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ESR's Halloween XI -- Get the FUD
dave writes "In the newest Halloween Document (mirror), Eric Raymond analyzes Microsoft's 'Get The Facts' road show. The anti-Linux arguments they are using now -- and, even more, the arguments they're *not* using -- reveal how desperate Microsoft is getting. He explains why he thinks we need to focus more on government adoptions, and predicts serious ugliness during the next year."
How many Linux machines have been zombied by Netsky, Sasser, MyDoom, or similar worms? Do your Windows TCO estimates include administrator time spent cleaning up after these infestations?
None, because they weren't created for Linux (as it doesn't have the market share that Windows machines do) *and* because *currently* Linux doesn't have the clueless userbase that Windows does (I won't go into the discussion of management telling IT what to do and IT saying "yes sir" and not deploying patches).
If Linux ever attains the userbase that Windows has the clueless users will outnumber those w/half a brain. That is when the worms and whatnot will spread like wildfire.
If the DoD switches in near totality to OpenOffice, hundreds of corporations will switch too for the sake of compatability with their primary source of bread and butter. Microsoft is terrified at the idea of losing not just approximately 1-1.5 million defense desktops (not counting the other, smaller, departments) but the corporations that sell to them. A mass move to Linux, or better yet in 2 years, HaikuOS would be a disaster for Microsoft.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
"Free as in speech."
Linux IS free.
It's just not neccessarily "free as in beer". It may cost you some money, but you're free to do with it (to a degree) what you wish, so long as you contribute any changes back.
Over-simplified, sure. But go download the windows source code, add a few features to explorer (heck, squash some bugs and security flaws while you're in there), and re-release the source back out there with a Makefile.
Let's see how long until your pants are sued right off of your legs.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
The "Get the Facts" series is one of the funniest things I've ever read, especially about linux. M$ is unable to digest the fact that more and more governments are going for F/OSS. With hardware becoming surprisingly cheaper(well, atleast for some governments), they are no longer willing to spend more money for software. Even some state governments are switching to linux. The time/money involved in training the staff to adopt to linux is better than sinking huge amounts into fighting viruses and frequent shutdowns.
It appears that ESR has decided that instead of highlighting the memos behind the FUD that was the hallmark of the previous halloween analysises, he wants to go after the published FUD instead.
Personally I think while his points may be valid he just ruined the value of the Halloween series.
The Halloween series worked because it was criticism of real leaked Microsoft memos.
This so-called "Halloween" memo is just counter-fud.
Come on moderators, you moderated it to +4 without the server or the mirror showing any trouble. Don't make karma-whoring so easy!
Linux isn't free. Hello? If there is actually anyone still left on the planet who thinks the term free software was a good idea, I hope they're paying attention. Because what Microsoft is doing here is exploiting the old familiar gratis/libre ambiguity of the word free in yet another way. They're setting up for a claim that free software advocates are lying or deluded because Linux has a nonzero TCO. Therefore, goes the implication, you can't really trust them about that other freedom thing, can you?
Maybe we need a better / more effective / less easily confused way to talk about the "freedom" aspect. I'd be interested in constructive discussion of this. But there is a logical flaw in ESR's argument here. It's wrong to conclude that using the term "free software" is a bad idea just because MS tries to muddy the waters. MS may or may not succeed in making our current way of communicating the freedom aspect of Free Software less effective, but this is certainly not a reason to stop talking about "Free Foftware". Quite on the contrary, if after all their studying Microsoft is now trying to discredit the "freedom thing", isn't that an indication that emphasis on the freedom aspect is important, and should be increased rather than diminished!
Under construction: swpat politics overview article
(Yeah, OK, that's probably not quite mathematically correct. Here's a proposition -- if you explain that zeta function story from last week, feel free to then go ahead and flame over "asymptotically".)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
We're winning?
We're winning because MS isn't banging on about the same arguments year after year?
We're winning because MS is creating in the minds of the public a wide variety of flaws in the idea of open source?
We're winning because MS still has the same market share?
We're winning because we've driven out the smaller OS's without making a dent on MS?
We're winning because we still have ESR as our spokesperson?
What has ESR brought to the Open Source community?
2 37 &mode=thread&tid=99p l?sid=02/02/28/132424 8&mode=thread&tid=163
:)
Stunningly accurate predictions, like MS's monopoly collapsing in 2001, and Windows becoming obsolete when computer prices dipped below $350.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/12/13/216
http://slashdot.org/article.
He's got a knack for predicting the future. You can rest assured that MS really is getting *DESPERATE* now, especially now that they're obsolete and their monopoly had collapsed years ago.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
Its name?
> ...they weren't created for Linux (as it doesn't have the market share that Windows machines do) *and* because *currently* Linux doesn't have the clueless userbase that Windows does (I won't go into the discussion of management telling IT what to do and IT saying "yes sir" and not deploying patches).
No, you are wrong. The flawed security in Windows is a result of closed source. It has absolutely nothing to do with the knowledge level of the user base. Open Source means more eyes are fixed upon the project, following the bouncing ball, and that can only spell tight security for Open Source. Closed source has to compete with inner-office power struggles, funding diversions, corporate shenanigans, ad nauseum, and the user base remains clueless perhaps to how insecure their systems are, but that's not the point of it all. That's not why systems are being zombied. Spam, anyone?
Security is not compromised by the inept or idiotic, either, and any security system can be bypassed, so it must be about the will to do so, which *is* lacking in the Open Source community, for obvious reasons. Virus writers are actually intelligent people, with a wide variety of skills (read: m4dsk1llz), and they hate Microsoft, or they are bored, so they program destructively. There has to be something said about how corporations treat their programmers, in layoffs or forced overtime without pay, and this stress adds up to malicious rubuttals in the form of crushed company networks. Obviously not all viruses are written to get back at The Man, but many are. I may be an insensitive clod for pointing out how poorly us programmers are treated, but that truly is the reason malicious code is written -- because people simply don't like eachother, or they mistreat people who have a little knowledge and a lot of animosity piling up.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
"Oops. Didn't work. Why not? No permissions."
Right because no avergae use would be running in root right? And if you believe that, you are as dumb as I thought.
MS can survive with Open Source. For all the bashing the slashdot crowd gives they aren't all that bad.
MS has made some nice stuff. They have some skilled people and good marketing. They just need to create value.
There have been some good things they have done.
MS Flight simulator, long history of an excellent product here.
Defined a standard window system, does anyone else remember back in the DOS days with a new GUI system for every app?
MS also did a good job with VB making it trivial to hack together a quick GUI app.
Good point. You probably don't have permissions to remove the easily replacable OS files. Secure!
But you certainly have enough permission to delete all the files that matter to you, to connect outbound on the internet, to start a backdoor running in the background listening for someone to connect in later, to run a local root explot, and many other fun and exciting things. H4X0r3D!!1!
With the exception of "Check licensing model...", which is mostly FUD, that all seems rather sensible. Or am I missing something?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Linux isn't free. Hello? If there is actually anyone still left on the planet who thinks the term free software was a good idea, I hope they're paying attention.
Can't go one whole article without attacking the ideals of Free Software, can you?
No one thinks the term "Free Software" is a good one, the issue has always been that there's nothing better. I can't use Open Source since the term doesn't mean the same thing.
The only other term I can use is Digital Commons, but Digitial Commons is a larger movement than Free Software.
Anyway, ESR, you can't go one whole article without going on the attack against Free Software, can you? You can't accept that many of the ideals of Open Source haven't panned out, and that with the recent legal attacks, the commitement and idealism of Free Software is what's driving so many to resist so strongly.
You're using such similar tactics to MS that it's startling. At first you ignored Free Software- refused to talk about it in many articles. Then you attacked it. Now you make subtle arguments aginst it in each thing you put out.
If you really wanted a unified movement- you'd stop with the blatant attacks.
...what Erik's done besides write some of the documentation for NetHack? The only desperate entity I see is him, to make people think he's relevant.
BTW, Sun Micro has the best commercial Linux desktop package according to an article published by eWeek last week, beating out RedHat's. I thought Slashdot was obligated to link to any article on the web with the word "linux" in it, guess they missed that one.
>I'm a bit surprised that ESR would point out the
>Apche vs. IIS differences when Microsoft could
>come back by pointing out you can always run
>Apache on Windows if you want to.
Irrelevant. The point is whether Open Source is a viable alternative or not. MS absolutely doesn't want you messing with Apache on any platform, because if all your apps are open source, you are no longer locked into Windows OS.
Fine, but that's the sort of "free" that this particular audience is mainly concerned about - the corporate world does not generally set out to make a political statement via their choice of operating system, not at the expense of the bottom line. For MS to point out that Linux is not free beer is both an accurate and effective talking point, considering who they're talking to. Linux beer may or may not be cheaper than MS beer, but it ain't free, and Microsoft would be a gang of fools to not point that out.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Next time, in promulgating your esoteric cogitations, or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable, philosophical or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your conversational communications possess a clarified conciseness, a compacted comprehensibleness, coalescent consistency, and a concatenated cogency. Eschew all conglomerations of flatulent garrulity, jejune babblement, and asinine affectations.
Let your extemporaneous descantings and unpremeditated expatiations have intelligibility and veracious vivacity, without rodomontade or thrasonical bombast. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous prolixity, psittaceous vacuity ventriloquial verbosity, and vaniloquent vapidity. Shun double-entendres, prurient jocosity, and pestiferous profanity, obscurant or apparent!!
From Don't Use Big Words...
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
He takes something MS said and provides HIS made up translation of the so called 'real meaning'.
MS official: We plan to fix Windows
ESR: Translation, We will kill Linus Torvalds and everyone in Open source world.
Support for MS products is not FREE either. Regardless of the platform support will be necessary - why do so many people forget this? It is not as if just anyone can set up a reliable, secure environment with no experience.
Hello? If there is actually anyone still left on the planet who thinks the term free software was a good idea, I hope they're paying attention. Because what Microsoft is doing here is exploiting the old familiar gratis/libre ambiguity of the word free in yet another way.
Raymond should be less glib and contrive a better argument against the term free software than mere coersion. I see no reason why Micro$oft's perverse attacks should affect my philosophy the freedom of ideas, or dictate which terms are acceptable in discussing it. In these dark days of ever expanding corporatism we need more discussion of freedom, not less.
an ill wind that blows no good
> Linux and OS X make it pretty easy for the user to upgrade their priveleges temporarily
Which is exactly how a typical Dumb Person trojan horse could spread.
If some percentage of Windows users will open an encrypted zip file containing malware, some percentage of Unix users will type in their root password when prompted.
ESR was trying to show the contrast between open and closed development. It doesn't really matter what platform Apache runs on. What matters is that it is open, has a much larger market share than IIS, and is hacked less. That refutes Microsoft's attempts to paint open source software as inherently less secure.
Yeah...that'd be a great virus. Obviously modelled after the Windows virus that tries to delete everything under C:\. Oh...wait...gee...that wouldn't work either. Maybe I'll just wait for the Linus virus that looks for unprotected passwd files, cracks them, and creates a blog of usernames, passwords, and IP addresses. As much as I like the open source community, it is thriving in a much less hostile environment than Windows. If you want to compare the two platforms in any meaningful way, you can't look at what people have done to break them since there is infinitely more incentive to breaking Windows than Linux.
Not until it adopts a BSD license. Then it would truly be free. The GPL isn't free, no matter how much Slashdot has drilled it into your head.
Aside from that, you can't ignore support costs, training, and maintenance and claim something is completely free. That's spinning it.
Re: the idiots who didn't recognize your article for what it was; a slam at ESR: I can't believe the number of people who read Slashdot who don't recognize sarcasm!
You're right, his ability to prognosticate is badly flawed when predicting end results. OTOH, I think he's been pretty accurate in how MS would fight the war, don't you? Go back and re-read the Halloween docs and you'll see what I mean.
Oh. So he didn't even do that. I stand corrected. Whatever; I use free
software anyway.
Microsoft has a consumer OS they're trying to secure. You have a server OS that you're trying to make usable as a workstation. You can argue endlessly about how each side could have done things differently, but most of the time most people who attack Microsoft because they're (in your words) "unable to write good code" also discount the fact that they have to deal with a huge user and legacy application base. They can't just change the default shell action of a VB script from "Run" to "Edit" (which pretty much eliminates script worms) without getting themselves into a hell of a bind. There is no easy solution. But the attitude from people like you is mostly "lock it down and let the user fight it". You won't sell a lot of anything like that, unfortunately. As long as open source continues to think of users as developers who don't mind opening a console and typing 'su' to get anything done Linux won't get far in the desktop.
The Apple comparison is dumb, as always. Just by virtue of sheer user base size.
You just wait until Linux gains some market share in the desktop thanks to IBM or Novell. The day some fuck starts sending tarballs with bash scripts that delete ~/ or zombie the box to send spam we'll have another chat. There's no need to run as root to do damage to a machine.
Sometimes I wonder how the anti-ESR zealots rationalize their actions. Are they jealous because he's so well known ("my program was much more difficult to write than fetchmail, why does nobody quote me"), angry because he has some controversial opinions on firearms, or what?
Apparently people like to cling to all the things they consider personality flaws like starving worms, using them at all opportunities to attack the persons other opinions and activities.
It kinda pisses me off to see valid Microsoft criticism from an Open Source evangelist being attacked just because some asshat takes ESR's hackers dictionary too seriously. Do you really think someone is just trapped in the shadow of ESR, mourning that if ESR was taken down just a notch, he could steal the limelight and rescue the true spirit of open source?
You guys should just pause for a while, and think whether petty arguing among ourselves is more important than the war of spin & fud between us and microsoft. Unless you are working for AdTI, of course - in that case I understand your motivations perfectly.
Grow up. Your mom still lives you more than she loves ESR, no need to feel all sad and droopy.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
I think ESR is being really disingenuous here and not really addressing the meat of MS's points at all. I wouldn't call it FUD, but he's certainly missing the argument and just responding snidely to them.
1. Claim that linux isn't free.
ESR seems to think all MS is talking about here is that it isn't free because it "has a nonzero TCO." Sure, that's part of it, but I think the argument goes deeper. The point is that the majority of corporate customers are not going to just download a freely available distribution of Linux, because most enterprise customers NEED support. Therefore, they are going to buy a supported distribution from a major Linux vendor, and that most certainly costs money. In that case it's most certainly not free (as in beer), and while it is still free (as in speech), those companies are not going to really exercise that freedom because they can't just modify their distribution and still expect support from the vendor.
2. Pretend that Shared source is the same as Open Source.
ESR's basically just belittles this statement, but again, there's some truth behind it. If you consider a company as above, namely, that they have bought a Linux vendor's distribution with support and they are not going to modify that distribution and lose their support. At that point, what IS the difference between 'Shared Source' and 'Open Source'? Either way, they're only looking at the source code and not modifying it. The only real difference I can see is that with Open Source (or really, Free Software) they could try to create a patch and get it into a future release in the hope that their vendor will pick it up and support it. This is really only marginally better than relying on your commercial software vendor for new features, because you're still dependent on some external entity (in this case, your vendor) and their decision making process to get that feature.
I just love how the definition of 'free' mutates depending on who's talking about what. For example, free is good when talking about Linux no matter what the TCO is because it comes with source code. But free is bad when talking about Microsoft because of words like "DRM" and "monopoly" etc.
I know this post isn't going to earn me any popularity here. That's fine. All I ask is that you take away this one little statement from me: if the word free dynamically changes and confuses people, stop using it. Don't use free when one person's thinking licensing cost and another's thinking about source code. Everybody values each of those factors seperately.
"Derp de derp."
We have a consultant on hand for our Linux stuff that we hand picked. Should we need to tap some extra knowledge, he has been great and can bring in others (on his ticket) if that firm is stumped. It works well.
my experience across 8 years has been that commercial support from a specific vendor can be hit or miss. Sometimes great (really great... Cisco comes to mind). Sometimes really really bad.
At my old job, they still had to hire independent consultants for some Microsoft tasks.
Fine, but that's the sort of "free" that this particular audience is mainly concerned about - the corporate world does not generally set out to make a political statement via their choice of operating system, not at the expense of the bottom line.
Corporations cannot run their companies for free. Every bit of maintenance and operational activity costs money. The free as in speech aspect of OSS benefits them by offering choice: it's difficult to lock a company into an upgrade cycle (with its caascading effects) when that company can choose to continue using an old version indefinitely. You can't EOL an OSS product, and you can't hold them hostage with bugfixes.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I probably agree with most of what he says there, except for that
1) good code isn't propoganda
2) destroying Microsoft shouldn't be a goal
3) beggars can't be choosers - (I won't beg people to use Linux)
not to mention...
Using patents as anything other than a form of insurance or a form of fake currency is entirely unproductive and will only serve to reduce their value as a fake currency and as a modern-day form of insurance. Unless, of course, people would choose to use them for what they are meant to be used for...
The DMCA is going to be rewritten
Someone is going to take what this Halloween document says and twist it and try to prove that Linux is out to destroy proprietary software and your paycheck, which will generate more arguments back and forth.
Just because Red Hat might be right doesn't mean that they are the best choice in software for your organization.
Imagine a cool, calm, peaceful, beautiful, and very blue body of water - a fresh cool breeze blowing through your hair; the smell of flowers and other good-smelling things; the sounds of birds and leaves blowing in the breeze.
Microsoft is a company. What is a company but a collection of individuals. The problem is not Microsoft, the problem is individuals who work, used to work, know people who work, etc... at Microsoft. The same thing can be said for government. It's not Microsoft + the government out to destroy Linux, it's individuals + individuals being selfish, greedy and stupid.
The first thing that can be done is to show respect for Microsoft. Sure, Linux costs more, but IT'S BETTER. (which is true). Linux is more expensive because it's better. (it's actually less expensive). Now all the rich folks will want Linux because it's the "Cadillac" of operating systems. Microsoft gets Chevrolet status by their own request.
I recently though of an analogy after reading Stephen Hawking's book - it's about entropy, or the direction of time. Glasses fall off of tables and shatter, they don't pick themselves up from pieces on the floor and magically un-break themselves and fall "up" back on the table in one piece.
But God, or in this case, let's compare God to the public - to the individual who is observing what is going on, and making a decision, a judgement, as to which software solution is the best to buy.
Can God, or the observer, in this case, press "rewind", and have the glass re-assemble itself? If this is true, does it really matter who threw the first punch? For all anyone cares, they are just "fighting". It doesn't matter who started it.
Imagine a cool, calm, peaceful, beautiful, and very blue body of water - a fresh cool breeze blowing through your hair; the smell of flowers and other good-smelling things; the sounds of birds and leaves blowing in the breeze.
I would say Linus is Neutral Good. He is certainly on our side, even if he doesn't go on a ideology pitching frenzy.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Honestly, I think it's because getting a good calendaring/email solution together isn't a small task; its equivalent to writing a full-fledged office program. However, unlike an office program, it isn't very useful to the home user, pretty much solely useful for corporate users. As a result, there's not really an "itch" for most developers.
As to the other part of it - honestly, Outlook/Exchange is a pretty decent setup. Outlook as an email client is awful, but Outlook/Exchange as a group calendaring/room reservation/resource reservation setup (yes, we reserve a conference room by adding it to our meeting request on Outlook, and resources similarly for those that are tracked) is a decent solution. It would take a lot of work for an OS developer to come up with something as good, and the companies that most need that sort of solution (giant corporations; IBMs, Intels, Motorolas, Walmarts) are the ones who are most able to deal with both the cost of licenses.
Basically, the problem is that its a big problem that has no use for home users, and none of the big corporates has shown a desire to move away from the 'good enough' solution O/Ex provides.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Software should be treated like firearms. You should be allowed to shoot yourself in the foot, but only if you know how to remove the safety.
"I am the Black Mage! I casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down!" ~8BT
Anyone know where to find stats on websites broken into? IIS .vs. Apache? After all just saying IIS has been broken into more often is fine, but its better to point to some kind of source.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Do you really think there's a CIO out there who hasn't yet heard of Linux? That's like suggesting that there's a CFO somewhere who's never heard of SAP or Peoplesoft.
CIOs may not use Linux, they may not even have any interest in using Linux, but by now certainly every CIO has at least heard of it and can probably describe Linux better than half the people on Slashdot.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
You must be on crack.
How is this script going to launch if it is saved as read and write only as Linux/Unix OS's routinely handle such events? How is it going to initiate a daemon without being root? It can't execute, so it can't make a copy of itself: only the user can make that file executable and then any putative damage is restricted to the user's space, so it can't install, so it can't exploit anything.
And if you administer a Linux machine that permits users in your "Windows/Linux/Solaris/Netware" environment to allow scripts and executable to be set as executable automatically or casually as a user, you are a scary security administrator.
Dawn of the Dead
Simple: having all that, and realizing that it's all going to go away, and there's nothing you can do about it.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.