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Long Live Closed-Source Software?
EvilRyry writes "In an article for Discover Magazine, Jaron Lanier writes about his belief that open source produces nothing interesting because of a hide-bound mentality. 'Open wisdom-of-crowds software movements have become influential, but they haven't promoted the kind of radical creativity I love most in computer science. If anything, they've been hindrances. Some of the youngest, brightest minds have been trapped in a 1970s intellectual framework because they are hypnotized into accepting old software designs as if they were facts of nature. Linux is a superbly polished copy of an antique, shinier than the original, perhaps, but still defined by it.'"
Last time I used Vista at a friend's place, I was quite happy to get home again and fire up my Linux-only laptop and get back to Gnome / Compiz Fusion. I'm not sure what part of the OS is supposed to be 'dated'. My experience is the opposite. Each incarnation of Windows feels dated to me. My Linux ( Gentoo ) is constantly evolving. There are a plethora of examples of this. On the printing side, the last year has seen major improvements in CUPS, gutenprint and ghostscript. On the display side, the last year has seen major improvements in Mesa, AIGLX and EXA ( and of course Compiz / Enlightenment etc ). That's just a few examples off the top of my head, as and end user.
As a programmer, there have been significant improvements in GTK+, MySQL, and of course my own collection of Perl modules ( at http://entropy.homelinux.org/axis - I'm about to release another round early in the new year ).
I think the problem with the article is that it's written by a tossbag who can't get his head around any software, but is at least claiming to understand closed source software, because of his frustration about not being able to run a Linux desktop like his more intelligent friends. Whatever.