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Forbes Ventures Bold Predictions For IT, Linux
LinuxThis writes "Everyone's favorite, Daniel Lyons and other Forbes journalists have made some bold predictions about IT in 2004. Interesting quotes include 'Microsoft warms up to open source, and tries to make a buck off it', and the best, from our main man Daniel Lyons himself: 'The end of 'free'. Free didn't work for dotcom pet food stores, yet much of the rhetoric around technologies like Linux and voiceover-IP still involves this crazy notion that companies can make money by giving things away. They can't.' Even better, he suggests: 'SCO Group will settle its lawsuit against IBM. Both sides will declare victory. The Linux community will turn on IBM.' This is interesting considering his previous observations about OSS.."
printf("Goodbye, cruel world!")
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
...to anyone, technie or luddite alike, that IBM has a vested interest in seeing this lawsuit through to the end and making sure SCO is crushed into a fine-grained dust.
Yes, it would probably be cheaper for them to stop short. But that's kind of like negotiating with people who take hostages - you do it once, and it encourages others. Which is why this one is going all the way to the end, and IBM will not settle for anything less than complete victory.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I thought the end of free was coming when the tech market crashed.
Why won't free just end once and for all so these stupid researchers will stop with these inane predictions?
It's not 'the end of free' for Linux by any means. Debian, Gentoo, LFS, Slackware (probably) and many others will still be free because of either their non-comercial status or their comitment to the community. After all, who wants to pay a company to use software they wrote? Not me ...
Is that what they call a blow torch being applied to the Belly of the Beast these days?
It is possible to make money giving stuff away for free, but you have to be very precise about how you do it. You just need to give out enough of your product to make the public want the stuff you need to pay for. A good example of this is the IRL company 'Primerica'. They're a financial managment service that gives out financial evaluations for free. That is, they will take what you make, how much you want to retire off of, how much debt you have, etc and figure out a way to make everything managable and possible. However, they make money off debt consolidation so you can pay off your bills faster, insurance, etc. You go in, get everything sorted for free, and then hopefully you'll get your loans and such from them. They're making a very large profit from this strategy, from what I can tell. Another good example is a band who releases low-bitrate MP3s for download off their website. You get the songs and can tell if you like them or not. However, if you want the versions that don't sound poor with all the case artwork and such then you'll buy the CD.(This is what got me to buy both of Rilo Kiley's CDs.) I've noticed that the reason a lot of these companies fail at selling stuff by giving other stuff away is because they give out the wrong stuff for free. It's like crack - give them just enough to give them the need for your product and you're set. Kinda like Google's expert search. Can search google for free, but if you need help finding that one obscure thing then you can pay to have others with a lot more experience do it for you. I'm rambling. Damn, do I love coffee.
Absolutley. He's a grade A asshat, and his only purpose in life is to drive people to Forbes.com with stupid deranged inflamatory drivel.
Why is everyone so afraid of the concept of anything being 'free'? Is it that radical of a proposition that a broad-based community can create and support an infrastructure without the need for it to turn into a for-profit corporation? Community WLANs, VoIP, Open Source projects....aren't these things all technologically and socially proven by now? All of these analysts and experts can't be that shackled to the bottom line, can they? Paradigm shift, anyone....
No need to be a wizard to see that time for overpriced and underperformed (and unreliable) hardware (and OS) in internet-related business is finished. Today I can quicker deploy several (even dozens) of Lintel boxen running all needed application services distributed, then I did it before with a big 15K or few E4500s. With Lintel I save money in all aspects (cost of deployment, TCO) and I keep speed and quality not less (often even better) than with Sparc. SUN's customer base is collapsing to those who *do* need a *really* big iron. Just like SGI's one did.
Less is more !
gratis doesn't work businesswise, but there is value in liberty nonetheless. of course, when you're on crack this is hard to see, so these ad-sellers cannot be faulted for their lack of vision. you can safely ignore them and their ludicrous predictions, until the day they actually participate and either write and distribute code, write and distribute docs on that code, submit useful bug reports, or help others to do the same. that will be the day they become part of this community, no sooner. that's all there is to it.
...if I can get a linux distro that recognizes the bloody luscent driver that came with my a20m thinkpad.
Now centering ourselves on the topic. I love Linux, but it's still mainly for the computer geek or the Soho user that has time enough to experiment and discover things for him/herself.
Distros has to center themselves. The fact is that many of them offer too many options and most people are a little bewildered: "Geez I liked it better when it was only Windows, Office and IE."
On the other hand, the way LINUX has implemented new solutions over the years (USB, Firewire, all sort of mass storing devices, and so on..) it's simply amazing.
I love the current policy of offering things free for download or very cheap in a package and charging for the know how. When more and more people say to his boss Geez, I like Linux plus OpenOffice better, and the boss adds some figures in his head we'll start seeing things change
... y Dios vio que Linux era bueno... Genesis 99.666
Come on, magazines like Forbes are just low-level MBA entertainment.
Real buisness people don't read articles how this or that develops: they just getting their work done right first time.
No real entrepreneur cares about Forbes etc.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
There's no explosion. You're a one fucking sick individual to play with our emotions like that!
The shills at Forbes are so obsessed with money that they have no understanding at all of the technical aspects of SCO vs. IBM, and live in a reality distortion field. Remember the outrageous article that called linux users terrorists? And of course, the "Linux's hit men" article showed that the author is unable to perceive the difference between GPL and public domain. These people are mentally retarded, there's nothing else to describe them.
If they were dealing with an entity with lots of money they would likely have been sued for libel or whatever, but since its a community they can take their liberties with their "analysis" and "predictions". When I looked at Truman holding up a copy the Chicago Daily Tribune making fun of the analysts' predictions (in the recent cell phones article), I realized that this is perhaps what we need. And in fact, slashdot could be the ideal vehicle for that. What I mean is, if we had articles laughing at them and ridiculing them and exposing their idiocy every time one of their tech "predictions" went hopelessly wrong, and if some other news outlets picked up on it once in a while, then may be it would knock some sense into these morons' heads.
Disappointed that the security measures taken actually managed to stop all attacks? Do you hate the present administration so much that you hope to see thousands of innocent casualties?
Another ridiculously bad prediction in his article (unrelated to OSS but I'm sure willl be fascinating to slashdotters) is his final bold claim of "To repeat last year's prediction: "In 2004, Nintendo will have followed Sega's lead by exiting the console business." In 2004, it will." This guy obviously doesn't pay much attention to any sales numbers outside the US where Nintendo is well ahead of Microsoft in terms of console sales worldwide. In fact Nintendo was close to getting caught up with MS in North America but a shortage of Zelda bundle Game Cube's towards the late stages of the holiday season caused a slight drop in sales. He's just trying to make a lot of US corporate friendly predictions get people talking, he either doesn't believe what he is saying or is simply looking for attention. A lot of it is pretty ridiculous.
Will water with pencil core shavings work?
This sickens me. You think this is funny?
Try drinking small amounts of water at a time. If you can't drink plain water, squeeze in a bit of lemon or - as one of the posters above proposed - sugar.
Don't drink anything carbonated or too sweet (especially if you drank a lot of sweet drinks last night).
Every geek girl I've ever gone out with has turned out to be a fucking psycho.
It's probably the low self-esteem/confidence. Deep inside they can't believe that someone finds them interesting/attractive and then they go all paranoid.
The method of forecasting by asking a few people what they think is going to happen is called the Delphi Method It is, in my opinion one of the overall weakest methods by far, and especially if the views are collected the way Forbes has done. In normal practice the initial and raw opinions are improved by feedback to the group for more refinement, which obviously has not happened in the Forbes article - hence, the almost idiotic "predictions."
And as you rightly said, these people don't have the faintest clue as to what is happening. Their job is to get paychecks by telling their clients what they want to hear ... and they will keep on telling it ... Henry Blodgett anyone ?
There are tons of other methods to do Technological Forecasting, (an article that I wrote many years ago) and I wish some more work that has more solid basis is presented for Tech Forecasting at /. We deserve better "predictions" than this ....
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
The end of "free," huh? So, the way I read this, just because someone failed to make money off of an untenable business model, the people who make and use Linux, who weren't doing it for money in the first place, are going to fold up their tents and head off into the desert?
The more I read pieces like this, the more I think that people like Lyons are just plain incapable of "getting it." Their world view just doesn't allow for people doing a large-scale project like Linux because they enjoy it, and doing such a good job of it while they're at it. So, they try to map what the FOSS community does onto their world view, and it's hardly surprising that the mapping looks pretty strange to us.
Ah well, the FOSS community will continue to do what it's been doing all along, irrespective of what people like Dan Lyons thinks of it. Happy New Year.
Someone you trust is one of us.
IBM could hardly care less about SCO's fate. What is at issue here to IBM is the far more important issue of their software systems' legitimacy in the eyes of the market. SCO has done far more damage to that reputation than anything Microsoft could ever dream of, given their position as a clear competitor to both IBM and SCO. Since SCO/Caldera was very much a Linux company, their FUD rumors have had a tremendous chilling effect.
Now, there is no way to undo that damage with a settlement, as far as I or anyone I've read on Groklaw can tell. Even if SCO admits egregious errors in public, without a clear ruling from a judge and/or jury on the issues of IBM's rightful ownership of their e.g. AIX code, all of IBM's competitors will forever be able to twist the knife in their back. It no longer matters what SCO says or does, because their credibility is only intact with their own investors at this point. IBM, on the other hand, needs to clear their name.
I try to drink a glass of water between drinks if I'm getting serious about it. Slows me down somewhat and makes a huge difference the next day.
I say these on-and-off terror alerts are just a way how the neocons keep control over the public and politicians who might otherwise resist their agenda.
Once you have a scared public, you can strip them of every civil right and they'll thank you for it.
"Microsoft warms up to open source"
I'm sure this is all MS FUD, with their "Shared Source" initiatives giving it to a privilaged few, it seems that Microsoft is even less willing to give away their precious source code these days.
To quote bill gates: "To all those open source types who came down here looking for my code, I have only five words for you: From my cold, dead CVS."
Air is free, yet people make money from scenting it, compressing it or incorporating it into other products like balloons or ice cream, and selling the result.
Water is free, yet people make money from purifying it, bottling it or flavoring it, and selling the result.
Linux is free, yet people make money from packaging it, enhancing it and supporting it and selling the result.
Linux, like air and water, is free for all, yet through effort and ingenuity one can still profit from it.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Feel the pain and learn something from it: Drinking is dumb.
After my last hangover, I woke up somewhere in the old city of Dusseldorf in the morning, two of my friends lying nearby. I barely managed to prevent some smartass coming by from calling the police/ambulance/whatever and having us removed from there. Even though I could barely walk or articulate myself, I somehow managed to call us a taxi and bring my friends home safely. I felt absolutely miserable for the rest of the day and swore that I'd never get drunk again.
By the way, to the present day, no one of us has a clue how we got out of the bar and landed on the street on that day. God knows what I might have groped the evening before! Haven't touched alcohol ever since.
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/falsean.htm
It's really a shame you lead with a fallacy because it highlights your bias and obstinance.
By its very definition, "Open Source" must remain free. Perhaps you mean you that will cease to exist? Well, perhaps. But if it does then it's because it's unable to keep pace with the innovations from the non-Open Source development programmes. That's possible, but not likely.
Yes, very funny and you forgot the \n.
Did I mention that Daniel Lyons is a troll? If the uninformed didn't ever take him seriously, you could safely ignore him and thereby instantly improve your life. Unfortunately, there will always be the uninformed. So take them time to point out that he's been 100% consistently wrong about Linux since Day One, and shows no sign of changing his habits.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
1. Lisa DiCarlio: More cash-rich tech companies start to pay dividends. Microsoft continues to struggle to make its software secure, which means another great year in 2004 for Symantec. The complexities of integrating Legato and Documentum weigh down EMC. HP's stock doubles. IBM buys SCO to shut it up.
These don't look too far-fetched except for the last one. If anything I've seen on groklaw has any connection to reality at all, IBM will fight to the end in this particular battle. Score 0.7 tempered by a -1, Unlikely...
3. Daniel Lyons SCO Group will settle its lawsuit against IBM. Both sides will declare victory. The Linux community will turn on IBM.
IBM vs SCO as before, IBM will not stop at anything less than full victory. And IBM as the new enemy? Whatever would have happened to Microsoft then? He might be seeing something I do not see of course, it just seems too unlikely. Score 0.2
4. Victoria Murphy: Microsoft warms up to open source, and tries to make a buck off it.
Much as I'd think that would be a smart move on MS' part, I am not sure if they can leave their current closedness behind in time. To them it would be a big change. Maybe this explains what happens to MS in the previous prediction. Score 0.6, I Wish it Were True.
What does concern me is that some managers may read all of this and not realize it is all matters of opinion.
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
and sweet singaporean pussy.
How much was she?
That Free (as in freedom) is just the evolution of the industry. The cost of software will eventually approach zero because of the availability of cheap, powerful hardware and the widescale long-term dissemination of enough information that anyone with an interest can learn to program.
Eventually making money out of software is not going to be a matter of selling 'bolt on' proprietary parts because eventualy even those are going to be re-created by some enthusiastic hacker with a few free evenings and enough of an itch.
Selling pre-packaged boxed product can only generate small profit for those companies with a distribution channel that can entice people to actually buy (and I don't see too many GNU products in PC-World).
IBM realises this, and has made the strategic decision to support and utilise open software development precisely because most of their cashflow comes from service. This is the future, and one where income comes from service, not the value of the IP contained in some artificially constrained 'product' is one that we developers should embrace, as it presents a future of opportunity for those of us with talent.
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IBM employs legions of full-time attornies. SCO has to hire so many that (allegedly) it's the reason why they lost money last quarter.
IBM doesn't stand to save much money by settling, if any. And by not settling, they have the benefit of crushing this lingering nonsense about SCO in the minds of many PHB's who would be hesitant to buy IBM's Linux products, no matter how unjustified.
I have to wonder who the heck this Lyons guy is. He acts like he has his fingers right on the pulse of the Unix/Linux/OSS community, when his opinions couldn't be further from what many in that community feel. Reeks of ulterior motives. Too bad Joe Forbes Reader doesn't know any better.
-----
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
Original poster is a well-known troll.
(Except to you, apparently.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
> If you weren't a virgin...
If he weren't half-blind from continually jerking off, he'd recognise a slag when he saw one.
A few drinks, dance and a breakfast this morning.
Could be worse. They could threaten to poke MINE out.
She's kind of cute. Perhaps a little bit too wholesome-looking, but still cute.
u, sir, r n 1d10t.
lose sight of the fact that Linux isn't the one that isn't ready, it is the distributors who aren't integrating the various OSS projects with in a consistant manor. They're the source of the problem.
When you pay for Red Hat Linux, you don't pay for the software but for the time and investment the likes of Red Hat make IMPROVING the bundled software and ensuring that there aren't any issues when running the software in tandem with other pieces of software.
In otherwords, the distributors are like a resturant, they choose the integredients and it is up to us to pay for the work done.
What is also holding Linux back is a lack of third party developers. Sure, we have people here who just love to hate Microsoft but lets be completely honest, what is Microsofts greatest asset? its strong developer base which is created through good development tools and leadership.
Just look at Red hat, they refused to pay a piddly $10 per-unit fee to SUN for the ability to bundle StarOffice 6/7. To me, it simply re-enforces the notion that we have distributors unwilling to make the necessary investments to get the ISV partners onside.
Just look at the developer conference and how much time was spent EDUCATING their partners, great and small, about the merits of their future product range. Love them or hate them, you can't take away the fact that they do provide great leadership when required.
As much as I hate the annual MSDN developer crusades that sweep through towns and have people who speak with the same pasion of Billy Graham, the fact remains, the people who will make the decisions over whether to get behind Linux are the same who are impressed with flashy shows, fast talking buzz word compliant spokes persons and great corporate boxes at the local sporting fixture.
Erotic uses a feather; Pornography uses the whole chicken
WTF is this guy smoking? (And can I have some please?)
IBM has right on its side AND fabulously deep pockets, whereas SCO is quite likely to implode in another quarter or two, since it has *no* seriously marketable products or services (and seems hell-bent on doing everything it possibly can to scare and/or piss off any potential new customers, to boot). Big Blue can well and truly afford to wait SCO out.
IBM has every reason NOT to settle the suit, and every reason to pursue it until SCO is a glassy, smoking crater.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I've run into psychos who threaten to poke out their eyes, kill themselves or threaten me with a rape-charge if I don't "admit that I was out with someone else".
Naaaah. Looks kinda cheap. Must be the karma bonus she receives from doing something IT-related that makes her look cute to you.
It's always a pleasure to slowly corrupt them with nasty sex, booze and drugs.
I'm normally not one to pick on someone like this, but Daniel and I have had some personal emails back and forth over the FSF thing, and...
Is anyone else amazed to discover that he looks almost as dumb as the things he writes?
What if she threatens to poke your eyes out while you sleep?
The rape charge is pretty bad though. What did you do? Admit it?
I predict that Daniel Lyons will, after continuously having made completely false analysis and predictions on everything from SCO to Linux, either lose his job at Forbes (watch that MBA smile dissappear in a split second when he gets the slip) or be moved to the comics section, where he will at least do somethiing productive at Forbes.
I see this guy (and most other so called tech analysts for that matter) as one of the worst things to ever happen to both markets and journalism. This is one of those people who were still pushing the dotbomb revolution when it had already collapsed, and then, in true two faced lying son of a bitch sell your soul marketing fashion, turn around and say they had seen it all coming and that people are dumb for not having listened to him.
I think that the best remedy for scum like this would be to actually give them the job of ceo of some tech company and see how long it takes them to run it into the ground.
I admit there were a few anxious days before she finally came to take her stuff out.
Anyone?
You, sir, are a grade-A asshole. Well, there's going to be an extra hot seat reserved for you in the afterlife.
"PlayStation Portable will fail to make significant inroads against Nintendo's Game Boy. The handheld gaming market is huge--the Game Boy Advance outsells all consoles combined"
Then:
"In 2004, Nintendo will have followed Sega's lead by exiting the console business"
So Nintendo will keep its dominance in the handheld console market, but they will also exit the console market?
Hello? Handhelds are also consoles!
I'm sorry, but where did they find these people? In addition to your comment about the GameCube, Nintendo actually makes a profit, and in addition to dominating the handheld market, it also has lots of cash in reserve for bad times.
These "analysts" really piss me off. Why do they get to write these things, and why do they get the publicity, when they are obviously incompetent fools? Does anyone have this moron's e-mail address?
Clever signature text goes here.
My choirboy fucktoy
My uninhibited nights
Exploration Saturdays
Explicit exotic erotic nights
Sexual Soulmates
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Shared and showed
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Our deepest darkest
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Fetish flourished
Mistress Mommy
And Daddy's girl
A voice that touches
My very soul
Special love
A lovers special
Hands and touches
Lavish licks
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You in me
Devoured whole
Made love to your cock
Erotic dreams
A nipple and cream
Gave you that taste
My most erotic moment
They were all you
Curiously enough, the imho most precise, educated and arrogant-bullshit-free predictions come from a woman.
On second thought, maybe not that curious at all.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The Linux community will turn on IBM
A few guys in need of a shower and a suit can hardly be described as the Linux community. Unfortunately, Daniel Lyons didn't elaborate on it. What will change after SCO vs IBM that will get either side to start sniping at one another?
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
I see five conditions under which the free model can work.
1) Price insensitive customers: "Free" can work as long paying customers are tolerant of paying higher prices to support the cost of providing some level of free product or service. For every "free' customer (e.g., who does not pay for the bandwidth & IT to provide the download) there must be a paying customer who is willing to make up the difference. If two companies are equal in quality and features of the product and service offered but one company is "giving it away for free", then the free company will have extra costs from offering that free product/service and have to charge higher prices. If customers are very price sensitive, they will eschew the company that offers "free" wares and pay lower prices at the non-free company.
2) Low total cost of "free": The unreimbursed cost of the free product or service must be low relative to the revenues generated by paying customers. This occurs under a combination of two subconditions. First, the marginal cost of the free product or service might be low (e.g., the modest cost of bandwidth). Second, the fraction of freeloading customers might be low (e.g., something prevents everyone for taking advantage of the free offer). The lower the marginal cost, the higher the tolerable percentage of freeloaders.
3) Customers who contribute services: The viability of free is enhanced by service contributions from customers. Thus the definition of a paying customer goes beyond money -- some customers provide valuable services in the form of code contributions, beta testing reports, and support on discussion forums. These contibuting customers provide a voluntary service in exchange for the "free" product. Although such customers do not help pay the bills, they do reduce the organization's costs (eliminating salaried programmers and helpdesk personnel) and they increase the value of the organization's offerings (thus justifying the payment of subsidies by paying customers).
4) Nonconfident customers: If customers are not confident of their choices, they may prefer the "free" model as a way of try before you buy. At some level many proprietary software companies do this by offering "free" trial versions of their software. The companies give away a time or function-limited version of the product and get paid for the full/unlimited version of the product.
5) Obligatory follow-on purchases: "Free" can also work if acceptance of the free product obligates the customer to buy additional products or services down the road. Giving away the printer in order to gain an ink cartridge customer is a good example of this. The challenge, for the provider of the "free" item, is to segment the customer population to ensure that only heavy users of ink cartridges, for example, will accept the offer of a free item (maintain a low percentage of freeloaders who take the printer but don't use it much).
These are neither mutually required, nor mutually exclusive conditions. Some combination of all 5 can ensure the viability, even the superiority, of the free model over more pay-for-what-you -get business models. I'm sure others here can think of other conditions that enhance the viability of the free model.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
no harm there, until they start forcing the payper liesense softwar gangster stock markup FraUD execrable 'mirrors' on US? tell 'em robbIE?
they exist in some kind of ?pr? ?firm? vacuum constructed before the 'net, during the daze when there was only tv, & print, with NO instant 'feedback'/other opinions. they're won trick ponIEs, so that's all they can do, besides the immoral illegal stock markup FraUD/gangster stuff, which isn't working very well due to decreasing momeNTdumb.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... the kode has been showed.
I really doubt the Linux community would want to use them as a business model. Might as well: Send $5 to Linus and the four other names on the list. Remove Linus' name from the top, add your name to the bottom and send the list to all your friends...
You know, replace $5 with a beer...
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Maybe I don't know lawyer-speak, but to me "SCO will settle it's lawsuit against IBM" implies that SCO is the party that can make a decision to settle here. At this point, they can decide to drop the suit. They can't unilaterally decide that IBM will settle the lawsuit.
Prediction: 'SCO Group will settle its lawsuit against IBM. Both sides will declare victory.'
... making sure SCO is crushed into a fine-grained dust."
...espresso is good for the imagination, bad for remembering to sleep.
Comment: "IBM has a vested interest in
I think it's more safe to say IBM has a vested interest in pulling off the biggest win possible, whatever that is for them. If there is a settlement, it will involve SCO paying lots of money (or something else) to IBM. If SCO manages to claim it's a victory, it would go something like this:
SCO Information Minister: "The enemy's wallet is committing suicide at our gates. We did not settle to IBM's counter suits for 30 million dollars. We did not surrender to IBM our rights over UNIX. We did not get penalized by the court for playing the legal system like a lottery. We won the lottery."
And then when the backdrop shows debt collectors taking away furniture from the SCO building, the Darl information minister will be saying: "The court decision is a win because we are paying for violating IBM's patents. It is a great victory for American capitalism and IP rights! And doom for communist penguin lovers who disregard patents!"
Finally, when he is in jail behind bars, and has only himself as an audience, he will be talking to himself "I did not go to jail, I passed go and collected my $200 for keeping the company black for 3 qu... I mean 4... darn! I wonder what Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf is up to these days."
But the answer to all of this is clear. We need a fellowship of the one ring of power, which has the power to rule them all (UNIX) to return it to mount doom. Can the ragtag group destroy the ring and restore dignity to Linux? The fate rests in the hands of a brave but little hobbit (RedHat), a dwarf (Novell), noble and skilled elf (SuSE & German legal system) and man of former kingship (IBM), who are on a mission help return the ring to mount doom and oblivion? Or will greedy Boromir (SCO) who has stolen the ring bring doom upon all middle earth?
Will IBM Return as King, placing the fate of middle earth into the hands of men, who are capable of much good and also much evil? Will the King gain a beautiful elven woman (open source) as a wife and an asset to his kingship? Will open source fall from grace (pure hobbyism) and embrace dangerous mortality (corporate amoralism)? Or will the white wizard (Steve Ballmer) and the uruk-hai armies of Sarumann (Developers! Developers! Developers!) come and overwhelm all of them?
Will the whisperings of Grima Wormtongue (FUD spreading journalists) influence the kings of men (PHBs) to make tragic decisions? Will Treebeard (Brooke Wells...she has a beard?) the Ents (US legal system) take so long to make up their mind that middle earth perishes by their inaction? Will the noble Eowyn (Pamela Jones) be able to come out of nowhere and slay the hideous beast (SCO's legal arguments)? Will the undead (*BSD and its copyrights) sweep in at the last moment to save middle earth before being released from their oath into eternal peace (uh oh this just turned into a BSD dying troll..I better quit before someone mods me up^H^Hdown.)
It's simple economics. Everything must be assigned a price and the purpose of production and distribution is profit.
Anything that reduces profits is, by definition bad. Anything that reduces profits reduces the GNP which is, by definition, a social evil.
If a thing has no price it has no value. Replacing things that have a price with things that don't reduces riches. The more of these things you have the less you are "worth." (As if value only meant "price." The primary value of your house is that it provides you with shelter)
From the standpoint of economics free software is just looney. That would be like cars just being free for the taking, like leaves on the ground in the fall. Everyone would be poor if they just get what they wanted like that.
Wealth means buying shoddy things with a high "value." Less stiches, more riches.
Of course things that are "free" can be used as well. Since the river next to your plant has no price it's fine to use it to dump toxic waste into. Clean water and air have no value because you don't have to buy them. They're just there until you pollute them.
Now businesses that aren't directly tied to the ideas of the software industry as part of the their own profit or adding to the value of the GNP are now starting to realize that OSS is like that stream next to the factory now. You can just use it. For free. (And maybe pollute it, but that'a another post).
But if you're in the software industry or an economist the idea of reducing an item that can be produced for free and "sold" (over and over again to the same customer) at usurius profit margins to free as in leaves on the ground is just daft. It can be literally unthinkable.
Of course from the "consumer's" point of view software is truly a consumable. You buy it. You use it. But you don't have anything of your own for it. Your "worth" is reduced. Then you have to buy it again. The flow of "value" is all one way.
But from the economic point of view that's a good thing. There is a schizophrenic rift in economic theory between man the consumer and man the producer.
Everyone's heard about it, but no one these days has read it. Pick up a copy of E.F. Schumacher's classic work "Small is Beautiful." It delves into these very issues.
Finding a copy of Stephen Leacock's (professor of economics at McGill) "Too Much College" wouldn't hurt either.
Even the autobiography of G.K. Chesterton has some interesting things to say about the issue, just ignore the religious stuff if you are so inclined.
KFG
I think this is eventaully a given. IBM is only in bed with Linux so they can ditch AIX. Once their customers are moved over to Linux, IBM can start doing whatever they want with the OS.
Heck, IBM is only in it for the high profit margin. They can *almost* get away with just selling the hardware; if somebody starts having a problem, they can either fix it themselves, or else pay IBM consulting services a boatload of money to fix it. Improving things? Not their problem- thats what the Linux developers are for.
Not that there is anything wrong with that- if somebody is going to make money off of linux, it may as well be a smart company like IBM. Heck, in a few years they may be the ONLY company making money from Linux.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
as it was written. the megaslothians will duke it out here, whist sinking/dissolving, as the rest of the wwworld, unencumbered buy phonIE payper liesense stock markup FraUD softwar ga(n)gster execrable, will move on. that's (the tarpits scenario) part of the reason for the georgewellian fuddite life0cide against the planet/population. they (most of the rest of the wwworld) don't give a fud about mm$ mortgages, & just want to be free, as in not dead.
very merry gnu year to us all.
...that is, before Activation took place. How many copies of Office and Windows from work ended up in the user's homes? And once that bait had been taken, the hook got applied.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I think this is eventaully a given. IBM is only in bed with Linux so they can ditch AIX. Once their customers are moved over to Linux, IBM can start doing whatever they want with the OS.
:) and various people will attack Red Hat, Novel, Mandrake, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Rob Malda etc etc but that's nothing new.
The point of Linux being free software is that IBM (or anyone else) can do almost whatever they like with it. The only restriction is that they can't make it proprietary but I don't see IBM wanting to do that. They already have their own proprietary operating systems and can create or buy more if they desperately want to. They are using Linux because they see advantages that arise from it being open source.
So that being the case, I don't see why you think it's eventually a given that "The Linux community will turn on IBM". Of course some people in the Linux community will condemn IBM for all sorts of things, they already do
I agree with everything else you said, I just don't see how it supports your conclusion.
well, these "predictions" are by those who call themselves journalist and/or analyst, so no one should take their words seriously. they belong to the species responsible for last year's SCO share boosts, made possible by irresponsible comments on everything they could come up with. their job is to make smoke out of nothing. fuck 'em.
I rather believe what Miss Cleo says.
Evene if MS Operating Systems were Open sourced I would not use them.
You see I like Unix.
Not much anyway, but you can certainly save money. I'd have to say that any business that hasn't at least examined the free software alternatives out there is not doing their job properly.
And I say this with mixed feelings because as a SW developer (degree + 8 years experience) the costs they are cutting are impacting hugely in my job market. I have to say that I believe there is no excuse for a "Software Developer" to participate in the free software movement. To do so is to undermine your economic worth.
Of course for those of you who are not "SW Developers" like sysadmins, people in service companies, and pretty much anyone in any other business that uses IT out there should contribute what you can spare, because you obviously directly benefit from your and other's contributions.
I just don't see where other people's "careers" (for want of a better word) are being open sourced to offset the damage done to Software's economic value? Where are the Free Architecture Plans? Free Legal Documents? Free Medicine? Free Rent, Free Beer, Free Food, Free Love etc...
Luckily I still have a job, but anyway, back to looking for my ideal career away from software...
What about the code *I* have contributed(not to the kernel itself)? How is _THAT_ not going to be free?
What about my own projects which I have released for free under the GPL?
Mr. Lyons, the code belongs to _US_. Please rid the world of your stupidity, in any way possible, you worthless fucktard.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Even for the writers of magazine articles. Their job is to sell advertisements and pseudo-content, and if they have to do it by being outrageous and saying the dumbest things ever, then that's what they'll do.
And check netraft. www.forbes.com is hosted on a Linux server. I wonder if they even know that?
Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...
I was just talking with friends about this the other day when we were discussing the purchase of a new car. My Toyota Tercel with 135,000 miles on it and a crumpled front fender has a trade-in value of less than $350 (US). My friend said, "ugh, that cars worthless." Well, no, not at all. It gets me to and from work every day, uses a fair amount of fuel, and is paid for. I would put its value far above $350 but I'm not looking to sell.
Seems to me that capitalism is based on people always wanting more. If people decide that they want less, capitalism will fall apart. Of course, that has yet to happen.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
I could say the same to the GPL people. If you want to free your code don't impose restrictions on distribution.
;-)
Freedom without law and order is not really "freedom" -- and it's worse than law and order without freedom.
GPL is like the law, with freedom preserved. Microsoft's EULA is like the law, with freedom removed. Spam is the result of freedom exploited.
Ok. So, honestly, which is more evil: Microsoft or spam?
with their latter stuff beyond ultrasparc 20s.
Sun had a massive brush it under the rug response and problem with their ultrasparcIII cpus that had a 'data parity error' problem with the l2 cache. The initial sunblades had a high failure rate(I can't say for the later revisions, though if dropping them for opterons is any indication then the problem persisted). Fellow admin's dad who's also an admin managed big iron stuff where the memory had to reseated continually and had to dedicate staff to the job of reseating them. Sorry, your view of rock solid sun hardware is severely out of date.
Every other disco has no door charge, charging only for drinks sold. Since the 1970's there have been free advertising papers allow adverts to be placed for free (I used to work for http://www.quokka.com.au); only paper sales are charged for.
Furthermore, many things are simply not products. You crack some funny joke, then your friends tell their friends, and the rough corners get cut off with every retelling. Sure you don't make any money of it, but that was never the purpose of the joke. Who really thinks that people will stop telling the jokes they want to tell; instead telling expensive pre-packaged jokes which aren't funny in the current situation because you can't adapt the `source code' to your current needs.
Since you and the article both mention it, how is VoIP free anyways? I'm drawn to it because I'm sick and tired of paying of several companies for essentially the same thing... bandwidth. I'd still be paying somebody, but the total cost would be less.
; (nt)
The notion that you can create profitable companies around giving away free software was some notion hyped up by clueless business magazines like Forbes. That was all a sham, like so much of the business trends Forbes hypes up.
Free software and open source software does not make money by itself. It merely helps existing, profitable companies lower their expenses. And there is some opportunity to make money with free software related services--good enough for a decent living, but not the stuff that will propel a startup into the stratosphere.
Both of those business aspects of free software are good enough to keep free software around. Hopefully, people like Lyons will now turn their unwanted attention to something else.
I've actually read in a couple of places in the last week how SCO and IBM will settle.
Isn't it interesting to see SCOX supporters like Lyons now claiming that this will be settled out of court? Why? Because SCOX has no fscking case? Even Lyon's realizes that they have no case and they can't keep making threats with nothing to back them up. Hell, they even threaten their own customers? This is not a normal company. It deserves to be wiped out.
It's like the fight scene in Monty Python's The Holy Grail with King Arthur and the black knight who has his legs and arms chopped off and says, "Shall we call it a draw?"
And then as we walk away, you can here in the background, "Come back you pansy! I'll make the LGPL illegal next!"
Your mom always said, a PB&J is better than nothing, and God is nothing, is a PB&J better than God?
At this point, they can't even decide to drop the suit. They can drop their claims, but they will still be a defendant in IBM's counter-suit.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Obviously you've used the hacker translation on google a bit too much. Try returning to english once in a while.
-- sethstorm, out to get real tyrants ala blaxthos and douglas@boldt.us on efnet that think simple null routes and mass klining
stop people who can unendingly proxy around them. Hardy, if you're wondering why the forums are quiet, it's that you've made it impossible for new people to join!
Now, that's a war on terror I give support to gladly!
On IBM's main page in the graphic 123103-3_1.gif
Linux - The Future is open
Learn how IBM is helping to spread the word about Linux to the open source community and beyond.
Errr, I hate to break it to IBM, but the 'open source community' 'knows' the 'word' about Linux. People who work on open source that are NOT Linux know of Linux because if they are writing good portable code, GNU/Linux forks are a target. And if they are BSD OS coders, they know about Linux and have already chosen to do something else.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
The rest of us have seen that free is the fastest way to solve IT problems. If the solution is not free, the parts are. Everyone wins but dummies sitting on 20 year old source code they never shared.
The failure of SCO to make a buck is not going to keep me from sharing my software. I understand that I can make much more money selling hardware and my time to set it up than I ever can trying to compete in a market crowded with solutions that are superior to what the largest of firms can slap together. Hoarding may still be profitable for a few huge incumbents, but it's no longer functional for the rest of us. It's rare that I think of something that has not already been done. When I do, it would be suicide for me to turn away from the ready made parts that are free.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The Big Trend
Companies will continue to demand lower cost IT services and will put the squeeze on suppliers to provide lower cost products that deliver quality "core services" but have fewer bells and whistles that the companies rarely use. In search of lower cost, quality software forward thinking companies will turn to open source software to meet their day-to-day operating needs.
The Unconventional Wisdom
Companies will discover that they can use the internet for more than web pages and email. They will start small, using thin-clients to put some of their internal applications on servers in the back room on Linux based servers allowing users to connect to these applications using X-windows servers on Windows based desktops. These early experiments will pave the way for greater implementations in 2005 and beyond of additional server based applications and will eventually allow business to place Linux based computers on the desktop. Look for Novell and IBM to partner in this process. IBM will supply the power (mainframes and high-end servers) in the backroom and the inexpensive but reliable desktops needed for this and Novell will provide the software.
The Misplaced Assumption
Microsoft will continue to oppose open source software with a campaign of FUD. They will rely on their marketing team to continue selling the idea that "free is not less expensive." Watch for their FUD to change slightly in the next year though. They will tie the SCO lawsuit into their FUD, telling customers that they may be liable for large licensing fees if they use Linux. They will also ask the hard question: "Who do you go to for support when you need help for your free software?" and; "Who do you sue if you lose money by using free software?" The companies promoting open source software will form an Open Software Alliance that will address these new FUD-angles. SCO will continue their lawsuit. They will lose battles but it will not be decided in 2004. Sorry.
The Watch List
Novell has an aggressive plan for their Linux holdings. IBM also has a real vested interest in Linux and is a true believer in what Linux can do for business. IBM has a significant investment in Novell. Watch for this partnership to start to bear fruit in 2004. It is a partnership that can office business an affordable, reliable solution to their honest to goodness needs. SCO will continue their fight. Groklaw will follow it blow by blow. SCO will file more suits against more companies. 2004 will be over before this is over.
The Bold Prediction
2004 will be a watershed year for open source. 2003 was filled with skirmishes. In 2004 the battle lines will be drawn and armies formed but the battle for computing dominance will not happen until 2005 or perhaps 2006. But, by the end of 2004, people will know what side they are on. This is truly a "David VS Goliath" story but the tale is still taking shape.
A lot of IT companies have cut costs during the downturn by shutting down plants and turning to contract manufacturers. But some of those arrangements are going to turn sour.
Great job Ms. Cleo. That would be like me making the prediction "many people will buy cheap cars in 2004 to save money - yet some will regret their choices and wish they'd spent the extra money".
Sign me up Fortune!
Representatives of the collective slime known as "Wall Street" are indeed running many large companies into the ground. Large investors do show up at board meetings and, worse, private meetings, to offer detailed advice on how to run the business. At the big dog level, some of it sounds reasonable and all of it is taken seriously because the big dogs don't want their large stock holdings to lose all of its value.
Of course this kind of micromanagement is a dissaster. The investors don't know what they are doing. They are bean counters or lawyers without a shred of technical knowledge. They can barely predict things in thier own specialty. It's fools like this that are responsible for the continued dominance of Dell/Microsoft on the corporate desktop, offshoring, and all the other stupid "cost cutting" measures you have to put up with. While people in the cubes and in the field are crying out for more hires to get the job done, these weenies are throwing new versions of M$ Word at them and telling them to make power point presentations to prove what they will turn down. You wonder where big dumb projects come from? Wonder no more. Your company is fucked from the top down.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I can only assume that idiots like Lyons never had an Econ 101 class. I learned this in high school, then again in college. It's this simple: over the long term, the cost of an item will be pushed down to the marginal cost to produce exactly one of those items. In other words, if I spend $5M to produce a factory to make chocolate bars, but my actual cost to produce just one bar is 10 cents, then 10 cents is where the price will end up, hopefully after I've paid for the $5M.
Now, there are ways to "cheat", like establishing a strong brand that people will pay a little extra for. However, in the software world (where the marginal cost is between $0 and $.01 for any given piece of software distributed over the internet), we don't have that problem. Some of the companies trying to sell "premium" software are like Microsoft, where it's generally inferior in some important ways, i.e. security and stability. Others, like Oracle, are offering a better product for those needing the high-end rdbms. Given the number of people who make it on MySQL, which makes FoxPro 2.5 for DOS look full-featured, it's obviously a shrinking market. And PostgreSQL is pick customers off the bottom end of Oracle as it gains features and power.
There's no "end of free", Danny boy. Sorry to burst your trolling bubble and rain on your parade of idiocy, but this is just the beginning of free. I'm not sure what your hang up is, but if you're going to be a tech writer, you'd best get over it now.
By the way, Danny, even if IBM were to settle with SCO (SCO will likely drop the suit, but the countersuit won't go away, sorry), it has no effect on me. I'm not a party to IBM's contracts with AT&T. My Linux, Debian, is and will be free. Again, get over it.
Do you have ESP?
True, competent executives concentrate on specific trade magazines. Unfortunately, Forbes is a trade mag for the truely huge and for people responsible for investing company money and retirement plans.
Forbes is poor quality next to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Economist and all, but it's still read. The dumbass who's dumping your 401k money into Microsoft gets the idea from places like Forbes. That Microsoft desktop at the big dumb company is a key component of the Microsoft pyramid scheme. The dissapearance of that desktop at savy and nible companies is deeply disturbing to many fat happy drones.
One of the biggest tech bubbles ever is about to burst. Microsoft has $40,000,000,000 or so of these people's money in the bank. Microsoft gave the stocks and software that no longer works in exchange for that money. It's no more likely for that stock to keep on working than it is for Microsoft to produce a secure desktop. Microsoft must either make software that does not have to be "upgraded" or they will be defeated by free software that works better. In either case, Microsoft's revenues are going to fall. Because Microsoft's stock value, like all Ponzi schemes, is based on perpetual growth, the value will colapse when the revenue declines. This will destroy the incentive companies have for buying expensive new Dells every three years and Microsoft will dry up and blow away.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Anything that reduces profits is, by definition bad. Anything that reduces profits reduces the GNP which is, by definition, a social evil.
One thing I think most IT people fail to understand is that Information Technology does not generate revenue, it enhances the ability of other things to generate revenue. The computer sitting on a worker's desk doesn't generate money, it burns it by eating electricity and needing support. However it allows that worker to be more effecient, so they can produce more of a product per working hour.
Tactically speaking, IT is a force multiplier. The cost of buying and supporting IT is less than the gains in productivity you get from your workers. Basically if your business generates 1 million in revenue a year and Information Technology can triple that(web sites, spread sheets, word processors, email, voice mail) it's worth the $100k, $200k, or even $500k yearly drain on the budget to support all that technology.
I use the word drain for IT costs because it's just that, a drain in profits for the business. I'm sorry to say it, but the IT department is not directly generating any revenue. It's the workers in the office that do that. IT just makes those workers more effecient.
Free software works and is good for the economy because it reduces IT costs. You don't have to pay for software licenses, any vendor can support your open source software and free software means the only price barrier for getting that worker productibity increase is hardware related not software. If you can't pay $150 per worker for Office XP licensing you don't get its productivity benefits. Since Open Office costs nothing, you automatically can use it as long as you have the hardware for it.
So yes from a commercial software seller perspective free software is indeed bad because it reduces the profits from those companies(like Microsoft). However from a general economy standpoint commercial software is actually the social evil because it reduces the profits of every company in the world that has to pay to buy it and then has to deal with things like forced upgrades, vendor lock in and the inability for businesses to make use of a shared community of updating and problem fixing.
Has anybody checked out Lyons's track record to see how good his skills are at predicting the future?
Isn't it about time that these "pundits" have to be evaluated like the rest of us?
I disagree that IBM will settle with SCO. That prediction is just plain silly.
I do agree that the Linux community will turn against IBM, not not for any reason Lyons would be able to see from his relatively technology-free writing cubicle.
The Linux community will turn against IBM after the SCO dragon has been laid waste and after the community figures out IBM's model for making money from Linux. There aren't too many mysteries in the former, but the latter seems little understood. Yet.
IBM is making money right now from Linux, not by charging for Linux itself (although they slipped recently and wrote of "licensing Linux" in the same terms as their oldline OSs, a Marketing brain fart, no doubt) but by charging the user for permission to use the CPU.
How can this be? Don't you own the CPU?
Well, yes and no. If it's a traditional IBM PC or pre-pSeries RS/6000, yes, you own the CPU(s) and you can run any free software you can manage to load. If you look carefully, though, you will notice that such straightforward platform designs are disappearing from the IBM landscape.
The trick lies in the mainframe-izing of unix and Intel chips as they are packaged and offered by IBM, following a very old model that has served them well since the 1950s. Imagine a PC for which you have to pay an annual proprietary BIOS license and you'll begin to see how this works. Sure, load any OS you want, but you can't load and run it without the help of the BIOS, and the license fee you'll pay for permission (and software) with which to do that will be based on the OS you want to run. IBM is not going to allow itself to be trapped into competing in the commodity server box market.
In the 1950s, when punch card machines were all the rage, IBM didn't sell them to customers -- they rented them. Your punch card machines would be delivered chock full of features, mostly in the form of expensive relays hidden under the skirts, but the Customer Engineer would install and remove jumpers to disable any of the features you weren't paying to use. The profit margins were so high that even in those days of super-expensive hardware the fact of millions of disabled relays sitting unused in customer machines was a cost IBM was easily able to absorb.
The way this translated to IBM's mainframe scheme, which they are now moving to the "new" RS/6000 -- the pSeries platforms -- and others, including the Intel-based "z" machines, is to surround the processor(s) with a complex of hardware and software such that you can't gain access to the CPU(s) without licensed IBM software that is separate and distinct from the OS. What it boils down to is that yes, you can buy the CPU(s) but no, you don't have permission to use the CPU(s) without paying recurring license fees exclusive of whatever, if anything, the OS may cost.
Right now you can run Linux on monster S/390 mainframes, but not for free. In the S/390 world you have to pay for a license to use each processor in a S/390. How much you pay depends on the value IBM has placed on the use to which you want to put the processor. It might cost $250,000 to "open" a processor for MVS but only $125,000 to "open" the same processor for Linux. To the Linux community member unfamiliar with IBM's mainframe business model this may seem like cause to retch and reach for the barf bag, but for mainframe customers well-accustomed to paying Big Bucks to IBM for everything, including the time of day, it's an incredible bargain.
With the introduction of the pSeries platforms ("pSeries" is not just a new name for the RS/6000 line), IBM's mainframe business model has arrived in the PowerPC unix server world. Same for IBM's Intel-based "z" platforms. The older RS/6000s will be orphaned as IBM drops support for them
Look at the bright side: there's always seppuku.
Haven't you noticed the convergence between OS and office suite version numbers and automobile model years - 'Windows Server 2003' sounds an awful lot like '2004 Toyota Camry' to me -
This is why I started calling software "chrome" and "features" "Chrome and tailfins" years ago.
GM's Sloan wrote the book (literally) on planned obselesence.
The laws of supply and demand really don't apply to computer software precisely because it isn't a finite resource -
Which is why the industry can only be propped up by fairly egregious laws.
KFG
Dayrl and a few other SCO people are taken out back. They give IBM all of their money and IBM gives them all a swift kick in the balls and they call it even. It's faster, less humiliating and achieves the same result as the drawn out charade that the court case will become. I doubt SCO will have the balls or brains to accept such a kind offer.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Regardless of the economics of Linux and free software in the OS space, it cannot die because there is no real alternative.
Consider the marketplace outside of i86/PCs.
Embedded systems devices are heading for Linux in droves. The rule here is "cost" "cost" "cost". Saving 25 cents is important. Any license from Microsoft or anyone else is a natural for the axe. Device manufacturers are not too worried about the GPL and losing their "advantage" in the software area (except maybe for Cisco which already outright owns an OS). If you are building a settop box and don't have a marketting tie-in with Microsoft, you will probably use Linux or BSD. Anything else is just too long to market and adds too much of a drag without giving anything back to the project.
In-house OS's will die as well. With new "router" projects from Linux/BSD, the few remaining in-house OS's will have trouble maintaining their own weight. Cisco is the last player here and expect their competitors to build embedded Linux and/or BSD based products that are real competitors at every market nitch except for the really high-end stuff (and maybe there as well). If Cisco were smart, they would re-engineer IOS as a low-level "switch matrix" service and drive it from Linux or BSD.
Open source will continue to create an environment of Microsoft and Open Source with little room for anyone else. Netware has already been killed in this way. If Linux/Samba did not exist, then Novell would still have a proprietary file/print server market. The same holds true for compiler tools. If GNU compilers were not around, Borland might be.
On-line services will continue to use Linux in droves. This is a dog eat dog business that will only pay Microsoft when the customer demands (and pays for) it. For everything else, free is it. And these companies do use the source code as well. They fix patches manually and often contribute back.
Unix is dead. Even without the SCO mess, Unix was in trouble. The tipping point was about 18 months ago when Linux began to equal Unix in the mid-market in terms of performance, reliability, and features. Actually, the performance and feature part is definately a Linux win right now. The reliability part is getting there. With the SCO mess, can you possibly image a "new" Unix licensee starting up. If you are a current Unix vendor, you can either continue pouring massive amounts of money into your own *nix or work to make Linux run on your box. In the past, customer perception was that the proprietary *nix systems were better and worth the money. Now, they may have this opinion about your hardware, but the OS is not assigned a lot of value unless you are at the very high end. Sounds like time to transition the *nix development/support divisions to supporting/contributing to Linux.
Open source is very hard to kill. If you run Linux, you personally have rights to it. No one can take those rights away from you. Even Linus, the copyright holder, cannot take back the GPL. If a company steps away from Linux, there is still more than enough to keep it moving forward. The only way to kill Linux is to have it die by stagnation. If DRM becomes so pervasive and it's implementation so restrictive that Linux is locked out, then Linux might decline over a very large number of years. If governments step in and mandate proprietary software in order to "protect" it's industries, then the same might happen. More likely is the proposition that whole industries, governments, and societies will start to mandate open practices that just happen to be best implemented in open source. Governments will require documents be stored in freely readable data formats. Inter-system communications will happen over non-proprietary protocols. We already see this trend en-masse. Just look at the internet with TCP/IP, HTTP, XML, VOIP, etc. And finally, international entities will continue to look for any way out of the Microsoft tax.
All in all, the Forbe's authors seem to be mimicking their boss. It is called being an ideol
You know, I think it's a little harsh to say "MS Software is crap". I think the aim of MS Software was to bring cheap software into to the office of the little guy. It ran on cheap hardware(Intel) and was easier than anything at the time to administer. The 2nd part was supposed to make supporting MS software cheaper, but I think it also caused problems in that you ended up with people trying to fix Windows that really didn't understand it(the idiot MCSE syndrome) which caused support problems as well.
I really think Windows helped the economy a lot by putting cheap effective software into every business. It wasn't perfect, but it did the job alright and our per worker productivity today is definately better than it was 10 years ago.
But I just that that open and free software can do with MS tried to do, make software affordable and accessible to everyone, but do it better.
Lyons is almost as big a FUD machine as SCO. He gets noticed by pissing us off. He never has 'got' Linux. Someone should tie him up in front of a PC with www.gnu.org and force him to read it over and over again until it clicks. Maybe then he could write something informative about open source.
I would agree with your statements... if youuu were talking just about SBUS. But you can't get an Enterprise-class Sun box without PCI these days. And they fail. Often. The last E450 I worked on (yes, it's old by today's standard) had to have the backplane replaced twice and 3 of the 4 CPUs replaced. I haven't had much better luck with tier ExxxR series either.
Microsoft doesn't just demand read access to Windows machines. The latest EULAs state that you expressly allow them to go onto your system, make changes, and if you don't like the result, you have no recourse.
Sooner or later we can only hope that people will start to realize that apart from anything the software actually does, vendor lockin, repressive licensing, draconian EULAs, the threat of BSA audits and the like are a Bad Thing(tm), and that there are alternatives that have none of these features.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Sermons to a congregation with text: no one ever made money from free.
Lyon and his employers hold as faith that only owners of private property can improve the wealth of the world, and only through the acquisition, expansion, protection, improvement and exploitation of property. Joe Forbes Reader may very well be going, "Yes, I'm of the elect and I'm doing good," and feels the warm glow as the reverend Lyon extols the producers and demonizes those (tragically, sadly) misguided people who just don't get that a useful computer operating system cannot be built through a community trust, and, even if it could, that operating system should not and can not and must not bring down the folks sitting in the forward pew.
Brother Lyons has had a rough few months as two of the flock are grappling for death grips. Brother SCO deceived him earlier this year, and he's struggling to reconcile why, as a true believer, it is his role to be alienated from the Crusaders. And, as I interpret his prediction, he believes Brother IBM will rediscover the faith, settle, and, as pennance for straying, be left to weather the short-term braying of the misguided.
Because if it's been revealed to him once, it's been revealed a couple of times, no one makes money from free.
Seems to me the writers and protectors of the Catholic faith once had a similar problem wiith those who sought to understand planetary motion in a non-Biblical manner.
I find it an aberration that a software publishing industry grew, organized as if it were selling automobiles
In short, that is the essence of Microsoft's genius--they developed the ability to manufacture demand for a product that they can sell millions of times for the same cost-of-product as selling it once. No one else in the industry believed this possible at the time, including the heaviest thinkers, such as IBM.
I see the growth of Linux adoption as a return to those roots, in fact, in a triumph of the original philosophy; indeed, I think that Microsoft should be grateful for the run that they had, as it was unnatural and counter to history. Of course, they see it differently
--
$tar -xvf
There's going to be a break in the case this month, though. The judge gave SCO 30 days to state exactly what the supposed "infringements" are. Those 30 days run out on January 12, 2004.
Daniel Lyons is a troll, but with a big difference: instead of attracting lots of attention to feed a fragile ego, he attracts lots of attention to feed an advertising conduit. All "news media" today seem to understand that fair, credible reporting is only one means (and for an audience produced by the US education system, often a poor means) toward the end of connecting consumer eyeballs with expensive ads. You can be certain that ubercapitalist Forbes isn't unaware of this.
In other words, as long as Lyons manages to successfully piss off lots of geeks in a way that earns forbes.com more hits (say, by getting three links on Slashdot's front page) rather than fewer, he could assert that Linus was a genetically engineered ex-KGB spy without worrying about Forbes firing him.
Take something free, add effort and/or materials, and charge for it. I'm surprised you didn't go for the most basic, "Time is free yet people make money from using it to do stuff for other people and selling the results."
Congratulations on describing absolutely every enterprise of man from the first farmer who gave two chickens for a goat.
What the "free" point was getting at was companies that actually do give things for free, not companies that take things for free, add their own time, effort, and/or materials and then charge for that.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Your earlier posts had me worried CD, and now this.. If I'd never chanced upon your latests posts, I wouldn't even know you existed. But now I do, and I had trouble sleeping yesterday.
If you're trolling: congratulations, you 'got' quite a few of us.
If you're not, please reach out to someone. Family, friends, a suicide hotline. Or if you want to talk to a stranger, drop me a line and we'll talk: janbjurstrom at hotmail dot com.
668.5
...far more damage to that reputation ... rumors have had a tremendous chilling effect... no way to undo that damage
Your post reflects SCO's approach to their entire Linux IP adventure: High drama, low plot value.
Those I've met who seriously thought Linux or IBM's legitimacy damaged were those who already had a vested interest against them. Like Microsofties, and the odd BSDer. Most consider SCO's hystrioncs artificial and a thoroughly transparent attempt to manipulate both the software market and the stock market alike.
There have been a number of surveys recently, clearly indicating there have been no chilling effects on the Linux marketplace.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
Yes, very funny and you forgot the \n.
I think he means to kill himself.
The only thing predictable about Nintendo is that they will keep making great games. Any kind of detail predictions whether it be strategic, financial, software, hard ware, or whatever will always be way off the mark.
Oh and Nintendo will also always be profitable, as it has been for a very long time.
I wish they would have gone ahead and swallowed sega, their games portfolio would have been unmatched no matter the cost of sega (or just some of the pieces). Nintendo would have gotten a HUGE ROI on that purchase, that or they should have bought enix instead of letting square and enix merge,, but alas while Nintendo doesn't look at total market dominance as a factor in its decision it only looks at profits and it has been very good at producing profits in its long history.
Yeah, I had a girlfriend who was psycho like that, too. She didn't think I was messing around (and of course, I wasn't), she was just generally psycho. Her and a couple of her whack-job friends telephone stalked me for about a year after I ended the relationship.
Eventually, I just terminated my landline and only had a cell phone - a different one, with a number they didn't know. I also had to move. For a year, I lived in a place that actually belonged to my employer at the time, and it was in a different city. I had basically dropped off the face of the earth, and they lost track of me. I'm sure they would have kept on stalking me even longer, except they just couldn't find me. Well, they did once, about three years later, or so I believed from the odd messages that kept getting left on my answering machine when I wasn't home (had a landline again at that time), so I just canceled that number.
She wasn't in tech, though. There are psychos in every walk of life. Just gotta be careful who you get involved with.
If *you* weren't a virgin, you'd know there's a lot of variation.
OK, maybe you're not a virgin, and there's just something wrong with your dick.
Its a very simpleton prediction. Knowing how volitile the OSS communinty and how facts tend to be stretched on the Internet, you can predict we're going to turn any company and odds are we probably will at some point in time 1000 years or less from now. It won't happen in 2004 though. There is so much more money to be made in open source, the snowball has just started to roll downhill. By the end of 2004 it will be bearing down on Redmond and have IBM Novel stickers all over it. Hopefully Darl will have been crushed by it and his disembodied leg will be poking out the side.
IBM is not 'in bed' with Linux and IBM is not ditching AIX. IBM simply saw a money making opportunuty. Its a no brainer really. Leverage high quality, open source, open standards (free as in beer, not cost) software to sell hardware and other services. It goes against the normal 'lock em in for life' model and gives customers warm fuzzies knowning that at any point they can ditch you and find someone else for their Open Source fix. It also saves millions on development costs.
The barrier of entry to making money with Linux is simply 'having a clue'. Everything elses comes with your distro of choice.
So, if we reduce the value of software to "free" then we reduce the overall worth of the US, or something along those lines, because we suddenly have less "value" to offer in trade for "nothing" in return? Have I got that right?
(Assuming I do.)
There is another way to look at value however. What if people begin to understand how to use the free software, as they are doing now. Does the value really evaporate, or simply move around a little. Instead of one or two really big companies holding and controlling the value and its distribution, folks all over the county gain value in relation to the new skills they aquire.
Software becomes a resource used in "construction". Instead of one or two companies making all the money, people all over the place make more money right?
The value is still there, wealth is still being generated, the difference is in the concentration. Central vs distributed.
Seems to me, as a technical person, I stand to benefit more from the distributed distribution of wealth OSS seems to offer, than I am from the centralized one...
Blogging because I can...
a couple of her whack-job friends telephone stalked me for about a year
Isn't that a #1 opportunity to have some fun with them on the phone? Shouldn't be too hard to embarrass a few psychos until they realize how stupid they are, should it? I mean it's like: In Soviet Russia, phrank calls make YOU!
Also, it ligitimatized our technology consulting division in the eyes of many in the area.
Granted our site costs pennies a month to run since we piggy back it off our existing servers and we write it off as a marketing expense.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Dan starts the article by pointing out the failure of a dot-com pet-store - which did charge for it's products - is proof that free doesn't work? WTF? Can you say non-sequitur?
While your at it. Can you explain to danny-boy that network television has been free for 50 years, and radio has been free for much longer than that. Also mention that web-sites like yahoo are quite profitable. Furthermore, I think RedHat does indeed give Linux away for free.
If I was as stupid as Dan Lyons, would I get paid as much? Maybe I could fake it.
You mean a non-catholic manor. The bible doesn't say anywhere that the earth is the center of the universe or that we're the only things out there.
It may seem a silly distinction, but it's not.
no expert here... and I cant say never.. but IBM rarely settles lawsuits. IBM prefers to fight it the whole way with their army of lawyers. Hoping to prevent others from opening lawsuits.
Bring it on, I am waiting.... :)
Blogging because I can...
I am afraid you flunked Econ 101.
The price will settle where the marginal cost of producing an additional unit meets the Marginal Profit of that unit.
If you have a fixed production cost, then the price will settle where the marginal price is equial to that. Notice the word Marginal for selling price. It is the price of the last unit minus the price reduction times all the units before it.
Help fight continental drift.
Jokes aside, this is a field that is full of widely differing opinions on complex systems using very simple models and little understanding. Arrogance usually overides facts in these cases, and looking at open software purely from a business perspective ignores most of what is going on. You get clueless people that say we should be worrying more about imdemnity than making sure the code can work, because they have a whole different mindset - you never make something, you hold it or take it from someone else. This sort of business culture is widespread, but it's not the managers who try to find their "power animal" that will run the next Cisco, Microsoft or Apple - it's people that actually see the value in producing something.
I have not seen or read a single case in which companies are putting off Linux adoption due to this.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Do you mean that keeping artificially high prices of something is good for a economy?
The bits of GNP that may be lost (mostly by propietary software providers) would be counterbalanced on balance sheets all accross the eonomy by the saings of other companies on software.
So actually it all adds up to zero.
Nice try though, it was quite entretaining.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
- Opportunities for telecom in Iraq:
This has been news
- IBM will not buy SCO. They'd have done that long ago if they wanted to.
- It's really bold to predict that Intel will follow in AMDs footsteps and build a 64bit processor that's x86 compatible. That would mean to shred the Itanium-Business altogether. Let's all hope that the Intel can convince the world that the x86 instruction set has outlived it's usefulness.
- I don't think there can be a security-vulnerability so severe as to force MS into crisis-mode. Security-vulnerabilities in the past were already as severe as it could get (what can be worse than remote exploits that give you admin access?), if that doesn't move MS into "crisis-mode" what can? The forefront of handling Windows security problems has already been delegated to their PR-Department anyway.
- Wal-Mart will do what they like. The publicity-damage has happened and the public is losing interest already.
- Daniel Lyons heard to much MS-propaganda. He can't understand the difference between the Dot-Com-Bubble and the rise of Linux (Yeah, there is some Linux-Hype now, but Linux has built up slowly for more than ten years and has some big backers now, that's something different than a dot-com-business that consists of nothing more than a Web-site). He also can't understand that there's a difference between free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-speech and that there's no contradiction if a business wants to make a living on free software
- He is right though that IBM and SCO might settle (although SCO will be happy to come out of that settlement alive) a lot of "big" cases are settled and once the IBM-SCO-case is generating enough bad news for SCO even they'll want to end the charade. Although some of us would prefer to see SCO crushed to dust it might be better to settle and put an end to all the bad publicity for Linux.
- Security isn't overhyped, maybe Victoria Murphy doesn't want to worry any longer about all that bugs in her Windows-System but as more and more vital information is handled by of-the-shelf computer systems, security is becoming even more of a problem. Maybe she'll think different when someone starts screwing with her online bank-account.
- The (free)-software-revolution wasn't sparked by Linus but by RMS. We should really call it GNU-Linux to make the world aware of the fact that "Linux" and "free-software" isn't identical.
- Yeah, you can make a lot of money from maintainance, but that's no news. Microsoft (to name only one example) worked over the course of the last two years to move their business-model from selling their software to leasing and maintaining it and they made some allowances last year to keep their customers.
- MS already dealt in Open Source by distributing GNU-tools for NT. It isn't well known and probably shut down by now by their PR-Department. I don't think they'll warm up to OS too soon since that'd hurt them PR-wise and aparently MS is run by their PR-Department.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
That is what journalists have, credibility capital. Initially they have the benefit of the doubt, if they use it properly, their credibility capital increases. If they waste it on games and agendas, their opinions end up ignored.
The Motley Fools put it best: A good indicator that your decision is a good one is when Forbes is touting the opposite. Maybe I should say thank you Lyons for assuring us that Linux is the winning horse.
The ironic part is how clearly Lyons demonstrates his utter lack of understanding that there are forms of capital other than money (you can even put it in accounting terms, Goodwill). Certainly "free of charge" doesn't mean "no return on investment". Probably that is why he doesn't understand what "credibility capital" means.
t0ny wrote:
IBM already gets away with just selling the hardware, because you also have to pay fees for the privilege of being allowed to run an operating system on the processors you bought. They also make large amounts of money by providing regular contract support to fix things, not consulting services. If you have a big system you'd be looney not to have support.
IBM is already making money from Linux by charging for the use of the processor. That's before they even begin to make money from Linux support or the very expensive components you will find don't come with Linux but are necessary to make robust use of the hardware. Now they're bringing the licensed processor model to what used to be called the RS/6000 line and is now the "pSeries eServer" line. Buy a machine with six processors, pay to "open" four of them for use with Linux, and the other two processors (that you actually already paid for) will act as spares to be swapped in at no charge should a covered processor fail, or for occasional paid use in the "capacity on demand" model.
It's a brilliant strategy but it doesn't bode well for the future of free Linux if it's possible that all the processors of the future will be controlled and licensed. See my comments on this.
Think it can't happen to the PC? Think again. "Trusted Computing" as the infrastructure for Digital Rights Management may be the shoehorn for inserting control over the BIOS and all operating systems and applications permitted to run on the PC. Want to run Linux? Sure! Just lease an enabling certificate...
On that last, see my other comment.
Look at the bright side: there's always seppuku.
You are fogetting the need to spend money supporting their OS, AIX. That was what I was refering to, and ditching support for AIX is why they are embracing Linux.
Think it can't happen to the PC? Think again. "Trusted Computing" as the infrastructure for Digital Rights Management may be the shoehorn for inserting control over the BIOS and all operating systems and applications permitted to run on the PC. Want to run Linux? Sure! Just lease an enabling certificate...
Thats just more of the same paranoid blabering you hear on Slahsdot. As I already said, and which any rational person can see, a mobo vendor like Asus isnt going to license you your motherboard, or the right to run multiple processors on it. People will, as always, vote with their dollars, and thus they would just avoid those kinds of computers.
I dont think anybody wants to see the costs they pay for computers go up, so what (aside from Slashdot's paranoia) makes you think this is the business model of the future?
You can make all the commments you want, but I dont understand how people around here take things as gospel when there is absolutely nothing tangible to back up those opinions.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
...after they switched to BSD, it was pretty much inevitable, no?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
He'll learn about the true meaning of Christmas, anyway. (-: Is that a random enough reply for you? My first idea for a response was "scratch the "more", and probably the "informed", too". :-)
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing