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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
I reminds me of an episode of Northern Exposure. Maurice had a fit when Chris, the DJ, told the story of the city's founding by a pair of Lesbians.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
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.
Squeezebox Touch is Linux-based, and imminently hackable. Although not emphasized as a consumer selling point, it is certainly no secret and there is a very active developer community around the products.
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.
That includes [especially] me. We already have our own perceptions of Linux and what it means. We, at times desperately, want others to see Linux the way we do. But they don't.
Frankly, I don't really know or understand how others see Linux. I could venture to guess though... Linux is weird. Linux is not normal. Linux is what "different" people use.
I know that people put a lot of associative value in identity. People want to think of themselves and everything they identify themselves with as good and normal and hopefully even cool. Linux is only cool to a limited number of people... to everyone else, Linux is an associative reflection of all the weirdos who use Linux. Most of use are geeks and not socially ordinary. What does that say about how others might see Linux?
overall, I think that people still relate Linux to "Command Line" and "Nerdy basement hacker geeks who are fat and have too much facial hair"
People are really surprised when I show them my netbook running Ubuntu and all they have to do is click the firefox icon on the dock. They are always shocked when I explain that it's based on Linux.
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
But he's right. Linux is really nerdy from a marketing perspective. It comes off sounding inaccessible and just... well... the bad type of geeky.
The problem is that it's generally connected to Linux users.
"Free" have a commercial stigma, specially if you put all meanings in that word.
no no... dont mention the war!!!!!!
--john cleese
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']
If you are a normal consumer and you see a penguin on a product, you probably won't know what it's all about. The same person will almost certainly know the Windows logo. That's enough to make people gravitate towards what they know. People are afraid of the unknown.
Linux has hundreds of flavors (or spins or whatever) and no body advertising how great it is. So the popularity of Linux and related devices will be up to large marketing departments (mostly in Redmond). As much as I hate to say it, Linux doesn't stand a chance against that.
Linux needs a real commercial champion for the everyday consumer market. Just think of the server market. Maybe Google would fit the bill, or maybe they will do the same as Apple. Time will tell.
See this. Enough said.
The game.
That's okay. Stallman says it's GNU/Linux, but I'm sure he'd be happy if you dropped the Linux part ;-) So just tell people you're building a GNU radio. Brand GNU.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Linux = security risk only if you use Windows and you piss a Linux user off.
To a Linux user who pisses a Windows user off, well, let's just say this particular relationship isn't reciprocating.
I hate printers.
Okay, I know it doesn't really mean the device is hard to use, but there is certainly that perception for a consumer. The last embedded commercial product I worked on was Linux based (on a little ARM system) and it was just great. But we didn't tell people it was Linux unless they specifically asked or bothered to dig through the manual.
'It runs Linux' means:
- Apple people sneer, but they'd buy an iPod anyhow so it's not a huge loss.
- My dad sees 'Linux' and thinks 'Oh my god, Linux was so confusing I guess I'll just get an iPod instead'.
- Normal people see 'Linux' and think they'll need to crack the password in 72-bit font like mad haxxors every time they want to use it.
- Nerds go 'ooooooooh.' This is the one group for which it is a good thing. But also a small group.
- GNU people think 'Why doesn't this just boot into root shell? Corporate evil!' Seriously, we had one guy who pestered tech support for months claiming GPL meant we had to tell him the root password. Why did we stop giving everyone root? Because they screw it up and RMA the thing.
And honestly I have bad UI associations with Linux too, the same way I do with Windows CE. Just the thought of my MP3 player booting into Gnome or something like Gimp is enough to give me the hives, even though rationally I know an embedded device is more likely to be running something like PegUI or Qt Embedded. Or even totally custom, but that usually also means bad, because people who build their own UIs from scratch almost never have any idea what they're doing.
The bottom line is that even though I love embedded Linux I just don't see that there's a commercial advantage (and there is plenty of disadvantage) to letting people know it runs Linux unless being a cheap open device is one of your primary selling points. If they did their job right you will never know what OS the thing is running. The nerds will find out anyhow (see the Kindle). Only the crusaders crave the validation.
You have to remember how product marketting works in companies. It's not a rational process, but involves someone tabling an idea that catches the imagination of a bunch of droids who quite literally know almost nothing and aren't capable of producing anything themselves --- that's why they're in Marketting after all.
As a result, technical issues don't matter, but identifiable feature points and catchy slogans do. Factual details of Linux are totally off the agenda, while "Linux Inside" might work, and a cute penguin on the box might too. In contrast, actually talking about Linux or open source is as horrifying as talking about the voltage levels on a USB connector -- it becomes "technical" rather than just a feature point or icon on a box. It's not their world.
Give the marketeers something that matches their M.O.. A few slogans would be a good start.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
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.
Oh yeah, the game will page fault quite often
You (or the Wine user who originally wrote that) obviously do not know what a page fault is. Hint: As the Wikipedia article says, page faults are not errors, they do not crash applications. They are signals from the hardware to the operating system that a requested memory page does not exist in RAM, and must be paged in from the backing store (swap, memory mapped file, binary image, etc). Page faults are not seen by applications.
You are likely thinking of the various kinds of protection faults instead.
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
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();
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!
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.
The entire point of ActiveX is to put software on your computer you didn't ask for.
Have you actually used Windows in the last, oh, 9 years or so? Did you ever see an ActiveX control on a web page in a browser install itself quietly, with no confirmation from the user, with default security settings?
(Hint: in XP and above, it actually requires 3 clicks to install a new ActiveX control - one to click on the sliding bar above the page which says "Page is trying to install ActiveX", one more in the opened dialog to answer "yes" to the question "Should this site be allowed to even ask you to install ActiveX", and then one more in another dialog to confirm that, yes, you do want this particular ActiveX control to be installed. That's for a digitally signed control - one without a signature will be rejected outright.)
Remember: while people asking for your help seem stupid, think how you sound when you talk to your mechanic (or doctor).
Like someone who understands the basic mechanical or biological principles and is perfectly capable of having an intelligent conversation on the topic? Oh you mean, how it would sound if I didn't and thought everything was "magic". So what you're really asking is, how do I think I would sound if I was in fact stupid.
I realize that these people aren't really stupid per se, but one of the things I think that makes you "not stupid" (tm) is the interest in and the attempt to understand the world around you. This doesn't mean you can boot strap gentoo, but you should understand a computer needs an operating system to run software and the differences between the steps...
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
systems with .NET will still have Java installed
Not really. I've seen plenty systems with .NET (especially now that NVidia and ATI control panels require it) and without Java. In fact, any fresh install of Vista and above is such a system (Vista has .NET 3.0 out of the box, Win7 has 3.5 SP1).
Microsoft should have worked with Sun, keeping with the original Sun JVM instead of trying to trick them for commercial gain.
There are plenty of reasons why MS went for its own VM, not the least of it is that it is not restricted to a sandbox - e.g. it has raw data and function pointers and arithmetic, unions, and other nifty things. It's possible to efficiently implement the entire ISO C++ on top of CLR (and MSVC does just that), but not so for JVM. There are other things that JVM is lacking - generics would be a fairly major point, and first-class functions ("delegates" in .NET parlance) is another. And Sun is very conservative about changing JVM, and as you recall it was MS adding delegates to their own JVM implementation that triggered Sun lawsuit against MS over it... and Sun made it perfectly clear that they do not want delegates in JVM because they're "not object oriented" (huh...) - well, many years later first-class functions are still not even in Java-the-language, much less JVM, so I guess MS was right in making their own platform so that they don't have to move with the glacial pace of Java VM evolution...
.Net will be more tightly integrated to the OS
Do you mean implementation details, or APIs exposed to .NET developers here?