Community vs. Corporate Linux, The Coming Divide

tobyj writes "MadPenguin.org discusses the great divide that will separate corporate Linux (companies that are working with Microsoft) and community Linux (companies that haven't yet partnered with Microsoft) and their impact on Linux as a whole. Matt Hartley writes, "For Linux enthusiasts, the rules are simple and clear to interpret. But for Microsoft and its Linux partners, we will see plenty of them pointing to self-created loopholes, which will result in fierce debate, and perhaps even worse, blatant defiance. As a collective community, we'd like to think that this whole issue will just blow over, but with the massive migration of so many Windows users and companies that wish to capitalize on this migration, defiance of the GPL will happen and more so than ever before."

Comments

Game Over

[JeremyGNJ]

Another self destructive attitude with Linux.
"If they wont play nice, then we cont support their stuff"

good move. push Linux more into obscurity by not supporting modern technologies.

It kind of hints at something big missed last week though, when it comes to patents:
If Microsoft 0wnz Novell
and Novell 0wnz Unix
and SCO failed it's lawsuit against linux for the reason of "not owning Unix in the first place"
Could Novell now have an trump card when it comes to Linux?.....could it take the same patent lawsuit against Linux that SCO attempted, while using it's rightful ownership?

Hmm... Pretty similar to my article from March 13

[slackaddict]

From his article, "The Coming Divide"
"There is in fact a coming divide that will hit the Linux community like a freight train. The battle lines have already been drawn, and companies that support Linux, such as Canonical, will eventually find themselves fiercely pitted against companies like Linspire, who only a short time ago, entered into an agreement of cooperation."
http://www.madpenguin.org/cms/?m=show&id=7988

From my article, "The Coming Linux Storm"
"The Linux community is heading for a clash between three disparate groups with very different goals and agendas. We've already seen some light skirmishes between them already. Sometimes these groups will align for the purposes of advancing their own views, but for the most part, these three groups will either destroy Linux as we know it or have to learn how to get along."
http://www.openaddict.com/the_three_types_of_linux _users.html

I dunno.. just smacks of something I wrote 5 months ago...

Re:The community has to grow up

[rangek]

They also want to have their bases covered when it comes to liability.

Can you point to any instance where Microsoft, or some other comparable company has been held liable for defects in their software? People keep bringing up this argument, but I can not ever recall anyone actually using this in practice.

should the english language have an owner?

[hopeless case]

so that someone can go after shoddy writers/speakers and thus bring responsibility to language?

Human languages are the same sort of beast that large open source software systems (like linux) are, only more so. To wit: a system of such complexity and scope solving a set of problems so pervasive and enormous that the only hope for inventing it in the first place, and for maintaining it, is for everyone to spend a lot of time practicing it and tinkering with it and for insights to be passed around freely. The immediate payoffs for all of this experimenting are the everyday problems of communication people need to solve; this is how we pay for all of the time everyone spends experimenting with and using language, without the need for owners. If you tried to construct a patent system to encourage people to further the development of human language (and thus establish "owners"), is there any doubt you would kill it?

Did you ever see that episode of "the Tick" where the tick runs into an alien that is fluent in all of earth's languages, except Esperanto, because "it was obvious from the start that that one was going nowhere."? The only reason an aritificial language like Esperanto can be designed at all is by cribbing off of the already existing natural languages.

This is a bit off topic but I similarly contend that the only reason most general purpose operating systems get off the ground at all is that they all had Unix to use as a crib. It took generations of graduate students tinkering with Unix to make it a useful general purpose operating system and what they achieved was cribbed off of by all modern proprietary generaly purpose OSes.

Re:Think Freedom.

[einhverfr]

Having worked at Microsoft PSS, I will tell you that if a customer got angry enough and threatened to sue, we sent them over to people who sent them lots of free stuff.

I am not aware of anyone even trying to sue Microsoft. Hmmm... sue and probably lose, or drop the suit and get free stuff?

Note that this applied to threats both over quality of software and quality of support.

Re:Speculation and FUD

[mlts]

I'm for a "corporate" or "enterprise" version of Linux, because it gets Linux more mindshare. Its a lot easier to adopt an OS if you know the "big boys" are running it, than if its not that well known or proven in the enterprise.

I've posted about this on other threads, but having a distro of Linux that has certifications like Common Criteria, FIPS, and others is always a plus. This allows companies to show that they are doing due diligence and satisfy the legal eagles.

I do worry about "Tivo-ization" though.

Re:The community has to grow up

[mlts]

Its less of liability (as in suing a company if something happens), rather its a target where fingers can be pointed at.

Scenario 1: Machines with Commercial OS "A" get breached. IT department shows that the OS, database, and other security measures are commercial, by known brands. Corporate rep gets tarnished, but because the company did due diligence with a solid paper trail, there is a smaller attack profile by potential plaintiffs.

Scenario 2: Machines with a non-commercial OS "B" get breached. IT department has to find a reason why their "homebrew" solution was implemented, and explain this to shareholders, potential plaintiffs, and the SEC guys. Company gets sued into oblivion, and people go to prison for violating corporate regulations (mainly for not observing "due diligence" with consistant security precautions.)

This has little to do with the OS, this has to do with spending the cash to get the OS passed by independant auditors, so legal eagles are happy. In larger companies, technological solutions are just one part of the solution. One must have a paper trail that can stand audits, both internal and external.

I'm glad RedHat had the money and wisely spent it to get RHEL certified here.

More like

[blueZ3]

Welcome to the world of free software, where developers write software for their own use, without reference to pesky things like interoperability, interface standards, or usability.

Let's face it, what's holding free software back isn't some evil conspiracy by a shadowy group of corporations working behind the scenes to subvert the moral goodness of the software ecosystem. It's the apparent inability of free software developers to make their code attractive at any level other than price.

In my opinion, the essential examples of this are gimp and Ubuntu.

Why is Ubuntu popular? Not because it's Windows-y, but because it installs painlessly (without the requiring obscure command-line incantaions that a lot if distros do). You pop in the CD and answer about five questions and you wind up with a box that has all the "standard" software (a browser and some basic tools) that's on the network and ready to go. The interface is clean, it generally works in expected ways (keyboard shortcuts do what you expect, it has a "trash can", etc)

The gimp, on the other hand, is a messy pile of usability errors looking for a home. Obscure names for common tools are only the start--the odd behavior of the separate application windows is also egregious.

Free software will only become a real competitor to close software when people espousing it come to the realization the price is not the only factor.

Sorry for the rant :-)