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Linux Spreads its Wings
securitas writes "Businessweek's 'Linux Spreads its Wings' Special Report discusses the growing use of Linux in a wide range of products that include mobile phones, cars, telecom gear and consumer electronics; Linux in China; an analysis of the SCO litigation; a look at how Novell's Linux strategy may bring the struggling, former technology high-flyer back from the dead, as well as other articles and interviews related to the growth and spread of Linux as a viable platform for both enterprise and consumer technology."
Because MS is not competing with an operating system, they are competing with a paradigm. MS may have a market cap of half a trillion dollars, but the US economy puts out 12 trillion per year alone. If push comes to shove, it won't matter how big MS is - they will get squished like a bug. I renember when IBM spent billions back in the 80's to push the PS/2 (not playstation) on the market place to try and squeese out the x86's already out there. It didn't matter how big they were either, they got hammered.
This is the same old TYPE of article we have been reading for the past three years. A status article.
I now LOATHE Slashdot everytime I see an article about Linux either 'spreading it wings' or an article with the gist 'linux is dying'.
These STATUS articles are unbearable.
If I want to know the Linux, Windows or OS X market share I will look it up!
This is a random rant so feel free to mod mod mod.
KARMA TAG! You're it.
It runs on (almost) all hardware architectures and supports a huge open-source application library which can be recompiled for all hardware architectures.
Mindshare, application library and number of users will continue to increase in all computing, yes even on the desktop.
News at 11:
Most older women _are_ technically incompetant.
You, as a slashdot poster, are obviously not. Nor is my mother.
If you had to pseudocode the role of women in that generation, it would be something like:
do
cook
clean kitchen
breed
repeat until dead
There is nothing in there about gaining technical competency. Most older women are not technically competant because its never been a part of their lives.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
"so why exactly do OSS people do this?(he means work for little to no recognition or money) It makes no sense."
I would have to say there are several reasons. Some people work for a foundation like Linus. Others work for companies like IBM and get paid. Others may write it because it makes thier job easier. I worked with someone who contributed but the only things he wrote were things that made his job easier. Those who make little to no money for it though and do it on the side I will just never understand.
Evolution or ID?
Because many of us don't care. I code for a living. When I code for my own entertainment I don't care if someone else makes money with it. I just care when the company I work for makes money from the code I write. If I cared about others using my code to make money I would either not release it, place it under a license that didn't allow it, or sell it.
Because greed doesn't rule EVERYBODY'S world. Duh.
Of course if it's like many things on the internet, the original poster is really a man pretending to be a woman.
"The bigger the lie, the more they believe." - Det. Bunk
You think Linux and OSS coders feel like schmoes?
Let's see, they are independent coders who know the ins and outs of popular business software that's making money. If you're a company making money off of Linux/OSS and you need help debugging or customizing your implementation, who are you gonna hire?
I've already been thanked.
Now I'm saying "you're welcome."
There are other currency systems than "money", you know.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Because, just maybe, some people LIKE coding? You know, some people don't care if others make money; they just want to hack on software that everyone can enjoy?
It's not that complicated.
Oh wait, you spend far too much of your time on Slashdot spreading shit about Linux. Go out and get some friends, and you might understand -- you may see that some people like to do things just because it's fun, and not always for their own material gain.
In short, you lose.
Just think of all the schmoes who got paid cut-rate wages to produce software for companies who then turn around and make fortunes off of their work. And they don't even have code to show for it. But hey - they knew that was the trade-off when they went in, right?
There's your problem right there. You're using emotive language and I wouldn't be surprised to see you modded down because of it. A person can't really take something when it's already been given away, now can they?
Why do people write OSS? I just don't understand this question. I mean, is it that hard for people to understand someone wanting to contribute to a community project? It's not such an alien concept. Is it so different just because it involves writing software, instead of helping out at a local school or non-profit organization?
For many of these coders, they have opportunities (job and otherwise) they may never have gotten by working in a corporate environment or by shrink-wrapping their software. Check out the recent Fortune write-up of the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) founders. Had any of these packages been closed $199 packages, we probably would never have heard of them, and Microsoft or Oracle would have abolished them all by now.
Also, consider Marcelo Tosatti, who is the maintainer of the 2.4 kernel series. This was a kid from Brazil who was given the reins of one of the most popular server kernels in the world at the age of 18, when he became the 2.4 maintainer. Talk about democratization of opportunity. It's hard to put a dollar value on this resume line item: "Chief Maintainer of Linux 2.4 Kernel, 2001-present". His years of "free" work means that he'll likely have some of the coolest jobs ever for the rest of his career, while most of us grind away at VB.Net and deal with corporate politics. Who's the schmo now?
But wouldn't taking control away from the user be the goal of such a distro?
...."
;-)
Maybe, maybe not. I'm reminded of an observation I've read about the early days of unix. At the time (early 70's), it was common practice in the computer biz to have special-purpose install/config tools for every package, and their data was usually in a secret binary format. Every package had its own install/config tool, and if anything went wrong, you often couldn't fix it (because the config tool died while reading the files). One of the major technical advances of unix was that nearly everything was configured with files that could be edited with any editor. A major point was that the config data was also readable by humans. This made the system usable without long months or years of classes or apprenticeship. It also meant that, if the software shot itself in the foot, you could get in and fix the problem without a major reinstall.
If a linux distro takes care of all the configuration with a nice GUI, and puts all that data into plain-text files that can be read and edited, then control isn't taken away from the users. You just need to also tell them "To tell this app to reread its config files, type
For example, the netscape/mozilla browsers have always had a fancy GUI tool (the browser) to do all their configuration. But I've occasionally edited the bookmarks.html file and added or deleted things by hand, mostly to copy bookmarks from another machine. When I save the file, after a minute or three a little popup pops up telling me that "Bookmarks have changed on the disk" and do I want to reread them? I hit the obvious button, and the browser's bookmarks are changed. (It's easy; try it.
This is how it should be done. Novices can use the GUI; an expert can edit the configuration directly. So if you do it that way, you can be nice and friendly to the novices, while allowing the experts to do things their own way.
Another nice example is the apache web server. It comes pre-configured on a lot of distros. On this Mac, the web server was installed very nicely during initial setup. But you can also edit httpd.conf (and apache comes with full docs for this). Then you run "apachectl restart", and your changes are loaded into all the running httpd processes. It's very nice for both novices and expert webmasters.
I've written a lot of apps that do this sort of thing. It's not at all difficult to program. And it's not some sort of sophisticated, radical approach. It has been part of the unix design philosophy from the start.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Ok, I'll attempt an answer. I'll be honest and admit that I'm an insignificant contributor. In the grand scheme of things I rate slightly lower than a slug's belly. But I've still put in a fair few hours. Why do I do it? Because in return I've received the equivalent of over $15,000 of s'ware on my desktop alone. Even better, my licenses for Linux (including BSD, GPL, ART) permit unlimited copies. I can install software whenever and where ever I feel like it, without going through the hassle of paying some obscure company and getting a silly number that makes the software work.
The incredible thing is that when you have a million developers all providing insignificant little contributions, you get a very significant end product. I'm not saying that all developers are insignificant - some Linux developers have contributed far more than anybody else - but the concept is true for the rest of us: I give a little and I receive a lot. I get back far more than I put in. So I'm willing to keep putting something back in. I don't need thanks (nor would I expect any considering my insignificance) because all this great software is even better.
Now if I worked on BSD code I'd probably feel differently. Those guys are exploited schmucks ;-D
You're missing the point (or I'm not making myself clear enough, which is always possible).
Forking is only a problem IF you can't take the code in the new fork and put it back into the original project. I can give you two really good examples of projects which have been forked and the fork can't be merged back.
Emacs vs XEmacs split a long time ago. Code from XEmacs where the authors can't be contacted can't be integrated into Emacs. Ergo, a lot of the XEmacs development branch code is off-limits to the GNU Emacs tree. Now we have two similar but slightly incompatible versions arising from the same original tree which are stuck as a permanent fork.
Wine vs WineX. Transgaming forked the original Wine tree (which was under a BSD license), added some stuff and sold it, claiming that they would add code back to Wine at some point in the future (which they have to some extent). The Wine developers realised that they were losing out and decided to relicense the Wine tree to LGPL. Now Transgaming can't take the new Wine code into Transgaming.
Relicensing can result in a fork becoming a permanent, seperate entity. Compare that with the Linux kernel, which forks so fast you hardly know how many variants there are at any one time. Not that it matters - the GPL licensing keeps all those forks available all the time for any of the forks to consider. So while the kernel forks, none of the forks hurt the long-term picture - in fact they help it by providing experimental playgrounds for new ideas. BSD-style licensing would leave any or all of those forks vulnerable to a change of licensing that makes that fork off-limits to the other coding groups.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.