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Newsweek does Linux
Eugene Sotirescu writes "If anyone doubted that Linux is poised to break into the limelight, here's proof: a Newsweek article by Steve Levy, with all the right names, saying the right things, about the right system.
"
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or more likely, i'm not up to speed on everything that's happening, but the story said something about corel releasing stuff they developed that will help in converting applications from windows to linux? i got the impression that this means wine, and if that's the case, corel is getting a bunch of credit for wine when in fact they're just one of the many developers.
even so, that's being really nit-picky when it comes down to the facts in a tech article.
Source code is an "arcane language"? I must be living in the past...
I just wanted to say that I was at that PLUG meeting and ESR is a very energetic and interesting speaker. If you ever get a chance to attend one of his lectures, you won't be disappointed!
i wish i had a picture like that. he looks like... something scary... yet good... like a voodoo god!...
... naw....
"Arcane" does not mean "of the past" -- you are probably thinking of "archaic."
One of Merriam-Webster's definitions for arcane is "obscure " (The part in angled brackets is an example it offers.) For better or worse, source code in any language *is* obscure to most Newsweek readers.
> (The part in angled brackets is an example it offers.) Oh, I left out the example Merriam-Webster offers:
This is a great quote. The masses need to be made aware that M$ did not invent the Internet. All those companies jumping on the Internet bandwagon need to realize that they are able to take advantage of the Internet's commercial opportunities because of open source software. Maybe more of them can start giving back to the open source community for all the hard work they are leaching off of.
scary... yet good... like a voodoo god!...
i'm beginning to think that there are some very weird people around here . . .
newsweek is a glossy edutainment infomercial
waste of paper galm rag. self respect is more
important than fame , 5 years ago and 5 years from now
these 'helpful linux aware journalists' will
not stop to give you the time of day. they will have moved on
to the next big sex scandal or hollywood breastmonger.
but go, go get fame while you are still young and dumb,
i guess some lessons you just have to learn on your own.
What i am wondering is what happens when "open source" becomes fully mainstream.
I'm not really sure that you can always get good products if the people making those products aren't being paid. Can free software really provide everything?
And can software be open source if it _isn't_ freeware? If so how would that work? Can you really have something be truly open source if you still have a company that owns it?
Would it wind up with the user base really becoming a community, like with linux, or something more like Mozilla, where the code is there to look at, but there is so much of it and it is so difficult to cut through that very few-- if any-- people do anything with it?
it seems to me fairly unlikely that software that has been open sourced is probably not going to exist much outside of the underground. Although that may not be a bad thing.
That's really sad.. The poster child of free software from day one was RMS, although esr was definitely there, too.. Not to take anything away from esr, but t's unfortunate that they didn't even mention RMS in the article...
can't hurt.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
"No one was depending on Robin Hood to make the trains run on time ..."
Bad metaphor, Ed, given the last famous person who was reputed to "make the trains run on time".
(for you ./er's who aren't up on ancient history, that person was Benito Mussolini. Hmmm ... I guess someone should add Ed's image to the background of The Halloween Nightmare)
Hmmm, Larry A left a startup called yahoo to
start va research. I wonder how he feels about
it...
I bet they're only printing it because MS said that Linux was a 'threat' in the DOJ trial.. Anyone REALLY think that MS thinks is a threat?
Oh please...as the author of that sidebar, I think that categorizing the whole pieces as a piece about "how incredibly hard it is to use Linux" is inaccurate.
Despite the great advances being made in usability for those who aren't very proficient with computers to begin with, I still think Linux is not ready for the average Windows user -- unless it is exquisitely pre-installed and configured by
someone who knows what they are doing.
Editor, Salon Business & Technology
Salon.com
I'm glad to see Levy's keeping up to date with the current events within the Linux community. I hope he's planning a sequel to "Hackers: Heroes of the computer revolution," since that book ends sadly with RMS's seemingly bleak future for free software back in the day. It's a great book, and I think a book about the roots of the Free Software movement written in 1983 was well ahead of its time. He must be elated that the "synergy amongst nerds" that he describes in his book ended up causing the Free Software revolution, and that now the ideals of sharing and goodwill are relevant in the computer industry once again. I know I am.
While naysayers like analyst Merv Adrian of the Giga Group contend Linux is still "a cult product"
You know I once heard of a cult TV show, something called the X-Files. Anyway, I think I heard something about a movie or something about it last summer. It's very obvious that anything of "cult" nature can become very mainstream.
Well, one possible alternative is to release a piece of software under 2 licenses, like Troll Tech is doing with Qt. A free license for anyone to use for free software, and a commercial license for those who are developing proprietary software. The commercial license would likely include some kind of support contract.
It seems to me fairly unlikely that software that has been open sourced is probably not going to exist much outside of the underground. Although that may not be a bad thing.
You mean like Apache, BIND, INN, sendmail, Mozilla, Perl, Tcl, gcc and other little underground projects?
M$ is paranoid. And because they react so harshly, rightly so :-)
Them what lives by the paranoia shall die by the paranoia.
--
Infuriate left and right
This is a very good article. It gets Linux out in front of a variety of people's faces. Most of the people who regularly read Newsweek are probably not computer geek-types. This is almost like hearing Linux mentioned on Nightline. Once one news outlet picks something up, the others usually follow. This is going to be a HUGE year for Linux.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Yes, the article is generally very good, very factual. But they insist on continuing the usual geek/nerd/hacker stereotype, which always ends up negative. The geek must be "pasty-skinned" so as to imply s/he never sees the light of day. (I don't know for sure, but was that store appearance mentioned in the article done in the middle of the summer, when people would easily get tans?) And the picture they use of Linus makes him out to look like a cross between Bill Gates and Steven King. I've seen plenty of decent pictures of him where he looks like an "average Joe," but that wouldn't fit Newsweek's intended image of him as a nerdy dweeb.
::sigh::
Will the madness never end?
-Augie
No, you're living in the future :)
Yes Richard M Stallman was the Free Software Guru long before Linus Torvalds and Eric Raymond. RMS ideas are a bit more extreme than the other two's. He is still the founder of FSF and should have been mentioned.
No, in the future!
;-)
In the past programmers entered machine instructions directly, much more fun. So they got it all wrong
I think they meant tools to convert, not run.
WordPerfect 8.0 runs on Linux without wine. I
am sure they mean that Corel has tools they
developed during WordPerfect's "porting", if
they realy are going to release something like
that we ARE in for a big year.