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SJVN Tells How Reporting on Linux Has Changed in the Last 10 Years (Video)
SJVN is, of course, the well-known nickname and abbreviation for Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols, who has been covering technology as a journalist since... since longer than he cares to admit... and has been covering Linux and FOSS since the 1990s. This was basically a one-question interview: "How has reporting on Linux changed in the last 10 years?" After that, except for a couple of words requesting clarifications, we just let the webcam roll. (Note: if you know someone who would make a good Slashdot video interview victim, please put us in touch with them. Thanks.)
Before he started working as journalist, he was a programmer and a system administrator, so I can see where he is coming from and why Linux interests him. Back in the early 90's I worked very closely with him and it was a blast. He actually has contributed a lot to the Windows kernel and where from Microsoft took most of his good ideas to Windows and which later became the most successful OS ever produced. On OS X side, he has contributed to the creation of Linux like distro system, called App Store, and many of the technology aspects of it come from him.
It's great to see he is still covering Linux and FOSS in general, after 20 years. Awesome fella.
Do people really want video stories? I thought it was just the old-media newspapers that pushed them because you can't skip ads as easily in a stream as you can on a website.
It takes ages to sit through a video with someone talking, compared to reading a transcription, so a written story is obviously superior.
c++;
If you say so.
I am sorry for sounding like an old phogie, but why is Slashdot doing these videos. I got 1 minute in and just stopped it because I got a choppy video and a gentleman while I am not judging him isn't that much of a public speaker. Who seems to be saying stuff that has been summarized over and over again.
Most of us have been taught this ability to read. It is a neat skill where we take symbols and without making any noise we can convert them into a method of exchanging ideas. Most of us has gotten so good at it that we can do it much faster then we can transmit the data by voice.
Sure some things are better with video. But an interview like this just sucks minutes from our lives. The speaker isn't really adding anything in Non-Verbal Communication, they are not using animated imagery to express a concept. We just have a guy talking about stuff. Which we could get just as well from reading it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The club of sites where video doesn't play. I almost hoped you were using Silverwhatever, but no, you somehow managed to break Flash. Well, I'm running Linux, true, but I didn't think the end of Flash has already come. Good job!
"SJVN is, of course, the well-known nickname and abbreviation for Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols"
Honestly, I've been a heavy linux guy for 15 years and I have never heard of this guy, or at least not have heard of him enough to recognize his nickname.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
For a technology site that has large amounts of Linux and FOSS news coverage, it is disappointing to see Adobe Flash used as a method of video display. My Firefox 11.0 has HTML video built-in, but it is useless and instead I am asked to use a proprietary program that is discontinuing Linux support (except for Chrome) in a format that frequently experiences malware attacks. Please consider using other options.
Title: How Has Reporting on Linux Changed in the Last Decade?
Description: Steven J. Vaugh-Nichols, who has been writing about Linux nearly forever, explains how much covering it has changed - for the better. For one thing, he says, he no longer has to tell people what Linux is.
[00:00] <TITLE>
"Tech Journalist Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols" appears along with the SlashdotTV logo bar reading "How as reporting on Linux changed in the last 10 years?" over a view of the interviewee in what appears to be a private residence room.
[00:02] Steven>
The last decade, well, you know, the thing is, we've won.
We haven't really realized it 'cos we didn't win the way that we thought we would, you know, marching down the streets of Redmond holding torches and Bill Gates fleeing, in a helicopter, petting a white cat as he goes, saying "I'll get you Mr. Linus, you and your little penguins, too!" - stay tuned for the sequel.
As a result of that, reporting about it has also sort of changed.
Once upon a time, if I were to write anything at all about Linux, I'd have to say what Linux is and go through a lot of background information.
I don't need to do that anymore.
Instead, what I have to do is, I have to remind people that, you know, Linux is everywhere.
So it's a different sort of context.
Also, when I wrote about Linux, it used to be I could assume that my audience was pretty technical - because nobody except techies really got into Linux.
And, again, it's sort of different now.
Everyone sort of knows about Linux, so I don't have to get really technical about it, but again I sort of have to remind them of where Linux is in today's computer world - which is, again, you know, it's everywhere.
[01:30] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar with "What about Android?" fades in and out of view.
[01:30] Steven>
Android is actually, again, it's one of those areas that we're winning in.
I mean, sure, all the excitement is about iPhones, but you know Linux - rather, Android - which, again, is just Linux - it's just an embedded Linux, that's all it is, folks! - is pretty much in all these devices.
If you have a smartphone, if you have a tablet, if it's not an iPhone, if it's not an iPad, it's almost certainly running Android.
The way I see it spinning out is, you know, people who just absolutely have to have that nifty, cool, Apple device.. okay, they're gonna buy that, they'll pay a premium for it.
But for everybody else, it's going to be Android.
[02:18] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar with "Is Oracle relevant to Linux?" fades in and out of view.
[02:18] Steven>
As far as the patents go, I've been following that pretty darn closely.
Not as closely as Pamela Jones over at Groklaw does - and her friends.
But, you know, the bottom line is.. out of all the patents that Oracle brought up against Android, only two of those remain.
Of those two, their own expert came out and said "Well, the damages from this would probably come to something like, you know, maybe, maybe, high end $70M or $80M. If, if, Google is found guilty."
Now, $70M or $80M, I mean that's a lot of money to you and me - but for companies the size of Google and Oracle?
I mean, that's a hiccup.
I mean, that's a footnote.
If you wanna talk about a company that has actually made real money from Android and hasn't had a thing to do with it, the company you wanna talk about is Microsoft.
Because they've got all these cross-licensing deals with the OEMs, because the OEMs are a little scared of Microsoft, so they'll just pay off these patent deals without actually trying to fight them.
It wouldn't surprise me to know that Microsoft actually makes more money from Android than they do from their Windows Phone or Mobile CE or one of the other various mobile platforms they have now.
Oracle, though - You know, it's turned into a non-story.
[03:54] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar with "What about Oracle L
Try listening and reading at the same time! It's a blast...
I had the exact same reaction when these videos first started popping up, then I realized that most of them were advertisements and I stopped caring.
It can talk!! Call me surprised.
...under "absolutely clueless" a few years ago. Can't remember the specifics as to why exactly I did right now - I think it was related to some inflammatory bullshit "articles" about GNU/Linux on CNet or something, but I have no reason to believe I misjudged him back then. So I'll pass.
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
I rarely bother to look at a story on any site if it's just a link to a video.
I mean, it's nice that we can (sort of) do video on the web now, but we don't need to use it for every damn thing. Video may be more engaging for most viewers, but you're forced to consume it at it's pace. You can't just leave a page open and dip in to read a paragraph or two in and idle moment. You can't really search within video. And most of the time, you need to have sound enabled to get the most out of a video.
tl;dr - video has some advantages, but you lose a whole lot of what makes the web so goddamned useful.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Hmmm... Hadn't heard of the guy. Are you sure SJVN isn't an obscure version of the Bible?
Ask me about my sig!
It worked on my iPad and that doesn't support flash.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
If a stream starts with an Ad first, it's killed without being watched. End of story. The only thing worse are those web articles presented in "slideshow" format to maximize ad revenue.
... of the hordes of YouTube nuts who think that old == bad and video !> (better than -- I made this one up) text. The kind of folks who get a fixation with Python, Ruby, or Javascript and then wonder why they can't create executables for their applications. For whom anything but Web apps is obsolete. Who do research for their projects by tethering their notebook to their smartphone. Who communicate by texting, rather than by talking. Who want to share everythink on Facebook because it's cool, nevermind risking their chances of getting a job because of a stupid picture uploaded without thinking twice.
There were some wonderfully brutal posts about him in the Fake Steve Jobs blog.
About 14 years ago I told a close friend that one day Linux would rule the technology marketplace and Microsoft wasn't going to last. He didn't believe me.
Well, today, the first half of that is more or less true. Linux is in every set-top box out there, TVs, phones, and probably things I've not even heard of - and it's predominant in all those areas. Android sales are almost 60 times as high as Windows Phone sales. All this despite 12 years ago Linux being a marginal hobbyist and academic OS, with the most similar thing to the WinCE devices of the time being the Matchbox PC from Stanford labs.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I haven't seen a DOS installation since the mid 1970's. By then DOS had been replaced by DOS/VMS on those old IBM Mainframes. Of course so many never needed updating, it wouldn't suprise me if there weren't a few DOS computers operating today.
If you meant MS/DOS instead of DOS, I completely understand your ranking. Sure there might be a lot more people that know about MS/DOS than know about Linux.
There are probably a lot more people who use Linux (Roku, Tivo, Sony Bravia TV's, Googling something, Android, Tom Tom, etc) than used MS/DOS, they just have no clue that they use Linux day in and day out.
Also, most of the people who remember MS/DOS have no clue that there was an operating system called DOS 15 years before MS/DOS and that Microsoft (or Micro Soft as it used to be called) never sold an operating system called DOS.
See subject-line in regards to my 1st post here -> http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2757997&cid=39583361
APK
P.S.=> I mean, IF you're going to downmoderate my posts, @ least state why for GOOD & LEGIT reasons (not just because you have something against me personally), and when I am asking a question, innocently enough, then why downmod me for? apk
The difference is that in 1992, 1993 was going to be the year of Linux on the desktop.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Not for long. As everything in the GNU part of it becomes GPL3, watch Linux distros come out w/ LLVM/Clang and userland features from other places, like BSD, Android, Debian and so on.
You mean GNU's Debian GNU/Linux software distribution, which is pretty much the largest and one of the most influential distribution in time and space (yea, I just wrote that on purpose). Maybe GPLv3 looks like the other kind of evil, disruptive for business and a dorkly way to artificially create a difference between free and open, but FOSS communities will not abandon the huge Debian repositories. Before you abandon GPLv3 by assuming it's impractical for business and a deterrent of real investment you should get into their shoes and their mindset to see that the letter and the spirit of that evil license has a slot for decent business models and thriving communities.
No, the year of Linux desktop isn't afoot by a long shot. No, I don't believe Linux can fit the bill for anyone. No, i'm not some kind of cultist preaching "free" and "open". But I believe the fun part is just beginning and I should remind you that a few years ago most people assumed all computers run Windows, and now everyone assumes BSD licensed stuff will replace GPLv3 stuff.
uhm...