within the confines of the internet. I predict that the open source movement will be just as unsuccessful. Deal with it.
So, err, remind me - how many closed-source word processors can I go out and by? How many web design packages? How many commercial IDEs? How many instance messenging networks can I join? Wouldn't they be scratching the same itch too?
'They', whoever the amorphous they actually are, probably do. So do the closed source lot as well. The particular feuds they have tend to be called 'lawsuits', and they leave even the most bitter open source feud looking like a kindergarten spat.
Cheers,
Ian
just because 'I want it a different color'.
You'll probably like this:
A shed, any color will do
It summarises the observations of a FreeBSD hacker, on feature disputes. Also from the FreeBSD pages, is pretty ontopic:
How many FreeBSD developers does it take to change a lightbulb?
(these articles made me consider giving FreeBSD a try, but I haven't gotten around to it yet..)
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Which is basically the same model - lots of different parallel approaches to the same problem, and the best one, or group, wins.
:-)
Closed source companies cannot do this, they operate in a constant state of limited resources. We can. We should consider it a strength and play to it.
Sure, it get's acrimonious, but this is a symptom of fiercely-fought ideas. If someone feels that passionately about something, they ought to be able to convince others, or they are being blinkered - if they're blinkered, they'll wither and die. If they persuade the rest, they'll move to the next stage. Where's the problem, apart from bruised ego's ? Nature is red in blood and claw. We're slightly more civilised than that already
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
This whole article is just coming from the wrong direction. It assumes that the final goal of OS is to make usable software, that has features for everyone, to have an OS that can run all the binary drivers out there, to unseat Windows!...
What OS actually is for is, precisely, scratching an itch. Fixing what the developer wants to see fixed. Providing the features the developer wants. Having fun making something that a hundred other people made already. Many Linux developers (for example) couldn't care less about Windows, or converting Windows users to Linux.
And yes, they like bitching about Microsoft. Because it's so easy to do, I guess.
These things are only "things that are wrong with open source" if you have the idea that OS is trying to be something that it's not.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
The "many itches, many scratchers" is a silly analogy. This is the case in not only OSS but also in for sale products. FOR INSTANCE, Musicmatch, Itunes, Winamp, Windows Media player. Enough said.
.plan or a paltry .todo
What is truly missing from the overall product creation standpoint is a universal bounty system. If someone were to create a universal bounty system for the application of new software ideas (that benefited the donor, and also gave incentive to the developers) there would be a drastic change in OSS development. Now all of a sudden your target audience is no longer yourself, but an ethereal goal list and a real cash dollar amount to buy some more raman and coffee.
Yeah sure, these things are "supposed" to be in existence already (sans the bounty) but I don't know how many projects I've seen on freshmeat with an empty
So I'm no professional developer, if I knew there was a series of progressively increasing bounties available for me to freely distribute my ideas to the ether I would be more inclined to spend time doing so seriously. Not all of us are driven by the solution at the end of the problem tunnel, some of us have monetary requirements to fulfil.
Feuding and scratching the same itch is merely one form of competition. In the OSS community, you often find a war of ideas, whether that's Gnome vs KDE or Linus insisting on a plaintext /proc.
I much prefer this war of ideas to the way commercial companies operate -- the war of marketing departments. Is it any wonder OSS turns out better?
is the one who is right.
There are still plenty of problems with linux, including a print system that sucks, and plenty of problems that need fixing. It took us until last year to get fonts that looked good without having to add more. Whats worse is our tendency to mimic features in windows instead of trying to surpass windows. Instead of yet another lecture about how everyone should do everything with a CLI, lets get a GUI that is BETTER than mac or windows. A package system that works automatically (even RPM isnt automatic) and having dependent files included with applications.
Self-honesty is your best weapon.
It's a point/counter-point, so don't forget to read the rebuttal linked at the bottom of the page..
(also linked here)
We write software that we want. We write what we want and say what we want. This is the price you pay for software that's Free. Freedom breeds freedom, and that's the main point people seem to forget when they talk about what's "wrong" with the Free software community.
'clone' is a bad way to put it. The whole idea isn't to trick users into thinking they're in Windows. It's to build a spreadsheet program that isn't part of a $600 package, that doesn't truncate data after 65535 entries.
A spreadsheet is a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet. A browser is a browser is a browser (that's why product placement played the final role in the browser wars), a word processor is a word processor (he forgot the fued over VI and Emacs) etc.
Cloning software usually denotes heisting something, or just flat out copying. Microsoft 'clones' their own product line on a regular bi-yearly basis. Open source people build better standards like PHP, Apache, Perl etc.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
.. as 'open source enthousiasts' often do.
If you really want to change people's opinions, you better phrase your comments in terms of "you're doing great, but you could be doing even greater" than "what's wrong with you guys". I think someone commented this in the discussion about the way us enthousiasts were trying to influence the EU on the patent directive that was about to be passed.
I guess the same applies here...
I didn't get flamed when I went into #debian and asked a bunch of questions. Neither did anyone else that came in while I was there, and I sat on the channel for several days.
/msg'ing the "apt" bot for news before asking your question, as (IIRC) the welcome message to the server asks you to do. Did you do this? And did the channel topic say something about the break-in, but you were unable to connect it to the servers not being updated?
t ml
Perhaps the problem has more to do with your question. The Debian server compromise has been "all over the news", which I believe is why the package servers haven't been updated. It's reasonable to assume that people in #debian might have assumed you knew about the compromise, and they might have been a bit sensitive about it.
Also, you didn't mention
Now, I happen to think that Eric Raymond is a jerk, and wrong about a great many things, but he and Rick Moen wrote an essay on how to ask questions that should be required reading for pretty much anyone, and can easily be applied to fields other than computers. My father is a mechanic, and his job and mine have amazing parallels.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.h
Our LUG has a mailing list, and I've been on it for about 6 years now. I've rarely seen anyone flamed, even for asking really basic questions. One person in particular did ask several basic questions in a row, and was eventually pointed to the above document by several list members. Sadly, he decided to be an ass about it, and some flames were exchanged, but that's the only problem I can remember.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Slashdot also accepts advertisements from publishers of proprietary operating systems. Your point?
Too many developers "scratch the same itch" is a bad thing only for applications/libraries which other software depends on. We know this! This is what standards are for :-) However, for a standard to become standard we need to test lots of options and decide which is best. On the way to standardization we might merge different features, or the standard might require features from different packages which do not exist together at the moment. Different approaches make it easier to decide which feature to keep and which feature to drop.
I personally do not mind having three plotting and five music playing and twelve font editing packages, it does not hurt anybody, and as the author himself points out, people get selfworth from other people using their package. So if we try to come up with a single solution the result will be fewer developers->fewer packages, not same developers->better packages.
ato
they post flamebaiting articles like this one on major-traffic websites, making for pointless debates instead of getting down and coding.
He also suggests we often approach the whole issue of encouraging migration to Linux from Windows entirely wrongly
I've had a pretty good deal of luck with my family and friends getting them switched to Mozilla and OpenOffice on win32 first, and then later on suggesting Linux. Like most desktop users, thoes 2 apps give them everything they need (web, email and and office suite). If they get used to it on win32, using it all on Linux is a no-brainer and they're generally at least willing to try.
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
I didn't feel Steve Suehring's rebuttal addressed a couple of James Turner's comments well.
1. Too much competition Suehring doesn't touch on Turner's point that GNU/Linux distributions often can't use other distributions' binary packages of applications. This is a must if we want to attract users of proprietary yet mission-critical applications to GNU/Linux.
3. Scratch the wrong itch "I've worked with closed source software where I had to edit a registry setting or manually change a configuration file in order to make the software work (don't forget to reboot the entire server if you make a registry change.)" However, the average Windows program provides a GUI for a larger percentage of its configuration than does the average GNU/Linux program.
5. Chip on its shoulder Suehring doesn't touch on Turner's point that GNU/Linux support among hardware manufacturers just isn't to the point where I can stick in the driver disc bundled with a device and install the driver.
What if you switched "debian" to "Windows XP" and were talking about a stale Windows Update server? Are you going to go to freenode and get on IRC #WinXP and ask a bunch of wannabes to give you free technical support or reason why they are not as competent as they seem or opportunity to reinforce their position in the #WinXP channel pecking order?
It isn't plain how the example cited in the parent of this thread is related to the general problems of the free software development community. Are the jokers in #debian at freenode actually the developers at the root of this discussion? Uh... NO!
So, pardon me if I am concerned this thread might be a troll.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
He is NOT worth it to anyone. He thinks that his Senior Editor position gives him a unique insight into "What's wrong with Open Source"...
He had his damn "points" wrong for various reasons that he obviously didn't think about in the previous article that precipitated this stupid "response" (One, I might add, it was strongly suggested that he re-think the idea from the get-go over on LinuxToday's comment section...)- and most everyone on the feedback forum and on LinuxToday pointed out where he'd gone wrong (Myself included on BOTH forums) and most of them were fairly respectful but also strongly questioned is credibility and credentials, likening him to Enderle (Right or wrong, it felt a lot like Enderle's stuff...).
He then comes in with a chip on HIS shoulder claiming that we were all about with a chip on our collective shoulder and accusing us of ad-homninem attacks.
Never mind that the man failed to address the points LEGITIMATELY raised with regards to HIS points. And he still fails to do so now. He won't admit he might have been "wrong" about part or all of his premise and points. He may be right, there may still be things that we have that can impede desktop adoption of Linux, but what he came up with isn't the problem- really it isn't.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I was having a problem with configuring my webserver with HTML::Mason. Problem was resolved in a few hours by one of the authors of HTML::Mason. Now a neat summary of my problems and its resolutions is available to the world in the archives.
I am trying to extend PostgreSQL so that it includes efficient Materialized Views. I posted a couple of messages, and the team basically says, "We've all got our personal projects we're working on, but we all want to see M.V. a reality. Here's some pointers and good luck." When I come back with my findings, they point out some more stuff, and the discussion starts to build. I can see having M.V. in PostgreSQL a reality if I keep advocating it.
These are just two examples of things that just are not possible with closed-source software. The HTML::Mason and PostgreSQL teams are really good examples of open source work at its finest (along with other projects too numerous to mention). But imagine getting this kind of support from Microsoft or SUN. (Well, maybe SUN is fanatical about support and encourages its users to contribute to the codebase, I wouldn't know.)
This is why Open Source Software (or Free Software, whatever you want to call it) is going to take over the world. Petty irritations exist, but they exist everywhere and are not insurmountable. Eventually, everyone will see what I see in the open source community. I can't imagine "paying" someone for software that I can't look into or modify. No matter how useful it is now, it won't be useful in a few years. Heck, it won't even be supported by anyone. But open source software is timeless and invaluable. When it becomes obselete, it is updated (case in point: sendmail)
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Journalism, thats the real truth, this is just another example of Journalism's continuous need for sensation, almost all journo's are just the worst sort of Trolls, BSD is dying, Unix is dying, Aunt Nelly cat is dying, linux ate my clock radio, I moderate the article -1 Troll.
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
I write free software for a living, and I'm getting paid. I'm writing an application for a vertical market (i.e. a market with very few customers). They pay me to provide the functionality they need, and they don't care about the license.
In the other end, the horizontal market, people are getting paid as well. The Linux kernel, Mozilla, and Open Office are primarily developed by people getting paid to do so.
And in-between these two extremes, people are getting paid as well. Samba, Apache, GCC, GDB and other popular network and development applications are primarily being developed by people getting paid to do so.
It is true that most free software applications, if you count them on sourceforge, are developed by amateurs in their spare time. But most of these applications have very few users as well.
Most of the free software most people use are developed by people getting paid to do so.
I have to agree with everything he said in this article. The biggest problem with Open Source today is Open Source it self. It has no strong backing by big corporations. Sure you can say IBM is a backing Open Source, no they aren't, they are using Open Source to drive up profit. They take more than they give. But this all drives to the point, it's hard to make a buck when everybody already has your product and it is free.
Maybe it is because it is a "community" and nobody rules it, maybe it is because it is passionate about what it does and feels the need to defend it when attacked. There are some things that might need some improving, but the Open Source Community has done quite well the way it has been operating since it started. It will improve when it needs to improve, that is how it works.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
It seems to me that a problem with a large number of movements is that they are based first and foremost on an oppositional logic and rhetoric. Rather than simply providing a model for open debate and getting things done, the oppositional rhetoric gives us infighting and great wars about the composition of naval lint and the direction of the great social revolution.
Of course, this is just a problem in OSS, it seems to be occuring just about everywhere. People are subdividing into camps based on whatever thesis/antithesis group the rant about, and are gradually losing the ability to community with the rest of the world.
His current article is a follow-up to a previous article about Linux NOT being ready for the desktop because it didn't work with his 802.11g card and wouldn't play DVD's "out of the box".
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/38038.htm
In that article, his solution was to award "kudos" (as you noted) for fixing the "problems" he claimed that rendered Linux "dead" on the desktop.
I believe that the real solution is to only purchase products from vendors that support Linux.
As for developers focusing on other aspects, that would be nice. But I'm not about to ask someone who is giving me their labour for free to work harder for my benefit.
I will contribute financially to projects and I will purchase Linux-friendly hardware and let the vendors know that I'm using it with Linux.
There are so many ways you can contribute to projects you deem worthwhile.
#1. Help with the code.
#2. Money - always appreciated.
#3. Testing & submitting GOOD bug reports.
#4. Helping with documentation.
#5. Maintaining your own "HowTo" for your system.
etc.
#2.
I've read the article (yes!) and there are two implicit assumptions that bother me, even without going into the author's points. The first is that there is an open source community. I'm not quite sure of that. There are many developers that work on open-source projects for so many different reasons and don't necessarily consider themselves part of a community. The other implicit assumption is that those you start flamewars are open-source developers. Most of the time, it isn't the case.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
>There's absolutely no reason for there to be more than two or three distributions
Let's try and find reasons for more than 3, shall we. Hmmm:
-Debian: solid, stable, completely free, at the cost of being outdated sometimes
-Mandrake:Simple distro, ideal for newbies. Not good for linux diehards who like to fiddle with everything
-Gentoo: bleeding edge, compilation optimisations, easy to reconfigure the way you want it if you know what you're doing. Not so many guarantees on the stability.
-Redhat:commercial, certified, expensive, well-supported, reasonably up to date.
-SuSE:somewhat similar approach to Redhat. Keeps Redhat honest through this crazy thing called competition.
-SELinux - security above all else
The difference is priorities. Trying to combine their properties (free+certified? Ultra-Secure and custom compilations?) would be hard.
I've said many of the same things for years.
OSS/Free Software people often argue that there's no need for proprietary software, free software can provide everything.
But when I go somewhere like freshmeat, what do I find? More MP3 enocoders/players/front-ends/rippers/catalogers than you can shake a stick at. What don't I find? drivers for some of my devices like scanners, cameras. Productivity applications, like Tax software for instance, and many other things that I can't think of right now, that keep me chained to Windows. Or if I do find them, they are half finished, and barely usable. Some would say, "So fill the void!". I do write my own stuff, but the re are too many things, and I only have so much time to devote to it.
Don't get me wrong, I love Linux, and need Windows less than ever. But I have a pragmatic approach about it. OSS can do great things, but not everything, there will always be room for proprietary software, and the two should be able to coexist.
The other problem with OSS is lack of innovation. How many things does the OSS community go about attempting to clone only after someone like MS or another company introduced it? Was there a FreeMware before VMware? Was there Linux PVR applications before Tivo? etc.
By reading this sig, you agree to the terms of my sig license.
1. Too many companies "scratch the same itch."
.Net. HP-UX vs AIX. For every interesting commercial technology, there are two bitterly feuding camps that spend as much time taking potshots at each other as in improving their own products.
We hear that commercial software companies come up with new ideas because they "wanted to make some money." In other words, there was some need they had for a new application, and they "scratched" it by coming up with a tool. The problem is, it's not uncommon to end up with two or three (or more!) different packages doing the same thing. For a specific example, look at what's happened with the relational databases, where there are now several competing packages that have to be supported by each distribution.
2. Commercial software companies love a good feud.
Oracle vs Microsoft. Java vs
3. Commercial software companies often scratch the wrong itch.
The problem with commercial development is that the developers often aren't the consumers of their products, and thus don't feel the pain of their mistakes. The other problem with commercial software development is that they often don't fix problems or develop new features that aren't going to make them money.
4. In the commercial software community, you're either "with us or against us"
Attempts to point out flaws or places where there's room for improvement in an application usually lead directly to legal action. Attempts to contact the company directly lead to either unqulaified indivduals, fees, or, again, legal action. Direct comment from the companies if laded with fear, uncertainty, and doubt: "The GPL is a cancer." "Linux is stealing my IP." "Hey! No benchmarking."
5. The commercial software community has a huge chip on its shoulder...called Microsoft
Although Linux is also a popular a target lately too, the merest mention of MS is like a bull having a red cape waved before his eyes. All reason and sense of decorum flies out the window. And while I'm first in line to throw rotten tomatoes at Bill Gates, it's harmful to the community. The reality is that Microsoft owns the lion's share of the non-server OS market. If the first thing you tell all these people who own Windows is that they are idiots, you're not starting out on very good ground to convert them.
You, like many in the OSS community, are more concerned with competing with closed source than with innovating your own projects. It's the reason people say things like, "Slashdot isn't pro-Linux, it's anti-M$."
creates better code. Evolution occurs in a dynamic environment, not in a static one. Just my 2 cents.
Don't get off the boat. Absolutely, goddamn right.
The real problem is that Open Source is to focused on the source.
;-)
What? You may ask...
Open Source developers put out some great software, Linux, Mozilla, Gimp, GAIM, etc. I could go on for some time.
Why are they good? Stable, reliable, secure... most will agree to those. Why is it true? Because good coding, and demand to get it right. No corporate preasure.
So what's the problem? NO END USER FOCUS.
Mozilla now is working towards an enduser focus. That's a big change.
But the majority don't. The products are great, but lets face it. As wonderful as KDE is, it's not Aqua, or even Luna. It's good, but not good enough for an end user. There's still computer jargon in the user's face, and it's not pretty like the others.
Tech support for endusers - missing
Computer jargon in their face
Lack of marketing towards end users ("What's gimp?")
These are the problems.
IMHO, each project should create a group devoted to end-user focus. That group should work on marketing, and viewing the product through an enduser perspective... not a Geek perspective. And judge if it's end user friendly.
Linux won't hit the masses as long as the user gets shown the path's to 100000k different things. They don't care... they just want it to work.
It's great that open source developers are such perfectionists. I personally love it. But what they need to do, is be able to cover it up.
Perhaps the general release pattern should include:
Developer release - more powerful, crude like today
End user release - friendly, hide the ugly.
End users don't like feeling confused. That's the key. That's what Apple Knows when it invented the iPod's interface. That's what Microsoft is slowly learning. That's what Palm knew. That's why Google is so popular.... simplistic yet powerful.
Until open source comes to agree on that ideal, it's not going to get that far.
Again, the products are amazing, and I love them... but I also want them to succeed with the non-geeks who actually have a social life
Troll!
Think back to when Chiang Kai-Shek took over China: before that no one worked, everyone was poor, morale was nonexistent.
True, but -- then again -- no one worked, everyone was poor, and morale was nonexistent _while_ Chiang Kai-Shek ruled China and _after_ he got kicked out. If China has changed, it's only been in the past few decades -- thanks largely to peace and a moderate Communist regime.
Under the benevolent dictator, a term used to describe Linus Torvalds,
Some would describe Chiang Kai-Shek as "an incompetent dictator who permitted graft and corruption among his subordinates; a fool who handed the world's largest country to Communists at the start of the cold war." I haven't heard similar descriptions of Linus Torvalds. (In fairness, Torvalds has a much easier job than Chiang Kai-Shek.)
Within a few short years China was a world power.
China has been a world power for thousands of years. It reached a low point in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Chiang Kai-Shek died in 1975 but his methods and teachings continue to this day in China.
No, they don't.
Does it change the fact that DVD playback in Linux is a difficulty?
No. Then his point is valid. End users don't care about legal reasons, they care about results.
Three entirely different worlds.
#1. Microsoft - 95%+ of the desktop so any vendor shipping a product also included Windows drivers.
#2. Apple - small marketshare so it compensates by restricting hardware selection. That way it can ensure that the drivers are available.
#3. Linux - small desktop marketshare but it doesn't attempt to limit the hardware choices. So YOU have to be carefull about what hardware you purchase. Some work flawlessly, some work okay, some suck bad, some don't work at all.
Now, the problems.
#1. Different vendors write drivers that MAY NOT WORK NICELY with other vendor's drivers. That's one of the reasons that you're told to "Remove the driver, re-install the driver, did that fix it?"
#2. Limited selection. What else can be said?
#3. Better than #1, but still problems with un-supported hardware drivers. The good news is you can easily identify and remove the evil drivers. The bad news is that those drivers might be for hardware that your really need.
James Turner leads off on the "too many itches" syndrome and other problems - Steve Suehring offers his Counterpoint
December 1, 2003, http://www.linuxworld.com/story/38073.htm
By James Turner Steve Suehring
Advertisement
James Turner: 5 problems with the Open Source community
There's no question that the Open Source community has a lot going for it. Besides a staggering amount of developer power that can be turned against important problems, the Open Source movement also has a passion and commitment to its work that the commercial software world often envies. But sometimes, the Open Source community can be its own worst enemy. Here are a few reasons why.
1. Too many developers "scratch the same itch."
We hear that Open Source developers come up with new ideas because they "had an itch to scratch." In other words, there was some need they had for a new application, and they "scratched" it by coming up with a tool. The problem is, it's not uncommon to end up with two or three (or more!) different packages doing the same thing. For a specific example, look at what's happened with the Linux sound systems, where there are now several competing packages that have to be supported by each distribution. Or in the Java world, look at how many competing MVC frameworks there are now for JSP development.
A little competition can be a good thing. After all, Linux is all about offering a competing vision for the operating system domain. But when too many competing visions exist, and aren't winnowed down to a small number of options over a short period of time, you end up with a mish-mash of conflicting standards, and a user community that ends up having to download and install a plethora of different packages that all do the same thing.
A perfect example of the "too many itches" syndrome is the absurd number of Linux distributions that exist out there. There's absolutely no reason for there to be more than two or three distributions. And because each one does things slightly differently, we've ended up with the problem that applications and drivers are rarely made available in binary form, because there are too many versions of too many releases of Linux to support.
As an application developer, you would have to provide 5 - 10 different binary installs, one for each distribution. Now multiply that times the five or more active releases of a distribution that may be in active circulation, and you see why so few packages are available as anything but source (especially the most recent releases of packages that have not been compiled and included into Linux distributions yet.)
The next question to consider is, why don't we see more consolidation of technology? The answer: because...
2. Open Source developers love a good feud.
BSD vs Linux. Gnome vs KDE. Debian vs Red Hat. For every interesting Open Source technology, there are two bitterly feuding camps that spend as much time taking potshots at each other as in improving their own products.
It's hard to imagine how much better a lot of Open Source software would be if these groups cooperated and consolidated their efforts, rather than act like the Hatfields and McCoys. Unfortunately, the downside of personal
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
For what it's worth, every Linux zealot I've talked to can't remember the last time they used Windows, and wouldn't want to. Even if they do, they think it sucks.
It seems to me that the people who want Linux to overtake Windows on the desktop are those (like me) who are so used to MS DOS / Windows after using it for 20 years, and are finding it hard to do an instant migration. Instantly my difficulties in transitioning become "what's wrong with Linux."
I'm not a low-level C coder or anything spectacular, but I do enjoy fumbling my way through Gentoo and IceWM, trying to find the grail of replacing Windows, while still having fun with my OS and learning as much as I can.
I think that the people who want things to be "their way" are generally out of touch with what the underlying Linux community's goals always have been.
I could be wrong though. And as more people want to jump ship from Windows to Linux, I imagine that the sides will even out a bit, with a greater influx of novice Linux programmers.
I think something like _that_ would begin to influence the general direction of some projects. The fact alone that so many people want to ditch Windows anyway shows that some distros are trying very hard to make them very user-friendly.
But I find it hard to believe that was the goal of most long-term users/developers all along, or that it even is now.
If you look at linux as opposed to OSX, where OSX developed a brand new somewhat consistent desktop in far less time then KDE/GNU existed, you can see some of the problems of open source (The open source model has some advantages too) One of the problems is that so many people work on it, it can be hard to get anything consistent. this
Look at configuration files for an example. A lot of programs use different formats for configurations, because the developers think there way is best and they're writing the code so its the way they want it. There is no linux boss telling people use X format for config files. This gives the linux distributions less of a conhesive feel than a OS that says "Config files will look like this.. love it of leave it"
This is why the linux distributions are so helpfull and its painfull to see them leave the desktop market(redhat/ suse etc..). They've been trying to pull everything together with setup tools and a consistent look.
When I read your post, this is what I really see:
So what? It's not my responsibility to write code for you. I write code for me, and release it under a license that happens to allow for other people to use it. Don't tell me what code I'm allowed to write and what I'm not.
Translates to:
So what? I don't like to hear complaints, because it reveals how inadequate the state of OSS is. I'm so insecure that when someone mentions a direction I should take, my foaming-at-the-mouth, reptilian mindset views it as a personal insult, as though somebody is wanting me to take responsibility for something, and I don't like responsibility. I'm selfish, and everything I do revolves around me. I contribute code, but expect people to never criticize it. Logically, if I didn't want to hear criticism, I would keep my code on my private network and never release it, but hypocrisy is a fundamental attribute of much of the OSS community.
So what? You have no right to tell me how I should be spending my time. Sure it's not the most productive use of it, but again, it's MY time. If you don't like it, go away.
Translates to:
So what? I take criticism of software so personally that I view it as dictation of my schedule. My completely anti-social, condescending attitude scares away scores of users, but that doesn't matter to me because I maintain a selfish attitude. I tell people to go away if they don't like what I do. Basically, I'm a big baby who can't handle criticism. Users care about results--I care about myself. And then I complain about the non-acceptance of OSS.
WTF? Scratch the wrong itch? Maybe I'm not scratching your itch, but see point 1. If you don't like what I'm doing, write your own. That's what I did when I wrote this software that scratches the 'wrong itch'. It scratched mine just fine.
Translates to:
Hey, if you point out a flaw in an application that is holding it back, fuck you! I wrote what I want. You're just the user, the person using my software, a pawn in my little world of self-control. I expect people to use stuff without question or criticism unless they're uber kernel developers who can contribute code at the drop of a hat. Otherwise, your opinions are meaningless to me, because I scratched my ITCH!
Against us? If you want to point out flaws and the people in the group don't appreciate it, you can take the code and apply your own patches and start up a distribution of that code. If the community agrees with you, then you'll be successful. If you end up being the only one who uses your new version, then maybe you're actually wrong about what you were doing and that entire community against you was actually that you were wrong and too dumb to realize it.
Translates to:
Write code, or shut up. You also can't criticize movies unless you make movies, stories unless you write replacement stories, football players unless you play better football, or music unless you're an expert guitarist. The most important feedback I could ever receive about software--the people using it everyday, end users--I choose to ignore in order to pacify my ego and mindset of being superior to people. And then I complain about the non-acceptance of OSS!
So? This really is the same point as Point 2. And the arguments are the same. So most of us don't like Microsoft? I don't think there are many that won't admit they do some stuff right, but that doesn't matter. It's my time, and I will do with it as I please. If you want to lead by example and convince people there's a better way, a high road, then please, by all means, do so. But telling people who write software that you can use at no cost and have full access to the source that they need to be doing things differently is about the most egocentric thing you could possibly say.
Translates to:
I answer everything with a question. What? Huh? And the ever-classic, WTF? I take it as a personal insult when someone dare
The question is, why can't the OSS community, with it's legions of developers get a single app to work smoothly and like an Apple or even a Microsoft app? They need to start doing this, and they need to start doing it on a wide scale. Make it useable first, then add more features. Not the other way arround
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I am co-leader of an open-source project that has been going for about two years. Just after the code was released someone else started a very similar parallel effort. Our project had a more robust, extendable architecture while the other project supported more "devices". I even wrote a "bridge" to allow service providers from the other project to be plugged into ours. Then I sent an email to the other project leader suggesting we merge our efforts. Best of both worlds. While we remain on friendly terms, he wasn't interested, and I think it was fear of losing his role as sole lead developer/architect/leader. Of course, the "space" has suffered since developers have to choose between two frameworks each with strengths and weaknesses and often get confused. And it also dilutes the talent pool available to both projects.
But the real question is, what can you do? To be fair, the problem space is one that no commercial entity has decided it is worth entering, so in that regard you have to chalk one up for open-source.
But when I write software, I write it for:
a) Myself
b) My employer
c) Other people that ask for a feature, or I know use the software
I'm not writing to replace windows, or even really for the benefit of the whole world (in the sense that I'm not trying to make a magic-button GUI app that satisfies everyone), I'm doing it for my own purposes. Nobody else should assume that those purposes necessarily match their own.
A passion for "what is right", a passion for logic and truth, an inward focus, fascination with knowledge and patterns, a passion for the quest, for the mission, a need for Truth and Justice, etc etc etc. This all describes marginal Asperperger's Syndrome, and it describes both myself and many of the open source community and the slashdot community....know thyself....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Commentators. There are far to many of them with far too little of real interest to say.
This is nothing new, it has all been said before and we are aware of these "problems".
showering, maybe?
Yeah, here's a description of one particularly fanatical 'open-source supporter' (from PBS).
"If he was busy he didn't bathe, he didn't change clothes. We were in New York and the demo that we had crashed the evening before the announcement, and Bill worked all night with some other engineers to fix it. Well it didn't occur to him to take ten minutes for a shower after that, it just didn't occur to him that that was important, and he badly needed a shower that day."
Please step forward, Mr.Gates. But not too close.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
From the article:
.deb-based derivatives)
.deb's are pretty much universal. I can install Knoppix or Mepis and link straight to the Debian package sources, and everything pretty much "just works" when I do apt-get update / upgrade. Not so with suse / rh, which is one of the big reasons I won't go back to RPM.
> There's absolutely no reason for there to be more than two or three distributions.
--Um, right now off the top of my head we have:
o Debian (and
o Red Hat (and rpm-based derivatives such as SuSE, etc)
o Gentoo (and I should add Slackware, after double-checking here.)
--Those are the major families that come to my mind immediately.
--The reason for having distros like SuSE is that they took the RH model and did something a little different with it. Personally I preferred Suse 6.4 / 7.3 over RH's offerings at the time, and went with it. However that's NO EXCUSE for having incompatible RPM's.
--The beauty of Debian installs is that
--I agree that we could stand some merging of distros (Mepis could investigate merging with Libranet, for instance) but there are distros such as Suse that cater to a more European audience, and would never merge with RH - although they did get bought by Novell. What they *should* do is make all the RPM packages from here on work with any rpm-based distro, and concentrate on the value-added distro-specific tools (Mepis has it's own System Center, Libranet has it's Admin menu, Suse has Yast, etc.)
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
What's wrong with the open source community?
Er, nothing much. We're doing fine, on the whole. Our only potential weakness is laws that make open source a crime (DMCA, EUCD, etc).
A couple of the rebuttals Suehring provides to the points in the article boil down to "The more choice, the better, because in the end the market will decide which choices survive."
Problem is, the people making buying decisions can't wait until "in the end" to make their purchases. They need solutions NOW, and there's too much risk in choosing from upteen different Linux distributions if (umpteen-2) of them are likely to be defunct in a few years.
How about why should they?
Why should developers do anything other than what they have an incentive to do?
You want polished apps, you have a couple of options:
1. Pay for them.
2. Pay someone to create them.
3. Make them yourself.
and I suppose your preferred option
4. Complain until someone else does it for you.
An important point is that developers in general are not interested in ruling the world, deposing Microsoft or bringing Linux to the desktop.
Anything is possible given time and money.
1.) Standards for simple everyday stuff While diversity in implementation is good, certain things simply need to be agreed upon community-wide:
2.) Enterprise database software This is the "killer-app" for nearly all businesses and should be the prime focus for those who want to see F/OSS on the corporate desktop. Trouble is, we don't have a good F/OSS enterprise-class application server! Forget cheesy PHP/MySQL apps. Forget Zope and other web application frameworks. That software has it's place, but it's not up to the task of hard-core database apps. We need something as powerful as J2EE, but without the steep learning curve, alphabet soup of acronyms, sketchy documentation, closed standards, and dependance on proprietary Sun code. Yes, I am aware of JBoss (open-source, non-official J2EE implementation), but it still has the issues listed above. Either a completely F/OSS JRE/JVM/JDK software stack needs to be written or else a completely new application server standard needs to be invented, perhaps using ObjectiveC or Python. GNU Enterprise (www.gnue.org) has a start, but that project seems to be stagnant and uninspired.
3.) More professional developers Simply put, the F/OSS of greatest quality is usually developed by people who are being paid to meet needs. There are plenty of viable business models and market opportunities. Hobby projects won't cut it. If you want F/OSS to succeed, you need to do your part in the marketplace.
i think what causes argument and confusion is that there is no 'goal' of the open source community. everyone who considers themself a member will have a reason for 'belonging'. a lot of members will have similar reasons, a lot of members feel that there 'should' be a goal and become frustrated when they see the consequences of the lack of one unifying goal orientated development process.
smaller groupings of members, whether individuals or organisations have their own goals, often commercial and of course they would benefit from the whole community deciding to commit themselves to that objective. but the community doesn't.
as i write i wonder if the word community isn't itself misplaced if there isn't one overall unifying destination for all its members, but then i think that perhaps the dissimilarities of licences such as the bsd and gpl instances to those of microsoft et al do define an identifiable grouping or community.
back to the article: i couldn't help feeling that the first writer has the goal of 'linux on the desktop for all' or whatever, and the second a goal of 'linux on my desktop the way i like it'; of course they disagree, the first was speaking to the lack of community participation by those currently microsoft bound, perhaps at the bottom of the tech-savvy curve, the second was saying the current members are quite happy as they are thankyou every much!
both potentially true!
'open source', 'free software' use what terms you will, these refer to a development process and/or to an ideological attitude to intellectual activity. abstract concepts such as these do not have goals, merely consequences, or implications. people have goals, and people are different, contrary and sometimes downright irrational.
i like the idea of a community/arena blah blah that encompasses the whole range of human idiosyncracies, it may not appear to be moving in one unified direction but i believe that when something matters enough, and when people have the freedom to act, folk mostly do the right thing, indeed looking at the past decade or so, perhaps folk already have! it's that pesky little 'freedom to act' phrase that matters, i see an allegory between my description here and the wider world of social and polictical engagement (or lack of it), but there my navel beckons so i'll stop.
1. Too many developers "scratch the same itch."
This is excellent that there is all this itch scratching. It makes the community strong because we travel many roads and only decide to use them when they get somewhere interesting. And since its free for the most part, we don't lose much trying it out.
The writer also says there is a problem with the huge number of distros. That's honky. If you aim for the linux standards base target, you'll be fine. If you use an X Toolkit that works on gnome and KDE, you'll be fine. If you statically link in the libraries you use, or at least include dynamic versions of your library in your download/install CD that can be installed localally at configure time, you'll be fine. If you use automake, autoconf, and autotool, you'll be fine.
And there is PLENTY to gain from the huge number of distros. All of them do slightly different things. RedHat? Lots of doc, big company
supporting you, pretty easy configuration. Mandrake? Readhatlike, more community supported, more graphical installers, etc. Knoppix? In and working in 5 minutes, with less than an hour to
install. Debian? Quick to keep updated, powerful, and idealogically sound. Suse? Super internationalization support, great for that computer that's being used in Europe or India. Slackware? You want to get used to normal unix administration, as it was in the early nineties. Gentoo, up to date, and quick as the wind. So on and so forth.
2. Open Source developers love a good feud.
All developers love a good feud. Commercial software however is owned by someone, so they make a decision which side wins the argument, then its done that way, with the other way usually forced to be forsaken. This is what happens in almost any arena when there is no standard for entry (such as getting a PhD in academic communities) or authority (such as a boss in a commercial company)
3. Open Source developers often scratch the wrong itch.
He claims we don't code for the users. We actually code for power and customizability more than intutiveness and low-emmersion use. So? That's one of the things that makes many people LOVE this stuff. Then again, I think it would be an EXCELLENT contribution to almost any project to make quick and easy frontends to hairy processes, a la anaconda for installation of redhat. Then again, I don't really feel like it....
4. In the Open Source Community, you're either "with us or against us"
I think that often people forget that they can't abuse the programmers in free software world. They assume that if they request features and the like, they can get them, as a manager can "request" features in a company and will get them. Often, when you critisize a work in the OSS world, you're going to be badmouthing something that was partially constructed as an ego-fix. That's one of the prices you pay for software developed for free.
Then again, if you say how you love feature XY and Q, but it might be easier to do Z if steps 1,2, and 3 happened, you might inspire the original author or another author to make a tool/frontend/helpfile/change that will do 1,2 and 3 for you. OSS reverses the normal hirearchy of programmer to customer as far as power goes, take that into account, and you'll go far.
5. The Open Source Community has a huge chip on its shoulder...called Microsoft
Yup. Microsoft is a bitch. Some of their software does cool things, but they also do much "their own way" due to their highly insular culture, and as a result, they do things "the wrong way". This pisses off people who have an appreciation for software as art or just people who want to get work done. Then there are the counterculture posers. They don't like MS for the pleasure of hating the mainstream.
This is one of the writers least empty points. I'd point out to most people that there are MANY uses for PC's around the house, especially ones that cost less that $400 total.Most people think that will cost around $1000 to add a PC to do somethiing neat, countin
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods