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The Economist notes Linux and Open Source
buzz lightyear writes "Today's Economist
notes the value of Open Source together with some interestingly
juxtaposed articles about deflation and lowering of prices..."
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I love that publication. Nice general perspective.
"Eric Raymond, its leading intellectual light..."
According to the Economist, we saw
the light, and the light is Mr. Raymond. That
thought makes me puke right away, no time to go
to the bathroom.
I've seen that Int. Data Corp Survey before. It's flawed. It measures the percentages of what brand of servers that IT shops have made purchases of, but not how many or how many are in use.
You could have a situation where a majority of those surveyed have purchased *at least one* NT box, but a lesser number might have puchased multiple UNIX boxes, which could be a higher number.
Example:
100 surveyed bought 1 NT box each
75 surveyed bought 2 Unix boxes each
According to this scenario, more people made NT purchases, but more UNIX boxes were purchased. It's misleading, it doesn't relate the raw numbers of how many UNIX vs NT boxes were purchased.
The chart shows that NT didn't progress in 1998.
Just as expected.
--
NT: Unsafe at any CPU speed.
I think The Economist can be excused for mistaking ESR as the "leading light" of the movement; he has been more visible than most lately, while RMS has been much less visible over recent years. The fact that they'd even heard of either of them puts them head and shoulders above most of the straight press.
It's definitely a big deal that we got such a favorable nod from The Economist. A lot of influential people take that magazine very, very seriously.
Personally, I think both ESR and RMS are raving loony nutbars, along with most of the self-appointed leadership of the movement. Both of them have, however, been very useful raving loony nutbars, so I won't complain.
Yeah, but it took me months to read through the Sendmail Book and I still don't dare to touch the rules.
The Sendmail Book is like teaching somebody the assembly language with references to the ANSI C spec, and then in an appendix explain that there actually are automatic C compilers.
Then finally I landed on http://www.harker.com/sendmail/s endmail-index.html, which made it all clear to me. Gladly I knew m4 before so I had the guts to tweak the automatically generated .mc files.
Marko
>It's definitely a big deal that we got such a favorable nod from The
>Economist. A lot of influential people take that magazinevery, very
>very seriously.
Does this mean that a lot of influential people will take
Mr. Raymond very very seriously? We must do something
to correct that unfortunate misconception.
I've administered Sendmail (both with and without .mc files, Qmail, and Postfix.
Of them all, Qmail was for me the hardest to administer (read: fix when things aren't working). Sendmail was hard to set up, but the -v and -d options are very very useful. Since Qmail and Postfix aren't one big executable, they can't duplicate the effect of -v and -d as easily.
Out of Qmail and Postfix, I found Postfix far far easier to administer. It has good logging, which almost makes up for the lack of an option like Sendmail's -d. Postfix's -D option is something of a sledgehammer for problem solving, but I haven't had to use it. Every time there has been a problem, the log messages indicate what's up.
As for speed, it's hard to say. I have run qmail and sendmail on the same machine, but that machine was very lightly loaded (i.e. a modem connection). The larger installations I administered were Sendmail and Qmail on separate boxes.
Spedd is hard to quantify though. Do you mean delay or throughput? Or load on the host? For what mix of messages? For what mix of destination MX reachability?
In the long run, my money is certainly on Postfix in both the ease-of-configuration and the speed stakes.
Ever heard of a guy called W. Cedric Johnson who has a company called CypherComm? My company is looking at his 'revolutionary key management system' (yes I know all the snake oil caveats). Either this guy is one smart cookie or a fraud.
...
I wondered if anyone had heard of him
I think the real problem that opensource brings to light is the mangled forms of intellectual propety protections that are associated with software. With anything else, the creative work moves into the public domain eventually. Software somehow managed to sidestep that. The GPL really is a realignment of that situation to something more resembling what goes on in other industries. It's not the GPL that is irregular, it's software copyrights & the lack of a burden to disclose that which allows the art to advance that really is deviant.
The article implied that Sendmail and Apache were GPLed -- and that this was the only licensing scheme for collaboratively developed or freely available software. The Economist is apparently ignorant or naive about the GPL's intended purpose: to destroy markets, businesses, and livelihoods.
--Brett Glass
they mention "shipments" whereas Linux is frequently installed via ftp, or one CD can be used multiple times.
It's spelled "gripe".
Oh, that's right Brett. You're a victim. The Bad Men are coming for your precious job. And there's a cyber-commie under your bed, too.
I expected better from you...
>I guess capitalism any more means "whatever makes good things happen".
>At least according to the 1930's definitions, publicly owned and maintained infrastructure is a pretty un-capitalist idea.
HA! If you really think we've been living in a capitalist economy since the 30's, you're sadly mistaken. Capitalism is based on free markets and active competition. What we have is what I like to call "corporate capitalism", an economy based on limited competition and marketing.
Open Source, OTOH, is an example of pure capitalism. I can buy a program and change it in any way I want and then sell it again. What's really "un-capitalist" are the current IP laws - letting one organization or person have complete control over a piece of software without direct competition is as far from true capitalism as socialism is.
NT DOES NOT have that kind of marketshare!
NetWare has to have at least double the marketshare that NT has, probably much more...
Don't confuse marketshare growth with absolute marketshare! Of course, Linux almost tripling its marketshare is a bright spot
I think that software is becoming more and more like a commodity. Microsoft for years has been growing its OS up and taking over nitches that 3rd parties had filled previous. Now, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD (and others that I've unfairly overlooked) are now making the OS a commodity and creaping up into Microsoft's area. Since this commodity is basically free, and is basically good enough, it is starting to win.
How many people that buy huge amounts of wheat buy it because of a brand name? Very Few. Farmer Joe's Wheat is the same, in their eyes, as Farmer Jane's Wheat. Microsoft's marketing and branding will not change the basic fact that for certain classes of applications, it really doesn't matter if you use WinNT or Linux or FreeBSD. A ftp server, for example, cannot be told appart by the customers. This is one example of how the OS has become a commodity, and price now is what is driving the decisions for purchasing commodities. Sure, some people will still buy a brand for a variety of reasons, but many people will buy the commodity.
While the analogy isn't perfect, it does give one something to think about
Warner Losh
There are many options available to companies that want to do open source development. My belief is that open source is more important than free software (closed source or binary only).
While it would be great if everything were free, there is scope for different sorts of open source licenses. Say, a scenario whereby companies can charge (i.e. open source but not free) - it would still allow peer review, it would be very difficult to appropriate someone elses work, and would make patenting more difficult. Possible options could be free source, but you pay for the binaries (if you are scared of compiling). Maybe the bottom line should be free-open-source.
By enforcing the open source aspect, and working with this, there are a whole load of new opportunities available for individuals and companies. It would finally place the value on the individual who has committed to learning, training and hard work, rather than always rewarding those with the most money and scariest lawyers. It would also stop the likes of an IBM or Microsoft happening again.
They're not productive. The historical fact -- there's no speculation about this -- is that Richard Stallman instended and designed the GPL to destroy markets for commercial software. It has now gained a foothold due to luck (problems with Microsoft and flash-in-the-pan press attention to Linux) and poses a serious threat to programmers' livelihoods. Would-be software startups -- the ones which we might have hoped would compete with Microsoft -- will now be crushed by the twin pincers of Microsoft on the one hand and GPLed software on the other.
--Brett Glass
AS A long-time admirer of The Economist's stance on business and economics, I have been surprised by your recent coverage of Microsoft
In an August 12, 1998 research note, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter reported on a Denver-based insurance company which cut costs by replacing 120 Windows NT systems with only two servers from Sun.
Yes, because there are signs that -- thanks to current turns of events in the DoJ case -- Microsoft may be reined in a bit in the future. Also, because Microsoft is a corporation, it at least has to make money from something. GPLed software, by contrast, does not need to make money. As a developer, how can I possibly compete with that? Yes, I can come out with a super product, but as the Netscape incident has shown, a product that's "adequate" and free is sufficient to make it infeasible to make money even with a better product.
And if the start-up succeeds, and dethrowns Microsoft, are we any better off? Or did we just trade one absolute monarch for another?
If Microsoft is dethroned by antitrust action, it will set a precedent that will make it easier to prevent other companies from doing the same. If the GPL takes hold, however, there will be no escape.
I welcome the coming of GPL'd software, because it is something that Microsoft can't crush.
I don't, because it competes unfairly with programmers by making GPLed software free to users but costly (or even completely unavailable) for developers to use. It threatens to deprive them of any opportunity to start successful businesses.
Software startups can still succeed, but they'll have to offer something that performs better than the GPL community.
Being better isn't good enough. When a GPLed product is merely adequate, the fact that it is free is sufficient to preclude commercial products. We can see this in the case of GCC. Do you see Borland/Inprise, or PowerSoft, or Green Hills, or any other major compiler vendor introducing compilers for Linux? No. Why? Because GCC has destroyed that market. Yes, these companies make products that are better and faster, and which offer features GCC does not. But does it matter? No. So long as GCC is "good enough," that's the end of the market. Which is a shame, because I'd really love to get my hands on a better C compiler for UNIX.
My prediction is that we will see the same problem in other markets.
--Brett Glass
So you're saying that people should make money from a product even if someone in their spare time can make an equivilently functional (or even better) product and give it away?
No, that's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that it is possible to destroy a market by giving away a product that is not as good but merely adequate, because the fact that the product is free weighs very heavily with the user (perhaps more heavily than it should, in fact). And to do it intentionally, for the purpose of wrecking the market, is destructive. It deprives us of the chance to get the better product and also destroys the livelihood of the person who would like to make it.
Free software, by its nature, takes something away from consumers and also slows the advancement of the state of the art by hurting the market for commercial products. To compensate, it should "give back" by allowing developers to build proprietary products on it. The GPL does not allow this, and so is a terribly destructive force. As it enters more markets, we'll see choice slip away as investment and entrepreneurship are discouraged.
So you're saying you'd rather be caught in the iron grasp of Microsoft, where you products crash, you don't have the source, and bug fixes/support are more expensive than caviar on the moon?
No. I'm saying that using free software to destroy markets is even worse. GPLed software hurts Microsoft's competitors more than it does Microsoft, because it keeps them from ever coming into existence! The GPL will prevent the sort of competition which might cause Microsoft (and others) to fix bugs and provide adequate support.
Why is free software so costy for developers to use. Naturally you can't include GPLed software directly in your code without making it free,
That's why it's costly. You must give up all compensation for your work. Who can eat under those conditions?
but you can certainly use the free utilites to make your coding faster and cheaper.
What coding? If the GPL invades all software markets, it won't matter if the utilities are free; you'll be out of business because you will not be able to sell your work. Again, the GPLed product need not be superior; just adequate. At that point, "free" becomes such a big draw that you have no market.
I strongly disagree that the Borland/Inprise compiler is better than gcc. In fact after using a plethora of Windows compilers, do you know what my favorite is: it's gcc.
GCC is especially difficult to use for Windows coding, because it lacks the Microsoft tools which, for better or for worse, are needed in that environment. It also lacks key features of the Borland, Symantec, and Watcom compilers, including precompiled headers. It slows you down and hurts your productivity.
Why? gcc, in addition to being free (as you mentioned),
Which makes it impossible to compete even with a better compiler, because "free" is such a strong selling point...
has a simple, elegant interface that allows me to devote most of my time to coding, and the least to fighting with the compiler to get it to turn on optimization or something.
What interface? Essentially, when you use GCC, you're back in the stone age in terms of IDEs.
Also, because gcc is free and open, there are several good debuggers for it, whereas commercial compilers frequently try to tie you into a single "Integrated Development Environment" where you weak editor and even weaker debugger are thrust upon you.
There are several good debuggers for commercial compilers, too. (Perhaps you haven't investigated everything that's out there.) And the IDEs compete to be the most convenient. I think that's good. (They do let you use your own editor if you insist.)
Of course if you want to fight with the compiler enough, you can use your own tools, but if you do that, why not use gcc?
Because the other compilers are, IMHO, much better than you paint them here.
This being said, I do (sortof) like one compiler: the Mipspro compiler (for SGIs), however it is very expensive
This is another side effect of the GPL. People who try to sell premium products that compete with GPLed ones don't do much volume. So, they have to charge more than one would like. There tends to be a vicious cycle here, and the vendors soon go under.
--Brett Glass
Sorry, but forced disclosure would be deviant in that it constitutes an illegal taking of intellectual property. Copyright strikes a reasonable balance between authors' interests and the public's, and provides an incentive to innovate.
--Brett Glass
Wow, now that's impressive. Is there any place like netcraft which does monitoring of more services than just httpd... maybe a generalized version which checks FTP daemons, SMTP daemons, NNTP daemons, HTTP daemons, etc.
.mc file and a number of hosts added to sendmail.cw. I would not consider the 6 minutes it takes me to get sendmail running back breaking work.
I never did understand why people say sendmail is hard to configure. My configuration consists of a 3 line long
And I have yet to see a fair comparison of Sendmail vs Qmail vs Zmailer vs Vmailer/Postfix. Everyone says Qmail is faster, but I see no numbers and it just seems like hype.
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
ESR is generally perceived as being a bit too much on the pro-business side of things, while ignoring the Free Software side of things, and personally snubbing RMS several times because RMS is inconvenient when talking to businesses. Selling Open Source is fine, but trying to hide the people that make it work in order to sell more of it isn't.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
ESR is, at the very least, one heckuva lot intimidating to outsiders. He does a good job in the ambassador position, too -- his papers are well-written and quite accurate.
Not that I'm going to turn a deaf ear to RMS or advize that others do so... but it's ESR's papers I refer folks to when they want more reading material on open-source/free software.
Since when is open source 'thhhbbbbting' Silicon Valley?!? Silicon Valley is where it's strongest. It's "thhhbbbting" Redmond more than Silicon Valley.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
The Economist has good writing, and more non-fluff info per square inch than all other big-time newsmags. Yeah, maybe the politics are shite; my solution: I don't inhale.
--
--
=8^
I find it alarming that this idea seems to become more and more popular. Why is it that Free Software should be delegated to infrastructure? If Free Software is better because of the peer review process and more moral because it encourages sharing, then this is true for all programs, not just for operating systems. It's just that historically, operating systems, networking and systems utilities were the first free programs. There is absolutely no reason why it should stop there. I for one sure hope that it does not.
--
Yes, it's annoying but still the thing most worth /.ers want. I have given
reading after Private Eye. Apart from the
occasional piece of crass right-wingism, it's
got the iconoclasm and tough-mindedness which
I am sure is what most
up and taken out a subscription.
Good article. The Economist is often (surprisingly?) on the ball about things.
See Dan Bernstein's latest figures.
You, like the Luddites, have no concern for society at large. Your concern, like the Luddites, is only for your own butt. I have no sympathy for you.
-russ
ESR was the one who put the whole OSS thing into perspective for me.
/. and occasionally making a comment on some side issue, but basically not making any comment on OSS or free vs. proprietary software.
:-)
:-)
For a long time, I was a lurker, reading the posts and articles on
Not because I didn't understand; I did, on an intellectual level. But basically, I didn't "get" it. I sure as hell wasn't passionate about it; just figured they were 2 equally-valid paradigms. (Please excuse the use of the marketroid-type hype word -- I think this is one of the few places where it is actually appropriate
Until I actually got around to reading "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", at which point I finally "saw the light" and understood where the passion came from.
I previously understood on an intellectual level, but not on the emotional one. I didn't "get" it -- it took ESR's writings to do that for me.
Hell... at this point, I'd follow him just about anywhere...
(ok... that does it... no-one's ever gonna take me seriously again, right?
On the other hand, though, I do think RMS is (more than) a bit of a nutcase...
- Sean
- SeanNi
- SeanNi
- #include "standard_disclaimer.h"
Articles this well researched are rare.
--
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
MS is doomed, and the Economist acknowledges this. Most pieces I've seen lately emphasize the economic benefit of using the software, not the economic peril to proprietary software producers. A suprisingly mature reaction, especially considering similar situations (ie, mp3 and the RIAA) that are being handled so badly.
--
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Isn't this quote attributed to Linus?
'Course how can I expect the Economist to know that...
--
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Yes, this analogy doesn't work, or at least it has some bad connotations. Most "public" infrastructure is just a subsidy to one group or another, taken from taxpayers whether they use it or not. This kind of taking is more akin to the Microsoft tax than to OSS contributions, which are voluntary and decentralized.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
There are ? question mark characters all over the place, which leads me to believe they typed it up in some brain-dead Microsoft product and the quotes got converted to ?'s. (MS doesn't follow character set guidelines, which of course *only* looks bad in non-Microsoft browsers since their browsers aren't standardized either).
Though I don't know him very well, I've met Brett Glass on many occasions (back in the fabled Amiga Days, admittedly), and this doesn't sound like something he would write.
I think it's an impostor.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
For a short article, it did have a surprisingly lot of important information. This is a great thing, the Econmist has a relativly small circulation, but a very high circulation among, heads of business and government.
The observation that Open Source could be and should be the Freeways of the future for digital commerce is an excellent one.
Open Source is great for Capitalism. The infra-structure needs to be public, it will be most efficient way for people to communicate. People like windows because they can share programs and files. Free software should replace that as the common ground.
Not all software will become "Free," games, and specialized software will always get someone to pay. (for games at least as long as hardware advances rapidly).
Also for as many enemies as ESR has made, he IS the leading intellectual among the hacker community, he has written better essays than any one else.
"His[Mankind's] heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque." -Satan "Letters From Earth" Mar
They got it mostly right -- interesting that the somewhat tricky ideas of open source (value != $$, competitive advantage to using non-proprietary code and giving stuff away) are finally permeating the main-stream media. Somewhat ironic to have a mag titled "the economist" touting the value of free software...
parallax
There are lots of things that has made ESR fall in my opinion, but the picture where he compares Hitler and Bill Gates is just too fucking much. How the HELL can you be so moronic and utterly tasteless?
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Man, I wish Coke would open source... ;)
The Economist is the best magazine out there in my opinion. I don't find it suprising in the least that they'd do a good job of reporting this issue. They tend not to jump on the band wagon, they don't repeat the sentiments of the industry 'pundits' and the like. The economist is more worthwhile than all of the American newspapers combined.
Qmail is actually faster from what I could tell. But unfortunatly it's config files are poorly done and as such is a pain to use on large systems
I just noticed, there's a special free membership sign-on for the full Economist this week...no credit card stuff...just sign on.
I haven't got shares in the E., Honest!
There's an excellent Special this week on Innovation in Industry...should appeal to futurists...and avaiable only for members.
Buzz.
Buzz Lightyear
Last time I checked, those companies' livelihood aren't software development, right?
Je ne parle pas francais.
I would have greatly preferred if they had put Linux and UNIX next to each other on the graphs. I think they intentionally seperate them to make NT look stronger than it is because if people were to group Linux and UNIX together as they naturally will, it would show the combined total to be around the same size as NT.
...and it would have been nice if the NT part of the graphs had been at the opposite side from Linux. So that amount of growth of Linux could have been more easily compared to NTs.
Very true. Just for my own comparison purposes, I snagged the image, then cut and pasted the parts of each graph to move the Linux and UNIX segments together, and aligned the two graphs next to each other along the boundary between UNIX/Linux and NT. That makes the graphs a whole lot more interesting to compare. Looking at that it is clear that NT's market share remained relatively flat, and most of Linux's growth in market share has come at the expense of Netware and Other rather than from UNIX, as some might suggest.
Really. I read an interview of his about a year ago. He reads The Economist for relaxation. I think this issue might have been more of a laxative.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
Actually, the Economist knows what it is
talking about here. The key word here is
"intellectual", and Raymond has done more
than most in researching the reasons behind
the open source model, why and how it works
and why it can give good results, and is
also the most visible about it.
What Stallman is is an ideologue and
visionary, the ones who gets the balls
rolling.