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Andreesssen: Why Open Source Will Boom - in 103 Words
An anonymous reader writes "You gotta love Marc Andreessen's 12 reasons why Open Source is set to boom: can anyone use fewer than 103 words and still adduce as many reasons as he does?"
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It's not Windows.
It would have been impressive if he did it in 100 words.
Only 12 reasons? There must be more :)
You're old school? I beta tested the motherf***ing abacus!
inertia
And the year before, and the year before that, and so on? Or are these all new ones that we're going to start posting every year even though they never come true?
*yawn*
"The Internet is powered by open source."
"The Internet is the carrier for open source."
"The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
"It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
"Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
"Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
"Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants."
"Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel."
"Embedded devices are making greater use of open source."
"There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies."
"Companies are increasingly supporting Linux."
"It's free."
Because it is documented - documentation is just as important as being open source. If the behavior of MS software was fully and accurately documented, it would be much more stable, as programmers could account for every situation.
Customization. Not so important for joe public, but a great boon to the office side of the market, which is what originally drove Windows into the home, and will drive Linux in the same direction.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
There is only one thing holding linux back - an integrated API for desktops. If the developers for Linux could develop API for all the applications that they write and the Desktop then becomes integrated with each application at the API layer, you will have what M$ has now. That is the only item the article missed. It went over embedded systems and how cheap Linux is (free).
Am I the only person who can't seem to understand what that is meant to mean?
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
Wait a sec.
He tried these 12 steps With Netscape. Then this guy went and founded LoudCloud.
I'm not sure that we even want this guy giving us his support or opinon.
It's kinda like getting political backing from Nixon.
Feh.
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
All Your Base Are Belong To Tux
Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre
Everybody wants something for nothing...
Linux does that.
Tom.
Oh arse
13: tux > clippy
I'm guessing it's sort of along the lines of anti-capitalism.
Or perhaps MS is seen as a big bad bully, and so is the US?
I'm sure there are other reasons, but those are the ones that popped into my head right away.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
I would change "The Internet is powered by open source" to "Open Source powers the Internet" and I would have fewer words!!
And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
Someone set up us the bomb.
:(
Sorry
Bad form replying to my own post - does this mean that anti-american sentiment is going to increase Linux use because people won't want software out of Redmond? I find that at best spurious.
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
Outlook viruses
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Translation: You don't get thrown in jail for pirating open source products.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Because it can be an enterprise level solution for free.
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
Get back to us when you succeed.
In other words, countries that distrust the United States will not want to depend on Microsoft -- they will either use OSS or roll their own. Since rolling your own software takes time, they'll use what exists already.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
As much as I am glad to see positive news about Open Source, I have to wonder why this was worthy of news...
1. "The Internet is powered by open source."
Anybody who can exhibit a counterexample can say this is not true.
2. "The Internet is the carrier for open source."
Okay, that's true, but meaningless. Who cares?
3. "The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
Again, who cares?
4. "It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
This can be proven wrong, and you'll look stupid.
5. "Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
I really take exception to this, although it may be true. I think it's true that many open-source devs are europeans who have green-ish attitudes, it's immaterial, unhelpful, and boring. I for one don't wish to be associated with this and I raise an eyebrow at Andreesen for thinking this. If Kerry thought looking anti-American is going to help him, or you think it will help Linux, you are wrong. It is not going to resonate with people who aren't already on your side.
#6 - #12 are all fine, true, okay, and useful.
Because it sure reads like one. What I really want to know is: can anyone use fewer than 103 words and still come to the wrong conclusion?
The article is talking about open source, not linux in particular (apart form the bits that are ;)
FREEdom
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
It didn't say "Linux", it said "Open Source" which does NOT always equate with Linux.
Or am I reading the wrong article?
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Basically, foreign governments don't want to spend money on Software when that money goes outside their own country - governments don't like upsetting their balance of payments themselves.
Using Open Source means that the money stays in the Local economy, not going to Redmond.
A lot of countries, particually in asia and the third world, don't like the economic dominance the US has and any chance to keep money in their own economy instead of owing it to the US is a good deal for them.
That is probably another reason for the increasing use of Linux in China, Israel, and even the EU.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
Note that the article introduces Marc as an "Internet whizz"
Yeah
must... stay... awake...
I think the sentiments from which Open Source benefits are directed against the dealings of a number of big software companies, not against the fact that most of these are American.
Yeah, it's because random people out there in the world who (rightly) despise the U.S. will opt to use linux, since windows is very "American."
Here is a little plan on how to make sure that linux explodes onto the market 1.Consolidate all the distros into one company 2.Add a load of bloatware for the sack of bloatware 3.Establish a lobbying group at the highest level. 4.Hire the best lawyers in town. 5.Get some huge venture capital. 6.Give free copies to all computing companies. 7.Give free copies to all hardware manufactures. 8.Start a bs marketing campaign to stating "why do you want to go there?" 9.Charge a small upgrading and support fee on subscription bases. 10.???? 11.Take over the world market.
There are a lot of people, even whole countries, who do not like America, what nothing to do with America and feel more than a little annoyed that the "standard" operating system is written, designed and funds and american company.
Guess what using OSS alternatives allows them to do?
none of these are realy new things..
you could of said that same a few years ago,
and you should be able to say the same in a
few years...
I dont see any resosones why Linux (Open source is what the articals about) is set to boom listed
at all that are new.
a shame... i mene sure they maybe stronger then
last year, but still more needs to be done..
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
No, I'm not trolling. Don't most of those reasons also apply to the BSDs?
status is failure. status is failure
Am I the only person who can't seem to understand what that is meant to mean?
...) [outside of SCO!].
Linux et al. are international efforts. They are not made/control by an American company (MS, Apple, IMB, SUN,
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Right, so he's such a big believer in this open source stuff that he runs a proprietary software company, Opsware. I mean what has this guy actually done that deserves a front page story connecting him with open source. He wasn't the one who decided (or even proposed) to open source Netscape Navigator; he's just a guy that got rich off of someone else's idea.
...) and you'll find software developers developing stuff for internal use. In fact I'll wager that more LOC are written outside the "software business" than in it.
1. "The Internet is powered by open source."
Hello? Yes, Apache, Sendmail, BIND etc. are used extensively, but how about those Sun boxes and Cisco devices doing all the routing?
2. "The Internet is the carrier for open source."
I don't see how this means that OSS is going to succeed, it just seems like a fact. Anyhow RMS was doing Free Software using tapes and the USPS long before the Internet came along.
3. "The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
True, but proprietary companies also use the Internet for development, so how is this important?
4. "It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
Maybe.
5. "Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
Great. Thanks, so you manage to put Open Source and anti-American in a sentence. That's the last thing that OSS needs: "OSS developed by terrorists". Stop splitting the world into American and anti-American; it's not that simple, and surely the number of people who sit that and go "I'm going to develop this cool software because I hate America" must be tiny. Most of them are doing it for the glory.
6. "Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
Yes, true.
7. "Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants."
I don't even understand this.
8. "Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel."
Hmm. Ever talk to IBM about running Linux on Big Iron? Not everything is Intel and if it were wouldn't that mean that Intel could charge whatever they like for a processor and make servers expensive again?
9. "Embedded devices are making greater use of open source."
Yes, they are.
10. "There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies."
Oh man, this guy is out of touch. Go to any large organization (Shell Oil, JP Morgan, HBO,
11. "Companies are increasingly supporting Linux."
Wow, the insights never stop.
12. "It's free."
Very unimportant. A far more important issue is TCO; if you can make a good TCO argument then a CIO is going to buy into it.
John.
Foreign governments will tend to use Linux, and encourage their industries to use it, to avoid dependency on software from the evil USA?
Seriously though, governments would be well advised to avoid dependency on software so heavily subject to the control of any other country's government, it shouldn't depend on anti-American sentiment in particular.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
All these points have been the sword in the fight of open source... but we are still waiting for the compagnie to respond to the appeal.
We are getting there surely but slowly. I'm sure Mr. Darl McBride and companie have somehow helped to move things up faster, thanks bro =).
(this is an explanation, not necessarily my opinion)
the world view's America as the land of the selfish, run by corporations, headed by a falsely-elected retard, and not bothered about persecuting people, being hypocritical, or just plain murder if it's beneficial to profits.
MS is associated with similar "American" traits - bullying, being crap, holding the world back.
so being for open source and linux is like being against capitalism and MS.
yes
Rocket science is easy. Neurosurgery, now *that's* difficult.
Am I the only person who can't seem to understand what that is meant to mean?
Basically.. a more widespread distrust of America will be reflected on american products.
Do foreign governments want to put their strategical infrastructure software in the hands of a nation which they do not trust?
Let's not turn this into a flamewar on how or if these sentiments are valid and just agree on that they exist, like it or not.
shoulders of giants."
And, with recent events, with all this weight on them they have been pushed into the Muck.
Obligatory Bundy quote:
"Everybody say 'Thanks Darl.'"
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Probably you have to be Non-American (if not Anti-American) to understand this one ;-)
I like my spaghetti with source.
Right you are, sir.
You must all be reading a different article to me.
I'm reading how OPEN SOURCE will boom in 5-10 years, not linux.
Do story submitters not read the articles either ?!
"Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
Most reports I have heard say that most people from countries outside of the US view many US products (McDonalds, Microsoft, Nike, others) as international producs and don't really associate them with the US. Is that BS?
I'd also like to know if that statement is just a knee-jerk statement or if there is any proof to back it up.
"Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel."
So does Solaris, and it HAS for a while.
2. Apple has the iPod, the iSight, Quicktime, iTunes - all superior Mac and Windows implementations
3. Apple has the design prowess and the marketing genius to cater to just about any market segment they choose to go after - right now; audio - next; video
4. Apple has the appearance of support - most people don't know where to turn for Linux support
5. Macs can run Linux too
6. Apple has an immense support base on the internet
7. Mac OS X is a Unix derivitive - so everything mentioned in the 103 words pretty much applies to Apple.
There - exactly 103 words!
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
> 3. "The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
Most users don't care about the development platform of what they use.
> 4. "It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
Going to be?
> 5. "Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
I've heard this argument before. Could we be setting ourselves up for an anti-anti-American backlash?
> 6. "Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
Read: OSS users are snobs. And snobs about something dweeby. More negative than positive.
> 8. "Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel."
Fine for the server market.
> 12. "It's free."
So far this has helped on the server, but not the desktop.
> 11. "Companies are increasingly supporting Linux."
This might be the strongest one.
Google confirms: Ruby is the world's most beloved programm
With the exception of one or two things on the list, this stuff has been true about Linux for a long time. So why does it suddenly mean Linux is going to boom?
Two things will make or break Linux: a> Ease of use and b> Applications
The first, ease of use, has been a problem for Linux for a long time and only in the last year or two have people really started to address this. I think with time, Linux will boom, but there's still a lot of work to do.
Is not, and never was. Unless all three of the unrelated ISPs I have access to have super-ultra-anti-slashdotting powers.
Does no one check if someone's just karma whoring anymore?
"To cite as an example or means of proof in an argument."
adduce
When I was walking into NEC a couple months ago with my ggod friend at Red Hat, I asked him why he worked at a Linux company. He told me, "Because it will be the last OS". It took me a while for that to really sink in-- but I think it has a stong chance at becoming true. Any major advances in security, compartmentability, portability, etc. will wind up in Linux. Even if they are developed in some subbranch or separate OS (QNX, Embedded, BSD), the features and code concepts could (and most likely will) find their way into Linux.
The only thing that would prevent such "Borgification" would be a superior kernel structure with a fundamentally different architecture. Sure, there will be one eventually, but the temptation to graft that into Linux will be too great, and "Linux" will most likely adapt, rather than get killed.
davejenkins.com |
Where is the anti-American sentiment in that?
the world view's America as the land of the selfish, run by corporations, headed by a falsely-elected retard, and not bothered about persecuting people, being hypocritical, or just plain murder if it's beneficial to profits.
Minor correction, the "falsely-elected" thing is an American obsession. Few people outside your borders are particularly interested in your electoral process let alone worked up about it.
At the more extreme end, you may have noticed that some people in parts of the world that are not the United States very actively dislike the U.S. and want to avoid supporting it by buying software from us. Open-source software - even if Made In America - can be obtained without enriching the U.S.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
"Leave off the last S for startup."
It's examined closely for open backdoors. Because it is fully checked for big brother backdoors that could permit spies, it's not likely to have big brother holes in it. This is real security. If you don't want to share your private business with the world, who's software would you use. MS with the hole that gave away SCO's Haloween X secrets, or something that will keep your edits private. I know which editor I don't use for e-mail.
The truth shall set you free!
Am I the only person who can't seem to understand what that is meant to mean?
Many users (European, Asian) want software which isn't from USA (eg. Microsoft, SCO, Sun ..). Open source is considered belonging to the world, ie. global.
RFC1925
One argument against open source is the piss poor quality of Linux desktops and desktop applications.
There are several reasons.
1) American companies have been known for putting back-doors in programs so that organizations like the NSA could easily break in if needed. (Remember the infamous Lotus Notes story?)
2) America has put back doors in other software that caused nasty things to happen.
In short, other countries don't trust us.
Why is his opinion valued, again? He's just another dot-bomb failure with a loud mouth.
Corporate Gadfly
Jonathan Archer: the most beaten up Enterprise captain in Star Trek history
Way to play right into Darl "Linux is for terrorists" McBride's hand. With boosters like this guy Linux certainly doesn't need enemies.
0 1 - just my two bits
Entries #1-#3 are completely redundant and can be reduced to one line.
The originals are like this:
"The Internet is powered by open source."
"The Internet is the carrier for open source."
"The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
And can be reduced to just one entry with far fewer words by saying this:
"The Internet is is the carrier for, is powered by , and is also the platform of development for open source"
or perhaps rather more concisely:
"Open source is the carrier for, the development platform for, and powers the Internet"
This would also reduce the # of entries to a total of 10...
Disruptive Technology
That's the real title from the article.
The missing word is adoption (as in 12 Reasons for Growth of Open Source Adoption).
That's because he states mostly reasons for doing open source, not using it (unless you think users really believe that "Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants" or find it a compelling argument ofr open source that "The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed").
There are plenty of reasons why countries outside the U.S. might consider Open Source, and yes, a couple of them are mostly about dislike for the U.S. itself:
"We don't want to send America one cent that we don't have to."
"The NSA might be pushing code into Windows that can be used to compromise our security."
"Support your local developers."
"If Microsoft doesn't support our language, we're screwed. If Linux doesn't, we can fix that."
"Maybe they saved our asses in World War II, but they're still acting like a bunch of pricks. Screw 'em."
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Basically, foreign governments don't want to spend money on Software when that money goes outside their own country - governments don't like upsetting their balance of payments themselves.
I'm taking it you aren't from the US, certain high ups in the US government want to outsource gov't software development to India....
He says "open source" a lot; isn't that an argument for the BSD's? Linux is Free, not Open. In fact, everything he says applies to the BSD's.. so tell me, why is everyone wibbling on about Linux?
Hell, we want to be your friends, but you stop us using your source code in our own developments while taking ours as you please, you basically ignore us or dis us despite doing all sorts of interesting and exciting things, and you then go on to advertise yourself as if you're the only OS about which comes with source code, despite the BSD's doing a miles better job of actually providing it.
Remember, monocultures are BAD. If you like open source, promote open source; don't just promote your own little niche of it, biggest or not. We'll return the favour.
-- Random BSD user.
Now, imagine that a company you distrust that much is in bed with a government that cannot be trusted. A government that feels free to impose its will on anyone anywhere, and had no respect for anyones privacy. That requires little or no imagination these days. Now, imagine that it isn't even your own government. How would you feel?
Even true US patriots can see why any sane government would want to ensure that they rely only on OPEN computing systems instead of coverting their governments and populations into MicroSerfs.
"Developers!" x 96
"I...love...this... Linux platform, YEEEEEEEEEEAH"
Right...
Open-source stuff doesn't necessarily benefit from "anti-American sentiment", even in a government setting. Not being fond of the US doesn't mean you're an open-source proponent...it just means you're is going to avoid American software (most likely in favor of a local software company). Open-source does, however, benefit from not being tied down to any particular country, which means that, despite how political debates about various projects might get, they're essentially exempt from international politics, even if the developers for a project live in one country.
I know Andreessen was going for commodity of words, but if you doesn't say something properly with those few words, it's much better to use more....
No true businessperson would feel that way. It's a dumb, nationalistic sentiment that results in lower economic efficiency. It's probably one of the reasons why many of those countries are struggling economically in the first place.
Amazing magic tricks
I mean, no doubt the guy hit a home run with Netscape, but other than the original browser, the guy's resume is, well, like a million other geeks.
And oh... Netscape *FAILED*. So I'm not sure he has pearls of wisdom on anything other than Netscape.
Despite the fact that the whole open/free source movement is arguably an American invention?
The USA is perceived in the rest of the world as a spoiled, ignorant, overweight lumbering oaf, blessed by accident of birth with the strength of ten and never having learned any manners. The US political system of one dollar, one vote, is ridiculed by some and despised by others. US foreign policy of shafting any country that supplies something the USA is too lazy to make for itself also grates more than a little.
For chuff's sake, people hate you so much, they are prepared to fly aeroplanes into your buildings! That speaks volumes.
To put it simply, in a way a lot of Slashdotters would understand is that the way a lot of the world sees America, is the way a lot of us see Microsoft.
It's called, "I'll toss in a flammable one (along with the lit match) to prove how radical I am" or something.
--- Ban humanity.
Anti American Sentiment: a one act play
Boss ( a politician/buisnessman/citizen ) - American goverment opresses my country economically through clever means such the IMF and WTO. Americans go to war with Iraq without that agreement or support of the mejority of the U.N.. American-based transnational corporations opress my countries laborers and attempt to subvert my goverment to achieve their own ends. On top of this I have to hand over bucketloads of cash to Microsoft to pay for their shoddy software?
Assistant: Wait, why dont we just use linux?
Boss: linux?
Assistant: yes! its a free operating system that works just as well or better than windows. With it we also get a replacement for Office, also free! On top of that it is owned by no big american corporation so not only do we save money, we hurt microsoft and the american economy by switching!
Boss: Brilliant!
the end
moral: The united states is an empire and acts as such, which, historically, will always result in pissing of the rest of the world, creating anti-american sentiment. Anybody who thinks America attacked Iraq for the good of the Iraqi people needs to brush up on their international politics.
Apple is free?! Wow they really ripped me off on that laptop I just bought from them then
There are too many wasted words. He's concentrating on one per sentence, since he's delivering it as twelve points.... try this.
;)
1) The Internet is powered by,
2) is the carrier for,
3) and is the development platform for open source.
4) Open source is more secure than proprietary software,
5) yet benefits from anti-American sentiments.
6) Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers.
7) Open source stands on the shoulders of giants.
8) Linux runs on any type of server,
9) or any embedded device.
10)Software isn't always made by software companies anymore.
11)Support is improving.
12)It's free.
Now, this takes it down to 72 words mostly through paraphrasing into compound sentences. I'll bet it could go down to 51 (half of the original) but I don't have time...
Now, anonymous reader, I've fulfilled your challenge. Where is my prize?
In all truthfulness, we need articles like this. Marc Andressen was once a name that some non-Techs even recognized. Quotes like these make conversion/assimilation easier.
Let us not forget the recent example of China: why should any government implement critical installations of software that may have been compromised by the NSA and its affiliates? If you can't see the source, you have no assurance of code integrity. What good is strong crypto if your info is intercepted before it's encoded?
Go with an entirely open-source solution, and you can make sure there are no built-in trojans, watchers-at-the-gate, or other boojums lurking behind the desktop.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Look, Marc's a good guy (at least his public image).
He was a poster child for the Dot.com era. But lets be real here... his success was as much about timing and luck as anything.
He's basically the idiot savant of the internet age. I'm not sure I'd take his advice on much of anything.
Is that #5 from bottom up (like the article numbers them)? Or from the top down? Hello? Grandpa?
#5 - Anti-american: Mexico? Guetemala? Canada?
Yeah! Let's blame Canada!
#5 - Runs on Intel: Uh... How about, runs on everything!
Imagine if you woke from an operation and discovered that your tumor was gone. You'd think: I suppose that's a good thing. But. You learned that the hospital might profit from the operation. You learned that the doctor who made the diagnosis had decided to ignore all the other doctors who believed the tumor could be discouraged if everyone protested the tumor in the strongest possible terms, and urged the tumor to relent. How would you feel? You'd be mad. You'd look up at the ceiling of your room and nurse your fury until you came to truly hate that butcher. And when he came by to see how you were doing, you'd have only one logical, sensible thing to say: YOU TOOK IT OUT FOR THE WRONG REASONS. PUT IT BACK!
I believe this is referring to the fact that China, Japan, and other nations have announced government initiatives to develop and promote Linux.
One of the reasons for such efforts is to provide a measure of independence from U.S. control of the OS (and whatever rules it may impose on security, DRM, etc). But "anti-American" may be a harsh term to express this concept.
That bit is the result. The anti-American sentiment is that people dislike the fact that the US has too much power and likes to garner more by using its massive economy to subsidise US based industries into out-competing the local version.
As an example, take how it is cheaper for Mexico to import subsidised US corn than it is to grow it themselves, thus driving the Mexican farmers out of business and making Mexico dependant on the US, and also burdening Mexico with a negative balance of import/export.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
an important reason why open source isn't easily co-opted or why it won't fizzle out easily.
The GPL.
Share and share alike. There's nothing like an idea whose time has come (although many of the principles were utilized in the scientific community for centuries).
"Provided by the management for your protection."
inertia
To paraphrase Aleister Crowley:
A man who is doing this True Will has the inertia of the Universe to assist him.
Therefore, I'm optimistic. We are fighting the good fight, and following the natural Will of the IT to gravitate towards more open solutions.
They are wrong, they had a chance that they capitalized on, but now it's time for universe to bitchslap them a little bit.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Mark Andreesen is the biggest example of "right place at the right time" fame/fortune ever.
The guy was lucky to have stumbled onto the Mosaic project in college and has been coasting on that dumb luck ever since.
He accomplished nothing while at Netscape, he wasn't a core developer, he wasn't given any real position of responsibility or authority, he was merely a handsomely paid poster boy. He has accomplished nothing since the demise of Netscape. Loudcloud was a complete and utter failure. His latest venture will likely sputter and die as well.
Why he continues to get publicity as an "Internet Whiz Kid" boggles my tiny mind.
His "top 12" list shows no signs of creative thought or keen insight, its just a regurgitation of the same Slashdot karma-whoring BS seen here every day.
1. "The Internet is powered by open source."
Really? Cisco routers are open source? What about the switches and core hardware/software that makes things work? Open source? I don't think so.
2. "The Internet is the carrier for open source."
Uh, yeah... The "Internet" doesn't give a shit what it "carries". Open or closed, it is an
agnostic transport.
3. "The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
"The Internet" is merely the means of transferring data. Linux is a platform, but so is Windows, Solaris, and other folks that have made significant contributions to the growth of the internet.
4. "It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
Really? Just saying it is so does not make it so.
Open source code can be just as buggy and full of security holes as proprietary code.
5. "Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
Huh? So its good that the rest of the world hates the US? Hmmmm, right, so lets foster even more ill-will around the world so the mighty Linux can RULE! How does one make such an idiotic statement?
6. "Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
Yeah, thats SOOOOO Much better than cold hard cash. I'd really rather my friends think I'm cool than make a decent living.
Statements like #6 are easy to make for a guy who stumbled into his fortune by sheer luck.
7. "Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants."
Maybe, but Mark Andreesen is not one of them.
8. "Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel."
9. "Embedded devices are making greater use of open source."
10. "There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies."
Yes, and this "software" is not necessarily any good. The barriers to entry in the open source world are very low, but that doesn't mean that everyone is produciing quality code. Volume != quality.
11. "Companies are increasingly supporting Linux."
Geez, how long did it take him to come up with #11? Really keen insight, Mark. Keep up the good work.
12. "It's free."
Wow, brilliant, thanks for the insight, captain obvious.
I would like to see an unbiased TCO comparison between an 'easy-to-use' Linux (Suse perhaps - as opposed to Gentoo) versus Windows Server 2003 in a company. I don't think an exact comparison is possible, but one that's not sponsored by either 'team' would be worth a read...
To stay on-topic - most of the other points are valid, but they are valid for both open source and closed source code.
Standing on the shoulders of Giants? Don't get any bigger than MS. Go develop something in VS.NET. Enjoy the enormous framework that they have created for your use as a developer.
Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
Exactly. Open source benefits everyone, not just one American company.
I don't get #5, anyone want to spell it out for me?
It means open source is preferred by terrorists. I assume that's why it's going to "Boom".
Guess what using OSS alternatives allows them to do?
Many big open-source projects out there have some degree of American involvement, so if they can't use any of that due to anti-American sentiments, they'll have to code their own stuff. And at that point, why would they want to go open-source instead of closed-source...?
I don't see how the availibility of source code is relevant here.
"Andreesssen" (from the headline). Sheesh, that's giving me a headache... knew I drank too much last night, but still!
Some good points have been made already.
The balance of payment situation has been mentionned, but I think it also has something to do with security concerns as well as countries wanting to develop an indigenous software sector.
Basically, your whole economy is dependent on outside investments to keep running, and that's hurting your currency. Some have suggested using the Euro for petroleum sales to hurt the dollar further, possibly causing a recession in the US (obviously aiming to affect the next elections).
If you are unsure how deep anti-American sentiment runs, consider the last Pew Research Center annual survey on attitudes towards Americans. The percentage of people that think suicide bombings against the US are justifiable is just plain scary.
So while the BOP, security and protectionnism all play to a certain extent, I wouldn't underestimate the sheer resentment against the US.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
In case you hadn't noticed every single example of countries, cities, companies, schools and government departments moving to Linux have always cited one and only one reason for moving.
Because they're looking to cut costs and Linux is free.
You know Linux has more advantages, I know Linux has more advantages but they don't appear to ever be quoted by these companies.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
No true business should then suffer from "Not Invented Here" syndrome. A reality which I'm afraid we've not quite realized.
1. It's the most common OS in the market.
2. You get what you pay for! And you pay a lot.
3. Dodging exploits is exciting.
4. SCO doesn't have anything against it.
5. The guy designing it became the richest man in the world, so it must be good.
6. It hasn't got a silly penguin logo, but a much more exciting four-color Windows flag.
7. Paper clips are your friends. You have no such friends in Linux.
8. It has a puppy to help you search files. Linux has no such puppies, so you don't search as well.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Ok, it's much to early to be posting on Slashdot. Sorry folks. The article does number them top-to-bottom.
I'm going to grab more coffee.....
I think you are wrong.
It matters to me as non American what the outcome of the elections in 2000 was and what it will be now.
Yeah, its a choice between a conservative puppet and a 'liberal' clown, but soemnhow the later is a lot less dangerous for this world then the first. That directly affects my life as well as yours, regasrdless where in this world you happen to live.
No, i'm EUian :)
I do think that outsourcing government fuctions is the epitomy of stupidity however. It weakens your economy threefold:
1) By removing money from the US economy.
2) By reducing the US tax base, because less internal jobs = less taxation
3)By reducing the skills base of your country in the long term.
The US economy seems to be surviving more or less on arms sales, advertising, and illegal tarriffs as far as its economy goes.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
headed by a falsely-elected retard
Retard is an offensive term for mentally handicapped people.
Here are some better terms you can used to describe Bush:
ass, blockhead, dimwit, dork, dumb ass, dunce, dunderhead, fool, halfwit, ignoramus, jackass, jerk, meathead, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, pinhead, pointy head, simpleton, stupid, twit
I hope this helps.
13. Open source development is based on the same system as the peer review system that has given us such wonderful things such as medicine, electricity, computers and a better understanding of our place in the universe. If that doesn't tell you - go get a lobotomy and your MCSE :) ....if you uhhh haven't already done so....
If you study history I believe that you will find that the meme of sharing information freely (which is pretty much what open source is about) is not an American invention. It's been around since the US was even formed. (And before any other current country for that matter.)
I do not find it so far fetched. Americans have a reputation of maintaining the ability to snoop on all international communication, and of putting "American interests" higher than the rights and liberties of of non-American people. (Echelon, crypto export restrictions, not to mention the war)
Also, as M$ expands to new fields, more and more companies come into direct competition with them. With the license audit clauses and possibility of back doors and snooping software, there is a small but growing understanding that no really sensitive data is safe in a M$ system.
So, all in all, I would not be surprised to hear that some large companies, or military departments in small non-NATO countries, would insist on using software that they can audit themselves.
to not have to pay for licenses when creating a system to pirate the latest microsoft products?
Get paid to code OSS
So it's like Muslim countries liking the taste of Cola but not wanting to buy Pepsi or Coke.
Great. Thanks, so you manage to put Open Source and anti-American in a sentence. That's the last thing that OSS needs: "OSS developed by terrorists".
Contrary to what Dubya and Darl will have us believe, they're not the same thing. Most foreign readers will probably understand this. Will most Americans?
disclaimer: i run both windows and freebsd + linux and have done for years. as much as i support the open source community and dislike MS's strong-arm anti-competitive strategies, i do feel sometimes one gets carried away with very a very isolated view on certain real-world scenarios.
so here goes:
1. "The Internet is powered by open source."
Sorry, but this statement is a little too broad. As far as I am aware (and I'm open to being proven wrong - bait!) a large amount of "The Internet" is powered by Cisco routers which run the proprietary operating system IOS. I accept that there are a large amount of Sendmail/Postfix/Exim/Qmail boxes around pushing email, but there are also a hell of a lot of MS Exchange Servers and IBM Lotus servers pushing email as well powering corporate email. Also MS represents around 1/4 of web servers on the Net. So, like I said, a very bold generalisation.
2. "The Internet is the carrier for open source."
As it is for proprietary systems.
3. "The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
That is because open source is largely decentralised. Business itself is decentralising to some degree (although not to the same level as Open Source - but this can be as much a strength as a presumed weakness).
4. "It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
This is the one that erks me the most. Lets take a look at the nuts and bolts of the O/S rather than the user interaction. There have been probably (if someone has stats, I would love to see them) as many Linux (think SSH + FTP + Telnet etc...) exploits out there as there have been on Windows (think IIS). The more the Linux front-end bloats like Windows has over the years and the more "features" that get added to various products introduce security risks.
The fact that the source is open means that people can exploit it rather than by trial and error or just hacking around than by actually analysing the source and finding weaknesses in it like people did with the Windows leaked source code.
Most of the bad security press (especially recently) has been Outlook (Express) based Worms and this was do to introducing a good idea (feature) that turned sour. Could just as easily happen in the Open Source community, but due to lack of penetration (he said penetration) it has never cascaded into something as far-reaching as MS's security woes have in this regards.
5. "Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
Personally I'm big into this! I feel that the potential for Europe to regain power and all of that is pretty massive. However, outside of the USA there is one big problem - language. You may think that this is getting better - go to Brussels, goto Barcelona and see how many 20-30 year olds speak English; not many.
6. "Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
At our (proprietary) office peer respect amongst coders is pretty high too. Are we an exception?
7. "Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants."
"He doth stride the world like a colossus...". What if the giants jump up and down and shake you off? Sorry I just don't get this - anyone care to explain?
8. "Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel."
As does Windows. And don't say the free thing because RedHat Advanced Server and all of the other commercial guys also charge for their server distros. And then you want support, and then you have to have certified engineers. I've seen too many contrary ROI models to not prove anything here.
9. "Embedded devices are making greater use of open source."
Fair enough. Although consider Symbian. Also consider that MS have not been big on an embedded device strategy until recently. We all know what happens when MS starts taken an interest in something - and of all people M
Apple isn't free - neither is Linux - open source software /= free hardware or even free software.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
A common misconception. The Internet is powered by open protocols. The most popular implementations just happen to be open source.
The Internet is the carrier for open source.
By that logic, you could also claim that pr0n and penis-enlargmenet products will boom.
Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments.
Huh? 99.99% of the most anti-American people can't read, let alone install Mandrake.
Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers.
That's an incentive for damn near anything. And the incentive of not taking risks often outweighs peer-respect considerations.
Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants.
Again, not open-source specific. It exists in any mature organization.
Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel.
Excuse me, but isn't the fight now to bring Linux to the desktop? Hasn't that about to happen every year since 1999? We're still waiting.
Embedded devices are making greater use of open source.
Until we can see a rising trend in the percentage of devices using open source, this increase could be attributed to nothing more than more embedded devices existing.
There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies.
Companies without experience, expertise and support facilities attaching themselves to the Linux star? How is that positive?
Companies are increasingly supporting Linux.
Companies are increasingly supporting Microsoft as well. Again, trends and percentages.
It's free.
Linux and babies are both free. Linux solutions and raising children can both be horribly expensive, especially in the hands of the inexperienced. The 'free' angle has been beaten to death; why are we suddenly downplaying 'better'?
Every country in the world except the USA uses ISO standard A4 paper, which is 210 * 297. The USA is alone (TTBOMK) in using non-standard "US Letter" paper, which is 216 * 279.
On that basis one would expect that a piece of software labelled "not for sale in the USA" would be set to default to using A4 paper.
The paper size issue alone has caused untold trouble with printers around the world. At least it's shorter, so whatever will fit on US letter paper will fit on A4; it is a little bit wider, but as most printers have only a 200mm. printable width anyway, the width is less of an issue.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Quite the contrary, I have seen people in other countries joke about it and talk about it many times. People all over the world are aware of this.
1. You can not play games on it.
Playing games rarely makes money. But it will run office suites and internet browsers
2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
My grandmother uses it. Perhaps yours just needs a little help from her geek grandchild.
3. It lacks a GUI of any usabillity
KDE and Gnome work pretty well. better than the default for XP in my opinion
4. There is no support available for it.
Red hat and SuSE would beg to differ.
5. It is an assortment of fragmented distros.
But you only have to run one of them!
6. It cannot be run on the TCPA platform.
IBM is a member of TCPA so you never know but until then I'm gonna stick with AMD
7. You have to compile everything and know C++.
Granny hasn't compiled anything thanks to Yast
I use Apt-get my self
8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
Which hardware? It runs on most $400 boxes and has plug an play support my usb camera and palm work
9. It is incompatiable with Windows/OSX
You mean you can't run Open office... uhm wait.
10. It is shit!
No. It's software. Feces is shit
Bleep
Another reason is because the mega-corporations (IBM, SUN, etc) have decided that offshoring proprietary work to third world countries doesn't produce enough pure profit. Luckily they have figured out a way to get programmers to work for them for free! The executives can't believe their luck, its a dream come true!
"The Internet is powered by open source."
Only on the server level. The Internet, though, encompasses more than servers. It's an interaction between servers, routers, and desktops (not to mention the lines of transmission between them). Linux does not dominate in routers, and sure as hell doesn't dominate in desktops.
"The Internet is the carrier for open source."
Irrelevant, really. If the world was still dominated by BBSes, open source would still spread, and, in fact, did during that time (anyone still remember the term "freeware"?).
"The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
And the chaos that is part and parcel of the Internet (the same chaos that allows the Internet to actually function) tends to cripple FOSS projects due to the "too many cooks" principle. The most successful FOSS projects have always kept their core creators as a limited, contained group.
"It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
Spouting the party line. No, it's not going to be more secure first thing out of the box, so to speak. It'll be more secure because of the perpetual code audits by many eyes. Not really "simple" per se.
"Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
Good for the rest of the world. Bad for the fact that the US has a very large concentration of tech pros who might become alienated by this attitude and stop contributing.
"Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
-1, Overrated. Just another reiteration of the "scratch an itch" principle. And as someone else said, this has a tendency to devolve into mutual pats on the back and development of cliques, which is not a productive way of operating.
"Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants."
Which "giants"? IBM, whose support for Linux has been mostly self-serving and a way to escape the massive proprietary mentality that's crippled them in the past? HP/Compaq, Dell, and other companies who won't release a Linux desktop machine without begging, pleading, and sellings of first-born children to become Carly's and Mike's bondspeople? Or is it software giants like Microsoft (tee hee) or Adobe (Photoshop on Linux may never exist)? The only "giant" he can be speaking of is the progenitor of the project that became Mozilla, and, gee, who was partially responsible for that?
"Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel."
Implying that servers don't run on Intel. Guess that I must have been imagining Itanic boxes or (to extend it into the immediately family) Opteron boxes, which are outselling the proprietary Sun and Unix servers these days. Maybe he's talking about the commoditization of servers that x86/Itanic has allowed, in which case, there are solutions other than Linux from names more trusted in the server area. Or is Solaris x86 a figment of Marc's imagination?
"Embedded devices are making greater use of open source."
But are still a niche market. Revisit this argument in another ten years.
"There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies."
As someone said, virtually any large corporation has an IT staff working on in-house solutions for their own particular needs. How many of these programs get released to the community? Virtually none, because there's no use. And if you take another tack to his argument, namely that there are software contributions out there from non-software companies, is anyone going to trust them?
"Companies are increasingly supporting Linux."
In the areas where Linux has made inroads, namely commodity servers. People in IT can't see this because of their concentration on servers, but the real war is yet to be fought, namely on the desktops, and that one will be a decade-long slog at the very least.
"It's free."
Again, someone else brought up TCO, and right now, the up-front costs
If using Linux is about choice, how come people complain when I choose to use Windows?
Sure, you might get the software for free. But you are going to have to pay a shitload of money to get proper support and maintainence. Still, altogether it is probably slightly less than Microsoft's solution.
I am a professional software developer, and program often in C/C++ on both windows and linux.
when programming device drivers on linux, i was often frustrated at the lack of up to date specifications of functions and interfaces. for example the documentation about PCI functionality is hopelesly out of date, and specifies functions that are mentioned in other places as 'they are obsolete and you should not use them. EVIL EVIL'.
the old functions did have man and info pages. how nice. the new functions did not have them.
compare that to developing on windows. not everything is nice, but the MSDN documentation collection for developers is the best documentation ever, and includes not only a complete function reference, but also tons of samples that -shock horror - actually work.
even on mandrake 10, the developers documentation is crap.
regards,
Interfacer.
Neither is Microsoft Windows. It isn't easy as pie to install and hassle free once running. It takes time to install patches and configure Microsoft Windows too.
we come in peace / shoot to kill
I'm sure after you actually set the whole thing up, it will cost less manpower to maintain a Linux server (i.e. patches), compared to a Windows server.
And, on your view on Gentoo... it could vary. It probably takes less of your time to emerge than hunting down all of the dependancies manually, and then compilling/installing them.
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
The world can kiss my butt then. I'm tired of it. If it weren't for America the whole world would be speaking German or Russian.
Maybe that missed opportunity is what makes the socialist Europeans so anti-American. They really wish the U.S.S.R. had won the cold war or that Hitler conquered Europe.
Sorry, but I'm just SO TIRED of America-bashing. The economic problems in the third-world are caused by two things far more than American imperialism.
1. Local corruption
2. SOCIALIST imperialism projecting anti-capitalist rules on these countries in the form of environmental laws and pressure not to use the natural resources to create local economies.
It is just easier for Europeans to blame America than face the role they ALSO took in creating the problems they now blame on the U.S.
Translation: You don't get thrown in jail for pirating open source products.
Actually, legality doesn't enter into it. Andressen was right not to include copyright infringement here.
I'm sure that literally tens of millions (probably hundreds of millions!) of internet users have downloaded warez at one time or another... How many have ever been prosecuted in the last ten years? Probably less than 1,000.
The main problem foreign governments have with Microsoft software is security not economical. Although the cost of say, equiping all of the desktops and servers in the Ministry of Defence with Windows XP is large, it pales into insignificance when compared with the procurement budget.
If you are using software that is running a large part of your goverment infrastructure you want to be clear that no information is leaking out to other governments or foreign corporations. Which in the world of defence spanding (to reuse the example) is often the same thing, more or less.
Nothing to do with anti-american or anti-capitalist sentiments just plain and simple economics and security.
No but, yeah but, no but...
You forgot my favourite description of Dubya: Moron
Well, ex-president would be better, but we can't use that yet. Soon, I hope...
Dinosaurs.
the world view's America as the land of the selfish, run by corporations, headed by a falsely-elected retard, and not bothered about persecuting people, being hypocritical, or just plain murder if it's beneficial to profits.
Check.
MS is associated with similar "American" traits - bullying, being crap, holding the world back.
Check.
so being for open source and linux is like being against capitalism and MS.
Here I beg to differ. OSS is not at all opposed to capitalism. Capitalism is great. Capitalism still benefits from "common property" such as roads, and we should keep on building roads.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
That's not quite what the report say. The question is about suicide bombings against US troops and other westeners in Iraq. The way you formulated it made it sound like attacks on US soil.
From what I've heard from reports a lot of that goes back to the typical problem with US troops. They are just not good at making friends with the local population (among other things).
Why did this read "Linux" instead of "Open Source" just an hour ago? Crazy.
The whole point is that Linux is not limited to one or two platforms! If Linux only ran on *Intel Brand* hardware, then Intel would squeeze the market, and people would go elsewhere. However, you aren't limited to Intel or AMD or Sun or PowerPC. You aren't limited by either 32 or 64bit. Vendors compete on the basis of their features and price. If one vendor tries to put the squeeze on you, migrating to another platform is relatively painless. Makes it harder for the vendors, since they can't lock you in, but it sure frees the end user!
Your Servant, B. Baggins
I can easily do it in less words. For example, take this:
and change it to this:
That's down to 99 words right there. And yes, I was an English major.
Talk about being the right guy in the right place at the right time.
The guy walks away with 1/2 Billion just because he...well, he... I guess he was smart enough to hire somebody (clark) who knew what the @#$# they were doing.
The only other explanation is that he sold his soul to satan.
Windows is very well documented, both for developers and users. The availble APIs are fully documented in a consistent manner, and Microsoft does an excellent job of making sure future operating systems properly support all documented APIs.
And for the sibling poster who claimed documentation is not free, check out the following links.
I've been developing for Windows for 15 years and have never purchased API documentation. I used to purchase books for examples and ideas, but I haven't done as much of that over the last five years - online sites, both Microsoft sponsored and others, have filled the need.
One would assume it was meant humourously. Anyway, all open source users hate America: ask Dave Winer.
- Chris
"There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies."
Most software is developed by companies that drill oil, build widgets, sell things or move money around. Companies that actually _specialize_ in software, like Adobe, are a rarity (but getting more common).
Once, recently enough that I can just barely remember it, there were no software companies -- most software was developed by the organization that used it, and some was developed by hardware vendors like IBM. Then, in the 70's, companies that just made software began to emerge. But it's still the case that most software development is done outside of 'the software industry'.
(dozes off in armchair by the fire, mumbling about young people these days)
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Outook 2003
anit-Americanism is largely fed by the fact the America has done way too much "side-hopping" in the past. We help people for a while, then stop. We bomb a country for a while, then send them aid. We are the most fickly nation in history. I don't like the French, but at least they are consistent in who they hate, which is everyone who isn't French.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Licensing - I like the fact that I can use software licensed under the GPL and not worry about the license. Other licensing schemes have become so onerous. Shrinkwrap and sneakwrap, just to name a couple. Also, companies write into their licenses that they can change the EULA at any time, just by posting an update (non-obvious) on their website! I like the GPL. Anyone can understand it.
www.mikesmind.com - www.daddyworkathome.com - www.freetofarm.org - www.tenfoottable.com
politics. Most of the bad and horrible technological decisions I've seen first hand was the result of politics. Some bad decisions were the result of the vendor lying through their teeth and over-selling their product. The technological problems in all cases were solved, but the political ones rarely got solved. In fact, they tended to slide down hill faster and faster. Peer review is not unique to OSS, but from personal experience, politics often prevents and hinders open peer review in proprietary shops. There are plenty of senior software engineers who can't code worth a lick. In those situations, how likely is it a junior programmer will speak out? In OSS the risk is minimal, some one might flame you. At work, you might get fired. So peer review in one environment is different than the other. Whether one environment produces better code is still debatable, but more likely than not, some one contributing code to GNU or Apache tends to speak their mind.
Why is it that so many Americans think that just because someone supports the government providing essential services (such as healthcare), that they also support Hitler / Stalin?
I realize that some of you are, in fact, sane - but the lunatics are definitely running the asylum.
"Retard is an offensive term for mentally handicapped people."
Really? I thought was a verb, you pointy-headed stupid twit.
Disclaimer I am a linux loving desktop hippy who plays games ONLY on windows 2003.
True enough except not really certain parts of it certainly are. TCP/IP bind apache etc are all opensource. Telecom infrastructure sure as hell isn't. Neither is the hardware that powers all the opensource. At best it is 50/50.
True enough. Opensource can usually be downloaded legally wich is a bit less usual for propietary code.
And how do all those outsourcing project work? Over the internet. It is more like opensource is possible because of the internet. Opensource is big because of the internet not the other way around.
Well sure. As soon as someone gets all the bugs out of openssl. It is not the biggest piece of software in the world and still holes are found. Sure they are plugged as soon as possible but they are still there. Opensource is only secure at the moment because nobody has found a gigantic hole yet. We may not be so lucky in the future.
Oh boy. What a nice way to ruin an article. Exactly what is meant by it anyway? I know plenty of "anti-american" kiddies. They just go with the flow but I don't see them using linux. They spout of against america because it is cool but it is just words. None of them practice it. Would be hard to do as none of them got a clue.
There is a far more real anti-"what america has become" feeling. How exactly this applies to the choice of software would be hard to say. I think at best you can say it is powered by an anti-coorperation feeling but this would not exactly explain why big business is adopting linux.
This argument is too big to be included in a short list.
Incentives around closed source include million dollar salaries. I think this is a tie.
Linux stands on the shoulders of unix. Since when has unix been opensource? Sentence is incomplete. Opensource stands on the shoulders of giants who may have nothing to do with source at all or who developed some closed source but allowed others to use it and work with it and it is sharing a place on those shoulders with closed source.
Nice speech but meaningless.
So does windows. In fact it runs only on Intel and AMD but linux runs on the most expensive hardware out there. Intel isn't proprietary? WAHAAA. Intel isn't expensive? Depends, get some real hardware from intel and you will be paying big money. Not as big as "real" servers but you get what you pay for. Itanium? Better have a 19inch fridge ready to cool it.
True. Same as tron. Tron is also capable of running on the desktop. Have you even seen it live? So my washing machine etc will run on linux but I control it via windows? Nice win, not. Only if all linux powered embedded devices are also compatible with linux on the outside it will mean very little.
Ehm, right. What was AT&T again? Or Xerox? Software companies? Don't think so. Hell software being developed by software companies is a relativly new idea.
Yup but that is not a reasing why it will win. It is a symptom of the fact that it is winning. Cause and effect I am afraid.
Yes nice. Free as in money or free as in freedom. People care about money. Far less about freedom. Opensource costs money. Same as closed source. You need to pay someone to maintain your setup. To install and modify.
I know he was trying to limit words but this sentence should be more specific.
"Opensource allows freedom."
CONCLUSION:
Meaningless.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
On the contrary, many of us in Canada do care. And joke about it. A lot. It seems fitting that was once the land of the free is now what it pledges to defend against: a nation controlled by the few, with an appointed leader.
Despite the fact that the whole open/free source movement is arguably an American invention?
Maybe it is, maybe not; it's actually irrelevant. The point is that OSS isn't owned by anybody: there's no centralized point of control.
8. Apple is dead.
Damn right! For extra security, they should use SE Linux instead ...
Eh? You really mean to say you think that, before one year ago, everyone in the world LOVED the US?
Look, I'm not happy with the situation in Iraq, but to blame all anti-American sentiment on the War is just plain dumb-ass. To blame all anti-American sentiment on any one thing is just as stupid. There are lots of reasons why people dislike the US. Some of those reasons are good, and some aren't, but most go back to policies that have been in place since at least WWII.
The point is that Open Source will boom because people, and even more so governments don't trust an American Monopoly, especially one which has been repeatedly convicted of abusing its monopoly position to extend its power and control.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Two years ago, at my previous employer, I sat across the conference-room table from Mr. Andreessen while several of Loudcloud's salesmen and "sales engineers" literally shouted at me and the other developers and admins on the tech staff that our reliance on "shareware schemes" (the lead salesman's term for FOSS) was going to be our company's downfall and that we were fools not to let them save us. Six months later Loudcloud morphed into Opsware and got out of the enterprise hosting business. We hadn't signed their contract, either.
Maybe he was thinking counter to his salesforce even then, though that is giving him the benefit of some large doubt. I don't think he was actually thinking about anything in particular related to that meeting, since he spent most of his time checking information on his Blackberry and filling out a Federal security clearance application, and didn't participate in the meeting other than to sit there and look famous.
In any case, this story makes me laugh, only half-ruefully.
Also, since when is desire for control over one's computing systems 'anti-American sentiment' (point 5).
Yes, the Linux kernel and associated parts of the system are open source. That's not what I mean. I mean the persistant equating of "open source" and "Linux," especially on Slashdot. That is, "open source success" is immediately assumed to mean "Linux success." This is the root of the problem, I think.
Open source is good. Linux is...well, it's good but it's not really what's needed for desktops. It's a modern incarnation of old thinking, something one notch below an OS for heavy iron mainframes, much too complex and awkward to really want on my desk. I live with it because it's better than Windows in some ways, but I've used UNIX professionally, and UNIX on my desktop and notebook is categorically what I don't want. And if I don't want it, just think about people who don't know much at all about computers.
Now if Linux were drastically simpler to understand and configure than Windows, then we'd have something here.
For chuff's sake, people hate you so much, they are prepared to fly aeroplanes into your buildings! That speaks volumes.
Right, because terrorism never occurs in Europe, Asia, Africa, or the Middle East. Oh, wait, that's different because those people didn't have to cross an ocean to do it, right?
-PainKilleR-[CE]
You forgot "corporate schill"
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
The world can kiss my butt then.
Sorry, your head's in the way
Come on, you really haven't gotten out much, have you? Whatever you've been doing with yourself to keep you from seeing a bit more of the world than your own country, it certainly cannot have been reading any history. Yes, the US' involvment in the second world war (since you insist on bringing that up) was a great help to a great many people. But how does that justify the current US administration's actions recently? Have you no idea of the reasons they went into Iraq? Do you not remember them lying to the public? Lying to the UN? Hell, BUGGING the UN? That several people from within the administration have come forward to say that these lies occurred? That the admin. was already working on a plan to create an excuse to invade Iraq BEFORE sept 11, 2001?
Have you not noticed that the admin. is made up of oil executives? For chrisakes, the Nat. Security adviser has a fucking oil tanker named after her! Do you really believe that garabage they're saying about doing all of this for the people of Iraq?
Really, read a book sometime. Watch something besides that pablum you get on the corporate networks. Meet a 'foreigner'. Take a trip.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
I didn't use the word "antiamerican", Andreesen did. I totally agree with your point, I'm questioning Andreesen's statement and conclusion.
Many big open-source projects out there have some degree of American involvement, so if they can't use any of that due to anti-American sentiments, they'll have to code their own stuff. And at that point, why would they want to go open-source instead of closed-source...?
They don't really care about whether or not Americans had anything to do with the development. What they care about is whether or not they have to pay for software and/or pay an American company for that software.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
retard
n. Offensive Slang
1. Used as a disparaging term for a mentally retarded person.
*Meep* Wrong!
There are several ways to implement a backdoor, and many of them are practically invisible. There is no need at all to open a port and handle incoming traffic (wich would be very obvious). Instead if you want to implement a backdoor you could just leave some input-parameters of a service unchecked so it can be exploited by a buffer overflow. If anyone notices this flaw later you can still say "Ooops... but hey, everyone makes mistakes. I'll just fix it..."
I know that buffer-overflows are not a good example since they are not easily exploitable in SE-Linux anymore (iirc). But the basic concept remains still applicable.
Maybe thast's the reason a big Company like MS takes so long to correct some very simple bugs, like the one about BMP-files in IE (http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/15210). As soon as they fixed all their bugs they would be forced to release a new Windows-Version with new backdoors^d^d^d^d^d^dvulnerabilities.
Who guarantees that MS really didn't know about some of the bugs initially and they didn't just provide a list to NSA?
regards,
q.kontinuum
Trolling is a art!
Bush got better grades than Gore in college and graduate school (Yale and Harvard don't forget)
Al Gore FAILED OUT of grad school twice.
Who's the moron?
And so on.
Linux is old in the hobbyist market. Linux is the player to beat in the server market. And in the scientific computing market. It is now well-established in the embedded field. It is getting a foothold in the corporate desktop market.
The home desktop market is still missing.
It runs on lots of platforms. Intel != x86. x86 != intel. He also forgot to mention PowerPC etc as an alternative and forcing it into a lower price point because of this.
You can make it 100 words by altering #2 and still make it say the same thing.
:)
2. The Internet is the carrier for open source.
to
2. The Internet carries open source.
BAM! 100 Words or Less
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
The world can kiss my butt then. I'm tired of it. If it weren't for America the whole world would be speaking German or Russian.
If by the "Whole World" you mean "Western Europe", then yes. The "Whole World" would probably be speaking Russian.
I can't help but notice that Eastern Europe apparently is populated by some sort of sub-humans, below consideration, in your world view. Or, in your history books did the USSR and the entire Eastern Block abandoned to Stalin at the end of the war simply never exist?
It's also odd to me that the other five populated continents have slipped out of your world view. Did we save China from speaking Russian? How about India? Australia? Argentina? Poland? Libya? Canada?
Anyhow, thanks for playing "History", the game where you make the rules.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Right, because terrorism never occurs in Europe, Asia, Africa, or the Middle East.
Of course it does. People are always blowing up US embassies and the like here. Just ask all those people in Madrid.
Oh, wait, that's different because those people didn't have to cross an ocean to do it, right?
Yeah, we've got our own Timothy McVeigh type characters as well.
The 3 words you posted certainly made you a troll.
What proof do you have that Apple is dead?
Apple is gaining marketshare, and more importantly, "mindshare" - every day.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Benefitting from anti-American sentiments is a good thing?
What about the hypothetical future where America throws itself whole-heartedly behind open source? Are we then expected to switch to some OS that America *doesn't* back?
What kind of world outlook do you have when you assume as naturally as breathing that "anti-American sentiments" are not just the inevitable future, but something you should draw your map using?
How about "Open Source is the scientific method- it allows for visible and testable selection of the best solution to any given task, so it is the inevitable result of software development."
Or you could just point out that the only reason proprietary software is any good is because the programmers where taught coding standards and shown code sections that are free to look at and sometimes use- and that "proprietary" is just an artificial term meaning "much less open", a standand of coding different from the natural state developed by businesses for their profit.
Maybe it's not snappy and it doesn't have a dig at the country that popularized the notion of "Free speech is good", but why is that desired?
"It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
Saying "simply" is a bad idea. It makes it sound like open source code is inherantly more secure... written, released, secure all in one fell swoop. Succesfull open source code might be more secure but it was work to make is so. It didn't just happen. People had to look at it, analyze it, use it, push it and do things to it that weren't meant to be done. That can happen with closed source exactly the same way. However, open source seems more accountable and verifiable to the outside world (in my opinion). Accountable in that they don't put 4 pages of EULA that must be agreed to before ever running the program(1), and that you can usually access the developers of the software if something is really fscked. Try getting through to a software engineer at microsoft if your machine keeps booting up into an unstable state and explore.exe or whatever it is keeps crashing on load. Verifiable in that you can view the source code, or hire someone to do so without NDA's or other contractual obligations to the owners of the source code.
I would have prefered, "Open source can be verified as secure, where closed source can not." But that isn't even perfect.
(1) question: does the GPL or BSD license have to be agreed to for simply executing a binary created by source code released under the GPL or BSD license? naively I assume it does not need to be agreed to, only if you redistribute.
1. "The Internet is powered by open source."
Sorry, but this statement is a little too broad. As far as I am aware (and I'm open to being proven wrong - bait!) a large amount of "The Internet" is powered by Cisco routers which run the proprietary operating system IOS. I accept that there are a large amount of Sendmail/Postfix/Exim/Qmail boxes around pushing email, but there are also a hell of a lot of MS Exchange Servers and IBM Lotus servers pushing email as well powering corporate email.
Sendmail, Apache, BIND. Three Opensource programs each with over 50% market share on the internet at large. Not at all an overgeneralization. All of the root servers save three are running BIND. Thats the majority of the internet being powered by opensource.
2. "The Internet is the carrier for open source."
As it is for proprietary systems.
Not always, and less so. While WinZip might be distributed online, generally proprietary software is sold in retail chains, through corporate purchasing agreements, etc. Not the internet.
3. "The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
That is because open source is largely decentralised. Business itself is decentralising to some degree (although not to the same level as Open Source - but this can be as much a strength as a presumed weakness).
He was mentioning it as a strength - just because it can also be a weakness doesn't change his statement.
4. "It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
This is the one that erks me the most. Lets take a look at the nuts and bolts of the O/S rather than the user interaction. There have been probably (if someone has stats, I would love to see them) as many Linux (think SSH + FTP + Telnet etc...) exploits out there as there have been on Windows (think IIS).
Generally not true. By numbers, Linux generally has fewer. However, more importantly is the impact - how severe is the risk (priv escalation, or remote root compromise?), and how widespread is the impact? (A single OS version has a 60% penetration worldwide).
The more the Linux front-end bloats like Windows has over the years and the more "features" that get added to various products introduce security risks.
But the fundamental design decisions (seperation of priveldge, power users, non-root users by default) ensure LESS impact. Not to mention the many-eyes theory has proven generally true to date (with notable failures).
The fact that the source is open means that people can exploit it rather than by trial and error or just hacking around than by actually analysing the source and finding weaknesses in it like people did with the Windows leaked source code.
Which do you see more worms for - Apache or IIS? The code is available for Apache, its more widely deployed, and yet FAR more exploits exist for IIS than Apache. Its not source availability making it less secure - its poor programming.
Most of the bad security press (especially recently) has been Outlook (Express) based Worms and this was do to introducing a good idea (feature) that turned sour.
No - it is (continuing - not past tense) due to a fundamental design choice. Microsoft products treat DATA and CODE as one and the same - the result being that there is no seperation between them, and content can be active. In almost all unix systems, the exact opposite choice is made.
That's why you don't see it happen on unix/linux systems - design decisions.
6. "Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
At our (proprietary) office peer respect amongst coders is pretty high too. Are we an exception?
How many people are in your office? That you hear the opinions of on a daily basis? The kernel mailing list alone has 100x the number of *notable* people I encounter on a daily basis - its about scope, volume, quality, and im
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
Al Gore failed out because he had a child and had to work. The Bush administration didnt like to point this out in the election because it would get him the sympathy vote.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
I read more history books in a month than most people do in their entire lives. I am quite aware of Europe, and take every opportunity to talk to as many 'foreigners' as possible. The U.S. did not lie to the U.N. Why don't you talk about the BRIBES from Iraq to Germany, France, Russia, and numerous senior U.N. officials? That is the real story of corruption in this war. Do you think France opposed the war for idealogical reasons? Ha! France had billions in contracts with Saddam Hussein at stake.
The fact that Bush has oil ties is irrelevant. Has the U.S. taken a SINGLE DOLLAR from Iraqi oil? No. Therefore your tinfoil-hat theory is nothing but hyperbole.
No, I don't believe the way was done solely for the people of Iraq. I believe the adminstration absolutely believed the weapons were there, and that it is pretty embarrassing that they haven't found any stockpiles.
Nonetheless, the European attitude of appeasement and their support for terrorists like Yassar Arafat are inexcusable and ignorant. Appeasement only encourages terrorists and thugs. Talk about learning from history-- Europeans should have learned that from Hitler. Appeasement shows weakness. I notice that the terrorists are not very circumspect in targeting political targets only. Just ask the victims on the trains in Madrid. (Don't even THINK of excusing those attacks as retaliation for the war in Iraq. Those were INNOCENT people.)
I have been *very* impressed with the latest versions of Linux (Suse 9 in my case). However, I went to install Evolution, and after I got it installed (after a few failed attempts), I had no idea how to run it. No icon anywhere, and I was never told during the install where the files were going to be placed. Had to go out and Find the executable on the hard drive. This is something that would never happen in Windows. Installers always put stuff in menus (and all the good ones ask where to put it). This is the sort of thing that raises the costs of Linux.
I just get tired of hearing that Linux is free (beer).
Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
Who's the moron?
Answer - they both are!?!
Open source software lowers capital barriers to market entry.
Proprietary software vendors will not create jobs for Americans:
So, ON THE WHOLE, OSS expedites job creation, MSFT et al. do not.When I had this discussion with MSFTie Rob Scoble, he wrote:
>Microsoft money does create jobs. 5000 in the
>past year alone (mine was among them).
And I replied:
This not a counterargument, because 'Microsoft money' is an aggregate of revenues from BigCos and SmallCos. My supposition is that money from SmallCos can produce more jobs if it stays in the hands of SmallCo execs/owners.
Also, when BigCos pay license fees to MSFT the net effect on American jobs creation is nil, statistically, as money moving from a BigCo to a proprietary IT BigCo is not money that becomes more likely to create American jobs as a result.
Q.E.D. :-)
by Indians or jobless propellerheads writing software for free. No thanks, I guess I'll become a real estate agent so I can feed my family.
I think, most people do not dislike the population of the USA, but many people and many governments I know dislike US politics, US dominance in the Software-Marketplace and in particular the criminal way Microsoft tries to develop their dominance. Therefore many people won't have a problem at all to use Software wich was developed in parts in USA as long as that does not mean to support Companies like Microsoft and as long as there is no security risk due to NSA spying on them.
Trolling is a art!
2) America has put back doors in other software that caused nasty things to happen.
That cracks me up. You're trying to make the point that other countries DO NOT trust the U.S. because (and you need to read the link you posted to understand this) they found out the Soviets were STEALING software from americans and then let them STEAL bad software instead?
That's rich! Thanks another incredibly stupid anti-american statement. Keep up the good work!
As for Gentoo - well, I don't know much about it, and don't want to right now. I like my OS's pre compiled, and easy to install :) Suse 9 is a great playground for me right now (I make my living on Windows though).
Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
Could this be any easier than
1) Open source
2) ????
3) Profit
from the to-stupid-for-words dept.
"Al Gore failed out because he had a child and had to work. The Bush administration didnt like to point this out in the election because it would get him the sympathy vote."
My mother worked three jobs, raising two kids on her own, and got straight A's going to school full time. Why didn't he just withdraw then?
Cry me a river.
Yes, but that giant is running around in the forest and will grab any halfing standing on his shoulders to beat the other giants with. I'd much prefer a friendlier giant...
I can do it in 3 words:
It is free.
The world would never be speaking Russian. Even when Russia took over a country, it never forced them to speak Russian. It was Germany. There was a famous joke in America that we landed in France just as soon as they finished learning the German National Anthem(forget actuall name).
You need to stop your socialist bashing. China is still considered a Socialist country. No one in China gives a fuck what the Americans think as long as they are taking our money. Democracy is not the best thing for every country. China is doing quite well without it. Britain still has a queen, even if she doesnt do anything.
The Europeans arent really blaming America for anything. They say that it was wrong for us to go and wage War on somebody. They just didnt want us to go in and kill people. And as someone just said, the French just hate us because we are not French.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
"Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
WTF does this have to do with it? Open source software isn't/shouldn't be political.
What now? Are developers supposed to design for this? Market their software this way? What the hell is this world coming to?
"Never tell me the odds"
>so being for open source and linux is like being against capitalism and MS.
Against capitalism? Open Source is compatible with capitalism. It only changes the software economy from product based to service based. And the core thing which capitalism is based on, competition is better when you have many companies offering services, not one "owner" who has sole rights for distribution and changes.
Just after Sept 11, 2001 - most of the world (save a few corners of hatred) loved the US. Most across the globe was a New Yorker for a short period.
The Bush politics, and pushy-war-mongering, squandered the good will of the world in record time.
Now, after a few years, most of the world is indiffernt to the US, a bit more of the world hates us, and Great Britain is on our side.
You're both right. Where's the agrument there?
It's unfortunate yet brutally honest that 'anti-American sentiment' and 'outsourcing' are both on the list.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
"I can't help but notice that Eastern Europe apparently is populated by some sort of sub-humans, below consideration, in your world view. Or, in your history books did the USSR and the entire Eastern Block abandoned to Stalin at the end of the war simply never exist?"
This statement was unreasonable. I never accused Eastern Europe of being populated by sub-humans.
As far as the other continents go, read some of my other posts. I have referred on numerous occasions to French imperialism in Africa, for example. India speaks English to this day because a EUROPEAN country conquered it. Poland was a former Soviet republic, and to this day honors Ronald Reagan for his tremendous contributions in freeing them from Soviet rule.
As far as Asia is concerned, there is no question China would like to conquer the rest of it. If the U.S.S.R. had survived, many believe it and China would have inevitably clashed as well. So which form of communism would you like to live in?
Maybe not yet, but there's a growing resistance.
He forgot to give as well as mention a time frame..... dumbass guy.
"The Milliard Gargantubrain? A mere abacus - mention it not."
"Democracy is not the best thing for every country. China is doing quite well without it."
Sure, forced abortions. Imprisonment of political dissidents. Censorship. I have a very close friend (over twenty years) who lives there now teaching English. Don't even start with me on China... you will lose. The people of China are wonderful, truly, but the government is a pile of dung.
Congratulations, you just made the stupidest comment ever made on Slashdot-- quite an accomplishment.
You can look at both sides of argument here:Al Gore Won. I couldnt care less either way.
Bush Miserable Failure (lets keep him up on the google ratings).
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
It's a great wonder to see other countries switch over to software and operating systems that are open. This was how it was supposed to be. I think I just wet myself. Crap.
Nice try, but capitalism is not what we have in the US. Are you aware that the average US citizen is forced to pay 50% of their yearly earnings to federal, state, and local governments combined?
The paradigm of capitalism is that individuals -- not government -- choose where, when, and how to spend their earnings. The market is supposed to evolve through voluntary association, not force. What we have today in the US is a far, far cry from that.
All of his reasons are trivial. They do not prove or even attempt to support a position. 103 words simply isn't enough. The devil is always in the details.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
A large part of the world is anti-U.S. government, not anti-American. Most Americans don't know this, but the U.S. government supports the killing of Arabs by supporting a scheme of embezzlement: U.S. weapons makers and other largely secret influences have arranged that Israel be given about $5 billion each year as "foreign aid". (The figure varies somewhat each year, and may not be accurate for this year.) But the money can be used only to buy U.S.-made weapons, like the "AH-64 Apache helicopters" mentioned in today's story: Hamas Leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin Killed in Gaza.
This arrangement allows U.S. weapons makers to "sell" more weapons than they would otherwise, and at pre-arranged prices. The Israelis are not careful about the price they pay, because the money is free, and because not discussing the price is part of the arrangement. Of course, everyone tries to keep all of this secret, and there is considerable pretense.
In recent interviews on U.S. TV, the King of Jordan and the foreign minister of Iran both say that the biggest factor encouraging al-Qaeda attacks on the U.S. is the U.S. government's long-standing support for killing Arabs in Palestine. A Jewish leader said that U.S. government money for weapons was like gasoline on the fire of Israeli-Arab conflicts.
There are only 14 million Jews in the entire world, and less than 5 million Jews in Israel. The $5 billion donation from the U.S. government is about $1,000 for every Jewish Israeli man, woman, and child.
I believe that no violence is justified. So, I am not justifying violence when I mention this: It is interesting to note that, throughout recorded history, beginning 3,200 years ago with an Egyptian pharoah, the decendants of Abraham (who became those we call the Jews) have had periodic conflicts with the people around them. The Jews move into an area and, within perhaps 200 years everyone else wants them killed. No other culture that I've been able to find provokes such hostile reactions. Mostly Jews blame everyone else. The only time I have ever known a Jewish person to take responsibility is a quote from former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger: "Any group that has been persecuted for 2,000 years must be doing something wrong." (But it is 3,200 years.)
If you would like more facts about the purposes of al-Qaeda, you can download and read the al-Qaeda Training Manual from the U.S. government's Department of Justice web site: al-Qaeda Training Manual. Note that some of it is missing, presumably because the U.S. government does not want us to read it. Note that the conflict with Israel is mentioned. It has been plausibly suggested that much of the inspiration for the manual came from training given by the U.S. CIA to Arabs fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the early 1980s.
Osama bin Laden predicted that the U.S. would invade and occupy an oil-rich Arab state. The U.S. government under the present president Bush planned an attack on Iraq well before 9/11/2001. (If you watched yesterday's 60 Minutes TV news show on CBS, you saw this discussed intensely.) Those plans apparently encouraged al-Quaeda volunteers. The actual occupation of Iraq by the U.S. military encourages more to volunteer.
So, Americans live in fear and have their treasury drained by war so that weapons makers can make a higher profit.
There are other factors, of course, in this story of stupidity and illegality and ignorance. There is craziness. This is difficult to believe, but true, and has been widely reported: Christian fundamentalists in the U.S., who almost all support George Bush, have a plan to arrange the conversion or death of all the Jews, which they believe is predicted in their bible. There are numerous rationalizations and quotes from the Bible, but act
Yes I can. But unfortunately it requires using a lot of words like "adduce".
That doesn't say the same thing. Andresson clearly invokes the concept of "carrier" as a "transmission vector" in the disease sense; the Internet spreads the use of open source in an infectious manner. (It's not a disease, of course; a lot of non-diseases have disease-like spreading characteristics.)
Your reformulation merely states that the Internet happens to transmit bits that are open source, without the "transmission vector" aspect. It also carries other things.
Ain't English grand? This is why I end up being so verbose, so often; if I want, I can condense many of my multi-page essays down to one dense paragraph, but I prefer that more then a handful of my readers understand what I'm saying. (Which still may not happen often, but what can you do?) You can see a lot more of this in the other Slashdot replies too; 103 words is nice, but by the time everyone is done misinterpreting and projecting onto them, one wonders if a 103-page essay wouldn't have been called for. (Of course, more words means more opportunities to misinterpret; argh!)
What's odd about this statement, really, is its specificity. One could just as well say, "Open source benefits from anti-India sentiment" or "Open source benefits from anti-France sentiment". It's hard to read that specificity as anything other than a thinly veiled endorsement of anti-Americanism.
The more general case would be, "Open source enables corporations and nations to become more independent."
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Here is an interesting excercise for you.
1) Study up on just where american troops have been stationed outside the US, how long they have been there, and in what numbers.
2) Study up on why they went there in the first place. Then check out why they have stayed.
3) Imagine the USA withdrawing all their troops and support from those areas now.
4) Imagine what would have happened had we not stationed them there in the first place and maintained a presence there.
It is more than just "involvement" in the second world war, as you put it. It is a continuing effort to sustain countries that are notoriously unstable and susceptible to outiside attacks.
As for our current actions, I am of the feeling that the governemnt has not been completely honest with the American public, however it is not just this administration that has done it, and I don't think it has been dishonest in the same way that everyone else thinks they have been.
In addition, I feel that the political public (those that vote and those that participate in the media machine that tries to influence all the one who do not vote) is so overwhelmingly occupied with attaining special rights and considerations for themselves and their groups that they do not have the time or mental capacity to undrstand the real resons why the USA would want to have a strong military presence in the Middle East.
Even saying the words "Long Term Strategic Planning" would get most people's eyes to glaze over. Stating that the Soviet Union had achieved global dominance through strategic warfare would get you blank stares and you would have people ready to refute you who did not even understand strategic warfare. And if you said that the welfare of the USA depended on breaking the decades long pattern of ignoring strategic warfare, counter-insurgency, and "wet" intelligence work, you would have people lined up around the block to shout you down.
Fortunately, not everyone listens to these voices. Fortunately there are some people who have studied the history of the world through the eyes of the military, and with a view for keeping this country viable.
The most heinous tragedy is that the people who live here are more concerned with whether or not their network television show will be cancelled than whether or not their country will be around in the next 50 years. They revel in their ignorance and are more ready to listen to people from other countries than they are to their conscience.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
Don't even THINK of excusing those attacks as retaliation for the war in Iraq. Those were INNOCENT people.)I have no idea what this means. Spain has had troops in Iraq and was supporting the war the hole time. Now they have a leader opposed to the war, and havent had any attacks since. This can be compared to our great security since 911, and we havent had any attacks since.
And even if we didnt steal any oil from them, we still benefit. If they had stopped producing oil, or charged higher prices we would have been screwed. We would have to rely on Russia a lot more. The prices for oil around world would have gone up. The Bush administration effectively flatlined the price of oil by having a US friendly government installed.
And stop with your crap that America ended WWII. If you stop reading American History books you might notice that Germany was already retreating from the Russians by the time America landed. The German people were in fact happier to surrender to Americans. The Russians had seen what the Germans had done to the women and children on their trip to Moscow and wanted revenge.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
I read some articles about bribes to France and Russia. And I read that the same articles mentioned that there where strangely no bribes to Germany. Could you link an article about Germany? BTW: There are A LOT of stories about countries receiving bribes to support the USA invasion plans.
The fact that Bush has oil ties is irrelevant. Has the U.S. taken a SINGLE DOLLAR from Iraqi oil?
LOL No, of course not. The pipelines are exploding all the times. And the oil they do get out they do not take right away, but instead they are selling it, giving the renenue officially to Iraq and after that taking it away again to pay the reconstruction. US is dictating the price in that point, US companies making their revenue. Of course only american companies are allowed to get those contracts. And of course most of the contracts go to companies with strong ties to the US govornment.
I believe the adminstration absolutely believed the weapons were there
And that justifies to falsify evidence to the UN and to bug them? I don't think so.
Sorry, I will stop here. To come up with the old appeasement-bullshit is just more than I can take right now.
Here I beg to differ. OSS is not at all opposed to capitalism. Capitalism is great. Capitalism still benefits from "common property" such as roads, and we should keep on building roads.
The problem is all that "good" stuff requires tax revenue. Fact is that it's difficult to make money developing open source software. Not much tax money comes from zero income.
I wonder if the government looks at free OSS like "free as in tax evasion?"
Hehe, reminds me of the Dilbert episode where Wally goes to prison expecting to be pampered with an Internet connection and marriage proposals, and instead ends up with a big burly prison buy using him as a pick-axe. :)
Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
"Open source developers do not understand the needs of its users or usability."
Cause in countries I lived in(Canada and France) people don't hate American or the American people. If we hate anything it is your administration. There is also concern that we won't be as happy as you are if we started living the way you do. This doesn't mean we hate you.
The problem is that Windows is so widespread that if you want to develop for the largest consumer group, you have to develop for Windows. And that often require Windows also for the developer.
You can't pontificate the future of open source, you can simply dangle the carrot of success by figuring out ways to make it more appealing to the largest number of people.
Are you trying to say there is no censorship in America. What do you call Fox News?
I just read an article on Chinas abortions. Youre right that is pretty bad. My argument still stands on an economic level though.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
NOT even "Anti-Microsoft".
What's really at play is that some economies may prefer to see their money on government systems spent on local companies.
What's better for your economy? Spending money on foreign jobs, or your own jobs? Even if it costs fractionally more, some of that fraction will be returned as taxation/local spending.
Whether or not you are mature enough admit it, that statement holds a lot of truth. And it applies to OSS in general as well.
... but let's see if I'm the only person that thinks that way.
Reasons why Open Source Will Boom:
[1] This allows a small company to use the same software that the "big boys" are using. This means a company can pick the support, training and developer options that suit their budget and needs without sacrificing themselves to inferior software, or locking themselves into proprietary crapware. Small companies will have improved options for support, reference material, third-party add-ons, etc. It's going to be great news for small companies. It also means that amateur developers can train themselves on the proper software. No more piracy to keep yourself abreast of the latest software. No more "Education" versions or crippleware. It's all the real deal, baby!
[2] If Australia buys 1,000,000 Windows desktops (Windows + Office) then that's half a BILLION dollars going overseas to the USA. Imagine how much money is flowing into the USA from the rest of the world, thanks to the USA led dominance of the software industry. This has a bigger effect on smaller and poorer countries. Countries who recognise this economic impact are naturally going to encourage local software development but what software can compete with Microsoft? OSS can! Better to pay a local to improve OSS than send the money overseas! We're already seeing this argument appearing in briefing papers from the New Zealand government, the German government, the Peru government, etc. Governments will be sneaky about this; they'll impose tariffs and legal obstacles to encourage OSS (and perhaps locally owned proprietary software as well).
[3] The gigantic developer base possible with OSS means it will grow faster than any other software. We're already seeing this happen. Linux was 1 developer in 1991. 100 developers in 1992. 1,000 developers in 1993. Current estimates (including userspace projects like GNOME and GNU) are upwards of 100,000 developers. Not all of those developers work fulltime but it doesn't matter because the growth is accelerating. GNU/Linux got to where it is today with far fewer developers. It's going to be a wild wide from now on in. In 5 years time I think it will be obviously ludicrous for a proprietary company to "compete" against popular OSS projects like Linux. The only way to recruit enough developers to be competitive will be for companies to cooperate via OSS licensing.
[4] Incredibly important. Software is getting harder to write. In the 70s a single talented guy could do it in a year. Woz built the Apple I by himself. In the 80s, you needed dozens of people to build something cool. The Macintosh had 80+ people in the team and it took 5 years, though admittedly Burrell and Raskin and Hertzfeld and Atkinson were key figures in its success. A modern OS like Longhorn has 1000s of developers and takes 6+ years even though they aren't starting from scratch. A small startup can't start from zero; they need to license software from Microsoft or WindRiver or they'll never complete in a reasonable time. This reinforces the dominance of Microsoft and WindRiver. Great for the companies in control. Terrible for the startup. Rather than spend money on new and exciting things, they're wasting money on licenses so Bill Gates can buy another extension to his $50 million mansion. OSS gives every startup the same headstart. Companies don't need to start from zero! They can start from a working FREE foundation. They can invest in exciting new technology. "If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants".
[5] Open Source allows the users to grow the software in unplanned directions. OSS will fill every software niche, even ones t
Umm, what part of my statement do you disagree with? Yeah, the Russians STOLE the software. And the software caused BAD SHIT TO HAPPEN. I never commented on whether the Soviets did or did not deserve bad shit to happen. My point was that they stole a black box from America and it blew up in their faces. Hence, they aren't likely to want to steal more black boxes.
Windows sucks.
While Mr. Andreessen (note to editors - 2 s's really are sufficient), sings the praises of open source, he also sings the praises of source of the out kind.. Of course, that's where he makes his money, right?
Sigs are bad for your health.
15 years! How did you get access to http://msdn.microsoft.com/ before it was on the net?
I had to buy MSDN CD-ROMs before the net became popular.
As far as Asia is concerned, there is no question China would like to conquer the rest of it. If the U.S.S.R. had survived, many believe it and China would have inevitably clashed as well. So which form of communism would you like to live in?
Neither Nation was a true Communism. They were both Socialist. And their Socialist views were very different. Chinas current Socialist government supports capitalism. There is only one form of Communism. Where everyone would own everything, and there would be no leaders. Both countries never satisfied that requirement.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
First, I disagree with your characterization of Fox News. It is a pretty classy news organization. O'Reilly is NOT a reporter, he is a commentator.
Second, assuming that in fact a news organization does censor, that would still be different than government-enforced censorship. Fox News is a private business entity and has editorial license. Nobody goes to prison if Fox News reports or doesn't report something.
You are not making sense. Compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges. Also make sure you understand the DEGREE of censorship and relative punishment for violating it. In America, the media bashes Bush non-stop. We allow that. In China, you go to prison if you do that.
Actually, a lot of the third world problems are caused by American economic and cultural imperialism.
Lets take the small central African country of Burkina Faso, for example. Their major product of export has traditionally been cotton. However, because the U.S. feels it necessary to subsidize the roughly 25,000 cotton farmers here to the tune of $3 billion a year (an amount higher than the value of the cotton even unsubsidized), the Burkinabe can't get their cotton to market for anything close to the artificially low price of American cotton. At the last global trade summit, our response was not "Lets slowly phase out these subsidies over a period of years and play fair," but rather "Tell you what. Here is an agro product we don't really deal with. Instead of cotton, how about you grow it?" And that, my friend, is Imperialism.
What?
1) By removing money from the US economy.
Outsourcing brings *more* money into the US economy by lowering costs and increasing profits.
2) By reducing the US tax base, because less internal jobs = less taxation
More profits = more corporate taxes. Companies can also invest more in the higher skilled, higher paid jobs when they've reduced costs. The outsourced work needs project managers in the US.
3)By reducing the skills base of your country in the long term.
Outsourcing has been proven created more jobs in the original country in the medium to long term, which are higher skilled and higher paid.
There is so much rubbish spoken about outsourcing, and the same tired lines get trotted out here whenever the subject comes up. The fact is that the number of jobs lost due to it are far fewer than those lost in the normal economic cycle. The biggest factor in the current 'jobless recovery' in the US is the reckless economic policies being pursued by the government, not a few thousand projects being outsourced.
The US economy seems to be surviving more or less on arms sales, advertising, and illegal tarriffs as far as its economy goes.
Protectionist policies such as illegal tariffs and trade-distorting subsidies are hurting the economy, not helping. Simple example: in the US, sugar prices over the past 10 years have averaged 3 times the world market price, thanks to tariffs and subsidies that benefit a few sugar producers in swing states who have well-paid lobbyists. Meanwhile consumers pay for this twice through increased prices on any food with sugar in it, and the taxes used to pay the subsidies.
This is your Fox News:Fox News Sucks. Look at the percentages. Fox News is very Pro-Bush.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
> "The Internet is powered by open source."
Like Cisco or Nortel?
No, like Sendmail, or Cisco's Open Source Initiative
>"The Internet is the carrier for open source." ... who run the country :-( ).
It's also the carrier of porn and illegal copies of propritary software.
That doesn't transfer evil to (F)OSS merely by being transported the same way (except in the eyes of some people
>"The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed." ;-> )I think the point being made is about the exapandability of the of (F)OSS development style.
It is also the platform through which propritary software is developed.
(Thus associating proprietry software with pr0n and warez as you pointed out above.
>"It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
Not nescessarily. Most insecurities are due to looming release dates. There is also a tradeoff between usability and security. Which is better? Depends on your mission.
Many (F)OSS projects lack big PR departments which have an alarming tendancy to set release dates and feature lists at early stages. And usability IS improving, with the improvements in KDE/Gnome, even though the GUI is not so essential for many computing uses.
>"Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
Not sure about this. I just got back from Kuait and there are literally hundreds of street vendors there selling propritary software.
But how many were selling legal copies? (F)OSS software companies are often not so hurt by illegal copying as propietry software companies would be.
>"Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
Like the respect between the Reiser group and Linus? Why did it take so long to get that patch added? Those two crews showed as much respect as a couple of kids yelling "Did not! Did too!"
Surely that is an exceptional case. The job of Jobs/Wozniak/Gates is to make money for shareholders. The job of Torvalds/Stallman is to make great software (I think).
>"Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants."
Uuh, not sure what he means by this. I'm assuming he means IBM. What about Sun, MS, Adobe, and other closed source "Giants"?
That quotation of Newton's metaphor is a little confusing in this case. Newton (originator of quote) meant that he could start with previous scientist's public discoveries instead of wasting time having to rediscover them. (F)OSS developers can often start with bits of public existing code instead of wasting time having to reinvent them.
>"Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel."
So does Windows. And when you are buying a $10k server, $200 for Windows doesn't even figure into it.
He seems to be talking about disadvantages of Apple (and similar) here.
>"Embedded devices are making greater use of open source."
You have a winner here. But imbeded Windows and QNX are also players. This marker is not usually concerned with backwards compatibility and is very volitale in regards to the underlying kernel they choose. If x86 chips become prevalant, expect Windows to dominate.
But (F)OSS Kernels are far more easily and cheaply trimmable and tweakable than proprietry ones. e.g. GNU/Hurd will (eventually) have modules, which can be loaded across a (e.g. mobile phone) network as needed.
>"There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies."
This has always been the case. Lots of companies need some app that custom-built. They don't really care where the source comes from. Since the app is rarely redistributed, they have no requirements to relea
Foreign governments will tend to use Linux, and encourage their industries to use it, to avoid dependency on software from the evil USA?
Does this mean I am going to adds like: "If you use open source you are supporting terrorism!" popping up on TV again.
I repeat:
Yeah and Windows 2003 Server doesn't cost 5000$, unless YOUR TIME IS WORTH NOTHING, what was your point again?
Please tell me where in this sentence it is claimed that Windows is free in any way or form.
Oh, and yes, a lot of people DO claim that Windows costs [insert license price without any TCO add-ons here].
"Documentation" does not necessarily mean specifications or man pages. Code in and of itself is documentation.
It may not be the best documentation, but you may want to ask the Samba developers if it would have helped them to have full access to the SMB source code.
Push comes to shove, when you have the source code, you can definitively say you have documentation of what the system does--not what it is supposed to do.
the world view's America as the land of the selfish, run by corporations, headed by a falsely-elected retard, and not bothered about persecuting people, being hypocritical, or just plain murder if it's beneficial to profits.
Anyone who believes that (and I refuse to childishly anthropomorhize 'the world') is, quite simply, an idiot. Or believing what they are told.
I refuse to pander to such people. You could spend your life trying to refute such infantile ideas, but you'd be wasting your time. People who believe tripe like that want to believe it; it satisfies some weird psychological need in them.
You are completely correct. I am entirely at fault for misunderstanding your orignal post.
I took your post as an argument for why NON-US entities (govts. or corporations) should not trust software developed by U.S. companies for sale on a Commercial market.
You can see why I would think that using an example of espionage/counter-espionage as a way to discredit the Trustworthyness of all U.S. software companies would seem ridiculous.
But your second post which clearly states that what you meant was that governments can not STEAL software from the U.S. and TRUST that it will work correctly is a very sound and logical statement.
Thank you, come again.
Think about it: Say you're someone like Saddam Hussein (2 years ago) and you're watching US TV. The president steps up to the mic and says "Terrorists must be stopped. They're bad bad bad, and we're going to do something about it!". If that president is a Reagan or Bush-type president, you know, it's going to be a problem. They're probably going to be sending large chunks of metal into your neighborhood at high speed, and soon. On the other hand, someone like Kerry only makes speeches like that to make themselves look good to the American people, and have no intention of actually following through. Doing so would be "unpopular". So, an evil dictator has nothing to worry about in that case. They can sit back, order some iced tea (a few executions, etc.), and relax.
This constant Bush-bashing pisses me off. WE ARE IN THE POSITION WE ARE IN BECAUSE OF PAST PRESIDENTS, NOT BUSH. Bin Laden was a threat for a long time before Bush appeared on the scene. As for the Iraq war that everyone's complaining so bitterly about: Saddam Hussein was a vile leader, and most likely reponsible for as many deaths of his own people as Hitler was toward the Jews. He NEEDED to be dealt with. Going over there and taking him out was the right thing to do. Not the popular thing, the right thing. There is often a difference.
Exactly who is saying that Bush is a "retard", anyway? The French?
the way I see it:
the common property parts from socialist economics. the private property parts are from capitalist economics.
most economies are a mixture of socialism/capitalism. pure US capitalism died in 1929 and the US has been proped up by socialism ever since.
There are a couple problems with this line of thinking.
[Disclaimer]
I am the owner of a small struggling Linux software development based support business. I face these issues everyday. Trust me, it isn't easy.
This perhaps expands on one of the reasons already stated, but also consider that open source adheres a lot more to standards, computer science discipline and the actual needs of business rather than the imagined ones dreamed up by tools industry marketeers.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Having taken into account all factors such as support costs, open source software must either:
(a) cost as much as closed source software
(b) cost the same as closed source software
(c) cost less than closed source software
In (a) or (b) the Government taxes the people and businesses who are charging those costs e.g. the people charging support costs.
In (c) the Government gets higher taxes from the companies making the cost savings and also the businesses that individuals spend their money with that they saved from getting cheaper software.
In summary, your argument is crap. I mean, even by Slashdot standards, it is really attrociously bad. It's like saying that everyone should buy an ostrich, because otherwise the government is losing tax revenues they would have made on ostrich sales.
his ass/arse so clever it can talk. Or is that just him talking out of it?
how can the FIRST question/mention of question #5 become -1 redundant, (check the message#'s) and a later one be +5?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
It's fairly obvious to anybody who has tried to learn anything remotely complicated from the MSDN documentation, that it is all purposefully misleading and confusing. In many cases the 'documentation' is outright wrong. Many examples simply do not work as presented.
This is deliberate, and the reasons are quite obvious. Windows has the vast majority of the market share for platforms. If you're a company writing software for multiple platforms, the most important platform to support is obviously Windows. By making the API documentation confusing, misleading, and subtly incorrect, Microsoft is able to bog you down in stupid details, forcing you to devote almost 100% of your development effort to supporting Windows. Failing to support the Windows market would be suicide. With no time left to support development on other platforms, eventually you end up dropping support altogether. This leads to the extinction of the competing platforms, due to no software support.
It should be noted that the only reason this strategy works for Microsoft is that they have a monopoly position. If they didn't benefit from this monopoly power, the software market would respond to this by shifting away from Windows.
i smell another point for Andreeesen's list...
Now before you mod me a troll or flamebait, let me make this explicitly clear: I don't hate Americans as people.
Like every other powerful country before it, however, the US government has been abusing its position. This is not just about Bush! A lot of us were against Clinton too, and don't think Kerry is a whole lot better either. Mind you, Bush has a bit of a cowboy swagger on the international scene that is definitely uncouth and hurting your reputation.
Four reasons why I disliked Clinton: Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq. He bombed all four based on lies. No evidence seems to indicate that Kerry would have acted differently towards Cuba or Venezuela. Or Iraq and the UN...
So, I'm not anti-American per se, merely opposed to your government accumulating far too much power. Y'know, the old "Power corrupts, absolute power..."
Ok, with that said, I believe open-source has the potential to reduce those power differentials that can lead to abuse, and I'll be delighted if Americans are also enriched by OSS.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
are you talking about open source software or terminal cancer?
Hey, I am an American and I like Linux! My admiration is for something that works. I like the fact that no longer does my money go to support an Robber-Baron who has very nearly destroyed the Software Development industry in the USA. I am very pro USA and like Linux so we need to drop the "Anti-American" from the reason it grows. Anti Robber-Barons maybe but not Anti-US.
This is not to say that some "Anti-US" feelings exist. They do.
For the record for my US fellow citizens, wake up! The feelings and impressions of the rest of the world may not all just be nationalism, hate and arrogance. I have family in the Philippines. I know that the impressions of the USA are not what most US people think. The reasons are not even close!
The "Freedom" stuff of the cold war days is HISTORY! Actually the USA is in many cases more "unfree" than other countries. The "Prosperity" stuff is also mostly in the past. The reasons for and the opinions vary greatly but frankly most US types need to be sent that famous post card showing the earth with the caption "Wish you were here." Most US Politicos need sent one showing the Milky Way with the same caption.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
Does anyone besides me find this as stupid and moronic as "Freedom Fries"
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
because you were too squeamish to do what had to be done?
Do you have the source?
I think you are the only person. But don't give up on the question.
Does this mean I am going to adds like: "If you use open source you are supporting terrorism!" popping up on TV again.
Nope, you won't have TV at Guantanamo Bay.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
And here's an exercise for yourself: try to imagine how it is that I'm in complete agreement with you :-) You're 4 points are all valid ones. I agree that having US troops stationed abroad has been necessary. What i disagree with is the latest administration's adventure in Iraq. Does the US need to consolidate power in Central Asia. You betcha they do. This is all about resources and strategic positioning. Am i happy about it? No, not really. But i happen to try to look at things realistically. So, i agree with you.
But, why, for instance, can the US admin. not explain to us why it's okay to base forces in Kazakhstan without first pushing Nazarbayev out of power and fostering democracy for the people there? See here for some background.
They revel in their ignorance and are more ready to listen to people from other countries than they are to their conscience.
I agree with the first part, though the second half loses me. I've met quite a few people who seem to wear their ignorance as a badge of honor, though.
In that regard, Bush himself has stated that he doesn't like to read the papers and instead relies on those around him to fill him in. That's bloody absurd, and should have been a wake-up call to the nation that he is a danger to us all. He was 'elected' to lead the executive branch. Yet he has failed in that regard. The otheres in the admin. are leading him around by the nose.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
why it's seemingly "taking so long" to gain momentum: inertia, and it's harder to configure & use* (because there's no incentive to make it easy).
:)
why it'll ultimately prevail: it has no acquisition costs. In business it usually always comes down to money.
(* The majority of "enterprise-grade" open source software I've used lately *is* more difficult to configure, at least, than win32-based stuff that installs with "setup.exe" But the open source stuff is more secure & cross-platform & extremely modular.
Osama, is that you? So... um, hey I wanted to drop by and deliver a present for you. Can I have your address? It's a really nice present. Seriously. I promise, it's way better than that singing bass thing that Mullah gave you that time (although, you know, I still think you overracted to that - I mean, the poor bastard is blind now).
PS: Yes, I know this whole thread is off-topic, but the parent poster is a gullible apologist for terror. How did that post get modded up? Exactly?
Does this translate to "Linux is the successor" in plain English?
America's commercially-powered government and responsibilities means its true nature isn't one of protection of people, but protection of money.
Money, in and of itself, cannot be "protected". What is being protected is individual property rights. Individual property rights impede wealth redistribution, and that is why they are hated by Leftists.
It all stems from that. America is insular because Americans want American money in America.
No, I think America is insular because it is surrounded by two politically insigificant neighbors and two oceans. The oceans have loaned to Americans much of their sense of self-reliance. I'm not talking about the American Government, I'm talking about Americans. People keep confusing the state with "the people" and it spawns all sorts of idiotic ideas (such as "The French hate Americans").
Al Qaida are after the US because the US put its troops in Saudi Arabia to launch planes into Iraq yet never took them out
That may be part of their motivation. Another part is that the US sends millions of dollars to Israel every year, and that is a thorn in the side of many Jew-hating Muslims. Another reason is that Jihad (which means "holy war" and meant that for centuries until recently when apologists have tried to redefine it as "struggle") is built into the religion itself.
It's all come to the point where you get Americans seemingly under the impression America is "better" than other countries, and that everything America does is, by very definition, "good".
This is part of almost every culture. It is not a wholly American phenomenon. I think what makes the Americans' cultural pride seem worse is the fact that America runs the world (for now).
The only thing America is better at than the rest of the world is impregnating incredibly baseless patriotism into its citizens, and gun crime.
I don't think that other nations need America to form their own patriotism, and I am interested in what you would consider to be "non-baseless" patriotism. Gun crime is part of American culture, but remember that America has more than one culture (just as France has more than one culture -- ask the Euskadi or Bretons), and some sub-cultures are more prone to gun crime than are others. To examine that question is not politically correct, so it doesn't get talked about much.
I think the one thing that America does better than other countries is capitalism. I believe that it is unbridled capitalism which has made America the most powerful country in the world. That, and a strong military and smart leaders which allowed us to put military bases in other countries -- the ramifications of which elude most Americans' NASCAR and College Football-soaked brains. Bread and circuses, anyone?
America isn't about freedom, liberty or justice - it's about stock, shareholders and dividends.
I agree with you that America isn't particularly in love with freedom any more. Look at drug seizure laws (bye bye 4th amendment), forced self-incrimination on tax returns (bye bye 5th amendment), the FCC (bye bye 1st amendment), the list goes on and on. I know that individual property rights probably make you mad. They make a lot of people mad. "Why should someone else have so much when I need so much?" Such is the basis of Leftism. How do you measure need? (Answer: you can't. It's based in emotion.)
I think that's what pisses most people off.
I think what pisses most people off is that America is on top, and they don't like American culture. A culture that one dislikes does not deserve to be on top, right?
It would be like if Jesus came back and decided to be a slave trader.
Argument by analogy.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
The most dangerous opponent you can ever have is someone who has nothing left to lose.
This is the exact problem that the governments of the world face when they go up against terrorists, especially terrorists that are willing to kill themselves.
In a similar vein, this is w2hat Microsoft and all the other for-pay software companies face when they go toe-to-toe with OSS developers. There is a multitude of college and experienced kids that are willing to donate their blood, sweat, and tears and completely give away their effort for free. New open-source developers are recruited everyday, just like suicide bombers.
How can a company, even Microsoft, beat them over the long haul? Technically, they can't because OSS will last forever, and bad quarters, accounting scandals, or corporate greed can't take them down.
The only way they can is through legislation, like forcing software providers to assume liability security violations, and patents.
If we let legislation pass that would force companies to assume liability for security violations, then all OSS is doomed. Some people have suggested that OSS projects be exempt from such a law, but do you really think that Microsoft's lobbyists would allow for that? If individual programmers were liable for security problems, this would definitely kill OSS.
The second issue is patents, and companies like Microsoft could very well corner the market on some key piece of software that would squeeze out OSS developers. Although it seems all-but-inevitable, Europe neeeds to do whatever it can to avoid getting US-style patent laws that patent both software and business processes, otherwise OSS will be mired in more lawsuits and less programming.
I don't like the way Bush use the "Anti-terrorism" banner for cover his business (i.e. oil)... yes, i hate that man... but i don't feel anything against american people... more even, i think they are great! :)
My point and what makes me feel sick is one thing: monopolies... and yes, Microsoft is one of them... i am anti-microsoft and i expect to say it to Bill in his face someday... his empire will fall... its a matter of time... Open Source rulez!!!
The only thing that would prevent such "Borgification" would be a superior kernel structure with a fundamentally different architecture.
DragonFly BSD. A truely modern OS.
Apple is dead.
How do you know? Have Netcraft confirmed it?
Linux is Free. Fact. No debating. From a monetary standpoint you have no arguement. Everything that comes after that may or may not cost money. But to say its not Free when it cleary is makes zero sense. That statement is just FUD.
"And it applies to OSS in general as well"
More FUD whether your "mature enough" to admit it, or not.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
"Open source benefits from anti-X sentiment" is only true for values of X in which X is a country which produces the majority of proprietary software on the international market.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
There are only 14 million Jews in the entire world, and less than 5 million Jews in Israel. The $5 billion donation from the U.S. government is about $1,000 for every Jewish Israeli man, woman, and child.
Thank you! Not enough people know this. It is apparently not in the US Government's interest to talk about this with their constitutents. "Aid" for Israel enjoys wide, bipartisan support in the U.S. Government. Why do the Democraps and Repugnicans agree so solidly on this issue when they fight like children on almost every other?
I believe that no violence is justified.
This is a stupid statement, and you can't possibly believe it. If someone tries to kill you, is your violent self-defense justified? Or should you just roll over and let violent predators have their way with you?
The present violence started when the U.S. government's CIA division secretly overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran, President Mossadegh, so that U.S. oil profits would be protected.
I can't remember who said it, but, "In diplomacy, there are no friends, only interests." It's hard to pin blame because all nations are, essentially, at some degree of war with one another.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Marc Andreessen is nobody. Once upon a time, he was a project manager at UIUC, not a good enough programmer himself to hack the alpha Mosaic browser to render images. Famously, he asked a team programmer to add inline images to the HTML rendering engine. The programmer replied "But that will destroy the Internet!", so Andreessen got him to add just inline "icons". Andreesen hacked that into the thoroughly bad support for rendering images that plagues HTML layout to this day, and destroyed the Internet. On the way out the door after graduation, the visionary Jim Clark of SGI turned Mosaic and its figurehead, Andreesen, into Netscape, destroyed the Internet, and cleared the way for the pretty cool Internet of today (mostly saved by Apache). But Andreessen peaked at UIUC, after which he turned against the system that blessed him: publicly crying over his IPO millions that tax money was wasted at public research institutions, and disappearing in a puff of hype after his turn at spokesmodel quickly evaporated. Why does anyone publish this clown anymore? *We're* the ones responsible for his riches, now his only claim to fame.
--
make install -not war
Outsourcing has been proven created more jobs in the original country in the medium to long term, which are higher skilled and higher paid.
I'd really like to read the proof. I can understand both sides of the argument, but so far all I have heard are different theories about how outsourcing affects the economy. That's not entirely true. I did see one report from NASSCOM a while back (too lazy to look it up now) but automatically discount that report because of the source.
Perhaps I should have phrased it as, "there was a huge outpouring of international support from governments and people alike. This good-will could have been nutured into a healthy relationship. Instead, the US gov't turned it's back on everybody - told the UN that it didn't want their help, or their rules - and declared war on 'terrorism' in an undefined (everyone is a threat) way."
It's just that the revised phrase doesn't make a readable bullet-point.
What I'm surprised wasn't mentioned here is the role of anti-corporate sentiment in promoting Open Source. Any company, big or small can support Open Source products. No company can really control the direction of Open Source development. According to the polls I've seen, 60-70% of Americans think larger corporations have too much power-Open Source has the potential to break some of the major strongholds of corporate influence in America and the world.
Whether you agree or disagree with anti-corporate sentiment, this may be a bigger issue than anti-American sentiment. I think Andreeson missed it because he's too close to the corporate world.
The fact that Bush has oil ties is irrelevant. Has the U.S. taken a SINGLE DOLLAR from Iraqi oil? No. Therefore your tinfoil-hat theory is nothing but hyperbole.
Er, did i say that? No, i didn't. Was i implying that the occupation of Iraq was a consequence of the Admin's plans for consolidation of their startegic presence in Central Asia? Yep.
I believe the adminstration absolutely believed the weapons were there, and that it is pretty embarrassing that they haven't found any stockpiles.
All the more so because many in the intelligence community keep saying that they did *not* believe that Hussein had re-started any of his bio/chem/nuke weapons programs. Read what Ray McGovern, Karen Kwiatkowsk, and Joseph Wilson, among others have to say in this regard. Note that i'm emphatically *not* communist/liberal/anti-capitalist. Read this essay by Chalmers Johnson for a bit of background if you don't understand where i'm coming from.
Nonetheless, the European attitude of appeasement and their support for terrorists like Yassar Arafat are inexcusable and ignorant.
I'll set aside the fact that Europe is a very crowded place which has seen more than its share of war - that's just too big a subject to get into here, and we're already *well* OT. Suffice to say that, sometimes, appeasement looks like the only likely way to survive for the moment. Look at all the shit that went down during and after the first world war. A fucking, bloody mess, that was. Sometimes, appeasement was pretty much all that could be hoped to work for the moment. And, while we're on the subject of appeasement, consider that the US, at various times, found more than enough reasons to side with some very ugly characters. Trying to tar Europe with that brush only reminds us of the US' actions in that regard.
And what's all this about terrorists? Oh, right - Hussein was the mastermind behind 9/11. Riiighht...
Just ask the victims on the trains in Madrid. (Don't even THINK of excusing those attacks as retaliation for the war in Iraq. Those were INNOCENT people.)
Fuck you, too. Where do you get off suggesting that that's my opinion on that. I find that extremely offensive.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
And Microsoft would want to create boatloads of legal exposure for itself? I don't get it.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
I think that American's do have a tendancy of hating those who hate them (personalizing politics without knowing the issues).
Which brings us back to that lack of editorial that I was talking of in another post.
I wonder if he's going to make opsware GPL licensed then too?
Well, the reason is that people can't afford those expensive software package anymore. Plus there are tons of software geek out there that is unemployed, and have plenty of time to write those "open source" with tons of bugs.
:D
Maybe that's why we don't see open source outsource to India
7. "Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants." That may be true, but Mr. Gates does stand on the shoulders of at least one real-life giant. Come on everyone: 'Developers, developers, developers ...'
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
So wouldn't that make it 2 words and one contraction?
Where does the Internet come from? Who is this DARPA organization? Hmm.
;)
People will always have something to bitch about. Well, we knew that
Your claim was that if wasn't for "America", the whole world would be speaking German or Russian.
So, how and when did America save the whole world from speaking German or Russian? Did we save India? Did we save China? Did we save Canada?
Or, on the other side of the coin, did we save Poland?
Exactly which countries make up the "whole world" in your view? And what world are you living in where France should never forget being saved the 1940's, while Poland should absolutely, positively forget being abandoned in the 30's and 40's, but always remember the 80's?
History, the game where everyone else should remember what I see through my rose colored glasses.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Having APIs writ in stone is much more important in the proprietary software world. In the open source world, you general tweak the code and recompile. If you can't, don't upgrade (no that doesn't mean foregoing security patches). This provides for smaller, cleaner APIs without a lot of cruft.
As far as documentation, there is plenty of documentation of the Linux OS and related subjects. It is freely available in the form of Howtos, man pages, readmes, web sites, etc. And you have the source code, and example code everywhere in plain view. Some books are even available on line, and the books for sale are often very good.
And F/OSS can't be beat for the frequent case when the docs are wrong, incomplete, or misleading. Just look at the code and you can tell what it really does. This is the biggest beef I have when developing on Windows: trying to work around close source bugs and inadequate APIs.
First one I can find is a McKinsey report: *summary *PDF of full report
They estimate that for every dollar outsourced to India, the US gains a 67c net direct benefit, plus between 45c and 47c net benefit from US labour re-employed.
I could condense all of this into 4 words...
I do not care.
The Argument in a Nutshell:
A) The Open Source community loves open source (hurray for self love)
B) Some of us don't care (really...it's true)
C) Open source has some great stuff, but hey - so do giant software companies (I can't believe I said that)
D) Giant software companies hate open source (and yet, most of there developers probably use tons of open source software)
Who wins?? We do! Open source brings a strange type of competition to the market that keeps software companies "honest". But we should not look past these software companies, because they have brought us some amazing innovations that would not have been made without the countless dollars they made from selling their software.
So who cares what the internet is run on? Does it run? Yes! Do I have an OS that works? Yes! Do I use OSS because I don't like Americans? No! Do I feel better around my peers because I use open source? ummmmm...nope.
"Open source benefits from anti-X sentiment" is only true for values of X in which X is a country which produces the majority of proprietary software on the international market.
I suggested India before, so let's run with that value of X.
Feelings against outsourcing to India are running high in America. While there are certain financial benefits to be gained by outsourcing, there is also an increasing backlash. Sending jobs to India may alienate potential customers. Open source solutions enable companies to become more competitive without outsourcing.
An example might be a company which wants to expand while keeping helpdesk costs down. Instead of completely outsourcing helpdesk jobs to India, they might use Bayonne, an open source IVR telephony app, to create an automated helpdesk service which can answer more questions without human intervention, bumping only the unique support questions to the live representatives. The company can then trumpet that it has grown without sacrificing American jobs.
But this country-by-country analysis is pointless. If Andreessen had said "Open source benefits from anti-Indian sentiment", I'd have called him on a biased specificity there, too.
Again, the real benefit of open source is that it enables companies and nations to become more independent. That's true whether you're in Brazil or America or India or Germany. It's stupid and divisive to try to tie this benefit only to anti-Americanism.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Hmmm - no terms beginning with u,v,w,x,y or z - you need a more comprehensive thesaurus :-) ...unwise, vacuous, witless, xenophobe, yahoo...
Damn! I need a better thesaurus too!
Oh - and he's one letter short of a complete character set too!
www.sjbaker.org
The argument that just because the US helped out in the World Wars, then everyone else has to be OK with that it's doing now is *completely* vacuuous.
If past history counts - then the rest of the world can throw slavery into the debate.
If only helping out in world wars counts then I'd point out Britain and Germany's role in the Napoleonic wars...or Italy (then Rome) in the wars against Ghengis Khan.
What matters is what the US is doing NOW.
www.sjbaker.org
Maybe they don't remember that part because YOU JUST MADE IT UP?
Gee, now if only you had been the guy to come up with the idea of using an ugly hand-puppet to pitch a dubious product, you might be getting paid for your ideas.
My mom was right, the world isn't fair.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
In (c) the Government gets higher taxes from the companies making the cost savings and also the businesses that individuals spend their money with that they saved from getting cheaper software.
You assume that this is a zero sum game. It is not. Huge economic voids are being created. OSS will not fill these voids because that would require massive amounts of revenue. The "for sale" software business in the U.S. is a trillion dollar industry. That is a huge amount of tax revenue that could just disappear. Do you honestly think that the government will sit back idle and let that happen?
In summary, your argument is crap. I mean, even by Slashdot standards, it is really attrociously bad. It's like saying that everyone should buy an ostrich, because otherwise the government is losing tax revenues they would have made on ostrich sales.
Criticizing my opinion as "crap" because it doesn't match your OSS political agenda just shows how blind you are to differing ideas. Pathetic actually, but so typical slashdot. Kind of like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand.
About OSS and tax evasion. Look at RedHat. Thousands of developers contribute to their product. By design this is RedHat's business model. Yet only a tiny few actually get a salary, a salary that is taxed as income tax. From the governments point of view, that could be seen as massive tax evasion like the bartering system. Bartering is popular in many trade circles. Example: a carpenter will trade his skills to a plumber for his. Some people take the bartering system to the extreme and make it a lifestyle choice. In a nutshell that is what the GPL deal is. A negotiated trade that basically says "you can use my source code if you give me yours." Note that in the U.S. bartering is legal only if you pay taxes on it. Of course most people don't.
This whole SCO nonsense has stirred up a hornets nest in DC. OSS is now on the congress critters radar. As a Linux desktop user and developer I am concerned. But I am just as concerned about the bigger macro ramifications:
Just because something is free doesn't mean that it's tax should be zero.
No this isn't like taxing air. This is more like taxing land and water and bartering like I mention above. I don't like taxes anymore than the next guy but a government without taxes in not a government anymore.
Take for example the EU's impending actions against Microsoft. This is a situation where European burocrats are going to enact terrible economic policy in order to prop up European companies who are unable to legitimately compete with Microsoft.
This is partially due to nationalism and partially due to the idea that some Europeans cling to that a command economy makes sense.
Free markets are about free and voluntary choices on the part of businesses and consumers.
Europe's population is roughly 30% socialist in most parts of Western Europe. Socialism is not compatible with the kind of business growth that has led to all of the prosperity we enjoy in the US.
If European consumers want to buy Microsoft, then by getting in the way of that, Monti and the EU are giving those consumers fewer choices and limiting their freedom.
Amazing magic tricks
Someone mod this guy 'troll': just because he doesn't know how to read the documentation correctly does not mean that it is useless.
All Your Base Are Belong To Tux
All your codebase are about to be Taxed.
12: it's free is the number one reason.
I like Howard Stern's version: A drunk who found Jesus.
Huge economic voids are being created. OSS will not fill these voids because that would require massive amounts of revenue. The "for sale" software business in the U.S. is a trillion dollar industry. That is a huge amount of tax revenue that could just disappear.
How? If money is not being spent then whoever would have been spending it now either has greater profits or greater disposable income.
1. Open source lowers software development costs in the long run.
While the actual code is free, getting it to run usually requres a /. geek or someone even more intelligent.
Even in the IT dept I'm in there are several people who aren't smart enough to use Linux or any open source software yet.
Now I realize there is progress being made. The last time I installed RH it was almost like installing Windows. We're not at the point yet, but soon I think my first sentance in this comment will be false.
Whatever it is that annoys other cultures about the Jewish culture almost certainly has nothing to do with religion. I've never heard anyone voice any complaints about Jewish religion, other than about circumcision. Probably the Jewish culture could make some adjustments to make themselves more agreeable to their neighbors, without any idea that they were wrong the way they were before.
The replies to my grandparent post wildly misunderstand. The only point I am making is that the U.S. government has had a long history of making things worse in the Middle East: Either for profit, or because of political support from Zionist groups, or political support from fundamentalist Christians. Since U.S. diplomats have established that they don't know how to handle Middle East affairs, maybe they should take a break and stop meddling. I don't agree with Osama bin Laden about violence, but I do agree that the meddling in Saudi and Palestinian and Israeli politics should stop. Many of these American diplomats do not have the social sophistication to know their own wives and daughters very well; they should not presume that they understand other cultures.
When everyone in the world sees U.S. helicopters operated by Israelis firing at Arabs on the ground, it is bad publicity, to say the least. An ad agency exec would have a hard time thinking of a more powerful 10-second message.
"The US has a strong interest in a democratic ally in the Middle East (see Israel)."
I don't see why. However, suppose this is true. Why endanger Jews by encouraging them to be violent? The U.S. government's actions are not helping any cause, including any cause that should be American.
What makes U.S. diplomats think they know any answers? The have a terrible track record.
But it doesn't in any way invalidate Andreessen's comment #5 about the unique status of the United States, and how that also factors into the popularity of open-source software. Countries are not generic; they are specific. And the specific example of the United States has some specific baggage attached to it. So it's not only "national independence" in general that causes other countries to look at open-source software. It's also (in many cases) a desire for independence from the United States. Acknowledging that is neither stupid nor divisive; it's facing the truth.
It's analogous in many ways to the software industry within the States. Many of the people who avoid Microsoft software also avoid products from Apple, Sun, Palm, etc. because they don't want to be become dependent on those companies for proprietary software. That's the phenomenon you wanted Andreessen to describe. But others avoid Microsoft software simply because it's Microsoft and don't mind getting locked into developers that they happen to trust. That's more like his point, and just as real.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Even free lunch still takes time to eat.
Good point, but:
It is no longer a zero sum game when the currency is permanently removed from the system. With OSS (GPL in particular) the new currency is source code but this is no different than the barter system.
"Open Source economics" is an oxymoron.
Can I suggest a small but significant wording tweak to one point?
>"Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants."
Open source means giants helping you onto their shoulders.
--
Sal
Writings: http://saltation.blogspot.com
Wravings: http://go-blog-go.blogspot.com
Hey boss, why don't we use open source in our entreprise? It could allow us to stand on the shoulders of giants!
Wow, what a retarded way to talk about OSS, looks like Haiku made by a 12 year old. I'm sure people have much more intelligent ways to defend/advocate for open source. And most of the arguments are not really good, saying "The internet is powered by open source" is not true, because for that you would need a 100% usage rate which evidently, open source has not attained.
Absolute worst text ever.
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
1. "The Internet is powered by open source."
;-)
But the internet does not stop at apache and sendmail. What most users see as "the internet" is a mail client and a web browser: Outlook and IE.
And even if all the web servers in the world would use Apache, that does not make a single user switch from IE to Mozilla.
2. "The Internet is the carrier for open source."
3. "The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
I don't see why that should give open source a big break through. But I agree that only the internet makes open source really possible.
But in the same way it also helps closed source development.
4. "It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
Why?
I am sure that an unix based system is more secure than windows by design. But why does that prevent an open source email client from executing any worm/virus/...?
And even more: Who cares? For most users (including me) any worm that does not delete the hard disk is only a minor problem (like catching a cold - not very nice but also no big deal).
5. "Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
When first reading this statement I through: YES.
But when thinking about it for some time: No.
That would apply to all software - open source or not. Opera and The Bat! are not the standard browser and mail client.
6. "Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
So does working in any job - unless you want to be fired really soon (except if you are in a position to fire everyone else first).
7. "Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants."
So closed source means standing on the shoulders of open source standing on the sholders of giants?!?
Or does closed source and open source each stand on one sholder?
8. "Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel."
Servers are still expensive and Windows also runs on AMD
9. "Embedded devices are making greater use of open source."
Really?
I would guess the are using linux as operating system - but the actual "application" is very closed source, and without the right hardware quite useless.
Or does anyone think there will be a community about the latest updates for the software in your waching machines.
10. "There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies."
I would say that most companies developing software are not software companies. And especially those companies don't want to give their competitors any more information than absolutely necessary.
11. "Companies are increasingly supporting Linux."
So they port some of their software to one open source operating system - some years ago they might have done so for some other *ix. But still they want to sell something (hardware and/or software - which is not open source).
And does that make them use open office, mozilla and apache?
12. "It's free."
Most PCs offered today for home users include so much software they don't need to by any extra (except games of course) - and that for a price ofen less then the sum of the individual hardware components.
No one appreciates common sense. Please stop it. You're making us feel anxious.
--
Sal
Writings: saltation.blogspot.com
Wravings: go-blog-go.blogspot.com
cuz w@ ownz ju micro$uck!
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
The better question is what do you have against the porn industry that you leach off it so. Stop downloading free pron. Support your local hardworking pornographer.
It does come at a price. The price of the time/effort etc of the developers.
My whole point is that people keep claiming that Linux is 'free'. It isn't. I did not say that Windows is less expensive. What I did say was that I would be interested in knowing if a real 'non biased' analysis of the two different products was available and how would they compare then. At least if it came from an unbiased source, then the assumptions could be equally bad for both platforms, and maybe some sort of valid comparison could be found in there.
Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
None of the arguments in that post are new. Several are idiotic. So why is this news? Because it's less than 110 words?
On to the idiotic comments.
"It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
Security has nothing to do with open and closed source. It has to do with competent developers and proper reviewing procedures.
"Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
Many big, essential open source projects are US based (The Free Software Foundation, The Python Software Foundation, Red Hat), and most big names in the Open Source world are also American (RMS, ESR, Larry Wall), or living in the US (Linus, Guido, etc). I doubt that this will make a difference to anyone.
Besides, the US is still the largest IT market in the world, with Japan a close second. Does anyone really think the anti-US sentiment is gonig to matter?
"Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
Yeah, because the CIOs of Global Fortune 500 companies factor in what the l33t h4x0rs will think about them when deciding what software to buy.
"There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies."
And how exactly does this help grow Open Source? Are these non-software companies required to use Open Source software? Isn't it possible for them to use VB or Java?
Mod me down as flamebait or troll if you'd like, but I don't see why we need to continue promoting Open Source through these ridiculous articles. The quality of Open Source software speaks for itself.
Phemur
Whacking-off wants to be free!!!
Down with Micro$oft.
_ 09 /b3872014_mz001.htm
Marc: "We're looking hard at hiring people in India."
Question: "Does the fact that what your company is doing is enabling jobs to move offshore bother you?"
Marc: "No."
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04
He's been coding too much, and he wants us to optimize his text so that the CPU of the human brain will use less cycles on reading it, which means that it will give it a higher read-rate, etc, etc. ;)
This smells fishy
Andreesssen: Why Open Source Will Boom - in 103 Words
There's only two S's in Andreessen. You put three in the title to this story.
I'm not American and have never lived there but I was once so pro-America that I flew the Stars & Stripes, much to the amusement of my friends. Then along came the Bush Regime. And down came the flag. Like most people with internet access now, I hve many American contacts, and they are all wonderful people, but their current "leaders" in a few short years have done more to harm their nation and their nation's image than all of America's mistakes of the last few hundred years. And to add insult to injury, where once anti-American foreigners just hated America, they now laugh at it too.
It's Free
It's easy
It rocks
It's open
It's efficient
It's secure
It's unstoppable
We want it
We believe it
We built it
We're ready
It's time!
1. "The Internet is powered by open source."
2. "The Internet is the carrier for open source."
3. "The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
4. "It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
5. "Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
6. "Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
7. "Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants."
8. "Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel."
9. "Embedded devices are making greater use of open source."
10. "There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies."
11. "Companies are increasingly supporting Linux."
12. "It's free."
What Marc left out is ---
13. "I'm using it to offshore firstworld jobs to the third world, and I'm damned proud of it" Mar. 22, 2004 Toronto Star Article
Andreessen is not a friend to techies, He's our Benedict Arnold
IBM
SUSE
IMO
BS x 3
DRM x 2
MS
DMCA
Sorry, I'm going to have to ask you not to use any more acronyms until... Let's say, tomorrow? Great, thanks.
"The Internet is powered by open source."
A. And all cars are powered by motors. Non-sequitur.
"The Internet is the carrier for open source."
A. And all cars are carriers for things. Non-sequitur.
"The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
A. And all cars are driven on a road. Non-sequitur.
"It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
A. And all cars built by me are more safe than those built by someone else. Non-sequitur.
"Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
A. And all cars built by non-US makers make terrorists glad. Non-sequitur.
"Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
A. And all cars built by me get me a "wow", but frankly, no food on the table. Non-sequitur.
"Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants."
A. And all cars built by me are somehow based on previous designs. Non-sequitur.
"Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel."
A. And all cars built by me are somehow really cheap, but I'm obviously not doing this for the money. Non-sequitur.
"Embedded devices are making greater use of open source."
A. And the tide will come in today, twice. Non-sequitur.
"There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies."
A. And EEs are still doing programming. Non-sequitur.
"Companies are increasingly supporting Linux."
A. And grandpa thinks this is marvelous, only he think Linux is a Peanuts character. Non-sequitur.
"It's free."
A. And so must be your time. Non-sequitur.
How about because open source allows customers to change or customize code as they see fit. Free is not an argument. Making software open source does not equate to it being free.
Trust me, it's just really cool, ok??
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Why do we need 103 words? I'm sure there's a Perl programmer out there that can say exactly the same thing in about 15 or 20.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
Election's in November, and new term starts in January. Sit tight.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Brick Wall.
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
I would have to agree. DragonFly is being rewritten to be a very modular, compartmentalised OS with a very clean yet flexible method of communication between the components. The very same code that allows it to run on SMP systems will also be used to do NUMA, and clustering. Threaded message passing kernels are very nice this way, as there is no need for seperate subsystems to reimplement common functionality; in this case the ability of the OS to utilize multiple processors, regardless of wether or not they exist in the same box.
Linux currently has seperate subsystems for SMP, NUMA and only has 3rd party addons to allow it to do clustering, whereas DragonFly will have it's "Light Wieght Kernel Threading," and "light Wieght Ports/Messeging" subsystems do all that work in a seamless and ingrated fashion. If you look at the code for these things in Linux, they all feel almost welded on. They were never designed to be together, and quite often it shows.
For Linux to do the same it will have to undergo the same types of low level modifications that DragonFly is going through now, which would take it in an entirely different direction than Linux is going now. It would take time, and I seriously doubt that Linus is up for such a fundamental change at this point in time.
In many ways, DragonFly is really the modernization of FreeBSD, and if left to their own devices (and barring catastrophy, legal or otherwise), the DragonFly folks will leave the others in the dust unless they start to either port DF code, or implement something very similar on their own.
DragonFly is evolving into something far too elegant to ignore. About the only thing that Linux has going for it (despite some rather extraordinary coders (but poor architects)) is the support of an ever growing list of big names. Sure Linux is good, but without significant evolution it will never be best of breed. DragonFly will eventually be able to stand on it's technological merrits alone.
Oh the irony.
I swear, if I see another Slashdot comment with "It will be interesting to see"...
"If we let legislation pass that would force companies to assume liability for security violations, then all OSS is doomed. Some people have suggested that OSS projects be exempt from such a law, but do you really think that Microsoft's lobbyists would allow for that? If individual programmers were liable for security problems, this would definitely kill OSS."
What you fail to mention is that Proprietary Software companies would also be hurt by this legislation... currently they don't have to assume any liability for security or even for bugs... they can offer indemnification but they don't have to, which means they can make money off of it whereas if it was mandatory they can not other than to charge more to everyone.
OSS on the other hand can put in place an indemnification organization wherein you can be a member, register your software and pay 'dues' which will go into the pool for use when and if your software is contestedor accused of security problems... in fact I think one such organization is already in place. This pool can be managed much like a fund and maintained as a non-profit fund for OSS so that it can grow beyond what the individual contributions will afford.
In fact I believe that such a fund could provide higher indemnity value than any single commercial company can afford, even Microsoft, give enough members. In return the org can provide various value added services for members to encourage enrollment, beyond their initial offerings.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
BSD is being ressurected?
Apple has a loyal fanbase that supports it "enough" to break even - make a profit
:)
You're right: Apple have the loyal support of the international gay community.
It's a joke, settle down...
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
You know, develop and own a whole new market, and only in the end lose it to a ruthless company with unlimited funds, which none-the-less had to use illegal measures to overtake the market.
And, as a bonus, come out of the situation independently rich.
That is the kind of failure I easily could live with.
"Andreesssen"? THREE "s"'es? In the headline? Seriously. :-)
At least you could have called him "Adreesson" like everybody else does.
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
cat
if the source code is exposed, then the open source community as a whole can look at it, and discover the flaws, but isn't it equally as logical that a potential hacker can look at the source code and discover an equal amount of vulnerabilities to be used against the nameless masses that use the software?
It seems to me, that if a malicious hacker wanted to find vulnerabilities in a closed source code, it would be mostly guess work. Whereas with open source, it will all be right out in front of you. Please correct me if I'm wrong or if I'm missing something here.
"And The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth" --Jeff Darlington
"Maybe they saved our asses in World War II, but they're still acting like a bunch of pricks. Screw 'em."
Nah, countries outside the US might agree with the others, but not this one. No-one outside the US would agree with this one. Well, ok, you were right about the half about being pricks so "screw 'em" (although those of us that speak english properly would probably use "them" instead of a bizarre use of the apostrophe). What does WW2 have to do with software anyway?
Please name the European companies that will be better able to compete with Microsoft following the EU ruling.
I can name several big American companies that stand to benefit from the punishment handed to MS, but no big European ones.
Microsoft broke the rules, were caught out and are now being punished. The same would have happend in America if the laws had actually been enforced.
If you think the EU is in any way anti-American in the way it makes these rulings then I suggest you take a look at the facts. Almost all such rulings are against European companies.
The EU has all sorts of faults - it is a long, long way from perfect, but I really think you are sniffing after a red herring here.
Dan.
Please. Have you ever heard of the phrase "training budget"?
If you're a company writing software for multiple platforms, you'd either hire specialists for each platform you intend to support, and make sure your developers are well-trained by those specialists, or you'd have the good sense to choose a framework that supports multiple platforms in the first place, like Java or Qt, and train your developers in that framework. If your idea of training is a bookmark to a forest of technical documentation, or a copy "Teach Yourself %API_YOUVE_NEVER_USED_BEFORE% In 21 Days" on each dev's desk, your project will have some very hard times ahead.
If you're going to tar someone with the epithet "troll" because they dared speak well of Microsoft, you're going to have to do better than an easily-deflated conspiracy theory.
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If there was no OSS, there would not be simple solutions.. They would either be crippled shareware or commercial applications.
OSS was also helped along by the development of a OSS operating system, the Internet, and the development of open source languages. Without that, it would not really be possible to do OSS development.
Commercial software development flourished in the 80s because: memory was expensive, computers were expensive, languages were expensive, operating systems were simple yet expensive, people were pretty much ignorant on the overall, software was easy to distribute (remember floppies?, what was the purpose of hard drives?).
Why it doesn't work now: Smarter people, faster computers, cheaper hardware. Software as a result tends to be developed by the companies that need it now and now how. A majority of the OSS is made for enterprise systems development and by hobbyists. Its no wonder that countries outside the US are adopting OSS to reduce administrative costs, if you consider that 200 dollars here for Windows XP looks like 2000 dollars in India, it doesn't make sense to shell that out if you can get something that does the job for nothing, also particularly if you can hire indian programmers for about 5000 dollars a year to develop the software. 20 programmers is enough to develop operating systems like Linux.
Often what you see is not the stuff being developed, what the goodwill of some developers or company willing to release its custom versions of linux.. There is bound to be many closed source developements of the linux kernel being done in other countries. This is having
commercial impact on Microsoft, and its no wonder Microsoft is the ones squeeling most about it. But the software developers in the rest of the country make money on a per project per hour basis, they tend not to sell software as products like Microsoft and they stand no competition from OSS because projects in OSS are sustained by common patterns in development.
Operating systems are fairly understood, therefore there is really nothing new that can be done, that's why you can get linux or free bsd or and other sort of operating system now. However software that uses multielement CCD cameras on satelites to determine oil deposits, tend not to become open source, because the technology is relatively complex and is ever changing and technology becomes available to make the process more precise. But hard technologies (not software) is what investors tend to invest in, and its software that relies on hard technologies that tends to sell..
It's just that the mass production and mass sales of software, as products is dieing away slowly.. It will get harder and harder to seperate programmers from designers, and over time the programmers will be the designers.
Therefore programmers are not sure whether to embrace technologies like OOP because OOP allows them to be written out of the picture. OOP software tends to allow designers to become programmers and programmers to lose work.
ITs only natural for the designers to want to embrace complex languages as a tactic of insuring work.
Just say no to license servers!!
Are you serious? You give too much credit to governments. If Microsoft had a monopoly then the only way to actually exploit it would be to charge tons of money for Microsoft products. This would create huge incentives to market entry, and the monopoly would quickly vanish (this is software we're talking about, not oil rigs, real-estate, and railroad ties). Already, so many alternatives exist the the idea that Microsoft is a monopoly is pretty darn near rediculous.
Microsoft throws in value adds to its customers. How is this different than free floor mats in your car? Shouldn't people who sell custom floor mats be outraged?
What you are asking for is not the facilitation of competition, but the creation of price controls. By forcing Microsoft to stop providing a competetive product to the marketplace by leveraging its distribution channel, you are artificially raising the market price of media players (if the price gets >$0). If the price stays the same, then your worries were unfounded, since Microsoft hadn't actually caused the price to stay at $0.
If you think that price controls and borderline-socialism are EVER anything other than a way to give little handouts to some at the expense of others, then you are sadly mistaken. The EU is giving Sun and Real Networks a shot of steroids, but they have one foot in the grave. This is due to their inability to work together to create something truly competetive with Microsoft's products, not because it isn't possible.
Rather than getting Microsoft out of the way (a company that can create a Media player so strong that few people feel the need to download another one with one hand tied behind its back), we should just let Sun and Real and the other plaintiffs die off and make room for competetors that will be able to legitimately beat Microsoft.
Amazing magic tricks
Maybe the EU is just after the $500M in fines? Microsoft is the object of the resentment of some people, just like the WTC was. Why are we cheering when they try to destroy it?
Amazing magic tricks
Microsoft broke the law. Microsoft is getting punished.
People are cheering because, for once, a big corporation is being held to the same standard as anyone else. You break the law, you take the consequences.
Are you really trying to compare the upholding of the law with terrorists killing thousands of people? Using the WTC attack as a debating tool is both tasteless and pointless.
The EU's budget in 2003 was 97.5 billion euros. That's over 120 billion dollars. You're suggesting that the EU is pursuing MS in order to increase its budget by a tiny percentage?
Dan.
Its hard to beleive, but perhaps the writer (Jon or someone else?) knew that it was technically a lie. It colors the song in an entirely different, and facinating way- Perhaps the "narrator" of the song is actually deceiving himself, he wants to beleive that he will be true, but he's realy fooling himself. His subconscoius lets slip, betraying the fact that he will eventually leave his love. There will be a time when he will leave, and not be there. Nah... can't be. Time to delete that song!
Large companies like to spend more money for IT if they get support (i.e. Oracle, IBM, Microsoft). This is so they have someone to blame if the system doesn't work. With open source the implementation is their problem, so they take the hit if it doesn't work.
Also open source software isn't necessarily more secure, it just not currently a target.