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Linux For Losers According To De Raadt
elohim writes "Theo has some scathing comments about Linux in his new interview with Forbes Magazine. From the article: 'It's terrible...Everyone is using it, and they don't realize how bad it is. And the Linux people will just stick with it and add to it rather than stepping back and saying, "This is garbage and we should fix it."'"
Anyway, interesting in regard to yesterday's debate on "Whimsical Comments In Code: Vital Human Right Or Proof Of Idiocy?" is:
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The title I submitted this with was "de Raadt Blasts Lunix in Forbes Interview"... Blame Zonk for the "Lunix For Losers" title.
"It's terrible," De Raadt says. "Everyone is using it, and they don't realize how bad it is. And the Linux people will just stick with it and add to it rather than stepping back and saying, 'This is garbage and we should fix it.'"
The bottom line is that it works better than commercial software. Anyone can look at the source code and see the comments, which are blunt about what needs fixing and how crappy the hardware is. Even commercial Linux rocks next to popular alternatives. For ease of installation, use, relative protection from mal and spyware, you can't beat a distribution like Mepis. Winners can step up to pure Debian, "losers" can fall all the way down to Caldera Open Linux and still do better than what 90% of the world uses.
There's also a difference in motivation. "Linux people do what they do because they hate Microsoft. We do what we do because we love Unix," De Raadt says. The irony, however, is that while noisy Linux fanatics make a great deal out of their hatred for Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ), De Raadt says their beloved program is starting to look a lot like what Microsoft puts out. "They have the same rapid development cycle, which leads to crap," he says.
That's what Micrososoft would have everyone believe, and so Microsoft is worth hating. People use Linux for freedom and the superior performance it brings. Study after study show this. Why people like Dan Lyons don't get it is beyond me, except that he might be a Fanboy.
Let's look back at other nasty junk he's written:
Dan Lyons, you are a shill. I dare you to make the entire tapes of your interview with Theo available. Anything less is second hand BS and the kind of thing the web makes obsolete.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
"Like it or not the GPL requires that if a company uses and adds to Linux they have to give back."
Horse hockey!
I use and add to GPLed software that I don't "give back" to all the time. I also use and add to GPLed (and non-GPLed) software that I do give back to.
The only requirement is that if you SHIP modified GPLed software, you have to provide the modified source to those whoe recieve it. The amusing part is that you don't even have to provide that source to the original authors, only to those you ship to. So, if you write software that you only ship to, say, Fortune 500 companies, then you're well within your right to tell the people who originally wrote the code that they have to go talk to the people at those companies if they want to try to get access to your modifications.
The GPL only grants rights (with stipulations) on a volutary basis. It does not remove any of the rights that you already had under copyright law, and it cannot be forced on you if you don't wish to agree to it.
Hehe. This guy is obviously a great coder. Too bad he's such a total dickhead.
This article really highlights Theo's personality problems, and may shed some light on why NetBSD summarily kicked him out on the street. Here's the first email he got from the core developers after he complained that they shut down his CVS access:
Over the past year and a half, we have received a considerable number of complaints about the fact that you seem to harass and abuse both users and developers of NetBSD. At various times, some of us have suggested (with varying levels of severity) that you cease this behaviour, but this has been ineffective. Indeed, you have given us scant reason to believe that your behaviour is ever going to change for the better.
Your abusive actions have seriously impaired the success of the NetBSD project in several ways. Your actions have driven away developers or potential developers, and have alienated many users. They have also squandered much of the good will that various people have directed at the project.
Finally, it is clear that for the project to be a success, we must promote a positive environment for both users and developers. If we continue to allow you, an official representative of the NetBSD project, to behave in this manner, we create the perception that we approve of your behaviour. That perception is damaging to the project and cannot be allowed to persist.
Because of these things, we believe that it would be in the best interest of the NetBSD project if you were to resign all official association with the project. We request that you resign from the NetBSD core team, resign as the maintainer of the NetBSD SPARC port, and post a message to the "netbsd-users", "current-users", and "port-sparc" mailing lists announcing your resignation. If you choose not to post such an announcement within one day (by 9:00AM, 12/21/94), we will be forced to inform the public about your removal from the organization ourselves.
We regret having to do this, because you have done a significant amount of very good work for the project. In spite of that, we can no longer condone your behaviour. We wish for this parting to be as painless as possible; we have disabled your accounts on the NetBSD development machines and have removed you from the "core" and "port-masters" mailing lists, but have left your subscriptions to other NetBSD mailing lists untouched. We have no objection to your further participation in NetBSD, as long as you participate in a mature manner and make clear the fact that you no longer officially represent the NetBSD Project.
Of course, now no one can kick him out of OpenBSD, so I guess he's found the one role that'll work for him. Luckily, it's irrelevant during the 364 days this year when some idiot at Forbes didn't decide to upchuck a completely assinine, one-sided bullshit flame from a proven asshole, and then call it a news story.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
you couldn't be more wrong. just subscribe to the freebsd-questions list and you will see 100's oh helpful answers to questions ever day from install problems to ports problems. by contrast many times i have asked questions on various linux channels and i was given the retort "we don't spoon feed". i have also found freebsd's install to be far suprior to any linux distro, it has a simple yet freindly ncurses menu system. it's handbook is also a major help, being kept well up to date and with relivant accurate information. i found openbsd to be the hardest of the 3 bsd's to use and install, and it's hardware support IS limited. i will also say that the user community is no where near as helpful, and often very painful. but on the whole it is still a worthy OS with many merits. but give freebsd another go i doubt it will disapoint
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....