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Netcraft Interviews Brian Behlendorf

Posted by timothy on from the aternatives-in-action dept.

thejackol writes "The co-founder of the Apache Web Server Project and the First Chief Engineer at Wired Magazine was interviewed by Netcraft's Rich Miller about Netcraft's growth, the SCO case's unexpected benefits and changing the world through software. Excerpt: 'It's a good rebuke to the cynical but widespread notion that all it takes is a big pot of gold to litigate your competition out of existance or otherwise win a legal challenge. Good did prevail in the end. Hopefully it won't make us too cocky, because the next challenge could be much harder to fight.'"

13 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Apache shows what is right with OSS by ObviousGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Easy to install on any platform. Easy to administrate. Easy to use. Straightforward interface. And best of all, it is well supported.

    The GNU/Linux project could learn a lot from these guys.

    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
    1. Re:Apache shows what is right with OSS by lukewarmfusion · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But it doesn't run .NET!

      That was a joke, at least for me. But many clients don't see it as a joke, they see it as a serious obstacle to using OSS. Fortune 500 companies with Microsoft networks, servers, procedures - they're unlikely to adopt an "unsupported" product like Apache. I say unsupported because Microsoft doesn't support it, and they already have support contracts for MS products. They don't have their toes in the water, they're bathing in it.

      You can't use many of your ASP apps on Apache (even if you have Chilisoft!). We have clients that turned to us because we can do ASP/SQL Server, and the competition couldn't. The other quote was cheaper, too.

  2. Correction by frangipani · · Score: 5, Informative
    The co-founder of the Apache Web Server Project and the First Chief Engineer at Wired Magazine was interviewed by Netcraft's Rich Miller about Netcraft's growth
    I think that should be Apache Web Server's growth, not Netcraft's. Netcraft is mentioned once in the interview.
  3. A good rebuke? by mccalli · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It's a good rebuke to the cynical but widespread notion that all it takes is a big pot of gold to litigate your competition out of existance

    SCO are attacking IBM. Pots of gold don't come a great deal bigger than the ones IBM have at their disposal.

    Cheers,
    Ian

  4. Litigate your competition out of existance? by Phidoux · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why can't one software product "beat" it's competition simply by being better? Why the need to litigate? Be No. 1 because your product is the best, not because you need the law to make it No. 1.

    --
    Free Firefox news reader.
    1. Re:Litigate your competition out of existance? by millahtime · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why can't one software product "beat" it's competition simply by being better? Why the need to litigate? Be No. 1 because your product is the best, not because you need the law to make it No. 1.

      This is a dog eat dog world. Look at the NO 1's and look at the best product and they are not the same. To get to the top lawsuits, strong arming and many more things are used. That's just life.

      --
      Evolution or ID?
    2. Re:Litigate your competition out of existance? by 0BoDy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      According to this theory, Microsoft would make the best software in the world, and McDonalds would make the Best food. Sometimes the better product wins. Sometimes the better marketing wins, some people are given market share and leverage it to their own advantage, others have to build a far-surpassing product in a new market. Reminds me of the way I see minorities excelling in business. They have to do the same job twice as well, for the same pay. It's not right, and it's not fair, but it ceartainly makes for overall better products and economy if the improvements required to get ahead drive the whole market.

      --
      Can I be a Luddite too?
    3. Re:Litigate your competition out of existance? by rmolehusband · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why can't one software product "beat" it's competition simply by being better?

      Sadly, there are few markets where being 'best' automagically makes you number one. Factors such as installed base, brand perception and pure and simple FUD can always swing things for a far poorer product.

      --
      Reginald Molehusband. Edinburgh, Scotland
    4. Re:Litigate your competition out of existance? by Artifakt · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Your point on markets isn't invalidated by it, but the whole point of Natural Selection is that humans aren't an epitome of evolution, and there just isn't really any pinnacle or focal point to evolution. Those cockroaches we share our buildings with have been evolving precisely as long as we have. They have survived various evolutionary selection mechanisms just as well as we have. Nature isn't seeking to produce intelligence, or any other feature we might find can let us divide organisms into 'higher' and 'lower'. Everything we are evolving along side of is equally fit.
      The problem I have with your using an evolutionary metaphor is that applying it to capitalism is just what leads to social Darwinism. Microsoft probably firmly believes it, to the extent they belive that being selected by the forces of the market is the same as being at the predestined peak of the natural order.
      It isn't. If ignoring security is really that potent a failing to nature, then nature will select against Microsoft. If millions of people were wrong about the relative importance of security, then nature will select against them too. Public opinion is not a court of no appeal - Natural Selection is.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
  5. Re:not over by 0BoDy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Oh, it's over. don't believe me read Groklaw Daily. SCO has told the courts too many contradictory things to prove any of them. They'll lose to IBM first, then Novell, then Redhat, then autozone, then Chrystler. If they sue anybody else they'll really be fscked. They probably won't exist as a company after Novell. (though technically you're right, the cases haven't been settled, dropped, or judged yet)

    --
    Can I be a Luddite too?
  6. Behlendorf on SCO: Legal Cannibalism? by handy_vandal · · Score: 4, Interesting
    From the interview:
    Q. What's your take on the long-term impact of the SCO lawsuits? What changes - positive and negative - do you see it producing for Linux and the open source community?

    A. I'm assuming that thanks to the BayStar callback that this lawsuit is nearly dead. Of course SCO, could sue their own financial backers and prolong this further, but it feels like we're seeing the beginning of the end.
    Whoa -- now there's a thought -- SCO turning litigious against their former backers. Cannibalism among the cannibals ....

    -kgj
    --
    -kgj
  7. The opposite is always a possibility by ObviousGuy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Netscape sued itself out of existence when it tried to claim that Navigator was being boxed out by Microsoft. Double whammy for Netscape: Inferior product AND litigious management.

    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
  8. Re:Hillarity.. by djdavetrouble · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Whats hilarious? That Brian actually had a life outside of writing awesome software? I knew him when he was a UCB undergrad... he also started the sf-raves email list back in the early 90's, and was part of the early rave scene in the Bay Area.. He used to host pre-rave parties too at his dorm room. He was always very social, talkative, and good with people. He didn't just sit down in the web crunching away on the workstations ... There were lots of other coders in the scene too, such as the guys from Twitch records. mw worked at Sybase, etc etc....

    --
    music lover since 1969