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Linux Geeks To Take Over World
B'Trey writes "According to this story by Rob Enderle of TechNewsWorld, Linux geeks are one of the most powerful forces in the world and are set to become the next Mob. Does this mean I get to wear a cool fedora and carry my distro CDs in a violin case?"
Does this mean I get to wear a cool fedora and carry my distro CDs in a violin case?
If your stick-on Vulcan ears don't interfere with the hat and if there's ample room in the violin case for your fake lightsaber... why not?
Trolling is a art,
"Does this mean I get to wear a cool fedora and carry my distro CDs in a violin case?"
Sure, but the jocks are still going to kick your ass.
While all these powers are good, if one cannot successfully reproduce offsprings, any geeky genes are likely to disappear.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
The article tells a good story about how Linux is at the center of a massive nexus of script-kiddies who are eager to destroy anyone standing in their way. And how unions are powerful things.
I don't think, however, that this has much to do with IT unionization.
There will always be vandals. There will always be workers who would benefit from a union. The story failed to connect these ideas.
Meh.
The author has a disturbing resemblance to Dr. Phil.
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
Enderle does not make phone calls and get facts; he prints opinions. Opinions are not required to be logical or intelligent, and they can run rampant with untruths and stupidity. There's nothing inherently wrong with publishing opinions and commentary.
The reason why this is a commentary and not an article is because there are few or no facts to back up the majority of what Rob Enderle says. I personally consider that unprofessional, even if it doesn't technically break the rules.
-Jem
The problem is, a good number of geeks are anti-union. Not for any clear reason, as unions originally formed in England in the times of King Charles (in coffee houses, no less, which is why he banned them), as a means of providing health insurance. Members donated money towards a fund, and when someone got sick, the union payed for the best care they could afford.
Today, there are health providers for that, working in a closed fashion, picking providers by means of a closed algorithm, choosing whether to pay or not by a closed review based on closed criteria you will never see. For some reason, many geeks find this preferable to a member-run union system, which could be as open as you liked.
Unions also guarantee that employees have reasonable rights. Not everything in the book, but reasonable rights. At present, equal rights at work is something that's put on a poster, but rarely practiced. With a union that is balanced in membership and structure, that could be reversed very rapidly. Of course, there are some who would object to equality and employment by merit, but I think most people are out of the Middle Ages at this point.
Of course, there are corrupt Unions. America is filled with them, where there is virtually no balance, little honesty or integrity, and just as much closed-mindedness as they were intended to defeat.
So? Are you telling me that the nation's brightest and best (cos to be a geek, you practically have to be!) can't build a better Union? They've wiped the floor with proprietary software, overwhelmed and "Turned" many corporate giants, but can't even come up with a working system to govern their own lives?
If the only Unions in history had been Evil Monsters, I might be sympathetic. But ignorance produced by closed-source attitudes is the very Evil that geeks are commited to destroying.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Let's look at the whole concept of an IT union. That's what the article is really trying to get at, though it seems to be unable to connect the dots.
Unions have historically been necessary in professions where the employees have been at a severe economic disadvantage to the employer. In such cases, the employee would suffer more greatly by being punished by the employer than by doing some odious task. A great example is the auto industry where thousands upon thousands of workers would be literally unable to support themselves if the factory left town. The management is able to use this knowledge and leverage it into forcing longer hours for worse pay upon the workers. It is only through unionization and the threat of collective/mass work stoppage that the management is kept in check.
In the modern age, unions have been a device to demand better treatment for worse productivity. They have ceased to be helpful guardians of employee rights and have become oppressive bureaucracies in their own right. This is not really a good direction, IMO.
If the primary goal of a union ought to be the protection of worker rights and the establishment of a partnership in which both management and the employees receive favorable outcomes. It should seek to balance the power of the employers with the needs of the employees.
However in the software world, the employees are not hamstrung by monetary concerns. Any Joe Programmer can pick up a cheap $200 bare bones PC and a copy of Linux and be programming the next great thing. He doesn't need management to do this.
So management, despite its seeming power, does not actually have very much leverage over any IT employee. It is not the case that if the company packs up and leaves town that the computer engineer is suddenly out on his ass. Rather, he still has the tools at his disposal to continue productive work on his own.
Because of this natural balance in the IT industry, it will never make sense to have an industry-wide union.
My read is that this is a pathetic attempt to link "Linux" and "union" in the minds of IT management. The article is absurd on it's face. It relys on a redefinition of the words "Linux" and "union" in order to make it work, thus rending the entire ridiculous screed meaningless.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Enderle seems to have declared war on Linux. There is so much wrong with this article that it's hard to know where to start commenting or when to stop. Linux supporters are not terrorists (in the main), but the article clearly portrays them as such.
At no time in history has a technology firm been as thoroughly attacked as SCO.
In 2003, SCO started a lawsuit against IBM, began spreading FUD, and demanded $699 for every copy of Linux. Their lies have been attacked, as they should be. SCO's business has suffered because of this, but that's just collateral damage. If you offend a lot of people, a large number of them will respond negatively.
their executive leadership has been threatened, and their ability to function has been almost completely eliminated.
That's what happens when you attack a community. But it was wrong to make physical threats. Please don't imagine that because someone made a threat then all people against SCO must all be terrorists.
In addition, companies using Linux technology and not complying with the GPL generally face a combination of legal and public relations exposures
EXACTLY. People who commit civil torts should face legal sanctions. Why is the article suggesting it's wrong to enforce a licence? Should Microsoft or IBM not enforce their licences?
Let's take the most powerful software company in the world, Microsoft, and imagine a scenario where they had a problem with a negative article. Generally they could call and complain
And that's pretty much what happened - a large number of people complained to the publisher and the advertisers. It is their right, isn't it? It's not mob rule to complain when someone pisses you off.
The O'Gara/PJ saga also demonstrates the lack of mature leadership.
There was no leadership... just a large number of individuals who expressed their views on MOG's article. Linux folks don't need no stinking leadership. Linux isn't a union or a political party.
Without strong leadership any organization with this much power can easily find itself with an image more similar to that of organized crime
I really can't see anyone organizing Linux folks on anything other than a technical level. Too diverse, too independent, too spread out across the globe, too focused on technical issues, too apolitical probably.
I have to wonder if this is just another round in the MS/Linux war. Enderle seems to have picked his side - the one with the money - and is attacking the enemy to the best of his ability. Fortunately, that's not a big threat.
As much as I'd like to be in an IT union... I don't think it fits. Collective payrates, strikes... rules... all that stuff.
Unions are for sheep, IT people are cats... we don't hurd well.
"one of the worst articles ever"?
Before you make such sweeping statements perhaps you should google for Enderley's other articles which easily outstrip even this article. The man is a master of crap, thank you very much. Not easily achieved!
Bitter and proud of it.
Enderle is still trying to work that meme but no one has shown it to be factual.
The majority of zombies are WINDOWS boxes.
None of SCO's claims of "threats" or "attacks" have been substantiated. Yet if they WERE attacked, it would be ultra-easy to post the logs showing it.
SCO's "evidence" of the "attacks" are the same as the "millions of lines" of "stolen" code they've claimed. Non-existant.
Linux, you see is an underworld agent threatening your profits. With that idea firmly planted, Enderle reaches for his current favorites in his arsenal.
SCO is a reasonable company besieged because they dared sue IBM. This is where Enderle gets to note DoS attacks and personal threats. It seems this alone has sunk SCO and not anything to do with their own buisness tactics or actual strength of their case against IBM. For some reason he also takes this time to mention Microsoft and point out that even this powerhouse is powerless in the face of such an onslaught.
Enderle also notes that companies who violate the GPL face union-like retaliation. And while it does point out "Linux" (which Enderle notes early on he doesn't wish to distinguish from other players) has managed to defend its license... the implication is certainly that this isn't business as normal.
Enderle's next favorite is the O'Gara incident. He generously describes the involved piece as an incomplete expose where O'Gara "implied, but did not prove, that PJ worked for IBM." What Enderle fails to note is that O'Gara also implied that PJ was a paranoid nutjob with generally frowned-on religious beliefs. The impression implied is that the Linux community apparently responded to unwelcome news rather than a personal hatchet job bordering on harassment. And again, Enderle gets a chance to trot out the DoS boogyman. Whats interesting is that he characterizes disapproving emails to advertisers supporting Sys-Con as an "attack". In the end, Enderle characterizes the negative response to this incident as power not even wielded by big corporations or governments. If demands aren't met, Linux moves against you.... and it would seem fits you for digital cement loafers.
You see - Linux is the new Mob. That is Enderle's subtle point. It's more subtle than his normal attacks. But it is a hatchet job, none the less.
One final comment - it's interesting how Enderle highlights the O'Gara incident as damning PR for the Linux community. The opinion is that if the community hadn't responded to O'Gara, the piece would have simply slipped past unnoted. But instead, it was picked up by major trades and gave Linux a black eye. Readers might want to question for themselves why the major news outlets picked this up and pay close attention to the players. Is this Enderle claiming that "suits are back"?
The problem with nerds is:
/. and in blogs about how the boss sucks, and hope that somehow miraculously the problem will just fix itself.
1. Being disconnected from reality, and believing in nutjob ideals of purity and perfection, instead of more realistic compromises that work.
Which is at least mildly entertaining when it comes to "vi vs emacs vs Eclipse vs VS.NET" flame wars, in which some small detail is inflated to mean "it's not 100% perfect, so it 100% sucks." But it's less funny to see people shaft themselves and screw up their own life in pursuit of that pure utopia and relentless shunning anything less than perfect. Between something like (A) having a boss that shits on you, demands 84 hour weeks, makes "YOUR job could be the next to move to India" a corporate motto, and generally makes Dilbert's PHB and Catbert look like good compassionate folks, and (B) a union, a nerd will keep option A because B isn't 100% perfect.
2. Disconnected from reality again, in the form of believing in nut-job extremist theories, of course dressed up to look like some 100% perfect ideal as mentioned above. You're pretty much not a nerd if you don't really believe in some oriental religion, or magic, or global conspiracies, or... some bullshit idealization of pure unregulated capitalism, 19th century style. Which is what we're seeing waved around every time someone mentions unions.
"Noo, unions just let people demand more pay for worse performance! They get in the way of capitalism! Let's get rid of minimum wages, unemployment benefits, medical insurance, etc, too! Make those lazy bums work harder!"
Well, guess what, folks? That unregulated capitalism didn't work _that_ great for the country. It just served to funnel most of the benefits into the pockets of a small oligarhy, while 90% of the population was living only _barely_ better than slaves on a plantation, and were left to literally starve the instant they had an accident and couldn't work any more.
Using _that_ model to rise productivity and GDP, yeah, would work, except it wouldn't be _you_ who sees any benefits out of it. You'd just have over half the factories producing bigger yacht and personal planes for CEOs while you're starving on a miserable wage. That's what historically did happen.
3. Insecure. Nooo, maybe the boss will fire me if I don't kiss his ass and lick his boots. Or god forbid join a union that says "no, sorry, 110% unpaid overtime is right out." Better keep a low profile instead, not stand out from the crowd, and line up for the daily boot licking routine like everyone else.
Instead let's whine on
Guess what, folks? It won't. If you're even vaguely tempted to compare your job to Dilbert comics, chances are that your management already knows you're spineless. They won't grow a compassionate side, they'll keep piling shit upon you and thinking it's _normal_. That's how you got there in the first place.
4. Hidden behind a "Nice Guy" (TM) facade. Nah, can't do something as nasty as, ugh, a strike to the boss. Would tarnish that "Nice Guy" facade and all that.
5. In reality not that nice, and self-centred to ridiculous extremes. Just you're the smart guy, everyone else is a retard, right?
The sad reality is that your average nerd doesn't want to fight for _others'_ rights. "Whaaat? And end up having to do a strike too, to support workers from another company? Why would I want to go on strike when it's not about _me_?" seems to be another major theme that pops up on these boards and others each time someone even mentions unions.
Well, guess what, folks? You're not really the centre of the universe. The Real World (TM) is a give-and-take place. People will help you if you help them. That's what it's all about. If you want it all to be only about _you_, then you're on your own. And that's how the IT worker conditions got to be the mess that they are.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I think Enderle does "miss the point" on purpose, in an attempt to paint the Linux community as dangerous criminals.
;-)
Of course, his argumentation is weak enough to make him look like a moron. Which he probably is, otherwise he would act in a more subtle and difficult to disprove way.
Let's have a look at his technique:
1) He starts with the probably valid point that the emergence of a Software Labor Union is not unlikely, due to reasons he lists IMHO correctly.
2) "Linux: Critical Mass Requirement Met"
Here, he jumps to talking about a union of Open Source developers, conveniently ignoring that the worst working conditions are reported from (closed source) game development studios. Which is where I would expect the first Software Labor Unions to pop up.
He goes on to talk about "Linux and open source has penetrated most technical schools, government IT shops, and technology companies", in order to make it sound more dangerous.
In order to buy this so far, you have to be uninformed or stupid. But this paragraph could still be excused as a slip in wording by a guy that needs a bit of pep in his article
3) "Linux: Organization Requirement Met"
Much talk about the trouble SCO is in, and vague accusations about criminal activities for which the Open Source is supposedly responsible.
Again, he conveniently ignores that SCO made most of the trouble for itself. Sueing a company like IBM who can afford excellent lawyers itself, plus pissing off your own (ex-)business partners is hardly a good strategy.
More talk about how "its [Microsofts] supporters often appear as an endangered species during a government-approved hunting season". By now, we are clearly in propaganda country.
3) "Linux: Power Requirement Met"
Here, Enderle talks about how Maureen O'Gara wrote an article about PJ of Groklaw and the resulting backlash forced Sys-Con to pull the article.
"Linux effectively made good on a threat that is beyond even Microsoft's reach, and often beyond the U.S. government's reach. That threat is putting your company out of business if the desired result is not achieved"
Wrong on two accounts:
a) There were no "threats" in the way a mobster would make them.
b) Microsoft has done similar things before. By other means, but they have put companies out of business that got in their way. Remember Netscape?
"What is even more amazing is the effort was so powerful it may have eliminated a sister publication as collateral damage. LinuxWorld may no longer be a viable publication after the voluntary departure of its entire editorial staff."
And the editorial staff explicitly said that they were leaving due to lack of journalistic integrity on part of the publisher. Forgot to mention that, Mr.Enderle?
4) "Linux: Leadership Unmet"
Here, he tries to pass of the Open Source community as fanatics and lunatics who use their power irresponsibly. To back up his argumentation, he gives a few links to media who have picked up the story about O'Gara and claims the effort backfired.
But if you actually follow the links, O'Gara does NOT look like the good girl in this controversy.
Overall, Enderle comes off as a second-rate propaganda writer rather than as an analyst.
C - the footgun of programming languages