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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."
...is in the spinoff projects. For example, this open source Java memory profiler is a spinoff of the DARPA-supported COUGAAR agent framework.
And since both projects are hosted on a server running GForge, I can help improve GForge during working hours. Good times!
The Army reading list
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).
I just emailed ESR about the gross misreference to GNU/Linux as linux in his article.
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
Actually, Ive ran across 1 of them..
This "worm" was about 1 MB, self contained and ran quite fast.
The full intention of this worm was as an auto-hacker for linux machines. It used a IRC seession, DES encrypted and MD5 checksummed. Once 1 machine was infected, it would use a large library of exploits against other known linux machines (with use of nmap-like scans) and attempt to dupe it to others.
Ive been able to isolate it, but whatever the coders did with it, they made it into semi-encrypted spaghetti. Crashes damn near every debugger Ive tried. It's now a collection on one of my cd's now. "Strange and infectous stuf"
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.
I'm sure MS would prefer you use IIS, but this seems an easily deflected statement. I'm positive that MS prefers you using Apache on Windows to you using Apache on Linux.
"A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself."
The basic messages about selecting MS/Linux for a system are governed by the following:
- Don't change for the sake of it
- Take into account what your people know (e.g. Linux possibly better if you have lots of Unix people)
- Much of the cost saving of Linux over Unix comes from hardware - i.e. using Intel over mainframe/AIX/zSeries etc.
- OS/Platform is just a tool - choose the right one for the job
- MS/Linux TCO's are nearly always within 10% for most projects by the time all costs are accounted for (this was from an independent solutions provider)
- Don't just focus on TCO - look at ROI (return on investment)
- MS is pretty well zero-development (no code or scripting)
- The People and Processes are more important than the technical solution
- Check licensing model of any platform (will any Linux development become your IP, or will it be open)
- Linux still does not have a really good desktop and the office suites available are still lagging
- security issues such as virus updates and patch management are more of an administration issue than a platform one
- Easier porting J2EE->.Net than the other way round (i.e. MS ties you in worse!!!)
My web domain.
I firmly believe Microsoft have done us a favour.
"Windows vs Linux TCO..."
CIO, "Linux, what's Linux?"
Engineer, "Its that system I have been trying to tell you about that can save us time and money"
CIO, "Ok, tell me about it then"
10 Mins later...
"Ok do it, lets see how it goes."
End of Story. And even though the 'facts' are biased, lets hope most CIO's can consider both sides of the story:)
I was at the Edinburgh event last week and spoke to many Microsofties and to their corporate customers. The customers were quite cynical about Microsoft's motives but many of them said, in effect, they wouldn't have attended such an event if it hadn't been organised by Microsoft. Microsoft are panicing, time is on our side. Ed
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
Why not? It's a perfectly cromulent word that embiggens his point.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Until I realized, finally, belatedly, what had been happening to me. Until the Great God Pan reached out of my hindbrain and thundered "YOU!" And his gift is music and his chosen instruments the pipes and flutes. And his, too the power of joy; magic so strong that when it flowed out of me, even before I knew what I was doing, it amazed people into awe and incoherence and poetry.
That day I was reborn; from a skinny lame kid with a flute into a shaman and a vessel of the Goat-Foot God, the Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the Horned Lord. And the music was my first power, but not my last.
ESR is off the deep end.
Well, strictly looking for new and under $350, I found this at Walmart's site right off the bat. They also have a 2.4gzh one for $398.
I'm sure I could have found even better deals, but I don't really have a lot of time to spend looking (and I'm happy getting a used box from retrobox).
...to show who says what.
Stallman GNU/linux Free Software Bearded Chaotic Good
Linus linux Open Source(?) Unbearded True Neutral
Eric linux Open Source Hitler Mustache Chaotic Evil
Bruce P GNU/linux Free Software Beardless Lawful Good
Alan Cox GNU/lin(mostly) Free Software Mighty beard Chaotic Good
Hello? If there is actually anyone still left on the planet who thinks the term free software was a good idea, I hope they're paying attention. Because what Microsoft is doing here is exploiting the old familiar gratis/libre ambiguity of the word free in yet another way.
Raymond should be less glib and contrive a better argument against the term free software than mere coersion. I see no reason why Micro$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
Could you explain to us how using "software wizards" instead of package manager (yum, apt, urpmi, whatever your distro is based on) and related GUI for software installation and patching could translate into TCO saving ? Remember, most software installation and patching is not being done by the end-user anyway, but by their IT departement.
If you would be equally proficient with both MS Office and OO.org, that would be telling something. However, I am pretty sure you are not. With that assumption, the only conclusion I can draw ATM is that using software you are not familiar with take more time, especially for advanced stuff like data validation. Duh.
:wq
Remember how Linux advocates, real early on, used to love to quote Ghandi? You know, first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you've won? Well, it works both ways. Now we have both camps bitterly and intentionally fighting with each other. And what good does it do? If Linux--excuse me, I mean "open source in general" is so blindly superior to Windows in every single way, then that's it. It's over. The existing momentum will carry through and eventually the better solution wins. It's a quiet revolution. It isn't a niche loss, like laser discs or Betamax.
:)
Now what should be worrying people like Mr. Raymond is that Linux-based desktops (which is what we're really talking about, not simply "open source"), is that Linux *isn't* so blindingly superior as to carry the day. Truthfully, I think this is the case. I've used UNIX, I like Linux, but we're essentially having a big battle of the old and huge operating systems here, and none of them is a revolution. None of them is so much better than all the others is wonderful and positive ways. (Mostly they're all negative: don't get virii, don't have to deal with Microsoft.) In fact, the entire concept of the big operating system is a relic. Does anyone argue about the OS in a digital camera? Or a Palm? Or a cell phone? No. And those are more akin to what an "OS" of the future needs to be: thin, small, and unobtrusive. We need the Commodore 64 of the next decade, not the next VAX.
Thanks for listening
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.
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.