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"Enemies of Linux" Trying to Undermine OS?
Pinawella writes "It's reported on VNUnet that 'Enemies of Linux' are trying to undermine the OS with a campaign of disinformation. It's based on an interview with an exec from the Open Source Development Labs, but who are these enemies?"
The enemy of my friend is my enemy's friend, or my friend's enemies are my friend's friends... Um, is this gonna be on the test?
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doesn't make them enemies.
Just very very very hostile.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Why the BSD people of course. Everyone knows the BSD triangle of NetBSD, FreeBSD and OpenBSD are out to get Linux. BSD stands for BKill SDamn DPenguin. What other free OS is there that could feel threatened?
Someone you trust is one of us.
If we still cant have consistant pasting between apps, I'd say we're our own biggest enemy. I've used linux since the 2.0 kernel days and even I still find it impossible to paste between different apps, especially with a different toolkit. Throw in an odd app like Mozilla and forget about it, you'll end up replacing your own clipboard with what you're trying to paste over, or pasting 3 lines into the url bar which happily takes newlines.
Why can't we just unite like all the good apps on windows, mac os, qnx, amiga.. and everything else with a real solid dev team?
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Er, so when did Linux stop being an OS and start being a cult-like religion?
It's a f-ing operating system for god(s) sake people. It doesn't have enimies, it has competitors.
The evil monkey commands you to dance.
http://www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/wildl ife/penguins/index.shtml
Sheesh slashdot editors, at least do a simple google search first!
This is a good point, but asking OSDL members this question is somewhat akin to doing a survey of how many people run IIS among ASP developers.
I've only ever purchased one server with linux preloaded (from Dell). Every other linux system I've ever owned has come blank, except one workstation that had a copy of Windows preloaded.
Officially, I have 1 linux system, but in reality, I have probably 15 active systems.
Speak before you think
Do Penguins taste nice?
It may sound like a strange question but people do actually eat penguins. In Antarctica there are research stations where scientists live for months or even years so for them having a penguin for dinner is much like us having a Sunday roast. From their experiences we have been told that they taste like duck and that they also have a high oil content, due to all the fish that they eat. Guano miners also eat penguins whilst they are working near to Humboldt colonies; this however is bad news, as the Humboldt penguin is now a critically endangered species. Guano is old piles of penguin poo and it is mined for as it makes a good fertiliser, this practice is also detrimental to the wild Humboldt penguin population.
Clearly, these people are trying to undermine Linux by spreading the word that penguin meat is tasty and nutritious.
"OMG they're eating Tux. You Bastards!"
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Did they really expect for linux to be a viable product and not get criticized by the people whos market they are taking?
... If you insist on multiplying a single security vulnerability by the number of available distros, or tell people that they'll have to recompile their kernel every time they add a patch, or claim that software to do X, Y, or Z isn't available for Linux when in fact it is, or claim that open source development is inherently insecure, or that running proprietary software on a GPL'd OS will get you sued by the FSF, or make any of the other kinds of propganda attacks we've all seen on Linux (and F/OSS generally) from Microsoft and its lackeys ... then you have indeed gone beyond "competitor" to "enemy."
"Criticized" is one thing; "slandered" is another. Linux is far from perfect, and all but the most rabid zealots acknowledge this; there are many valid criticisms to be made, and in some cases the validity of these criticisms is sufficient to point users direction of Windows or one of the proprietary flavors of Unix.
BUT
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
They can do/say all they wish about Linux. What they forget is 'Linux' isn't a tangible entity. It's a bit like shadow boxing.
:)
Nobody owns it (apart from !SCO), anybody can release their/a version of it, and more important, all the coders and developers don't really give a shit who uses it.
People that USE it though know the truth, and my Financial Manager likes it too, even though he doesn't really know what it is. He knows what £0:00 is, though.
Who are the enemies
Just to the right of where the article says ,"So-called "enemies of Linux" are conducting a systematic campaign of disinformation which aims to undermine the enterprise credibility of the open source operating system", I see an add for MS's Get the Facts campaign. Hmmmm.
There are several companies who make products that Linux threatens directly. Any firm selling, for instance, an operating system, would feel threatened by what is becoming the standard OS much as TCP/IP became the standard networking protocol.
But to call these "competitors" of Linux is to misunderstand the nature of the threat.
Linux is not a business, it is not a strategy, it is not a concept.
Linux represents the brutal and unflinching march of technology towards the zero price point. Linux - and all free & open-source software - exists because all the barriers to its existence have been gradually razed.
The first rule of competition is that all players must be playing the same game. How can anyone seriously still think that Linux and (e.g.) Microsoft are playing the same game?
The game is not over - there is no game, and there never was.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Now that IBM, RHN and Novell are in the ring, Microsoft, Oracle, CA and everyone else are starting to see Linux as a competitor. The problem is that most people in FOSS are not used to competition, they prefer enemies. Enemies are easier to vilify and ridicule. Competitors who are eating your lunch are not. This whole "we are holier than thou and you are so evil" thing is not going to work out there in the real world. Linux needs to compete, not be surrounded by fanboys who can pick their noses and chuckle when they write "Microshaft" and "Windoze".
Slashdot has been the main front in this whining battle for the past few years. It's gone mainstream now, of sorts, and people are starting to notice the ridiculous "OMFG WINDOZE IS TEH SUXX" headlines that adorn the front page day in and day out, complete with borg icon. And don't complain about Microsoft saying this or the other about Linux when most of you spend your waking hours claiming that Windows cannot be secured or otherwise used as a computing platform, using anecdotal data points to build feel-good statistics that only you believe.
Grow up and compete. The "some dude said something bad about Linux"-style whines like this article are starting to sound more and more like Suckdot.