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Linux Foundation Makes Open Source Boring
superapecommando noted an essay by Glyn Moody where he writes "In the early days of free software, the struggle was just to get companies to try this new and rather unconventional approach, without worrying too much about how that happened. That typically meant programs entering by the back door, surreptitiously installed by in-house engineers who understood the virtues of the stuff — and that it was easier to ask for forgiveness after the event than for permission before.
[The Linux Foundation tries] to take all the fun out of free software. They are about removing the quirkiness and the riskiness that has characterized free software in business for the last decade and a half, and seek to replace it with nice, safe systems that senior management will instantly fall in love with. In a word, they seek to make open source boring for the enterprise. That's not only good news for companies, it's a really important step for the Linux Foundation."
What's the story?
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
then I'm all for boring.
Don't get me wrong, it is still fun to play with the Open Software, but nowadays, the management realize that Open Software is in fact pretty much Close Software (GPL anyone?). Except if you are GOOGLE or some other big CLOUD COMPUTING company, the Open Software is a poison, that once you accept, you have to keep take, otherwise you will die.
I'd say my experience has been similar in that we often usezZZZZZzzzzz *snort* zZZZZZzzz......*snore*...zzzZZZZzzzzzz.........
http://www.whuddafug.com
So, basically, this is the same story that everyone else is running about the Linux Foundation releasing a set of tools to help companies check GPL compliance, but with a confrontational headline and summary?
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
But that's a good thing in my book. Takes a little longer to get things set up and configured, but once you do, it stays working. No Wednesday am WTF?! No panic when the virus of the day rolls around.
It took Microsoft until Windows 7 to produce an OS almost as boring.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Was there a struggle to get open source into businesses? I thought "In the early days of free software", the whole point was that the developers sought to provide free software in terms of libre, and as gratis as a side effect. Stallman wasn't trying to get businesses to use his software, he was trying to make the software he needed available for free because he saw that the software business was not distributing code or providing the freedoms to tinker and improve software enjoyed under the MIT heydays.
Include pr0n. That ought to make it interesting.
Too boring
Interesting. I guess we can look forward to less obscenity in the comments of released FOSS source code. As well as the stated goal of making "sure developers did not leave comments in the source code about future products, product code names, mention of competitors, etc."
Well, ok, that last bit about competitors may be a reference to swearing.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I read the title as "Linux Foundation Makes Open Source Bong"
That is what FOS needs. It is fun working on state-of-the-art stuff. But it isn't fun being end user of FOS apps that are buggy because developers make new bugs before fixing iportant old ones.
This is the problem with open source, since there is more freedom what to do. Often new releases are more fun to do than to fix old broken stuff. Just take a look at KDE and Linux distro releases, they come so often.
Plinkett, is that you?
But it does make a point. Linux was for the uber geeks. Not for the corporate suits. Its good that we have reached a point where a discussion of the license is as important as the features of the software. .... AH!!!! Then I go read the article and realize its just a promotion for 3 tools being released. Upper management doesn't care for these tools. Maintainers maybe.
What a waste of time.
People like you - the idiots who like pushing shit through the back door and apparently like "quirkiness and the riskiness" of immature, poorly maintained, undocumented projects. Seriously: fuck you.
You are the reason that Open Source has taken such a long time to adapt. I know of several IT contracting firms which will not touch Linux or Open Source in general because they have seen entirely too many instances of people like you and their work: technologically headstrong geek installs an Open Source product/project in an esoteric, convoluted fashion and didn't document the process (potentially only so he could fix it). He does his best to put as much customization and inter-dependence into the system(s) as possible. Then he moves on to do something else, and the customer is left holding the bag.
I suspect you and my predecessor would get along just fine. He enjoyed fucking people over, too.
Guess what? Most people would much rather be "bored" at work than have to fuck with something that broke because it was poorly conceived, and face the wrath of managers and users. THat's what the Linux Foundation (and those PFYs that fall in love with their recommendations/solid products) does for us: lets us sleep at night.
There is a time and a place for "tinkering" and non-turnkey solutions - and it's called a lab. If you don't have one, you need one. It will save you time and money in the long run - it's the first step towards standardization and reduction of costs. It is very unprofessional (and foolish) to roll an untested product out to production without thorough initial testing - anyone who calls themselves an IT administrator or engineer and does otherwise is a fool.
Any administrator worth his salt hates sketchy nonsense. This is why we don't run early release software and other such nonsense.
It's different if you're in an "IT company" making something new, but yeah, as a general rule, sketch is bad.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I don't know if you have actually given a look at that "fun" code of the "golden age of free software".
I have. I'm pretty sure that the programmer that did it had a great time and felt very smart when he wrote it.
Undecipherable variable names. Functions with 200+ LOC and no comments. C macros gone grazy. I hope you get the idea.
It sucked.
I get it. Making maintainable, structured, easy to understand code is boring. Or not as fun as showing the word how mad your "regexp skillz" are. Well, it also sucks.
I personally enjoy making code as easy to understand and "obvious" as possible. It is difficult. It makes you work more slowly. You don't get the instant gratification that you might get with this or that clever hack. But you get long-term satisfaction, when someone sends you an email saying "Hey, I needed to make a change in your code and it was so easy because it is well written. Thanks a lot"
No one wants quirky and risky software anymore than they want quirky and risky airplanes. Software is not playtime for developers.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I don't like Microsoft. I love the idea of open source. I just don't think the group-think is dead yet. People use microsoft because people use microsoft. People use word becauseeveryone else uses it and sends stuff around in it. Blaargh! Just imagine the world we could have.
If I ran the world, (being the Nazi control freak that I am) I'd rule that we'd all shift to Mac, which would become open source. We'd keep the Mac creative guys in charge of brainstorming various projects, but also with input from the grassroots hacker community. These hacker ideas would filter up from the bottom. We'd arrange some means of having the best of both worlds dialogue online, vote on it, and move to the next big thing. And this would save on human capital, as mac users getting a job in PC land wouldn't have to relearn how to suck eggs every time, and vice versa. I mean, does the world really need 30 different word processors, and the end-user confusion when switching from one to another? New ways of doing stuff in this GLOBAL software would become 30 second snippets in the nightly news. Everyone would have an idea of how to navigate the basics, and what changes might be coming.
Then it would be boring, and reliable, and universal: yet still shiny all at the same time.
How much does "boring" generally go hand-in-hand with "dependable"?
I am not devoid of humor.