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ESR Says Linux Followers Should Compromise
jpheasant writes "Eric Raymond argues time is running out to win over the iPod generation. To get there, he says the Linux community will need to make 'compromises.' For starters: 'Linux believers will have to reach out beyond self-absorbed geeks who learns Klingon and attends science fiction conventions in his spare time.'" From the article: "I mean that we need to be prepared to go to the rights holders for these proprietary codecs and say, we'll give you money, give us a license; and this is something that the Linux community has a huge antipathy to doing because we've got all this idealism about open source. And in the long run, I think that's true, I view comprising with the proprietary codec vendors as a tactical move designed to get us larger end user market shares, so that in the end we can push more things to the open."
Why change? I love Linux, and if it changed to suit "the ipod generation," I would probably like it less. Why compromise beliefs so we can have a 8% market share instead of 6%? Who benefits?
I don't see how playing to twentysomethings who have no power, influence, or deep pockets as being an effective strategy. Rather, I would advise pushing to the corporate desktop. Where business goes, the home will follow. If we can push GNU/Linux to the corporate desktop, conquering the home desktop will be easy. How do you think the IBM PC became the standard? It was at first a boring machine, with no color, no sound, and no appeal to anyone, save the suits who make the corporate purchasing decisions. And now, nearly thirty years later, it's evolved now everyone has it on their desktop. GNU/Linux must be positioned as a viable alternative to Windows in the corporate space first. The iPod generation is a useless distraction that can be dispensed with for the time being. If more businesses started using GNU/Linux for office workstations it would drive people to start using it at home as well. At least the media conglomerates have no influence (and in fact negative influence!) when it comes to the corporate desktop.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
I agree, and I'm generally anti-Linux. I don't use it, I don't particularly like it, but I still have a huge amount of respect for what it is and what has been created.
Linux is based around a manifesto of rights (about which I disagree) created by Richard Stallman. Linux contributors may be pro-GPL, or ambivalent, or in some cases even anti-GPL, but they all agreed to work on a GPL operating system and gave their time towards that.
ESR is assuming that this is because they all wanted Linux to be successful on the desktop or to some new generation of kids.
I don't think that's why they worked on Linux at all. I think they worked on Linux to make a GPL operating system and to hell with popularity.
OTOH ESR's arguments are irrelevant. Any company can pay for licenses for these codecs and put out closed-source Linux binaries and sink or swim in the market. It's not up to Linus, RMS or ESR. It's up to the market.
None of this affects Linux per se.
Honestly, why must the goal of Linux be to beat Microsoft? What is the point of getting everyone to run our favorite OS if the only way to do it is to make it into something we find objectionable?
The OSI is supposed to be about the philosophy of Open Source, not world domination. The correct course of action is to try and convince the proprietary vendors that it's in their best interests to release the source to their drivers, not to abandon our own philosophy just so we can have their software. These vendors need to be convinced that we are a market they should get into, not that we're desperate enough for their crap that we're willing to give up the entire movement for it.
ESR is irrelevant, and has been for years. If his philosophy that beating Microsoft is more important than anything else reflects the attitude of the OSI as a whole, then the OSI will soon be just as irrelevant as he is.
I'm a developer. I develop for Linux (actually for the GNU/Linux environment; I'm not a kernel developer) because I value programming freedom. I don't care a rat's ass for "market share". Why would I? I get the same amount of money, $0.00, for my apps whether they're used by one person or 10 million people.
The phrase "the iPod generation" means to me a bunch of kids who are pure consumers. They produce nothing I want. I despise their sheep-like following of fashion, I despise their inability to think for themselves, and I despise their taste in music. To consider giving up any part of my programming freedom to please these people is absurd.
ESR is starting to lose his grip entirely. Linux doesn't need its core geek constituency (including ESR) to change. It needs to attract new geeks who aren't quite as exclusively geeky. Whose hobby is hooking Linux to the rest of the world, including iPods. Who want to exploit the work of the geekiest to bring Linux's builtin power to the even less geeky.
This has always been true of Linux, even for the benefit of true geeks. We need people who will at least write documentation, or even just edit documentation to be read by mere mortals. We need capitalists who will produce interfaces, apps and packages for the lure of money. We need people who will make "developers' kits" bridging the raw power and flexibility of the open OS to the more limited imaginations and attention spans of the masses.
ESR would spend his time more productively by writing some documentation or some example code than by loudly eating crow in public.
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make install -not war
I have read slashdot for about 6 years.. never bothered to make a login never posted until now ESR is a traitor and should be excommunicated for this. By 'compromises', he means sell out and give up. Not to mention his insulting view of Linux users - I am physically fit, have diverse interests, am attractive, able to pick up attractive women and achieve full intercourse with little effort. But I will not give up or sell out as ESR urges us to.
http://kitties.b-log.ca
I think it's a point of view problem. The people who are keenly interested in the success of GNU/Linux in general (I would count myself as one of them) feel the passion for the OS that they do because of how many things they can do with it. Those things just can't be accomplished on other OSes with the same level of flexibility, style or possibly even at all. However, to get GNU/Linux to do those things requires more knowledge than the typical "Joe User" will ever have, so they will never experience the true beauty of the OS. Not because there's something wrong with them, or something wrong with the OS, but due to completely different cultures and needs. If you make a "Joe User" friendly version of GNU/Linux it's very likely going to be very uninviting to someone who is "hardcore" either on the technical or the philosphical sides.
To put it another way, you will never get the catholic church to agree to support a woman's right to choose whether or not she will continue a pregnancy. There is no compromising, and if there was then one side or the other is weakening their position to the point that they don't have a side anymore. If women said, "OK. We agree that abortions shouldn't be legal once a woman has had a total of three terminations" they would pretty much put a hole in any situation where a woman is repeatedly impregnated against her will by her father (fairly common in some cultures). In that particular instance, that woman would have no choice but to carry a child she didn't want unless she wants to break the law. Conversely, if the Catholics believe that God tells them that abortion is a sin but they turn a blind eye to a law that makes it legal, they are acting as hypocrites in the eyes of man. People opposed to Catholicism would be able to point to that issue as a hole in the philosophy of that religion.
It's quite the same with GNU/Linux and the acceptance of proprietary software just to garner popular support/adoption. You do this, and the notion of Free Software is weakened for a dubious cause. On the other hand, you don't accept the proprietary software and those who don't understand the philosophy behind Free (as in GNU) software say you're being disagreeable and should just accept that your doomed to failure. Really? In who's eyes? I'd say GNU/Linux + FOSS is extremely successful in that it leapfrogs the capabilities of other OSes in nearly every arena whether you're talking OS, Multimedia, Business, etc... With the notable exception of proprietary specialized software and hardware (which is only necessary in certain markets), there is nothing you can't do on a Linux box that you can't do on other platforms. And there is also a lot that you can do on a Linux box that you can't do on other platforms.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
and Microsoft's winning it. They want to close the currently open PC architecure and elect themselves as gatekeeper to what's left. They've got hardware manufactures adding features that prevent code without digital signatures from running. You'll need and incredibly expensive compiler and certification to get that signature. It'll kill Open Source deader than dead. You'll lose all the hobbyists (who won't be able to afford the software and certification), and with them the OSS community. Before long only a few big projects will survive, and those will only be relevent to large companies (because they won't be able to secure enough funding to do the smaller stuff). OSS software won't be able to offer the features it needs to, people will stop using it, and it'll die out.
What can stop this is getting a large enough base of OSS and linux users now that hardware manufactures won't abandon us when Microsoft comes calling.
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I agree...
What has happened, is that somewhere along the way the philosophy of open source software and truly free software became popular. Unfortunately, much like religion, many of the people who became fans of the philosophy decided that it was not enough to simply live by it, but that everyone else in the world should live by it, too. The media, is always eager to pick up on any sort of rivalry, because it means polarization and ratings, and nothing sells better than playing off the emotions of the public. So now we have people who are willing to evangelize and peddle Linux like a religion, a select few of who would go so far as to shove it down the throat of the people, if they have to.
Is Linux more stable than Windows? Is free software more secure than proprietary software? When will Linux take over the desktop? In my opinion, these questions are utterly beside the point. Open source doesn't exist in spite of, or because of proprietary software. It exists because someone, somewhere decided to give their hard work to the world, and there is absolutely nothing that can stop or change that.
If you become your enemy in order to defeat your enemy, you may have "won," but you won the opposite of what you were fighting for in the first place.
This is the smarmiest post I have ever read. GNU/Linux users on this forum have been forcefed this ZDNet-style pablum for over 10 years. "Beware everybody, Linux could [insert some dreadful consequence here] unless you learn to compromise." Nothing bad has happened yet. Quite the opposite. ESR has proven himself to be a pretty unstable figure over the years. It takes some significant hyperbole for him to even get in the news anymore. Why does his latest 180 degree utterance even merit notice?
an ill wind that blows no good