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Net Radio Exec Says "Don't Mention Linux"
Barence writes "It might be reliable enough to power their device, but it seems some companies are still a bit reluctant to use the 'L word' when talking about their products. Speaking at the launch of the touchscreen Pure Sensia digital radio, director of marketing Colin Crawford was pressed for specifics of the new device's software. But after his CEO reminded him that the new radio was based on a Linux OS, Crawford remarked: 'I don't like the using the word "Linux" on a radio.'" Of course the presence of (possibly embedded) Linux may not have any relevance to consumers in some products; but does the word itself carry a commercial stigma?
Maybe it's a competitive advantage and they don't want to advertise all the details of what lets them produce a device cheaper and faster than their competitors. Really, the Linux community needs to stop seeing adversaries around every corner.
Cory Doctorow talking about cloud computing makes as much sense as George W Bush talking about electrical engineering.
Depends. Did they make and then fail to release any changes to the source?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
It means "unknown" and "strange" to anyone who hasn't heard of it or isn't very computer savvy. It means "complex" and "difficult" to anyone who has heard of it that is moderately computer savvy. It means "shut the hell up and stop asking me stupid f'ing Linux questions every time I sit down at my desk!" to those of us who have used it and work with any one in the previous two categories. Seriously...I started using a Mac so I could get my nice unixy and open source goodness without having to play 20 questions every time I booted my damned laptop. Now they just look and say "oh, its a Mac, those are expensive" and walk away.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Depends on who "you" are, and its not so much playing the cards. The system admin is likely to be your weak link in a security situation, so it is up to the qualifications of your admin more than anything else. Granted, you'll probably find more people who are pro server admins on other systems more than linux just because linux is still only gaining running ground. If you hire a system admin, however, they should know the OS at hand or they SHOULD NOT BE HIRED. Period.
A shitty Linux admin is just as bad as a shitty Windows admin.
If, and only if, they made any changes to the GPLed code. And, even then, only the bits integrated into the GPLed code.
There are almost certainly outfits for which that is a serious issue; but I'd be shocked if these guys are one of them. Their device is almost certainly a more-or-less stock ARM board, with a Linux BSP already provided by whoever they bought it from, along with a few not-very-exotic peripherals, also likely off the shelf. On top of that will be their closed blob of a program, which is where all their special sauce is. The program running on top is completely unaffected by the license of the OS, and is almost certainly where the only remotely distinguishing work was done.
Slashdotters like to jump at it and go "cool, does that mean I can hack on it like my toaster?". They in marketing probably have absolutely no interest in that, they want to sell an appliance. Whether it's running Linux or BSD or WinCE or whatever else embedded OS, that's not what they want to talk about. That's not what they want the marketing message to be. They don't want people thinking of it as a computer in drag because computers are complex and their device is easy and user friendly. Funny how a marketing director might want to focus on features and not the internals of the OS running the thing. So it runs Linux, great. Could we get back to telling you why this is a product people will want?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Just call it the "WebOS" like Palm does.
Advertising "it's got Linux" is as stupid as those bank ads I kept seeing a couple years ago boasting that their new website was using Java on the backend or something. As an end-user consumer, I don't fucking care. Does your product work reliably? Does it provide me with some service I need? Is it easy to use? That's what I care about, not some mostly irrelevant technical detail of its implementation.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
>>>"will it do everything that Windows will?" I explain that it will
I get annoyed when Linux users tell untruths simply to "sell" their product. Reminds me of certain Software vendors I've encountered at work with their "magic demos" which seem to do "everything", but the real product doesn't do half of what they demoed. Here's a few things Ubuntu Linux won't do:
- Connect to my ISP (the software connects and then crashes before I type my password)
- Run my ISP's web accelerator software (simply doesn't run)
- Run Internet Exploder (starts-up then crashes five minutes later)
- Allow me to select 1000 songs, right-click on "open", and play those songs sequentially in VLC Player. Instead the stupid OS tries to open all 1000 songs at the same time. I had to yank the power cord to regain control. I haven't seen that level of poor design since AmigaOS 1.2 (1987).
- Won't properly emulate Atari games via StellaX (which works 100% on Windows but only 70% on Linux)
- Adjusted the screen size to 640x480, and when I tried to go back to normal 1280x1024 mode, discovered the desktop properties window did not fit the screen. Normally that'd be no big deal except the "OK" button was inaccessible so my laptop is now permanently stuck in 640x480. (Or at least it was until I wiped the c: drive with a fresh XP install.)
-
- And that's just what I discovered during my first month of usage.
And now I will be labeled "troll" because I'm a customer who speaks the truth. Salesmen hate customers who speak their minds. Better to silence them, so their complaints don't get heard by other customers. (You know like Apple does when they make exploding iphone users sign non-disclosure agreements.) I'm sorry but I've tried Ubuntu Linux, and rather than put-up with all the Non-user friendly problems listed above, I'll choose Windows or Mac OS.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
This is truth. You have portions of the population who are interested and then those who aren't. I don't think people hate it, but they rightfully know that is not for them, and that is true for a desktop environment. The problem is most people don't understand what embedded means and so mentioning linux can scare people out of even looking at the product because they think it must just be something they are incapable of operating. I am willing to bet most westerners have interacted with a linux machine at some point in their life, most without knowing it. Embedded linux is everywhere but no one needs or wants to know it.
Sure, getting me to install it will cost you 50GBP, and of course a additional 25.99GBP for the Crossover license if you don't already have one. The process will take me about several minutes (about the time it takes to install a very large amazing game under crossover).
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
> - Run my ISP's web accelerator software (simply doesn't run)
What is this? Some guy with a cross-temporal terminal? Why would anyone
be interested in running that sort of thing in this day and age. You
might as well whine about there being no version of Compuserve for Linux.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
That actually calls to mind another reason why it may be uncomfortable to mention the "L" word in public. Linux has been introduced on the desktop many times by many people in different ways. All people knew was that they couldn't run the programs their friends were running, see the same web pages that their friends see (in the same way) and that there are no programs they can buy from the store that will work with it off the shelf. To them, "it doesn't work right."
Many people have tried to switch to Apple Macintosh and quite a large number of those people couldn't manage the transition for exactly the same reasons.
But one thing I have been saying for at least the past two or three years that seems to be coming true -- the desktop will become irrelevant and that Linux will take over because it is getting into every server and every embedded system out there. One thing I never said before that I am saying now is that almost no one will notice or care.
Most slashdotters are too caught up in their own world. Typical computer users out there don't even know what an operating system is much less know about Linux. Just the word "Linux" comes across as sounding like technobabble. Just mentioning word "Linux" to these people is liable to be as big of a turnoff as would mentioning the word "religion" to a bunch of hippies in any context. All they want to hear is their music.
No nock to Linux since I think it's a great OS, but I get the impression that this maketing exec thinks it has a 'home built' sort of stigma attached to it.
No, he doesn't want to mention it because it detracts from his message. The fact that it runs Linux is irrelevant; that's not a selling point but merely an implementation detail. I work with embedded Linux devices - TVs and Blu-Ray players currently - and the fact that they run Linux is about as relevant as who made the chips or which factory assembled the boards. The people who buy these devices care about what they do, not how they do it; discussing the how part is totally irrelevant. If you try to sell a "Linux-based TV" people will wonder why they should want a Linux-based one instead of a regular TV - and in fact might be led to believe they're buying an all-in-one Linux computer and TV. Which they don't really want. They just want a TV so that's what you will sell them, and you will point out its superior TV functionality. Unless they ask you don't mention implementation details.
Cannot reproduce here. All works fine for me.
I couldn't find anything (things to load under it) to test it with. Admittedly I didn't look very long and I didn't want to touch those pirate sites which tend to contain more malware than anything.
Believe it or not, Windows Vista has the same problem. Fortunately you can move a Window in Linux DEs without using the program bar which Windows doesn't provide.
On Windows I used the tab key to get around it. Same method would of worked on Linux if you didn't know how to move the program bar.
If you say so.
"Oh NO!!!! He speaks the truth, WE MUST STOP THIS BY MARKING THIS PERSON A TROLL"
No. Somehow, I don't really see most people on Slashdot thinking that way when they mark people as a troll.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I am a programmer not a marketer, but your attitude towards marketing is something I hear all the time in technical departments. It creates an unhealthy us vs. them dynamic in companies that hurts communication. Communication between techies and marketing people is hard enough already.
Marketing people are not idiots because they cant program a computer. The really good ones are experts at manipulating peoples emotions and desires in subtle ways. Since people's emotions are not rational things, the work of marketing people does not follow rational rules either. This makes their work seem "dumb" to obsessively rational people like us programmers.
Why do you think upper management seems to always "fall for" the "idiotic" ideas of marketing and not listen to the "rational" arguments of developers? It's partially because marketing people are experts at making compelling arguments. While we are really good at making logical arguments that are factually accurate yet convince no one but other logical people.
The other reason is because marketing may not be as "smart" as development, but they get a fundamental truth that seems to evade many programmers. It's more important (to the company) to SELL your product than to make it good. Look at all the half-asses crap around you to see how true that is.
So.... I forgot my point, but you get my point.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
I've worked for years for a wide variety of companies who, quite often, are Linux on the backend and Windows on the desktops. True to form Developers, Sales Personnel and C level exec's see Linux as a plus, but the Marketing types don't. So often do I see this that I use it to actually tell if a persons role in a company is Marketing. I'm not using this as an anti-marketing post either. It's just what I see. Linux isn't a marketable term for them. Nor is Windows. It seems that unless the OS is the draw on the product (as in "Now with Windows 7" or "The latest Android based SmartPhone") no one is willing to mention the OS as a marketing point. Fact, yes, marketing point no. In all due honesty it seems that outside of a narrow band of consumer products (laptops/desktops or Android Phones) the underlying OS has little or no value in the marketing of a product. You don't buy an iPhone because it runs OSX you buy it because "There's an app for that". Honestly. How many of you know what OS your phone/TV/DVR etc run unless it's a DVR you built or an Android phone most wouldn't. Features sell, OS's rarely do. Heck even Jobs was loath to admit that OSX was a Unix for a long time, even so, people expect the OSX environment, but they buy MAC for a lot of reasons, little having to do with the OS itself.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
A-farking-men.
Linux -- really, the Unix family in general -- does have some security advantages over Windows. For example, lower desktop market share makes it less attractive (and, yes, that is a security advantage); a straightforward access control system makes it easier to harden; text-based config files make it easier to audit; etc.
However, security features don't matter if you don't use them. If the average idiot uses Linux, they only safety they have right now is that it's not being targeted especially actively. As soon as there are a few "useful" trojans out there, J Random User will happily enter his password at the sudo prompt to get the strip-poker game (or whatever) the malware is riding on.
This is only untrue if you have a professional administrating the machine, and disallowing stupid user tricks.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
You need to connect to your ISP, type in a password and then run web accelerator software? seriously, accelerator software? do you actually believe it accelerates anything(except maybe money out of your wallet)? get a proper ISP.
wait wait... you installed Linux and then tried to run IE?... words fail me....
You're right... you speak your mind, but it's saying "I don't know bugger all"
And now I will be labeled "troll" because I'm a customer who speaks the truth.
You are not a customer. You throw out this bullshit post after post. What make it BS is not the truth/falseness of it. I have no doubt you tried linux, failed, and now you need an outlet on which to blame your incompetence. In twenty years of PC ownership (Mac, Windows (Dos/3.1 to XP), and Linux (Fedora/Debian)) what I have learned is this: shit happens. What matters is your ability to deal with it and your platform of choice. You couldn't hack it on Linux. BFD now shut the fuck up.
That aside, you know what I like about Linux? It is the one platform that I don't consider myself to have become near expert at. Mac/Windows - no problem. Well the problem is that the ceiling was too low and every few years the rules change as the new hotness is shoved down people's throats. When everybody was bitching about WGA and DRM, I made my move and haven't looked back. There is a lot more to learn but there isn't anything I miss from Windows. If I wanted to play a game, I would have a game system for that purpose but leave it for games. A PC is nothing but $200 in parts. Now for your stupid list:
"- Connect to my ISP (the software connects and then crashes before I type my password)"
Don't use your ISP's software.
"- Run my ISP's web accelerator software (simply doesn't run)"
Don't use your ISP's software.
"- Run Internet Exploder (starts-up then crashes five minutes later)"
If you want to run Windows, run Windows, don't be a pussy.
"- Allow me to select 1000 songs, right-click on "open", and play those songs sequentially in VLC Player. Instead the stupid OS tries to open all 1000 songs at the same time. I had to yank the power cord to regain control. I haven't seen that level of poor design since AmigaOS 1.2 (1987)."
You should learn your GUI or some CLI basics.
"- Won't properly emulate Atari games via StellaX (which works 100% on Windows but only 70% on Linux)"
So you are happy in the bottom 30% in standardized tests?
"- Adjusted the screen size to 640x480, and when I tried to go back to normal 1280x1024 mode, discovered the desktop properties window did not fit the screen."
You should learn your GUI or some CLI basics.
"Normally that'd be no big deal except the "OK" button was inaccessible so my laptop is now permanently stuck in 640x480. (Or at least it was until I wiped the c: drive with a fresh XP install.)"
You really are a fucking retard.
security features don't matter if you don't use them
The difference between Linux and Windows is not in terms of security features that you do or don't use. The key difference is that Microsoft deliberately channels "not-quite-what-you-wanted-ware" to your system and those channels are used by others for putting malware on your system. The entire point of ActiveX is to put software on your computer you didn't ask for. The reason why autorun wasn't disabled when you thought it was is because MS wants to be able to automatically install software. The .Net/Silverlight system has the same idea behind is and will turn out to be a similar disaster. At the very least it will be used to inflict DRM you don't want.
No amount of astroturfing will change the fact that when you get a Linux system, you get to choose exactly what is there and exactly what isn't. Since you only choose the bits you want you don't tend to choose the bits (except flash) that are designed to automatically install malware. I'll agree that this isn't a fundamental difference between the security Linux Kernel and Windows kernel's security mechanisms. VMS, which Windows copied was certainly more secure than UNIX. However, that's a purely academic discussion. The actual Linux system you install is less likely to deliver software you don't want than the Windows system.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
You can't always call it GNU/Linux. In an embedded system it's very likely there are no GNU stuff on it at all.
It is the combination of the GNU operating system and the Linux kernel that the FSF asks to be called ‘GNU/Linux’. If an embedded system contains no GNU then — fairly obviously — their request would not apply. Nobody is asking you to call the kernel itself anything other than ‘Linux’.
For example, lower desktop market share makes it less attractive (and, yes, that is a security advantage); a straightforward access control system makes it easier to harden; text-based config files make it easier to audit; etc.
"people can't be bothered targeting us" isn't the best security policy.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
A shitty Linux admin is just as bad as a shitty Windows admin.
I'll raise you one. I would say it is worse. Unix is far more configurable and assumes that the admin knows what they are doing a lot more than windows does. Its much easier to stuff up.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
You speak a lot of truth. An "us vs them" dynamic is a horrible thing to have within a company as it creates an unhappy atmosphere and potentially reduces communication further, impairing effectiveness of the company as a whole. In defense of the (seemingly eternal) engineering vs marketing squabble I'd note that there seem to be a fair number of companies where marketing is the tail, wagging the dog. In an aggressive company that's trying to win lots of contracts, marketing has a motivation to sell impossible things and this has the potential to cause serious tension.
In my opinion, it really ought to be management's job to sort this out. In an ideal world, the management aren't just there to monitor what people do, or walk about PHB-style and disrupt stuff. Words like "facilitate" get horribly weasel-ified and overused but the fact is that it *is* something they should be doing. Facilitating communication between different groups with different work styles and personalities. Setting the priorities so that nobody can reasonably feel under-represented. A strong manager ought to make an effort to compensate for the persuasiveness of Marketing arguments over Engineering, they ought to make sure the two divisions have appropriate contact - perhaps not too direct - and that there are staff (if not management themselves) who can "translate" between the two to find a fair deal.
When marketing and engineering talk too directly without understanding each other, I suspect that's always likely to create conflict - they have very different priorities. If one or the other is disproprotionately listened to or handed power or paid, that'll create resentment. The employees must bear some responsibility for not creating an adversarial workplace but the managers should be working *really hard* to mitigate the root causes of an adversarial environment - intolerance, unfairness, poor communication, etc.
he never said it was a security policy, just an advantage. If you're less likely to be attacked, that is a small advantage. Sure, you're still not safe, but at least you're not a blanket target.
I love to slaughter the english language.
Your point is that capitalism is an evil beast that needs to be brought down before it fills the world with broken-from-the-factory useless shit that looks pretty.... right?
And here I didn't expect to agree with you, I've got a lot to learn.