Linus Torvalds' Benevolent Dictatorship

treebeard77 writes "BusinessWeek has posted Linus Torvalds interview ' The creator of Linux says "I can't be nasty" when leading the open-source movement since it's all built on trust and teamwork' "

Comments

I for one welcome our new benevolent overlord

[Try to think about i]

Hail Linus

Re:I for one welcome our new benevolent overlord

[Anonymous Coward]

You were a fool to think anyone would want to hear Whoopie Goldberg quoted

Re:I for one welcome our new benevolent overlord

[Neo's Nemesis]

Linus! He really has changed the markets and turned governments upside down.

But here's the most expansive article i've read about him online. Really connecting and interesting: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/

Re:I for one welcome our new benevolent overlord

[O_D_Evans]

Yes, All Hail Linus and the GNU World Order!

Re:I for one welcome our new benevolent overlord

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why he can't be nasty. Theo is nasty and gets away with it just fine. ;-)

That guy even trolls his own mailing lists from time to time.

Re:I for one welcome our new benevolent overlord

[Anonymous Coward]

And you're driven by the thought: Drat! Why did I spend all of my dollars learning Microsoft technologies and buying all their crappy (that's mine, could'nt help it) software while the others are getting it for free! I am sure you're actually kicking yourself right now!

On a positive note, there's hope for you yet ... c'mon be one of the others!!

RMS was quoted as saying

[Anonymous Coward]

That's GNU/Dictatorship damn you.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[ViolentGreen]

And it shows that OSS really is like communism because it has a dictator.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Aardpig]

And it shows that OSS really is like communism because it has a dictator.

And also like fascisim, since the Nazis were National Socialists, and we all know socialism is the same as communism.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[drinkypoo]

The difference is that if you don't like this dictatorship you can copy everything useful from it (except the manpower) and go dig your own sandbox and fill it with a copy of the sand from the other one. Now all you need is more kids to play with... The problem with dictatorships is that a> they can prevent people from leaving the sandbox and b> all the other sandboxes are already full of children who will resist your attempts to kick them out.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[WarMonkey]

And it shows that OSS really is like communism because it has a dictator.

Nahhh. It shows that Linux is like Christmas. Some vaguely Nordic person with a pleasant demeanor takes charge of making sure things get done, so that a great set of gifts can be bestowed upon all humanity. He couldn't do it without all his little helpers, though. The best thing is, Linux doesn't only come once a year.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Mateito]

I read that as "Linus doesn't come only once a year", which prompts the question

How do you know?

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Anonymous Coward]

And it shows that OSS really is like communism because it has a dictator.

As opposed to Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Oracle et al who have democratically elected leaders?

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, naturally I haven't read the article, but the title says "dictatorship". In OSS, anyone can fork the project at any time. The fact that people have stayed with Linus's fork means it's more like democratic election.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[the_mad_poster]

Yes, that makes sense.... ignoring the inconvenient little fact that communism does not require that the ruling body be a dictatorship.... in fact, the theory behind communism wouldn't disallow the possibility of a society that elects its leaders to a congressional body.

The other inconvenient little fact is that the open source community is more like a purely benevolent capitalist society where the only people who work to produce things are those who choose to, then they willingly provide the fruits of their labor back to the collective.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Alzheimers]

No, silly! Their leaders get their positions the same way the US Govt gets theirs. They buy their way in.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[huckda]

ahh but does he use ELF binaries?

That is the question...

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[WormholeFiend]

I think he made an educated guess, based on the fact that Linus is a guy, with a computer, who has access to the internet, and presumably also downloads pr0n.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Bull999999]

Not really because you can always fork of you disagree with Linus but try that with communism and you'll likely to get shot.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[John Hurliman]

Yes. An appointed CEO who can be ousted, and a board of directors that is elected by shareholders with voting stock.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Tove, you insensitive clod!

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Actually that isn't a captialism. There is no property (i.e. capital) involved. It's a meritocracy.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[EvilTwinSkippy]

So when do we rename one of the months "Linuary" and add a 31st day? Oh, and are we going to yank that day from February?

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Nerd With Nalgene]

a purely benevolent...society where the only people who work to produce things are those who choose to, then they willingly provide the fruits of their labor back to the collective.

Wow, you just defined communism.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[the_mad_poster]

Wow. You just proved you know nothing about communism.

Go look it up and try again.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Jotaigna]

Chile had a 17 year dictatorship that was Capitalist/conservative/right-wing oriented. So you cant link dictatorship with a political orientation, neither OSS for that matter

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Aardpig]

Chile had a 17 year dictatorship that was Capitalist/conservative/right-wing oriented. So you cant link dictatorship with a political orientation, neither OSS for that matter.

Whoa, boy, you left your sense of humour running all night long, and it has gone flat!

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[AkaXakA]

In that case, we're iNazi's

Because we're not National, we're International right?

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[ShadyG]

He's married.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Mateito]

I lived in a very Italian part of Sydney, and then in Melbourne, where coffee is smooth and aromatic, and bitter burnt coffee provided by Starbucks is widely regarded as an abomination.

However, good quality bitter chocolate (such as the Lindt 85%) is delicious.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[russeljns]

And also like fascisim, since the Nazis were National Socialists, and we all know socialism is the same as communism.

I'm assuming there's some sarcasm here. Cause there was nothing socialist about the "National Socialists", that was just a trendy thing to call yourself at the time (pre cold war, remember?). Dictatorships and socialism do not have to go hand in hand. You can be an anti-authoratarian socialist, they're not mutually exclusive. Capitalism and communism are economic systems, and dictatorship is an authoratarian method of rule. It can be applied to any economic system.

Besides, socialism is not nessecarily the same as communism. Then again I could just be missing your sarcasm.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[drawfour]

When will people learn...

Communism (non-capitalized) is a form of Marxism, which is an ECONOMIC system. (Communism (capitalized) was the authoritarian government of the USSR, which implemented a communism-based system.) Capitalism is another such ECONOMIC system.
A democracy/republic is a form of GOVERNMENT. Dictatorship/monarchy are other forms of GOVERNMENT.

Governmental system != Economic system, though arguably one influences the other.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[NoMercy]

A truely good point, so many people think they go hand in hand because of the cold war but just like D&D's Good-Evil Law-Chaos, there's two axis on the goverment scale with Democracy-Dictatorship, Communism-Comercialism.

You can have a democratic communist state and a democratic commercalist state as well, though no ones really pulled off the democratic comunist system, most communist states fain the idea that there democratic but a one party democratic system is a dictatorship.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Aardpig]

Besides, socialism is not nessecarily the same as communism.

Yes, indeed.

Then again I could just be missing your sarcasm.

Bingo!

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[daigu]

Three comments:

• Software is intellectual capital; a possession created by law that is essentially no different than other laws recognizing ownership: of land, of corporations by stockholders, etc.
• If you fancy the Marxist critique, you could also argue that capitalism also has to account for labor-power, which software also requires.
• Linux may be a meritocracy. However, this fact does not support an argument that Linux is not capitalistic. It is possible for a capitalist system to also be a meritocacy.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[matrix0f8h]

I disagree. They fork the code, not the people working on the code.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[geminidomino]

So that means he only comes once every 3 years...

Getting married for sex is like getting your legs amputated to run faster.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Bush Pig]

Actually Marxism is a form of communism (communist theory predates Marx and Engels), but other than that, spot on.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Bush Pig]

Yeah, if you don't like it, you can fork off ;)

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[Kardamon]

Cause there was nothing socialist about the "National Socialists"

Actually, the Nazi party NSDAP did have a left/socialist wing, propaganda minister Goebbels being the most "prominent" representative of that faction (opposed to Hermann Göring's right wing and Hitler playing the divide and conquer game between them.) Read for example Hans Bernd Gisevius' book on Hitler.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[tehcyder]

a purely benevolent capitalist society where the only people who work to produce things are those who choose to, then they willingly provide the fruits of their labor back to the collective

No, this would be a definition of a pure communist society, "From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs."

For it to be a capitalist society you would have to involve the exchange of money somewhere I think.

I know that Americans in particular can't even see the word "communism" with out thinking of Soviet Russia/totalitarianism and so on, but there is no necessary connection from a theoretical point of view.

Re:RMS was quoted as saying

[KjetilK]

....in much the same way you could oust the leader if you joined the polit beauro.

It still isn't democratic in any sense.

Torvalds created a good kernel...

[TrollBridge]

...not a 'movement'. He wisely left that nonsense to the zealots.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[Cranx]

He actually just said "leading" which, if any single person could be called "leading" would probably be him. Without his kernel, we would all probably not even know who SCO was.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[Sv-Manowar]

Everything has an action and a reaction , I cant see linus predicting this coming after starting that many years ago

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[komu]

Actually, Linus created more than just a kernel: he created a development process. We might take it for granted now, but the process didn't really exist in it's current form before Linux kernel.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[Anonymous Coward]

He wisely left that nonsense to the zealots.

I think you mean:

He wisely left that nonsense to Slashdo^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hthe zealots.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[latroM]

Or this sco thing would have happened with the Hurd or one of the BSD kernels.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[Anonymous Coward]

What development process would that be exactly? Certainly not the open sharing of code. That existed long before Linus and Linux.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[jbn-o]

That "zealotry" helped build a license (the GNU General Public License) which in turn helped create a movement. It's funny how people are called names when they advocate for their freedom.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[drinkypoo]

Actually, if Linux hadn't come around then it's possible that the BSDs would still be puttering around in the stone age because they would not have had as much motivation to thrive through competition, and the only commercial x86 Unixes would then be Solaris/x86, which would still be a sad joke (now it's just an unfunny joke), BSDi which would be just as sad a joke if not sadder, and SCO Unix which would probably merge with SCO Unixware and become one decent product. Hence if it were not for Linux SCO might actually be a contender today. However Linux became too much too fast for SCO to keep up and made them irrelevant. Their attack on linux can be seen as a kind of attempt to take revenge for the destruction of SCO's chance to succeed.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[Mateito]

Hurd

yep, and we'd all be playing Duke Nukem Forever while watching the original Star Wars cimenatic cuts on DVD.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[Planesdragon]

That "zealotry" helped build a license (the GNU General Public License) which in turn helped create a movement. It's funny how people are called names when they advocate for their freedom.

RMS had one too many bad service contracts, so he decided that he never wanted to have software he couldn't fix himself if he needed to. So, he concieved of copyleft, and in a rather tireless manner advocated it and programmed for it and, after LT released the Linux kernal under RMS's license, he had a working, Free-as-in-Speech OS.

This is all well and good, and no one can call anyone names for suggesting that software be editable and fixable by those that use their systems. Heck, they can't even be looked down on for refusing to use "non-free" software.

Unfortunately, there is a limit where advocacy turns to zealotry. If i suggest that you should vote Democratic, and argue any point you would care to discuss in such an end as to point the Democrats in an excellent light, I'm an advocate. When i start saying that you're a bad person if you don't vote for the Democrats, or make unsubstantiated claims about their opponents, I'm a zealot.

GNU/Zealots do NOTHING to advance the purposes of Free Software*; they drive for the splintering of licenses (and thus curtail interopability), and impung the image of copylefted software such that many professional and non-professional computer users simply avoid it, for fear that the touch of "free software" will extend to items that they create of their own (possibly meager) skill.

(About that asterisk: "Free Software" is a counter-intuitive term. An alternate term, such as "Free Computing", can be much more intuitive and not fall asunder of the 'free as in beer' or 'you get what you pay for' fallacies.)

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[TrollBridge]

"where are these zealots you speak of?"

The zealots see Linux as a movement. They believe that commercial software is evil (if not illegal), and that OSS must be used even if it is not the best tool for the job. They believe the primary purpose of OSS should be to force closed-source software from of the market.

Someone who is not a zealot sees Linux as a tool.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[KilobyteKnight]

That "zealotry" helped build a license (the GNU General Public License) which in turn helped create a movement. It's funny how people are called names when they advocate for their freedom.

The post you responded to mentioned no one by name, only zealots. Yet, you felt compeled to defend these unnammed zealots. You even went so far as to defend their motives as being to advocate for freedom. You must have thought about and were writing about a particular group of people with whom you associate the word "zealot". So, apparently the people who have been "called names" are zealots in your mind.

One would infer that you believe that being a zealot is a bad thing from your comment. It can be, but isn't necessarily bad. And even wack jobs can do useful and good things.

I think we can all agree that when the term "Linux/Open Source/Free Software Zealot" is used, RMS is usually thought about. I think a fairly large number of people would agree he is a wack job. I think most people would agree he is a zealot. I think most people would also agree he has done some very good and worthwhile things which most of us have benefited from.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[Otter]

Without his kernel, we would all probably not even know who SCO was.

While that's undoubtedly true, it's not necessarily something to brag about...

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[ArsonSmith]

Linus is clevererester than you think. He used a common karma whoring technique to insure Linux's success. When announced he said paraphrased "this is just a toy project wont be anything big" of course this just made people want to prove him wrong.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[deadlinegrunt]

"However Linux became too much too fast for SCO to keep up and made them irrelevant. Their attack on linux can be seen as a kind of attempt to take revenge for the destruction of SCO's chance to succeed."

Agreed that I am taking you completely out of context here BUT "the destruction of SCO's chance to succeed" can be attributed solely to the fact that the CO's of the company have chosen to make millions off the short term gain of the company at the expense of the long term total destruction of the company.

I like Linux, even Linus, but lets not get carried away by giving credit to people that can over giving to people that can not.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[tchuladdiass]

I wish everone would quit refering to the current "SCO" as if it was the original SCO. Old SCO is no more, and hasn't been around for a while. Old Caldera is also no more. Old Caldera at one point bought some of old SCO's assetts, new management took it over, and renamed Caldera to SCO as a propaganda ploy.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely, all the innovation in BSD would have still happened; but most of these innovations would have been kept as proprietary trade secrets of the companies who did the innovating; and only the university projects would get into people's hands.

Thanks to the GPL, even most corporate innovations in Linux benefit the community at large. and that is why Linux is blowing past BSD in actual use.

The more I read about corporate greed, the more I agree it should be called "GNU/Linux" - not because of the user-mode utilities, but because the GPL was indeed at least as key to Linux's triumph over BSD as the kernal was.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[Phragmen-Lindelof]

"He wisely left that nonsense to Slashdo^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hthe zealots."
This is the fun of Slashdot; where else can you be a zealot? (My students need not answer.)

Seriously, I think Slashdot is valuable but I do not take it too seriously. It gives people a place to blow off steam and allows people from different backgrounds to "discuss" ideas. So I agree with your comment but I see this as a strength.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[drinkypoo]

No. That is the new SCO. The old SCO became Tarantella and is still happily producing software, albeit not Unix.

SCO's chance to succeed vanished before The Santa Cruz Operation split into Tarantella and The SCO Group. There is no SCO, it's TSG. It's a shame it's called SCO.

The Unix-producing part of SCO was doomed, and it's likely that this strategy was considered back at the time of the split. Otherwise it would have made more sense to just sell off SCO's Unix assets and either rename the whole remainder of the company to Tarantella or keep the S.C.O. name, laying off the Unix developers. (Not that I would wish that on any of those people, some of whom I know and regard highly.)

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[ajs]

Specifically, the model by which he retained control, but opened the code and process by which it was modified, accepting the input of sub-projects.

Projects such as Mozilla, Perl, and many others have adopted the same strategy, but as far as I'm aware, the only other project that MAY have beat Linux to the punch there was gcc, which had a very similar development procedure, but may have been somewhat more committee-oriented by the time it actually had to deal with sub-projects (as opposed to the monolithic development process that existed when Stallman was fully in charge).

The management practices of open source projects have, at the very least, evolved a great deal since Linux was introduced, and in many cases as a result of the success that Linus has had in various modes of management.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[scosol]

You really think so?

I find it far more likely that a BSD would have become the "linux" of today-
The only real reason linux came in to being is that the BSD code was knee-deep in lawsuits in those days.
BSD was ultimately vindicated, but the "damage" had already been done, and linux had already gained quite a following...

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[ajs]

development of gcc was quite closed to most people up until egcs was almost forked from it.

Development of egcs WAS forked from it. egcs was a stand-alone project of Cygnus that was most certainly not GCC.

However, that's years after what I'm refering to. GCC as of version 2.0 (years before 2.x began to close itself off to outside input) began to have full-fledged sub-projects the way the Linux kernel does. What I'm not sure of is when gcc moved from being Stallman's baby to being run by committee. That was either sometime late in 1.x development or early in 2.x development, I'm just not certain.

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[static0verdrive]

Actually, Richard Stallman and GNU created the dev process - Linus chose to use it for his kernel; that's why some people insist on calling it GNU/Linux rather than just Linux, even though we'd be taking about the same thing. I acknowledge GNU but I like to save on syllables ;)

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[mattyrobinson69]

sco would have died years ago if it wasn't for caldera

Re:Torvalds created a good kernel...

[Roadkills-R-Us]

Nobody who ever used SCO software (such as - what was it called? Xenix?) could possibly forget it. You end up scarred for life.

For those of you with eyestrain (like myself)

[AKAImBatman]

Here's a link to the story in normal colors. There's a reason why some colors are considered "primaries" and others "secondaries".

Re:For those of you with eyestrain (like myself)

[Smitty825]

The linux colors aren't too bad, IMHO...however, if you were to go to the "IT" section and offer a normal color link, I bet you would get a +5 insightful :-)

nr2?

[remc0]

Linux become the No. 2 operating system worldwide for server computers.
Wouldnt that be nr 1 in server and nr 2 in desktop?

Re:nr2?

[Anonymous Coward]

What would make you think that? Microsoft still has a very solid lead in pretty much all server markets. Don't be fooled by Netcraft that only shows websites. Sites don't equal servers (Windows - whether apache or IIS - actually runs around 50% of servers - Linux - which is pretty much just Apache - is more popular with bulk hosts with many sites on one box) and web servers are just a small percentage of all servers.

And Linux is a distant 3rd on the desktop behind Windows and OS X.

Re:nr2?

[AstroDrabb]

How is this Informative?

Linux - which is pretty much just Apache

What are you smoking? Linux is used as a database server, email server, web server, file server DNS server, router, etc, etc. Many more uses then just a web server.

There is no point in arguing about desktop percentages. Max OS X and Linux are both very small and don't even touch MS's 95%+ of the desktop market. However, if you want to be pedantic, I have seen stats that show Linux as the #2 desktop as of December 2003 (it was even on /.), and I also see stats showing Mac OS with a small lead. On the desktop, Linux and Mac OS still have no pull.

On the server however, Linux is a strong #2 and has been the fastest growing server OS for the last 4 years or so. MS does not enjoy the same monopoly on the server as they do on the desktop, though they still have plenty of lock-ins to help push their server numbers up. The server area is the only area where MS is seeing any competition and that only competition is coming from GNU/Linux.

Re:nr2?

[MikeCapone]

I guess it's legitimate to ask you where your statistical information comes from.

Re:nr2?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading Comprehension 101. When referring to websites/webservers I said that Microsoft has IIS and Apache and Linux pretty much has Apache. I didn't think that was too hard to understand.

I agree with 100% of the rest of your post. Linux definitely is a strong #2 but it still has a huge hill to climb. Personally I love Linux on the server and have been running my own Slack server for over 5 years now.

Sentiments from his book

[numLocked]

If you found this interview interesting, I would recommend his book (ghost-written, of course), Just for Fun. It's suprisingly light reading.

Re:Sentiments from his book

[MrsPReDiToR]

So interesting that this sceptical wife of an uber geek bought it for the hubby as a christmas present, read it herself and now only uses open source software. I even find open office to be far more practical than Microsoft. Oh and not to mention Ive had no spyware problems since switching. So this may all be old news to the confirmed geeks out there but if the wife is saying "yeah yeah" when you bang on about how good Linux etc is pass her the book. Humour and intelligence, the two things GUARANTEED to work on a woman!

Re:Sentiments from his book

[Mateito]

Humour and intelligence, the two things GUARANTEED to work on a woman!

Chloroform. Three.

Re:Sentiments from his book

[LuSiDe]

If you're interested in spyware in open-source software check out openwares.org...

Re:Sentiments from his book

[general_re]

...but if the wife is saying "yeah yeah" when you bang on...

...then she better not be reading a damn Linux book at the time.

Re:Sentiments from his book

[DrWhizBang]

Hrmmmph. Then maybe you could talk with MrsWhizBang, who is constantly asking "Why can't the kids play (insert stupid game attached to cereal box)" or "Why can't you just use Windows like everyone else" (usually immediately after an ease-of-use issue) or "Why does this website not work" (pointing at braindead jscript based UI).

My wife falsely assumes that all this stuff would work better on Windows. Not that she has any more experience with Windows, she just knows that everyone else is using it, so it must be easier, and her husband just likes to be different. Never mind that she has her own personal sysadmin, which I thing more than makes up for any advantages Windows has.

And I thought that I had explained everything with gobs of humour and intelligence ;-)

(OT: you must also be Canadian (or British), since you spell "humour" correctly!)

Re:Sentiments from his book

[InfiniteWisdom]

I don't know how to break this to you, but you're on Slashdot, so you're more than "wife of an uber geek"... you're a confirmed geek yourself. Welcome to the club.

Re:Sentiments from his book

[sharkey]

Four. A time-tested method.

Re:Sentiments from his book

[MrsPReDiToR]

Uh huh I'm British. You seem to be a lot like the hubby in that he picks on American spelling saying things along the lines of "Its English for goodness sake spell it in ENGLISH" You could always tell the wife that we women are usually good at being nice about things until we've tried them and found them lacking. Imagine what Eve would have missed out on (and where would the human race be) if she had looked at Adam in the nude and said "You want me to try doing what with that? It's easier if I please myself"

Re:Sentiments from his book

[MrsPReDiToR]

Thanks! Oh how I tried to not be a geek but you know thanks to slashdot I've come to realise that geeks exist in all walks of life and yeah I even out geek the hubby on some subjects!

Linux #2 in server market?

[leinhos]

from the article:

"... That has helped Linux become the No. 2 operating system worldwide for server computers."

Dumb question, I know, but who exactly is number 1, and what constitutes a server, anyway?

Re:Linux #2 in server market?

[SirStanley]

Solaris? They are / were the dot in dot com. Then they were the internet... I'm not sure.... hmmm...

Re:Linux #2 in server market?

[Anonymous Coward]

Belive it or not, Windows has a large server market share. Usually they are intranet servers, however.

Re:Linux #2 in server market?

[MattyCobb]

from the article:

"... That has helped Linux become the No. 2 operating system worldwide for server computers."

Dumb question, I know, but who exactly is number 1, and what constitutes a server, anyway?


Duh, #1 is "beowulf clusters" of Windows 98 machines being used to send spam ;)

Re:Linux #2 in server market?

[jhines]

A server is a computer that doesn't have a user physically in front of it.

Re:Linux #2 in server market?

[leinhos]

I didn't want to use the "M" word in my post (bad karma around here), but I'm curious as to what the stats are like, and exactly how does one go about counting "servers". Do you count physical machines, or server applications, or (as someone suggested) in revenue $$? Does M$ have 75% of the "server market", or is it more like 55%?

Does an Exchange server compete with sendmail/IMAP/POP3? How many "servers" are there out in the ether, anyway?

Re:Linux #2 in server market?

[Anonymous Coward]

Marketshare would be in physical machines. Applications would be meaningless and revenue would always be weaker for Linux. The actual count is probably impossible but I am sure some group out there has surveyed fortune 500 companies or something like that. I would also say that you wouldn't count every small hobby "server" sitting in somebody's closet.

IMAP and POP3 are standards not servers. Exchange and sendmail are not comparable. Sendmail is just an MTA. Exchange is an MTA as well as a calendar/collaboration tool. The equivalent would be Evolution which is not even on the scope.

Re:Linux #2 in server market?

[Anonymous Coward]

... That has helped Linux become the No. 2 operating system worldwide for server computers."

Dumb question, I know, but who exactly is number 1...

You are number 6...

Re:Linux #2 in server market?

[finkployd]

Oh course, sendmail can also scale without hordes of hardware tossed at it.

Finkployd

Re:Linux #2 in server market?

[SirStanley]

You clearly aren't familiar with the terms such as "Tounge in Cheek" or even "Sarcasm"

"I can't be nasty"....

[FerretFrottage]

now back to work my open source minions. 2.6.100 won't write itself.

Re:"I can't be nasty"....

[Anonymous Coward]

now back to work my open source minions. 2.6.100 won't write itself

No, but 2.7 will.

OpenBSD

[evenprime]

Theo isn't the most polite, but he certainly gets things done in an organized safe and secure manner

Re:OpenBSD

[mosch]

And his project suffers because of him. It's a testament to the other volunteers, and to the patience of his users, that any good occurs at all.

Importance of Software Patents

[william_lorenz]

In the article, Linus mentions his concerns about software patents:

The only things I worry about are all the things that go around the project. Part of it is legal issues. [...] We have random people in random countries working on random things, and they don't have 1,000 patent lawyers. So I'm not worried about one patent in particular, but the whole system. It's not a problem today. But it's a thing I can't control, unlike the technical side, where I can actually do something.

I think he brings about some interesting thoughts -- are changes to the Linux open source development model needed to incorporate contributions from the legal side, checking patents and verifying that source is safe to include in a project -- albeith the Linux kernel or other open source projects? Is this the responsibility of the distribution vendors (such as Red Hat, Novell / SUSE, Debian), or shoud the Linux kernel team and individual projects take this responsibility upon themselves? Should these concerns just be disregarded, and is that safe?

I think that not thinking about these things will eventually hinder Linux adoption, as it did in Munich's case.

So what's the long term plan? What kind of ideas are out there? I know there's a solution to be found!

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[Neil Watson]

This begs the question. If software patents become more common how will anyone know that they have knowing or unknowing violated a patent?

Say wing-ding looping and sorting method 'B' is patented and, not knowing anything about it, I create it myself. Should I check my code and all code I write to ensure that it is not already patented? If that's the case you can kiss a great many OSS projects goodbye because they won't have the resources or the patients for this type of thing.

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[stratjakt]

Say wing-ding looping and sorting method 'B' is patented and, not knowing anything about it, I create it myself. Should I check my code and all code I write to ensure that it is not already patented?

Yes, that's exactly what you should do if you intend to release publically. To not do so opens you up to attacks from dingbats like SCO.

Can someone answer a question about patents in general? Is there any sort of "personal" or "fair use" provisions?

That is, if I built my own mousetrap, using a well-known patented design, and used it only to catch mice in my basement, and never tried to sell or otherwise distribute it for profit, am I still in violation? Can I be sued? If so, how would damages be assessed?

I see that as a parallel to the guy who writes a piece of code for his own use, to "scratch an itch" as it were..

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[pertinax18]

Since this is /. I feel oblogated to point out your incorrect usage of begs the question

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[Cyno]

This is much bigger than Linux. Patents will affect all forms of open source software. Including BSD and parts of OSX.

They can be fought in court, but that costs money. Some small businesses won't be able to afford to develope software and fight these legal battles.

So I recommend we give up now and turn ourselves in and hope they go easy on us. :)

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[Jerf]

Your hypothetical is already reality.

The answer is, keep doing what you have been doing and hope for the best. It is the the fact that we are reduced to "hoping for the best" that is the fundamental reason that no matter how impassionedly someone argues for the current system, it is fundamentally flawed; ever Microsoft is reduced to it. That's not justice.

(Don't do a patent search, all you'll do is triple the damages if you get sued. The system punishes diligence.)

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[ispeters]

Normally I'm not a spelling Nazi, but your typo is funny: they'd have neither the patience, nor the patiens! =P

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[anonymous cowherd (m]

Say wing-ding looping and sorting method 'B' is patented and, not knowing anything about it, I create it myself. Should I check my code and all code I write to ensure that it is not already patented?

Yes, that's exactly what you should do if you intend to release publically. To not do so opens you up to attacks from dingbats like SCO.

Actually, no, that is the exact opposite of what you should do. If you conduct a patent search, then you open yourself up to triple damages if anyone can show you violated their patent, because it is then willfull infringement.

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[angry_leprechaun]

A spelling Nazi? On /.? There'd need to be a beowulf cluster of spelling Nazi's to get all the corrections done.

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[Spoing]

1. Say wing-ding looping and sorting method 'B' is patented and, not knowing anything about it, I create it myself. Should I check my code and all code I write to ensure that it is not already patented? If that's the case you can kiss a great many OSS projects goodbye because they won't have the resources or the patients for this type of thing.

If it's a problem for OSS projects, it's also a problem for closed-source ones (no-cost through to shrinkwrapped and large single corporation built-to-spec projects).

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[tchuladdiass]

The actual patent law defines infringement to include both making and using a patented device without a license. However, there is a bit of case law that allows you to make the patented device for research purposes, in order to understand the patent.

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[npsimons]

are changes to the Linux open source development model needed to incorporate contributions from the legal side, checking patents and verifying that source is safe to include in a project

In a word: no. In a couple of words: HELL NO! Even if the idea of considering the legal aspects every time I sat down to write software wasn't anathema to me (I got into programming to PROGRAM, not be a lawyer), I would still say that change really needs to go in the other direction: laws and governments (and corporations!) exist to serve a society. Those that do not are bad laws, bad governments and bad corporations, and they should be dismantled.

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[ispeters]

Probably. I usually use the Preview button, and didn't this time since it was such a "simple post"....

Ian

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[Spoing]

1. 1. If it's a problem for OSS projects, it's also a problem for closed-source ones

   Not in the same way.

   Take me, for example. Suppose I write a bit of software that infringes on someone's patent. What can I do? Nothing.

Blood from a stone. The patent holder shuts you down, pays it's lawyers, and gets bad PR.

1. Suppose Microsoft writes a bit of software that infringes on someone's patent. What can they do? Easy - they look at the other guy's software, and say "ooh, looky here! Your software infringes our patents! Tell you what, either you license us your patent real cheap, or we squish you. Your choice."

...or the large company can get sued. Like the Eolis patent being discussed (though that specific one I don't think has merit).

1. Okay, so this isn't so much an OSS vs closed source as a big player vs little player issue,

Yep.

1. but two facts remain: one, nearly all OSS projects come into the "little player" category; two, it's a lot easier for the patent holders to find out whether their patent is being infringed when they can look at the source code...

If the source is closed, a decompiler can be used on it to generate source, so lack of source isn't a problem either.

That said, as the SCO trials have shown, evidence doesn't matter one bit.

What maters most is that if the function that is performed matches the patent, there is a basis for a lawsuit; "You must be infringing since your program can generate the same results as our patented one!" Having the source allows you to say "See, no we didn't!" though in SCO's case, it just replied "Oh, yes you did!" and we're back to a shouting match.

Re:Importance of Software Patents

[BalkanBoy]

Checking every piece of code against a potential patent-violation is absurd. Software, unlike hardware, is notoriously difficult to patent. This is because the barrier of entry into creating something patentable in terms of software is quite low compared to creating the latest VLSI circuit with the same algorithm as you would on the software. E.g. you could write a Palm emulator for their best model, conceivably at 1/10th the cost of what it'd cost you to build a Palm device....

Thus, software is far more dynamic and far more difficult to patent.

This is a distinction that needs to be acknowledged when considering patents, patent violations, etc. So, recently it was said Linux could violate 283 patents.....

Right..it could... but what people don't understand, and what goes against the grain of capitalism I suppose and the sentiment of business in the united states or wider, is that Linux transcended the classical model of capitalism... forgive me for a lack of a better description.. but it has taken on a regime and a life of its own, and has hinged people on it because it is of a different nature than anything else out there. Primarily this stems from the fact that it is free, and moreover, because it is open and modifiable by anyone who understands it..

So you give this to enough people, you make it good enough..and you hook major companies on it... and it becomes the feeding trough now, and not some obscure student's pet project...and the effects are that IBM will fight tooth and nail assholes like SCO, or others losers, to prevent them from biting into their flesh....

You can only HOPE that others will do the same, whoever those 283 potential patent litigators are... You can hope that their conscienctiousness and hope for a better future will transcend their greed for a brief millisecond and help them decide against litigating Linux....

What people need is an _attitude_ change. Not getting lost in endless litigation over patents, as if whatever was invented since Einstein brought us the theory of GR could even remotely be called an 'invention'... Think about what REALLY was an invention over the last couple of centuries? Really, you could probably name them if you tried hard... The rest, I call evolving, not really a intelectual LEAP...

So, yes, it is important not to abandon capitalistic postulates, but at the same time, to think that this modus operandi is the ultimate one, and that there can never be something better ... is downright retarded.

Sorry..this went off topic, but your thinking is representative of a much larger issue, that Linux has managed to untap.

Kernel Tree Maintainer, not Linux Overlord

[Inhibit]

Linus is just the maintainer of the general stable tree of the Linux kernel, he's not some kind of Linux czar.

There's a big difference between rule of an OS with an iron fist and maintainership of a kernel for an OS. Linus does a good job maintaining his project (the Linux kernel), so no one directly forks it.

Anyway, the article's a interview that ranges over his opinion on some patent issues.. not that you'd realize it from the post.

Come on Linus, don't go there.

[garcia]

Q: Some say Linux and a lot of open-source projects really aren't innovative, that they're copies of commercial products. What's your reaction to that?
A: I disagree. It's an easy argument to make. One reason people make it is that, in open source, they don't see the revolutionary new versions magically appearing. In comparison, look at commercial closed systems. They make a new release every year or three to four years with a huge marketing splash. They make it look very different. But it's a circus to make it look like a sudden innovation.

I disagree with Linus on this one. While the kernel might be worked on and might improve by leaps and bounds, MANY of the programs available through open source is fucking terrible and certainly nothing more than a free knockoff of a Windows/etc counterpart (hell wasn't that the entire point of Linux in the first place)?

Yes, sure, many commercial applications are buggy and have slow release times but at least they aren't 100% alpha quality with huge disclaimers that they aren't responsible for what happens to your computer when you run them.

Remember, this is the biggest reason that people don't go to Linux right now... No application support. It will likely get better but I can't believe he said that it wasn't as bad as I think.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[Vaevictis666]

a free knockoff of a Windows/etc counterpart (hell wasn't that the entire point of Linux in the first place)?

No, actually it was as a free replacement for a unix-like system. The "replacement for windows" talk didn't start up for a fair while.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[StormCrow]

I disagree with Linus on this one. While the kernel might be worked on and might improve by leaps and bounds, MANY of the programs available through open source is fucking terrible and certainly nothing more than a free knockoff of a Windows/etc counterpart (hell wasn't that the entire point of Linux in the first place)?

No, the entire point of Linux in the first place was to be a free Minix/UNIX clone for Linus to play with. It's just that lots of other people became interested too.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[RealAlaskan]

... nothing more than a free knockoff of a Windows/etc counterpart (hell wasn't that the entire point of Linux in the first place)?

No, it was supposed to be a free version of Unix. Nobody wanted Windows! That's why Linus had to write his kernel to replace th MS operating system which he surely got with his fancy new 386.

... many commercial applications are buggy and have slow release times but at least they aren't 100% alpha quality with huge disclaimers that they aren't responsible ...

Never read the click-through licences, have you? They all begin with something like: ``This product comes with no warrenty, including without limitation any warrenty of fitness for any particular purpose.''

It will likely get better but I can't believe he said that it wasn't as bad as I think.

He must know how badly you think?

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[garcia]

No, actually it was as a free replacement for a unix-like system. The "replacement for windows" talk didn't start up for a fair while.

Wow, you guys are so literal... The OSS world is full of knockoffs from Windows/etc (etc does mean more than just Windows). I remember when I started to use Linux I used multiple WM's including an Amiga-like one, one that looked like a NeXT box setup, and even one that appeared to look like OS/2!

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[10Ghz]

MANY of the programs available through open source is fucking terrible and certainly nothing more than a free knockoff of a Windows/etc counterpart (hell wasn't that the entire point of Linux in the first place)?

No. The point of Linux was to write an Unix-like operating-system for x86. Granted, it has grown a bit sine that ;).

And I don't have any problems with the apps that are available on Linux. I have W2K on this machine as well, but I rarely boot in to it anymore.

Yes, sure, many commercial applications are buggy and have slow release times but at least they aren't 100% alpha quality with huge disclaimers that they aren't responsible for what happens to your computer when you run them.

Uh, yes they do. Windows EULA specificly says that Microsoft will not be held liable if Windows screws up your system. They basically say "this may or may not work. If it doesn't.... Well, sucks to be you!"

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[Anonymous Coward]

IMPORTANT-READ CAREFULLY: This End-User License Agreement ("EULA") is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or a single entity) and Microsoft Corporation for the Microsoft software that accompanies this EULA, which includes computer software and may include associated media, printed materials, "online" or electronic documentation, and Internet-based services ("Software"). An amendment or addendum to this EULA may accompany the software. YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS EULA BY INSTALLING, COPYING, OR OTHERWISE USING THE SOFTWARE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL, COPY, OR USE THE SOFTWARE; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND, IF APPLICABLE.

1. GRANT OF LICENSE. Microsoft grants you the following rights provided that you comply with all terms and conditions of this EULA:

1.1 Installation and use. You may install, use, access, display and run one copy of the Software on a single computer, such as a workstation, terminal or other device ("Workstation Computer"). The Software may not be used by more than one processor at any one time on any single Workstation Computer.

1.2 Mandatory Activation. The license rights granted under this EULA are limited to the first thirty (30) days after you first install the Software unless you supply information required to activate your licensed copy in the manner described during the setup sequence of the Software. You can activate the Software through the use of the Internet or telephone; toll charges may apply. You may also need to reactivate the Software if you modify your computer hardware or alter the Software. There are technological measures in this Software that are designed to prevent unlicensed use of the Software. Microsoft will use those measures to confirm you have a legally licensed copy of the Software. If you are not using a licensed copy of the Software, you are not allowed to install the Software or future Software updates. Microsoft will not collect any personally identifiable information from your Workstation Computer during this process.

1.3 Device Connections. You may permit a maximum of five (5) computers or other electronic devices (each a "Device") to connect to the Workstation Computer to utilize one or more of the following services of the Software: File Services, Print Services, Internet Information Services, and remote access (including connection sharing and telephony services). The five connection maximum includes any indirect connections made through "multiplexing" or other software or hardware which pools or aggregates connections. This five connection maximum does not apply to any other uses of the Software.

1.4 Remote Assistance/NetMeeting. The Software contains Remote Assistance and NetMeeting technologies that enable the Software or applications installed on the Workstation Computer (sometimes referred to as a host device) to be accessed remotely from other Devices. When you are using Remote Assistance or NetMeeting (or other software which provides similar functionality for a similar purpose) you may share your session with other users without any limit on the number of Device connections and without acquiring additional licenses for the Software. For Microsoft and non-Microsoft applications, you should consult the license agreement accompanying the applicable software or contact the applicable licensor to determine whether use of the software with Remote Assistance or NetMeeting is permitted without an additional license. As used above, a session means the experience delivered by the Software similar to when a user is using the input, output and display peripherals attached to the Workstation Computer.

1.5 Storage/Network Use. You may also store or install a copy of the Software on a storage device, such as a network server, used only to install or run the Software on your other Workstation Computers over an internal network; however, you must acquire and dedicate an additional license for each separate Workstation Computer on or from which the Software

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[gl4ss]

* disclaimers that they aren't responsible for what happens to your computer when you run them.*

I'm just restoring one compaq for a friend here.. and just for kicks actually scrolled through the license of the os(microsoft provided).

basically the license gives so crappy terms on the product that they have to clash with my rights as a consumer.

anyways, and when the program isn't a 'cheap knock off' of the windows counterpart(from the ui, which is what matters for appearance..) then people complain that they're not what they're used to.

anyways, the main point of what torvalds had in this was: the innovation in the commercial market is mostly a marketin scam(for phb's to get them to buy it), it's not like ms has done anything seriously innovative themselfs either.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[Mornelithe]

There's tons of "fucking terrible" software for windows, too. Go into any computer store and there will be racks of CD burning software, and most of it sucks.

Then go look for their rack of "Windows Software for only $10." That stuff probably sucks, too. Look in the games section. It's like 10% good, well known games, and then 90% crappy knock-offs.

Most commercial software comes with huge disclaimers that say they aren't responsible when your computer blows up or whatever, just like open source software.

In other words, open source software isn't very different from commercial software, from an average buyer standpoint (I agree, there probably isn't support for some of the big stuff, like CAD). There's some really great stuff, and then there's tons of crap.

The only difference is that with open source, there's no $200 difference in price between the good stuff and the shit.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[Apathetic1]

(hell wasn't that the entire point of Linux in the first place)

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the entire point of Linux in the first place an academic exercise in writing a kernel?

Yes, sure, many commercial applications are buggy and have slow release times but at least they aren't 100% alpha quality with huge disclaimers that they aren't responsible for what happens to your computer when you run them

I'd say the shrinkwrap / clickwrap EULA that disclaims all liability for the correct function of the software counts as a huge disclaimer.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[Donny Smith]

>Never read the click-through licences, have you? They all begin with something like: ``This product comes with no warrenty, including without limitation any warrenty of fitness for any particular purpose.''

They surely do, however, I still tend to believe that someone who lives off the software they make will excercise greater care than someone who does it for fun.

Overall, I think there's more incentive on the side of commercial developers to make sure the software works as advertised.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[scotch]

MANY of the programs available through open source is fucking terrible and certainly nothing more than a free knockoff of a Windows/etc counterpart (hell wasn't that the entire point of Linux in the first place)?

MANY of the programs available on windows and/or from microsoft are fucking terrible. Also, MANY of the programs available on windows and/or from microsoft are certainly nothing more than non-free knockoffs, copies, or borgifications of existing products made by other companies. If you don't think MS or other commercial vendors do their fair share of inspired copying, you need to pull your head out of your ass.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

While the kernel might be worked on and might improve by leaps and bounds, MANY of the programs available through open source is f---ing terrible and certainly nothing more than a free knockoff of a Windows/etc counterpart

But MANY commercial programs aren't innovative, either. Microsoft Money is just a poor clone of Quicken, Norton AV does the same thing as McAfee, EZ CD Creator is a clone of Toast, etc. I don't think it's fair to compare the best, most innovative commercial software, with all of the thousands of mediocre open-source programs out there. Some of the best open-source programs are incredibly innovative: BitTorrent, Python, Subversion - and others, while they superficially act similar to popular commercial programs, have dozens of innovative features: Gimp, OpenOffice, Audacity

...wasn't that the entire point of Linux in the first place?

Linux was meant to be a Unix-like operating system for PCs. It presents a Unix-like interface because that makes it possible to easily port zillions of programs written for Unix operating systems. Internally, Linux was designed from scratch, and though it uses the basic Unix model (for processes vs threads, file-based devices, etc.), it has very little in common with any other Unix in the way it actually does anything nontrivial. Want to talk about innovation? Linux scales down to little handheld devices with 8 MB of RAM, and all the way up to 1024-CPU supercomputers. All with the same kernel (and different compile-time options). No other operating system can claim to do that. Is that not innovation? (Windows CE is NOT the same kernel as Windows XP, and no version of Windows scales up to supercomputers nearly as well as Linux.)

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[CRCulver]

They surely do, however, I still tend to believe that someone who lives off the software they make will excercise greater care than someone who does it for fun.

Overall, I think there's more incentive on the side of commercial developers to make sure the software works as advertised.

Most of the desktop software for Linux is developed either directly or indirectly by large corporations such as IBM, Sun, or RedHat. These have programmers who work full-time and draw a handsome salary for developing Free Software. While there is a lot of hobbyist software for Linux, the development model is no longer exclusively hackers relaxing in their basement afterhours by knocking off some GPL code. Big companies have been involved for some years already, and their developers could fairly be called "commercial".

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[stratjakt]

No other operating system can claim to do that

No other operating system seeks to. The comparison to Windows is ridiculous. No, Windows XP doesnt run on PDAs or 1024 cluster supercomputers. It's a desktop operating system. It was designed to suit a particular task and do it well.

Ever heard the phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none?"

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[marcus]

Hahaha, nice try.

Now, why don't you answer the question?

Why the special/uncharacteristic behavior or false front in court?

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[EpsCylonB]

Yes, sure, many commercial applications are buggy and have slow release times but at least they aren't 100% alpha quality with huge disclaimers that they aren't responsible for what happens to your computer when you run them.

Whats the difference between the EULA's you get with software these days ?, they pretty much absolve the developer of any liability.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[1lus10n]

Yeah and the commercial world is full of things that have been stolen from OSS projects.

Welcome to the computer industry.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[1lus10n]

Really ? Then why don't you explain that sorry ass excuse for security at the largest software company in the world ?

Just because you get paid to do something doesnt make you work harder at it then someone who WANTS to do it. There are plenty of people who have jobs doing various things that suck beyond belief at doing them.

Imagine this angle, a person owns a large yard, they work on this yard every day for several years because it is their year, its not a leased yard, he is not paid to work on it. Does that mean that if he hires one of the million or so landscaping companies out there that they will do just as good a job as he does ? Or that they will care about the work like he does ? Doubtful at best.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[mangu]

No application support

Have you ever heard of something called the internet? When you need support for open source software it's often a simple matter of Googling you problem. Either that or post it into the appropriate on-line forum.

OTOH, for commercial software you are too often dependent on a vendor who doesn't really care to support you.

The two examples I remember as my personal records for non-support were a request I submitted to Digital in 1993 regarding a bug in DECwindows and another I submitted to Oracle regarding Pro Fortran in 1998. Neither has been resolved to this date, despite several months of interaction with their respective technical support people, before I gave up.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[Donny Smith]

>Imagine this angle, a person owns a large yard, they work on this yard every day for several years because it is their year, its not a leased yard, he is not paid to work on it.

In my imagination the owner doesn't get to work on the yard except on weekends, because on regular days, when he gets home it's already too dark to work on the yard and he feels really tired.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[1lus10n]

The average person in this country works 47 hours per week. Assuming a 9am start time they would be leaving at 6:30pm.

For the vast majority of the year that leaves a full two hours or so before it gets dark. I would also point out that the majority of people in this country dont work that much, that number is vastly inflated by the people who work 60 hour weeks (thank god for the fact that not everyone is salaried). (IIRC the report doesnt include non-full time employees)

If your tired after a 9.5 hour day then I would recomend changing your diet, and exercising more often, a 15 minute brisk run in the morning would do wonders.

Even if said person works on the lawn for only half an hour every other day they would be able to maintain a lawn far far better than the average landscapping company could. The average company doesnt want to exert resources on something like this because it only shows a limited return (this is how all companies think) to the person who is passionate and enjoys his work the returns are only has limited as his mind.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[ninewands]

Quoth the poster:

... with huge disclaimers that they aren't responsible for what happens to your computer when you run them.

You obviously click "agree" on the licensing dialogue box without reading the EULA for your newest Microsoft product!

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[marcus]

Oh well, I had one mod point left and was going to knock offtopic the parent of this branch, but found it interesting enough to indulge and post instead.

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[Vaevictis666]

I'd say tabbed browsing, but I think Opera got that before Mozilla, and Opera isn't OSS.

On the other side of the deal (since we were talking about OSS cloning commercial software), there's many an example of commercial companies cloning other commercial products. Like Microsoft copying Apple's desktop. Which was originally developed elsewhere anyway.

Or pretty much any new piece of software to fill a niche - there are others jumping right in as soon as they can (eg. cd burning software, dvd burning, dvd duplication....)

Re:Come on Linus, don't go there.

[StrongAxe]

Yes, sure, many commercial applications are buggy and have slow release times but at least they aren't 100% alpha quality with huge disclaimers that they aren't responsible for what happens to your computer when you run them.

I guess you haven't read many EULAs lately. Most of them specifically disclaim responsibility in case of data loss or hardware damage, and limit their liability to the cost of the product itself.

Re:maybe theo de radt should take a note from him.

[AKAImBatman]

that guy has been ranting and cursing out everyone since he got online.

Wasn't that how Jobs originally built Apple? I think he's been downgraded to "serious pain in the ass". While I don't agree with the pressure he put on the original Mac developers, there is something to be said for someone who can be a bit more forceful. I can almost guarantee that the iPod wouldn't have succeeded so well if Jobs hadn't been such a PITA about all the minor details.

Oh. My. God. He's in management.

[wiredog]

What I do mostly is I'm a communications channel. I'm one of a couple of central points for discussions. I have all the patches come to me, though I have sub-lieutenants doing the programming work. I'm a meeting point, rather than a software engineer. I don't do much programming anymore.

Dictator!

[celeritas_2]

Wouldn't the world be great if we could have political leaders that were more like Linus. The problem is people like Linus don't win elections because they're not manipulative liars like all the rest of politics.

Re:Dictator!

[stratjakt]

Yes they do.

If Linus was the sitting president of the US, you would hate him and call him a liar and so on, and so on. People hate sitting politicians, because they provide a convenient scapegoat for all their problems. It really doesn't matter if they're "good" or "bad" or "dishonest" or "honest".

People hated Clinton, people hate Bush, people will hate Kerry too. The people hating will be the same people, for the most part. This really has nothing to do with ideologies or politics.

Re:Dictator!

[celeritas_2]

There are people who constantly look for a scapegoat for their problems choosing to blame everyone but themselves for their problems, but please in the future make a distinction between what I do and think and what a minority of pessimists do and think.

Re:Dictator!

[secolactico]

Wouldn't the world be great if we could have political leaders that were more like Linus. The problem is people like Linus don't win elections because they're not manipulative liars like all the rest of politics.

There are lots of political leader that are, in fact, dictators. Heck, some of them might even be benevolent.

They didn't win elections either.

Re:Dictator!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the people get the leaders that they deserve. After all, they elect them and let them ruin a fine country without any resistance or revolution.

All the people you mention are all but "for the people". They want power, thus they are the worst candidates for presidency. Of course, there's always some good in them too: Bush really believes his BS. Clinton REALLY wanted to make things better in education, free hospitalization, but had no support because of a poor election.

But most of all, they all want THEIR statue and legacy to tell the world about all their great achievements. That's not a good starting point for great deeds, that's just ego and everything reduces after that.

So Ima What?

[grunt107]

I'm not so much a leader, I'm more of a shepherd. Now all the kernel developers will read that and say, "He's comparing us to sheep." It's more like herding cats.

So I'm a pussy instead?

Re:So Ima What?

[jeffasselin]

A benevolent dictature is the most reliable, most efficient system of government.

The problem is usually that either:

- the dictator doesn't stay benevolent
- there 's a change of dictator, and eventually you'll hit one who isn't benevolent.

Re:So Ima What?

[BCW2]

Maybe just pussy whipped?

The Nitro Dragster Vs. The Slow Moving Train

[wackysootroom]

Cool Distinction that I made from the article:
One reason people make it is that, in open source, they don't see the revolutionary new versions magically appearing. In comparison, look at commercial closed systems. They make a new release every year or three to four years with a huge marketing splash. They make it look very different. But it's a circus to make it look like a sudden innovation.

In open source, you don't have a circus. You don't see a sudden explosion. It's not done that way. All development is very gradual -- whether commercial or open source. Even when you have a big thinker coming along with a new idea, actually getting it working takes a lot of sweat and tears.

Proprietary Vendors are like nitro dragsters, being the first ones off of the line with their brand new product. Trying to wow people and making a huge splash.

Open source is like a mile long freight train. Functional, slower to get started, but when the momentum gets going, its going to be much, much harder to stop than that nitro dragster.

Re:As opposed to Theo de Raadt

[Triumph The Insult C]

what's so difficult about updating packages and source?

Alchemy not Witchcraft

[Performer Guy]

I wish Torvalds had used the word Alchemy instead of witchcraft, it is probably closer to what he was trying to say (in English at least).

Re:Alchemy not Witchcraft

[TeknoHog]

I agree, because I somehow associate witchcraft with a primitive kind of science. Especially after watching the Harry Potter movies; Hogwarts is so much like Cambridge University :)

It's not that we don't have slight disagreements

[Moth7]

Can't blame a lack of replies on that. It's just that more people tend to RTFA when Linus speaks ;-)

Re:maybe theo de radt should take a note from him.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. How is a discussion of forceful personalities vs. non-forceful personalities as it relates to software, in any way off topic?

virus ridden machines

[millahtime]

Well, a server is something that servers. All those M$ machines with viruses serving up more of themselves for everyone else. That would be a server right? Keeping M$ in the lead. Maybe that's part of their master plan to stay at the top of servers.

actually you're wrong on one part of that point...

[Narcocide]

ever actually READ an EULA on a piece of commercial software? its a lot of really complicated legal text saying just that; they're not responsible for anything the software does to your computer. the *microsoft* EULAs usually also say you're legally bound to keep your mouth shut about anything bad the software does to your computer. i'm not joking. read one sometime.

You are what you eat...

[wiredog]

was always my response to that one.

Re:You are what you eat...

[Mateito]

Here's a site for you then.

(Worksafe)

Re:You are what you eat...

[happyfrogcow]

Here's a site for you then.

(Worksafe)

Why do I not believe you?

Re:You are what you eat...

[Mateito]

Because its not _that_ sort of pussy :)

Do not taunt happyfrogcow...

Re:You are what you eat...

[happyfrogcow]

now i'm even more afraid to go to the page!

Re:You are what you eat...

[flink]

You asshole! ;-)

Re:Linux #2 in server market? - Revenue

[mykepredko]

Maybe Linux is rated the #2 server OS source by revenue...

This post wasn't meant as a joke. I wonder if somebody summed the revenue of Linux distribution providers and compared it to Microsoft? I wonder if this calculation would include IBM as a distributor?

myke

PJ will surely be amused...

[drakaan]

Linus, it's Groklaw .net

*sigh*

Re:PJ will surely be amused...

[diegocgteleline.es]

groklaw.com redirects to groklaw.net, it seems

Re:PJ will surely be amused...

[Mick Ohrberg]

While that's true, groklaw.com redirects to groklaw.net

Re:PJ will surely be amused...

[Mick Ohrberg]

It seems like PJ was tickled pink:

SCO may not get it, and that's fine. Heaven only knows their keynote speaker missed the boat. But it's satisfying to know that Linus understands exactly what we are trying to do here.

In the same way

[Moth7]

Don't be fooled by the desktop statistics. Just because Windows or OS X came on the box, doesn't mean that it wasn't immediately wiped and replaced with Linux. Until bundling of operating systems with hardware is abandoned, those statistics will never be reliable.

Re:In the same way

[Kyosuke77]

I dunno, I think this might be at least kind of reliable.

Admittedly, this is the zeitgeist for google.ca. The google.com one doesn't show the OS statistics for some reason. Anyway, if you look it over, you find that Linux is about on par with Windows 95, with 1% of the share. Windows NT 4.0 still has twice Linux's share at 2%, and Windows ME and Mac OS are tied at 3% each. Windows 98, 2000, and XP take a whopping 85%, with 51% going to XP alone. All the Windowses combined make up 91% of the share. There's also that 5% other, and who knows what that is (UNIXes and unidentifiable Linuxes, perhaps? Maybe some of the older Mac OSes, too). Either way, while Linux is getting more and more ready for widespread, desktop use, it's clear it's not getting a lot of that currently.

Re:In the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

And just because Linux came in the box doesn't mean it wasn't immediately wiped and replaced with a pirated copy of Windows.

Re:In the same way

[mattyrobinson69]

when i use opera on linux (99% of the time), i identify as MSIE6 on windows 2k to get round those crappy websites that tell me im using the wrong os/browser.

im sure a hell of a lot of other people do this too.

So, we're NOT sending troops to depose him?

[IronChefMorimoto]

If Linus is a "benevolent" dictator, we're not sending in troops to depose him?

And, obviously, we can't depose him on grounds of WMD, since Microsoft makes those, right?

So -- as long as he doesn't gas a whole room of Mac OS X users, we'll leave him be?

And -- he doesn't have any kids, right? Two boys that might go around killing anyone who doesn't win Linux-based UT2K4 tournaments in Linus' name, right? Or terrorizing anyone who challenges the vision of the kernel?

Finally -- Linus hasn't invested in any bunker construction for his new offices, right?

Just checking. I was concerned that maybe that troop realignment from Europe was in preparation for an attack on Mr. Torvalds.

IronChefMorimoto

Re:So, we're NOT sending troops to depose him?

[Anthony]

And -- he doesn't have any kids, right? Two boys that might go around killing anyone who doesn't win Linux-based UT2K4 tournaments in Linus' name, right? Or terrorizing anyone who challenges the vision of the kernel?

Sorry to be picky with a perfectly funny post, but if you s/kids/sons/ then the story is correct. I can personally attest to that fact.

Now if only everyone else would listen

[Anonymous Coward]

"I can't be nasty"

This is an excellent example which others should strive for.

Alas, many don't. And it's one reason why I stay away from posting on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. There are just too many people there who think that they build up their reputation capital at the expense of others.

The only positive solution that I can think of is if people made a conscious effort towards adopting Linus' attitude. Perhaps that's wishful thinking.

Zealotry

[amightywind]

He wisely left that nonsense to the zealots.

I assume you are refering to RMS, Chief GNUsance. Part of his zealotry has been to get copyright releases for code from all GNU contributors. As a result GNU packages have no where near the same legal vulnerablities as the Linux kernel because contributions are traced. RMS anticipated that legal dirty tricks would be used against him and he uses the law to his advantage (as does the GPL). Perhaps Linus should become more zealous in this respect.

Re:Zealotry

[BillyBlaze]

Signed-off-by:

On the other hand, distributed ownership has it's benefits: more possible plaintiffs if someone violates the license, less ability to change the license (ie. RMS could pull an X Consortium), and no single entity to be enjoined against, sued, bribed, etc.

Re:Oh. My. God. He's in management.

[Neil Watson]

Linus's hair is looking a little pointy these days :)

Re:Benevolent Overlord

[Jollyeugene]

Sorry, extra T.

Offtopic?!

[Apathetic1]

Oh come on now. Did whoever modded this offtopic even read the parent post? This is about as on-topic as you can get.

Innovation in the KERNEL, stupid!

[ggvaidya]

Apart from the points raised by other people on this thread (especially the one about EULAs being disclaimers claiming no warranty), I think what Linus was talking about was innovations from a technological point of view in the kernel, which I think is a valid point. MS comes out with Brand New NTFS(tm) and Brand New ActiveThis(tm) and ActiveThat(tm) every couple of years, as the reasons why you should upgrade to the latest Windows. Linux doesn't - it doesn't even encourage you to upgrade. The point is, rather than putting in *altogether* new features, Linus tries to maintain existing features (the standard Posix stuff) as efficiently and fast as possible. As Linus claims in his article, programs written in 1992 can still be run on the latest kernel. The whole point is that innovation with the kernel is happening behind the scenes, not in the marketing world where MS and other large software companies work.

My two cents on application usage: I think most developers are scared, because they know that if they get One Humongously Big Idea, large software companies will immediately embrace and extend them out of existance. They literally have no-one to hide behind under the open source model.

Re:Innovation in the KERNEL, stupid!

[Chatz]

I disagree.

Many commercial operating systems put an enormous amount of effort into trying to maintain binary compatibility between releases, including Windows. It can be a significant constraint on drammatic innovation, but it does not mean that innovation is not taking place. Just because marketing decide to latch onto a feature and promote it, does not mean engineering are not innovating behind the scenes.

The linux community are unable to maintain binary compatibility in libc between 2.4.X releases, let alone any sort of stable kernel APIs.

New kernel sercurity patch? I'm sorry, you will have to recompile your kernel and all device drivers. Imagine if Microsoft required all the third party device drivers to be rebuilt with every kernel because the APIs _may_ have changed.

Linus's middle name

[TeknoHog]

is Benedict. Coincidence? I think not. fnord

Pirate King

[handy_vandal]

I teach at a local technical college, also the occasional short course, etc. I'm fond of telling my students:

The classroom is not a democracy. We have very different roles here. But neither is it a tyranny -- if I get tyrannical, students will simply leave.

The classroom is best described as a pirate ship: I have power to the extent that the crew accepts me as their leader.

So too with Linus and linux. If people believe in him, he leads them; if people don't believe in him, he's just a mortal man again, everybody goes their own way. (I'm assuming he's not the type to incite mutinous plank-walking behaviors.)

-kgj

Re:Pirate King

[stratjakt]

With the pirates, though, mutiny was rare, even if the captain was an evil malevolant tyrant. No matter what he did, mutiny was worse. Mutiny is the worst crime you can commit on the high seas.

Word got out that you took part in a mutiny, no matter what an asshole Captain Blythe was, you'd never serve on a ship again in your life. Hell, you'd be lucky to pay for passage on one.

In fact, many of the Bounty mutineers wound up living out their lives on some pacific island, partly because noone would go and pick them up.

Re:Pirate King

[happyfrogcow]

As long as i have TCP/IP over parrots, i'm fine. I wonder how many times you would have to say http://slashdot.org to a parrot before he can repeat it and pass the message on to the next parrot on the next island.

"Wrrrrokk! http://slashdot.org, pass it on. Tweet!"

Linus Torvalds' Cat Herd (not GNU/Herd, dammit)

[EvilAlien]

There is more insight in the rest of Linus' comments. He likens his role to that of a "cat herder", far from the ominous meaning inherent to "dictator".

... RMS, I said "herd", not HURD, don't get all excited.

Re:Linus Torvalds' Cat Herd (not GNU/Herd, dammit)

[EvilAlien]

Yes. We are pleased to welcome you to the Illuminati... I'm serious... ok, ok, look... our initiation tests have been greatly simplified over the years. This sig a lone is responsible for almost tripling membership to 20...

Respect for Microsoft ?

[EpsCylonB]

I'm not that concerned about the threat of Microsoft (MSFT ) enforcing patents against Linux. I think their mode of operation isn't through the legal system. I think they hate lawyers more than most companies. They've been on the receiving end. [CEO Steve] Ballmer and [Chairman Bill] Gates have pride in the fact that their competition may have tried to crush them with legal wars, but they overcame. I think they would have a hard time using legal tactics. They would be ashamed.

Interesting paragraph, seems to imply honour on microsofts part. Isn't there some kind of link between SCO and MS ?

Re:Respect for Microsoft ?

[Stevyn]

He's just giving respect people deserve. Maybe he secretly hates them and bashes them anonymously on slashdot, but I doubt that. Being respectful doesn't mean ass kissing and I don't even think he was trying to imply honor.

Re:Respect for Microsoft ?

[Skiron]

Yes. You don't need to shout it out.

I think that was a very good interview (no malice), and bolstered the FOSS/OSS/GNU movement alot.

Trouble, being nice doesn't make the press, so I doubt anybody other than /. and people that read that site will read it - a shame.

Re:Respect for Microsoft ?

[EpsCylonB]

Trouble, being nice doesn't make the press, so I doubt anybody other than /. and people that read that site will read it - a shame.

The meek shall inherit the earth. /wishes I could believe any of that reigous crap

Re:Respect for Microsoft ?

[Artifakt]

Many organizations have a sense of honour, just not the same one as some of us. Even in organized crime, honour means something, it's just it is much more about not ratting out your fellows than in how you treat the general public.
Plenty of businesses work from the premise that using the law to restrict the free market is sneaky or low while manipulating public opinion is fair and above board where it really counts. (That is, in the eyes of other businessmen, and NOT John Q. Public).
It's a easy path to go from deciding that many people are socialist drones who will dislike your company just for being successful, to thinking that it is alright to control them and not be honest with them, in 'self defense' against the politicians who are also trying to manipulate them.

Re:Respect for Microsoft ?

[10101001 10101001]

I'm not sure honor and shame are the inverses of each other. Like he said, I'm pretty sure it'd be seen as a form of shame.

I don't think Bill Gates is "evil" or thinks of himself as such. The fact is, gaming the system by using exclusionary licensing is hardly the sort of thing only MS has done (look at exclusionary Coke or Pepsi universities/gas stations). At some fundamental level, saying people *want* to use Windows is the basis for Windows being the #1 OS is something that Bill Gates can be proud of (to be more truthful, OEMs are the deciders who until the settlement had the choice of cheap Windows on all machine or retail Windows on some machines; there was enough market want for Windows to warrent going 100% Windows instead of 100% someone else; truthfully, in '95 that was almost quite a gamble (if OS/2 had worked better on more hardware, it would really have been a hard gamble)).

If MS were to go along and use say the vfat patent against Linux, then Bill Gates, et al. couldn't claim they beat Linux because people wanted Windows. At some level, I agree they'd be ashamed to go that route. In fact, taking out Linux now would probably be such bad PR for what is trivial gains to not be worth it. I'm not sure there ever would/will be a point that it's worth it, given that at the point where Linux is a true threat to the desktop, Windows is obsolete, which means there's nothing to really recover.

Re:Respect for Microsoft ?

[horza]

I think they hate lawyers more than most companies. They've been on the receiving end. [CEO Steve] Ballmer and [Chairman Bill] Gates have pride in the fact that their competition may have tried to crush them with legal wars, but they overcame.

I'm not sure being convicted by the highest court in their own country, and then by the EU, count as 'overcame'. More they thumbed their nose at the US government because they knew they were far more powerful, which isn't the same thing. In fact I don't remember them overcoming the Eolas plug-in patent either. Or Sun over their Java trademark. In fact the only things that threaten to crush Microsoft are superior products.

I think they would have a hard time using legal tactics. They would be ashamed.

The problem with large corporations is that "They would be ashamed" and "Acting in the interest of providing the maximum return to the shareholder" is often difficult to reconcile.

Phillip.

Simple answer

[jeti]

If software patents become more common how will anyone know that they have knowing or unknowing violated a patent?

You can't know it. You just do your work and hope for the best.

The JPEG standard was thought to be unencumbered by patents. After a decade, the standard had to be redrawn. And yes, people carefully looked for patents when the standard was defined.

OS

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

"...and i don't consider myself a pussy, ok?"

"Yes. i am also not a pussy."

Re:OS

[matrix0f8h]

ni - ee - ni - ni - gel

Linus VanPelt

[gr8_phk]

I just realized that when I read Linus, his personality seems to correlate with that of Linus from the peanuts comics. Alway polite, good sense of humor, very low key.

In related news...

[l0ungeb0y]

President Bush called for an impromptu press conference today to inform the nation of a new threat in the War on Terror.

"I'd like to start by thanking the brave and strong Americans at home and abroad who have stood by our troops and supported our efforts in the War on Terror. Today I bring news of an even greater threat. Our intellegence shows that a New Dictator has gained power and established a large network of terrorist computer cells in homes and offices around the country. This New Dictator is Linus Torvolds and I can assure you he hates America, he hates Capitolism and he hates Freedom. Today we begin our war with another terrorist, a terrorist that is bent on destroying Corporate America and our way of life. Already he has duped many of our citizens and corporations to convert to "Linux" a terrorist organization no less dangerous than Al Qaeda or the brutal Dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. We must band together and stamp out this threat to our liberties and safety. Today I have appointed Steve Balmer as Special Consultant for the creation of the Desktop Security Agency which shall be a part of the Homeland Security Agency. Together with Tom Ridge and Donald Rumsfeld, Mr. Balmer shall create a roadmap of shock and awe to root out and destroy this new threat before it is too late."

Re:OT: Is this theme new?

[strictfoo]

I don't know, but anything is better than apache.slashdot.org

Hmm ... never stopped Theo :)

[Anonymous Coward]

' The creator of Linux says "I can't be nasty" when leading the open-source movement since it's all built on trust and teamwork'

Hmm ... never stopped Theo :)

Re:Hmm ... never stopped Theo :)

[Nutria]

'The creator of Linux says "I can't be nasty" when leading the open-source movement since it's all built on trust and teamwork'

Hmm ... never stopped Theo :)

Hmm, maybe that's why Linux is so popular, and OpenBSD is a niche OS...

Mod Parent +Informative

[handy_vandal]

With the pirates, though, mutiny was rare, even if the captain was an evil malevolant tyrant. No matter what he did, mutiny was worse. Mutiny is the worst crime you can commit on the high seas.

That's very interesting -- thanks for the info.

Word got out that you took part in a mutiny, no matter what an asshole Captain Blythe was, you'd never serve on a ship again in your life. Hell, you'd be lucky to pay for passage on one.

Blythe wasn't a pirate, was he? I believe he was a Captain (Admiral?) in the Queen's Navy.

-kgj

Re:Mod Parent +Informative

[stratjakt]

Yeah, Blythe was a merchant marine off to collect rubber plants or some such thing.

It wasnt just pirates or navy captains. It's just one of those codes that all sailors lived by, whether you were on a little fishing boat making day trips or a magnificent galleon travelling to the new world to fill its holds with Incan gold.

Hell, to a large degree it's true today. Get a bad reputation on one fishing boat, good luck getting a job on another one.

Pirates weren't really all that different from any other sailor. Hell, all they needed was permission from country A to steal from country B's ships, and they magically became "privateers".

During the revolution, there were tons of american "privateers" out to plunder and steal from British ships. All nice and legal according to the new congress.

Re:Mod Parent +Informative

[joggle]

During the revolution, there were tons of american "privateers" out to plunder and steal from British ships. All nice and legal according to the new congress.

That may have had something to do with the British conscripting American sailors into their Navy and stealing their cargos.

Re:Oh. My. God. He's in management.

[Stevyn]

Does this mean somebody is trying to explain to him the benfits of open source?

Re:maybe theo de radt should take a note from him.

[Anonymous Coward]

Jobs isn't the only one who built apple. Woz was just as instramental as the other Steve.

RMS and Linus seeing eye to eye

[LibrePensador]

"Software patents concern me. I worry about some greedy companies -- possibly failing ones, trying to make trouble and abusing the system. Software patents, in particular, are very ripe for abuse. The whole system encourages big corporations getting thousands and thousands of patents. Individuals almost never get them.

We have random people in random countries working on random things, and they don't have 1,000 patent lawyers. So I'm not worried about one patent in particular, but the whole system. It's not a problem today. But it's a thing I can't control, unlike the technical side, where I can actually do something."

It is refreshing to hear Linus state what RMS has been saying for the past five years. Software patents are evil, evil, evil. Yet Linus seems to stir less controversy when he says these things. I think both of them have a great deal of admiration for each other and both of them do very important if parallel work.

For all the talk about the Hurd, RMS doesn't use the Hurd.

Re:RMS and Linus seeing eye to eye

[Bas_Wijnen]

For all the talk about the Hurd, RMS doesn't use the Hurd.

I do not know if this is true, nor do I care much. What are you trying to prove?

Re:RMS and Linus seeing eye to eye

[LibrePensador]

That beyond asking people to call Linux, GNU/Linux, which I find reasonable, RMS is enough of a pragmatist to want to use a real kernel and that Linus is enough of a thinker to understand the depth of RMS's non-code contributions and philosophy.

What's your beef?

Re:RMS and Linus seeing eye to eye

[0x0d0a]

For all the talk about the Hurd, RMS doesn't use the Hurd.

Back before Linux was unusable, Linus used Minix.

Re:RMS and Linus seeing eye to eye

[10101001 10101001]

I think it's more a point that until SCO, there was never a real serious threat to Linux. Linus has always been very pragmatic (ie, an engineer), while RMS has been more a philosopher/lawyer (setting up the GPL and free software idea). It's hardly surprising that when Linus is pushed towards RMS's "field" that he would agree given the possible effects.

Re:RMS and Linus seeing eye to eye

[Bas_Wijnen]

I wouldn't call using Linux (or whatever he uses) pragmatic, as I'm sure it is software as RMS likes it to be: free. One of the freedoms is that if you don't like the programmer (or, as in this case, some of his opinions), you can still use it because he can't use the software to "oppress" you.

I think the Hurd is a very good idea. Using a microkernel and doing everything in userspace is great. They say the current implementation (on mach) sucks performance-wise, and I believe them without checking (I ran it, but didn't do enough to be able to verify the claims.) That is enough reason not to use it for normal work, if there is a comparable kernel (from an end-user point of view) which is doing better.

Not only are there performance problems, there is also the point that mach is not a microkernel if you compare it to modern microkernels like L4 (mach actually does device management, for example.) Currently, the hurd is being ported to L4, and I can only hope that it will have good performance. Technically, I am sure it will be a great system.

No offence but

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux will ultimately lose. I'm posting anon cos this ones goin down in flames, baby, but its got to be said. You have a dispersed, widely spread group going against a single, organised, massively influential force. If Rome taught us anything, its that small groups, no matter how skilled or courageous, will lose to an organised and capable foe with clear lines of communication under one leader.

And this cult of personality that is feebly trying to spring up around Linus Torvalds is just truly pathetic. Not to say that worthy has no personality, but he has no charisma. They "memorable quotes" you see dotted around are such milksops you can only imagine how tedious his normal conversation is. And of course, he's just sitting there lapping it up, firm in his faith that it will all work out.

Newsflash boys, the evil empire has no fear of Linux in the long term. Too opaque, too elitist, too fragmented, and frankly, lacks ANY marketing savvy. I mean, come on, its a joke. The GIMP is your "photoshop killer". No don't even let technical thoughts enter your mind. The GIMP. From the insanely popular pulp fiction, this is a pair of sodomites' S&M bitch. Nice one. The BSD devil? Score. And a penguin. Ah forget it, why am I bothering? This is like trying to explain colour to a blind man. I see rants on security, dependability, etc., here every day.

What you folks don't get is that no one gives a good f*ck about that sort of thing. Average people (who would whip yer arses up and down in their own fields, by the way, but what are we calling them today, lusers is it?) have no more need to understand how to find, download, and intall *nix than they need to work out how to hand-dye their socks. You are trying to teach this fine art to people, MS is selling predyed. Crap, but cheap enough (or apparently free since it comes bundled with the whole suit).

Guess who wins that particular struggle?

Much like the Roman Empire, the only way MS is gonna fall is when Bill Gates and / or Ballmer drops dead, and it is eaten away from within. And even then kiddies, the barbarian tribes never did amount to much.

In the meantime, learn to hack, learn to crack, parasite or saprophyte, find a country where they aren't quite gods yet. Move there if it matters to you that much. Learn how to hide baby, because the big bad ogre has already eaten your lunch and is feeling peckish again.

Re:No offence but

[Seven001]

I would so mod you up if I could. I believe most of what you have to say is quite true if Linux stays on the current path. Things can always change, but they sure don't like they are going to. The elitist thing is so true and is what pisses me off most about the Linux community. They want to be real competition for Windows, but then they want to be elitist too. You can't have both, so pick one or go compile something and shut the hell up.

Re:No offence but

[mangu]

If Rome taught us anything, its that small groups, no matter how skilled or courageous, will lose to an organised and capable foe with clear lines of communication under one leader.

Yes, but suppose it were otherwise? Here, for instance, is an interesting piece of fiction depicting an alternate history, where the Roman Empire ultimately fell to hordes of barbarians.

Re:No offence but

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope sometimes there is no phoenix. Or that is to say, one exists already, and its called windows.

Money won't save MS, people will. The same people who if by some miracle ever heard of Linux, would be both unable to use it (regarding installs and upgrades) and alienated by the "community".

The reasons for such elitism are simple enough at their heart. A group of reasonably intelligent people scorned for their interest in fascinating new machines. Well guess what, now we get to mock, har har har... idiots, you are fighting a war, and you have no generals, only cheiftans.

And it does matter. Computers are becoming more and more prevalent in our society. Do you want microsoft driving that train?

Re:No offence but

[iabervon]

I think Linux is actually more like the Roman Empire than you seem to imply, while Microsoft is more like one of the 20th century dictatorships.

The Roman Empire managed to be so large because it used a decentralized system of command. Provincial governors could act within their provinces without any oversight from Rome, but could call on Rome's military and financial power if needed. In return, they sent their profits back to the capital. Furthermore, allotment of governorships was based on the governor's record as seen by what they sent to Rome and what assistance they required in maintaining control. The governor could therefore maintain control of the province with the backing of a huge empire; Rome reaped the profits of the huge empire; but the emperor didn't have to think about the whole empire, because he could trust Spain's governor to deal with Spain or be replaced with someone who could. Furthermore, the senatorial class would manage itself in choosing who got control of what. Also, people from various parts of the government could get noticed by the senate and thereby put into more powerful positions. This system allowed Rome to rule a huge area for centuries, across many emperors and even dynasties.

Linux development is done in much this way. Linus doesn't do particularly much in running the project, relative to its size; most of the work is done by others who do it to show their productivity and merit, and who get rewarded by having their code put into the mainline and by having others contribute work to their subsystems, both of which increase the developer's reputation and ability to affect the design of the kernel.

Microsoft, on the other hand, is much more centralized, and the chain of command is more strict. This limits their size and flexibility and the ability of rising stars to affect direction. The loss of critical Microsoft executives would probably have much the effect that the death of Eva Peron had on Peronist Argentina than the death of Julius Caesar had on Rome.

Chances are, Microsoft won't last more than 50 years, while Linux will be around in 500. Not, of course, that that matters much to people under Microsoft's thumb at the moment.

Re:No offence but

[severoon]

I think that linux has a good shot at taking over the home market...after all, it's free. At the very least, if it becomes popular, users will be able to buy machines cheaper with Linux preinstalled. It has a few very important hurdles to overcome first, though. Check out my journal entry on the problems with linux if you want to know my thoughts on it.

I recently installed Mandrake 10.0 and I have to say I was disappointed. It's been about three years since I ran up any new distro on a machine that could hack it (I've got a couple of old boxes that I can't really call valid installs for modern distros) and I was expecting a lot from Mandrake. The installation went on in under an hour, cleanly, but then I immediately started having problems. I wanted to hook it up to a Windows domain, and right off the bat Samba was very difficult to configure for both-way filesharing. I played around with menudrake and rpmdrake, both of which were not very good tools. rpmdrake is very unintuitive to use and in all the -drake tools message popups keep showing up in either the upper left or upper right of the screen...very annoying. With menudrake, I had to manually add shortcuts to see apps I'd just installed, and then I couldn't get/find the icons appropriate to the apps I'd installed (both Limewire and Firefox), so they just have the generic little system app boxes next to them. Again, very annoying.

After about 10 hours of working on the box, I decided to throw Firefox on it. I've been using Firefox on my main Windows machine now for about 2 months, so I thought this'll be easy. Immediately after the install I got it up and running, but the next time I booted the machine and ran Firefox it would act like it was starting up, and then go away and not come back. I ran it from the prompt and saw that there was some kind of library missing. I reinstalled it, and got the same as before...browser came up until I logged out and logged back in, then the library issue.

When I see stuff like that I just shut down mentally. It's not that I can't solve the problem, it's that I shouldn't have to. I realized it was time to blow off the Mandrake installation for once and for all when I had to check my email and print something out because I was late for an appointment. I booted the linux box, ran up Konqueror, and couldn't read my email through my provider's web-based email client. I ran up Firefox and discovered the library problem. I ran up Mozilla (which came installed) and couldn't get my inbox to open up. Finally, noting the time was getting even later, I ran up a Windows box, got the email, printed it, and was on my way.

On Windows, I've used IE, Mozilla, Opera, and Firefox to open and read email through my provider's web email client, so it's definitely not a problem that is solely browser-specific. (Also, I noted that to access the settings for Firefox on linux, for the few minutes I had access to the app, it's under Edit -> Preferences, not Tools -> Options as it is on Windows. Why the different UI for different platforms?)

So, I'm waiting with baited breath for the moment I can install any distro of linux, get all the security and good features that linux has over Windows, but not have to memorize a list of acronyms like cups and lpr to print, or crack open text files to manually configure apps.

Re:No offence but

[BroncoInCalifornia]

You have a dispersed, widely spread group going against a single, organised, massively influential force. If Rome taught us anything, its that small groups, no matter how skilled or courageous, will lose to an organised and capable foe with clear lines of communication under one leader.

I disagree. Here are a couple of points:
1. The Roman empire is not with us anymore.
2. I think a better example is the centralised economy of Soviet Union vs. the decentralised economy of the U.S.

Re:No offence but

[Jugalator]

The first time I've heard someone compare a software with a great civilization. You must think Microsoft (*and* Linux!?) is big indeed.

Re:No offence but

[MntlChaos]

Hey! Where's my pink laptop! I got a purple one!
-Monkey #1023

Re:No offence but

[strider44]

Of course. Windows has several times the user base as the population of the Roman Empire.

Re:No offence but

[superpulpsicle]

Hey if Linus's real name was Brian or Jamal. Linux might have become Brianix or Jamalix, both of which are terrible names for unix period. That dude is born to be a unix dictator.

Re:No offence but

[Seven001]

Either you are making a retarded joke, or you are complete fucking moron.

Re:No offence but

[laa]

Which, in fact, isn't completely untrue. As the saying goes "Rome wasn't burned in one day, you know..."

Re:No offence but

[tehcyder]

Er...the Roman empire did fall to the barbarians in the end.

As far as I know I don't *think* I'm ruled by an Emperor in Rome still.

Or have I somehow fallen into an alternate universe? P>

Re:No offence but

[sigaar]

"Newsflash boys, the evil empire has no fear of Linux in the long term."

Microsoft doesn't care that it's losing server market share to Linux?

I guess that's why they're spending millions on the Windows vs Linux TCO campaign.

An for what it's worth, that campaign is doing MS more harm than good, because now everybody who's never heard the work Linux before, wants to know what Linux is. Since that campaign started, my company has experienced a massive increase in requests for linux based servers. And we don't even advertise our linux at all.

Re:No offence but

[BrokenHalo]

Well I can only say I'm sorry you've had such a hard time with Linux. But to be honest, I would have so say that my (brief) experience with Mandrake was similarly frustrating.

Fortunately, it's now a lot easier and quicker to set up a properly working Slackware system than it was ten years ago (if you don't mind a text-mode installer) and I think you might have been pleasantly surprised at how well everything "just works".

If you don't want to touch a command-line you don't have to; the Gnome or KDE that come out of the box are perfectly adequate, or there's Dropline Gnome for all the latest features...

Re:No offence but

[ccp]

The loss of critical Microsoft executives would probably have much the effect that the death of Eva Peron had on Peronist Argentina than the death of Julius Caesar had on Rome.

Daniel, I'm an Argentinian, and I'm honestly curious:

Is this opinion based just on the movie, or did you dig the facts a little?

I'm not trolling, but I'd like to know.

Best regards,

Re:No offence but

[severoon]

I'm sad that you posted this AC. I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't clicked the "under threshold" link--I usually browse at +1.

Anyway, you've realized exactly the problem. It's worth money to save time. As soon as die hard linux-heads realize that... (Actually, that's not quite fair, they've made great strides in this direction over the last 5 years or so.)

Re:No offence but

[iabervon]

The facts in general are contended, but it is clear that Juan's regime did not last much past Eva's death (although he did return later), and that his government was heavily reliant on the personalities and personal popularity of the leaders. This contrasts with the Roman Empire, which lasted through a number of leaders with a single continuing government,

Please do provide details.

[jbn-o]

GNU/Zealots do NOTHING to advance the purposes of Free Software*; they drive for the splintering of licenses (and thus curtail interopability)[...]

What exactly does "splintering" a license mean? How, precisely, is interoperability curtailed by the free software movement?

Re:Please do provide details.

[Planesdragon]

What exactly does "splintering" a license mean?

I suppose that a slightly more appropriate term is "fork", but even that's wrong.

GNU/Zealotry leads to terms like "you must not remove anything from this license" -- the strong copyleft. Unfortunately, this leads to mimicry (how many strong copyleft licenses exist? How many do we have?) and incompatable schism.

If I wanted to take some GPL'd libraries and framework to create a program for Open Gaming, I'd be unable to--as the GPL is likely incompatable with the OGL (see www.opengamingfoundation.org) despite being very compatable in intent and even outlook & purpose. And so, I wind up just using the OGL (or my own license, or someone else's) and when you want to use my code and RMS's code to make something new, you can't.

How, precisely, is interoperability curtailed by the free software movement?

Before Linux, MS actually sold a flavor of UNIX. Had "Free Software" not ran so contrary to their basic business model, we'd probably have MS Office for UNIX now. Rather that throwing the baby out with the bathwater, the collaborative features that MS Office has had for years might actually work with the Free Software OS RMS and LT happily put together.

MS, of course, is a special case, but they do well to illuminate the concept.

Re:Oh. My. God. He's in management.

[DrWhizBang]

Yeah, but the best managers are always guys who used to code, and still code a little. I would sacrifice some of the best coders on my team if the managers were all people with both coding AND management skills.

You again?

[Phragmen-Lindelof]

"It was designed to suit a particular task and do it well."
I do not see how this product (XP) can be said to be designed to do a task well, unless that task is to make Microsoft lots of money. The security model for XP is a joke. SP2 is (reported to be) breaking applications. Your comments would be humorous if your goal did not appear to be spreading FUD against Linux.

Namecalling trivializes the speaker.

[jbn-o]

I think we can all agree that when the term "Linux/Open Source/Free Software Zealot" is used, RMS is usually thought about.

Sadly, on /., the term zealot is coupled with RMS almost exclusively despite the pay off from his detailed attention to licensing, patent law, and understanding the differences between the laws lumped together as "intellectual property". Some posters don't hesitate to argue their point by namecalling (such as you calling RMS "a wack job") which doesn't advance the conversation. By contrast, I don't see people calling open source movement advocates names. I get the impression that stumping for businesses is far more popular and more widely recognized on as a genuine good by those who post on /. than stumping for everyone's software freedom.

Re:Namecalling trivializes the speaker.

[KilobyteKnight]

Some posters don't hesitate to argue their point by namecalling (such as you calling RMS "a wack job") which doesn't advance the conversation.

I couldn't help but notice you didn't dispute my assessment, but instead focused on my technique.

Re:Namecalling trivializes the speaker.

[gorre]

By contrast, I don't see people calling open source movement advocates names.

On the contrary I have heard people calling ESR names many times, granted he doesn't get it as bad as RMS but he still gets his share.

Personally I feel both have made valuable contributions to our community and it's regrettable for people to be name calling although I'm sure it's water off a ducks back.

No it was just for fun

[SmallFurryCreature]

To see if he could. Wich really makes you wonder what linus added with linux that made it such a huge hit. Writing an OS is nothing special, it is pretty standard stuff if you are high enough up in the computer sciences.

Not like there aren't plenty of free OS out there either. Yet something clicked with linux. If you knew what that was you could make billions. Well at least make billions by selling MS the antidote :P

poor analogy by Linus

[orcus]

Me wonders if he even knows what witchcraft was and really still is all about....

It certainly has not died out... Contrary to what certain religious sects might have you believe...

From the article:

Q: What makes you believe Linux will continue to gain momentum?
A: I think, fundamentally, open source does tend to be more stable software. It's the right way to do things. I compare it to science vs. witchcraft. In science, the whole system builds on people looking at other people's results and building on top of them. In witchcraft, somebody had a small secret and guarded it -- but never allowed others to really understand it and build on it.

Traditional software is like witchcraft. In history, witchcraft just died out. The same will happen in software. When problems get serious enough, you can't have one person or one company guarding their secrets. You have to have everybody share in knowledge.

Re:poor analogy by Linus

[DeathPenguin]

At least he didn't compare software to sex.

Oh wait...

Re:poor analogy by Linus

[Senzei]

Although I don't believe he meant it in that sense, I think his statement does still hold some truth. If you go by a definition of "died out" meaning that it has gone outside the realm of popular use, knowledge, or understanding then witchcraft has died out. Note that I said popular in that sentance. Never said that it has fallen so completely off the face of the earth that no living soul practices or knows about it anymore.

If you would like to use an alternate definition to avoid a term such as "died out" being used to describe your particular religious affiliation then we will have to proclaim that OS/2 and the DEC chips have not died out either, as i'm sure both are still in use somewhere in the world.

might you be referring to...

[r00t]

the TCP/IP stack being sold separately?
the compiler being sold separately?
per-user and per-CPU license costs?

Dang, they were asking to die.

Linus is like Washington

[Anonymous Coward]

I am surprised that Linus thinks of himself as a dictator. I suppose that he could be considered that except for the negative connotations.

I see him more like a Benjamin Franklin, or perhaps George Washington.

Or maybe more like a Martin Luther.

None of these would I call dictators.

And all the people who I can think of as dictators I can't say that I like.

Linus is more like a George Washington. He is leading the army. He starts the country. He is the general in charge, not a dictator but a natural leader.

Re:Best quote of the article IMO

[PitaBred]

The world works better when knowledge is shared. Knowledge is a nearly infinitely replicable resource. If I tell you something I know, I still retain it, yet you also now have it. I believe that's a paraphrase of something Thomas Jefferson said...
Everything else, that gets into communism, which is basically a discounting of human nature. Great idea, impossible to pull off.

Torvalds popularized the process

[Roadkills-R-Us]

Anything even vaguely gnuish was probably using a similar process. I know the X11 project did. Yeah, it was more centralized, but so was Linus's original setup. His merely evolved into what it is now, as did many others. The GIMP did something similar in the same time frame, except that the original authors bowed out completely.

Witchcraft, all right!

[Roadkills-R-Us]

Actually, I thought that was the best quote in the interview. Bill Gates with a pointy hat and wand, cursing the known universe...

Re:Witchcraft, all right!

[Performer Guy]

Except early experimenters were not witches but alchemists who explored chemical reactions famously in pursuit of converting lead to gold, while jealously guarding their secrets. Witches simply practiced a pagan religion that had nothing much to do with any kind of research, witchcraft only works on TV. Alchemists could actually make chemicals that smelled strange, burned brightly produced strange smoke make liquids turn change color etc. There was a some methodology to what some of them did, but they didn't share or poblish so the research went nowhere for centuries.

Whats a dictater?

[avandesande]

Doesn't Mr. Potatohead have a dictater?

Assumptions worth examining.

[jbn-o]

If I wanted to take some GPL'd libraries and framework to create a program for Open Gaming, I'd be unable to--as the GPL is likely incompatable with the OGL (see www.opengamingfoundation.org) despite being very compatable in intent and even outlook & purpose. And so, I wind up just using the OGL (or my own license, or someone else's) and when you want to use my code and RMS's code to make something new, you can't.

What's interesting here is that the onus of responsibility falls on the GPL to allow these derivatives rather than taking the authors of the OGL to task for writing a GPL-incompatible license (despite the GPL's clear popularity when the OGL was written). What is particularly ironic about this incompability is that the Open Gaming Foundation claims to be "based on the Free Software GNU General Public License ". But even if you're not willing to do that, all is not lost -- what happened when you asked the copyright holders of the two works for permission to make this derivative? Copyrighted works can be licensed any number of ways to any number of other parties. Perhaps they would grant you special permission to make your work. Also, why is it any GPL licensor's duty to let you create such a derivative by default?

Before Linux, MS actually sold a flavor of UNIX. Had "Free Software" not ran so contrary to their basic business model, we'd probably have MS Office for UNIX now. Rather that throwing the baby out with the bathwater, the collaborative features that MS Office has had for years might actually work with the Free Software OS RMS and LT happily put together.

Linux is a kernel, not an operating system. GNU predates the release of the Linux kernel. The existence of GNU and/or the Linux kernel does not prevent Microsoft from continuing the development of their UNIX-like system nor does it prevent them from writing MS Office for any OS they wish (including any free software OS). It seems to me that Microsoft's decision to can a program you appear to want is best addressed by talking to them, not chastising RMS. It appears that the Free Software Foundation is not interested in throwing aside their goals for mere popularity:

People justify adding non-free software in the name of the "popularity of Linux"--in effect, valuing popularity above freedom. Sometimes this is openly admitted. For instance, Wired Magazine says Robert McMillan, editor of Linux Magazine, "feels that the move toward open source software should be fueled by technical, rather than political, decisions." And Caldera's CEO openly urged users to drop the goal of freedom and work instead for the "popularity of Linux".

Adding non-free software to the GNU/Linux system may increase the popularity, if by popularity we mean the number of people using some of GNU/Linux in combination with non-free software. But at the same time, it implicitly encourages the community to accept non-free software as a good thing, and forget the goal of freedom. It is no use driving faster if you can't stay on the road.

Re:Assumptions worth examining.

[Planesdragon]

What's interesting here is that the onus of responsibility falls on the GPL to allow these derivatives rather than taking the authors of the OGL to task for writing a GPL-incompatible license

I could take them to task, except that we discussed this very thing in the early drafts of the OGL and the issue was settled by a very simple fact. "If we take this rules-copyleft and extend it to everything, no one will ever use the OGL." [paraphrased.]

As it is, nearly every player in the RPG market has done at least something with regards to Open Gaming, with the exception of Games Workshop and a few small projects that predated the OGL. And vast majority number of those Open Gaming projects not only follow the letter of the OGL, they also follow its intent. (If the GPL had anything close to this effect, IE would have been GPL'd when MS decided to give it away.)

Linux is a kernel, not an operating system. GNU predates the release of the Linux kernel. The existence of GNU and/or the Linux kernel does not prevent Microsoft from continuing the development of their UNIX-like system nor does it prevent them from writing MS Office for any OS they wish (including any free software OS).

1: I did not say that Linux was an OS. I did, however, say that it was the last signifcant piece of the first Free Software OS. And it was.

2: Before there was a Free Software OS, there were just a bunch of free software tools--it was very much a hobbyist project, that still relied upon an underlying non-copyleft OS.

3: If you think that MS could have continued the development of MINX given Linux's popularity, you probably also think that RedHat could simply sell copies of their OS with no support and survive.

Adapting to free software would have been a wholesale reworking of MS's business model. Remember that at this time there was still a good deal of naturally occuring FUD about the implicaitons of the GPL on code written to work with a GPL'd OS. MS didn't need to exaggerate, they merely needed to state their claims.

Now, had RMS et al not been as overzealous, MS may have actually given the GPL a fair consideration. Given their corporate culture they would have rejected it anyway--but you can feel free to substitute any other company, such as IBM or Apple or Sun, and the certainty of corporate rejection of the "maybe this would be a good PR move" fails. As it was, "this would mean would could never sell software again" (or worse, "this would mean no one could ever sell software for [our OS]) was totally and at the time rightly rejected outright.

It seems to me that Microsoft's decision to can a program you appear to want is best addressed by talking to them, not chastising RMS. It appears that the Free Software Foundation is not interested in throwing aside their goals for mere popularity:

You commit a serious logical fallacy. RMS's freedom is in no way impunged if his tools are used to create new non-free systems. In fact, in a roundabout way he is denying even partial freedom to those who for whatever reason cannot abandon their non-copyleft system.

RMS's goal is "software freedom" for himself and all the world. While changing the world is always good, refusing to compromise has historically never yielded results more pleasing than compromise. He forgets the goal while focusing on the small elements of inertia--by insisting that we exercise the rights he holds dear, he is denying us the real use of those rights, and hurting his cause as disinterested parties shun his words.

Were other leaders insist that all votes be cast, all citizens bear arms, all arrests be challenged, all opinions expressed, and all children aborted, the world would be worse place than it would be if those rights were taken away.

Re: So it's TRUE! Linux did come from Santa Claus!

[WarMonkey]

So, it turns out that Linus was really telling the truth? That Linux was made by Santa Claus?!

I can't believe that I'm THE ONLY ONE who has noticed that you never see both Linus and Santa Claus IN THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME!

Get a clue, people! :)

Re:Benevolent Crustascean Overlord

[louden obscure]

cool, since all my linux home network boxen have hostnames that are spongebob squarepants character names, my kernel can be mr. krab...weird, but at least i'm on the same page...

OT: what happens if Linus were to suddenly die?

[ed1park]

How would Linux and Opensource be affected? Who's the next person in line most likely to take his place? Has this even been considered?

The way I handled it.

[dmaxwell]

"You can have a Windows machine to play those games on but I won't fix it when it messes up. I have to tolerate MS at work; I won't tolerate it in my free time. If you want Windows, you will have to learn to fix it yourself when it goes wrong."

The no-sex threat was a pure bluff....ever notice that is always the first gun to get dragged out if a guy stands his ground?

Re:The way I handled it.

[DrWhizBang]

The no-sex threat was a pure bluff

Heh heh. Is it a bluff if you wouldn't have gotten it anyway?

As for refusing to fix a windows machine, I've said a version of that, but it doesn't seem to register. I remember coming home from work daily and hearing, "The kids installed this game, but we can't find it" or "This game doesn't install" or "This game installed but now this other one is broken" or my favorite "The computer is locked up again." I thought I couldn't go wrong by buying a PlayStation2 and removing "The Game OS" from my computer - but it seems her memory is shorter than mine...

Re:The way I handled it.

[dmaxwell]

Heh heh. Is it a bluff if you wouldn't have gotten it anyway?

Nice try but I'm not one of the basement cave dwellers. I've a wife and a child and that particular argument was had a long time ago. In any case if I were faced with a Windows problem after dealing with them all day, I'd hand her a Knoppix CD, a Windows boot CD and maybe a link to sysinternals.com. I meant it when I said I wouldn't fix Windows machines at home.

Nitro Dragster Paint Job.

[twitter]

no, software vendors take FOSS box cars off their tracks and present them as nitro dragsters. They are rarely "first" off the line, they just make more noise and are what the clueless hear first. At their very best, they take other people's ideas and make something functional like Netscape did. At their very worst, they act like Microsoft and plod along with all the crap they have cobbled together and have no hope of fixing.

Useful work?

[yuri benjamin]

I know it's impossible to measure, but it would be interesting to see which platform is serving the most "useful work".
If you look at the number of bytes served, for example, then Linux would come up high because of the likes of Google which is serving GBs or TBs daily, at a guess.
Most FOSS advocates would claim that one linux server does the useful work of more than one windows box. I suspect this is true, but I'll refrain from making the claim in the absense of hard figures.

Wrong

[ewe2]

We're talking about an open collaborative method vs. a closed, secretive one.

Witchcraft is a closer fit to magic, which IS secretive. Alchemy is a pseudoscience closer to true science, those like Newton, Boyd and Locke did, however secretly, confer and test each other's theories in a proto-scientific method.

Witchcraft/magic on the other hand totally depends on secrets for its effectiveness. Religion, which has always sought to take witchcraft's place is also secretive.

Consider the response of a scientist and a magician to a theory which has failed: the scientist goes back and gathers more data, tests the working hypothoesis of others and tries again. The magician simpy says "the didn't work, the time wasn't right, and the gods are angry with you".

Not a bad analogy between closed vs open source, is it?

Linux desktop usage

[Slinky Saves the Wor]

How many people are like me: I buy a computer, get a Windoze license, then at some point in time stop using it when I switch to Linux?

So, I get calculated as point for Windows in the desktop, but actually use Linux. The metric might actually be lower than expected for the MS products.

Re:The hard part is over...

[DataCannibal]

That's a great name for trying to persuade neutrals of your arguments.

I took a look at your site. It's not often I use this phrase but in your case I'll make an exception as you have evidently forgotten that there is a world out there: "Get a Life!"

What have the Romans done for us?

[bLanark]

If Rome taught us anything, its that small groups, no matter how skilled or courageous, will lose to an organised and capable foe with clear lines of communication under one leader.

C'mon, everything comes in cycles. Big guys will rise and fall over time. Think Psychohistory. Babylon fell, after all.

Once upon a time, the Roman empire was not the biggest, but one of many small ones. It's chance circumstances and personalities that make things happen. The situation may appear dire now, but a generation after Gates retires, MSFT will be pretty much like ORCL and YHOO and many other software companies.

Overall, I think it's a poor analogy. When we talk about Rome, are we talking about the aqueducts? Or the roads? Irrigation? Wine? Public baths? Keeping Order? Life of Brian Script. :-)