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Slate Takes on Linux
alkali writes "The weekend edition of the Microsoft-owned, Michael-Kinsley-edited Slate has two articles on Linux, one written by Slate's chief program manager (i.e., a techie) and the other written by a staff writer without any particular technical expertise. No surprises, but the Redmond connection will probably interest at least the conspiracy-minded. "
This is a very subtle article of MS FUD. For instance. They embrace linux as little, agree*
with almost what everyone else has said about linux. Stable, good for a server, not so hot for a desktop. They they relegate it to the domain of "Geek Love." They are basically telling people yes it's good, BUT it's only for hackers, geeks and enthusiasts. Of course they don't come right out and say that but it's the underlying theme. It jsut spreads very subtle FUD.
*******************************************
Superstition is a word the ignorant use to describe their ignorance. -Sifu
I've spent a horrific 3 days instaling Win98 on my system. Install Win98, install patches, install new stuff, fire up directx, BANG! fall down dead. Format drive, start over. (It's a hardware/driver problem, but Linux and X run JUST fine!)
The big problem is that people don't install operating systems very often. OS installation can be one of the most painful experiences in computerdom. (With the exception of MacOS 7.x, 8.x, is is actually pretty easy)
Also, I hope that RedHat replaces FVWM95 with something else for 6.0. "Start button"? Sheesh.
Okay guys, next time -you- have a Linux tech support question, call Microsoft. Apparently they'll help you.
(From the second article:)
"So I telephoned the Microsoft Helpdesk. Even though Linux is supposed to demolish Microsoft, the Microsoft Helpdesk, which provides computer assistance to its employees, was surprisingly helpful."
These articles (I read both) are biased in lots of unsubtle ways. They are thinly veiled FUD, nothing more. I am impressed that the Slate editor mentioned on the intro page that Slate is owned and run by Microsoft and that the articles should (essentially) be taken with a grain of salt.
I mean, I try to remain objective about Microsoft. I try to just ignore them, repeating to myself that "Loving Linux does not necessarily mean hating Windows", over and over and over again. I keep trying to rationalize that Bill Gates is "just another businessman", and that Microsoft is "just another company". I really really do try.
But when I read things like these articles and like the Halloween documents and Gates' blitherings both during his DOJ trial deposition and during his recent book tour, I just get so F*&KING angry. It's not enough that they control the -majority- of the computing world, they have to control the whole goddamned thing.
Argh. It makes me so angry (said in my best Marvin Martian voice).
*grr*
- deb
Consider:
Now I must confess my doubts about the Open Source movement...Perhaps the greatest technological feature that Windows posesses is that it can handle programs as old as the first DOS applications. Linux will never do that.
Heard of this funny little thing called DOSEmu? WINE? I'd estimate that Linux is 80-90% of the way to running legacy code, if that's your idea of a good time (the last 10% being the hardest of course...)
Some critics say that Linux will fracture into a dozen different incompatible versions...
This has a little more substance--not because of the distributions but because of the possibility of people rewriting the system just to bite their thumb at the FSF. Aside from that, though, it's hard to imagine how such a schism could happen. The distributions are more compatible lately, not less.
Developers want to write code, they don't want to solve all the niggling little problems that users come up with.
He works for Microsoft, he should know. ;-) That said, the Debian bug tracking system is (IMO) a good place to start looking at how bugs in Linux programs get dealt with.
I think those are the only things he mentioned that haven't been hammered to death already.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
This FUD is quite possibly the most dangerous. The few compliments and insults to Microsoft fool the reader into believing the writer is being fair and impartial. Then when the FUD hits, they accept it without questioning it. The reader loses all ability to tell what is real and what is FUD.
I'd probably prefer outright FUD, because at least it's easy to spot, even for the newbies...
For a fair comparison, the two authors should have purchased their machines from VAResearch. I'm sure both normally use PCs with windows *preinstalled* at the factory. So of course the effort to get a Linux PC would be much more than they had to invest in Windows. :-)
Granted I'm not a novice computer user, but I've installed Linux on two different desktop systems (one with no OS, one with Windows 98 preinstalled) and on a laptop with Win 95 previously installed. You'd think I would have run into at least one of the problems they mentioned. Nope. All went smooth as silk (Redhat 5.2, no plug intended).
In my office I have a Win 98 based Dell and a clone box running Linux. Win 98 crashes, on average, about every other day. Really. Yesterday it crashed 3 times. The Linux box has *never* crashed. I've thrown Staroffice at it. I've thrown Oracle at it. I run KDE, Netscape, etc. Never crashes. The only time it went down unexpectedly was when someone cut the PG&E main power cable feeding our neighborhood. Even Linux has its limits I guess...
It's interesting to me that with Gates saying how Linux is "no threat" that his various media machines like Slate and mouth pieces like Mr. Muth are spewing out such an incredible volume of venomous verbage about how bad Linux is. It's been quite a biltz this week. They're saying it's over-rated, it's under-featured, it's over-hyped, and only for nerds. It has no GUI, it has a GUI that looks like Windows. It doesn't have the features of Windows, it runs "just about as fast as Windows".
:)
Oy! FUD, FUD, FUD, everywhere I turn, nothing but FUD. I think I definitely sense fear and apprehension on the part of Billy boy. It's good to have confirmation from the man and his machine that we're really on the road to defeating his much-cherished Empire. Just like the Visigoths in the 400s on their way to Rome, here come the OSS hordes to the door of the Redmond offices. They see us coming, and they fear us. They fear the freedom and truth we represent. Time is on our side, and there is not much they can do besides this FUD campaign to stop us. Linux, FreeBSD, and other OSS OSes shall continue to prove themselves superior in the trenches. It's going to be a fun year.
Oh, gee wow, an objective write up of two microsoft employees' experience in trying to install Linux!
Man, the whole time I was reading this, I kept thinking this sounded like they were handed "talking points" to make sure they put the right FUD slams in.
How transparent. Let's see them hand a PC with OS/2 installed and ask them to dual-boot install Windows 98!
This guy seems to not like partitions or at least is using "ohmigosh linux is making me have three partitions" to further some FUD.
Its interesting that if he knew what he was doing he would have partitioned much more than that. I always make /tmp, /home, /var, /usr, their own partitions in addition to /. Much safer- divide and conquer! But im probably preaching to the chior...
I actually thought that these articles were kind of entertaining. They both tried soooo hard to look impartial and then threw in lots of subtle (and not so subtle) FUD. I think I'll call MS the next time I have some problems. "Start menu? I dont have a start menu!" :)
Calling X a "pale and wan" version of windows was insulting at best. Just grit your teeth- its only a matter of time before Linux surpasses Win32 in all ways imagineable!
2^5
snipped from the article...
Furthermore, as I've written before in Slate, software companies spend a surprising fraction of their resources testing software, not writing it. In my experience, this is the ultimate problem with Open Source development: not enough formal engaged testing. Developers want to write code, they don't want to solve all the niggling little problems that users come up with.
Oooh, very bad. Companies spend a surprising fraction of their resources on testing for one
reason, and one reason only. That reason is that the development process is all messed up. Requirements
and specifications are not laid out properly, then design is not thorough. The development process
is supposed to be front-end loaded, with over 50% of the time being spent before a single line of code
is written. Test should be about 10% of the time. Why? What does it matter where you spend your time? Data
shows that the further along in the development process a bug is found, the more it costs - exponentially! If a bug costs
$100 to repair in design, it will cost $1000 to detect and repair in coding, and $10,000 to detect and repair in test. It only
gets worst after release. This has been definatively proven (to my mind) by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI),
and is the topic of countless software engineering and design papers (all coming to the same conclusion). A great deal
of data has been gathered to support this, and you only have to read the software engineering papers out there.
Okay, all that said -- does that mean that linux has 10% testing, and it is the right 10%? I'm not sure, but
I don't think so. I think that typically linux programmers (like most software engineers) fall into the same trap --
leaping into coding before a proper design has been done... because coding is fun, and that is what they like to do.
So how does the "huge chunk" of testing get done? Linux software is quality software.. somehow. I believe that
the testing gets done by the users and beta testers, and while it isn't formal (which is always good) it is one of the
ultimate forms of testing -- if the software works for the user, then the software works. Even if there are bugs.
The user is the definition of the requirements, and of what meets the requirements. Most of this paragraph is just
conjecture though, because not much data has been gathered to support it.
Yes, the techie works for Microsoft. Of course he will lean that way. But that doesn't mean that absolutely everything that he says can be thrown out as clearly biased or FUD.
The point I caught was his comment on testing the code. And its something I've brought up here in the past: lots of Linux programmers, not a lot of QA. I personally work as a tester - in Redmond, no less, though not at MS - and our job is just as important to getting a usable app out the door as the devs. Software testing is an entirely different discipline from software development, but I don't see any articles about testing open source code, nothing about blackbox vs. glassbox methods; heck, we're not even an option in the polls. Pure code review doesn't find all the bugs. Period. You have to have someone willing and able to methodically and carefully test every damn part of the final app. Not the debug version, it functions differently. Not scripting against the underlying structure, or at least not only that. Actually clicking the buttons, one at a time. Putting in just bonkers stuff in all the input fields. Race conditions. Stress tests. Sure, you've got the code in front of you, but nobody does any work with source. Test the *app*.
But testing isn't cool. Testers don't get movies of the week written about them. And some testing is flat boring. (Trust me, repeating the exact same test cases in 7 different browser versions will make you start looking at the nearby water tower and remebering that it takes 42 muscles to smile, but only 4 to pull the trigger on a decent sniper rifle. Which is why I'm the lead and make somebody else do it.) But untested code, no matter how clever the programmer, isn't going to conquer the world. And devs make lousy testers. It's just a different mindset.
-reemul
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
My personal favorite quote (and really a sharp jab in the gut to Linux) is:
"A big practical disadvantage of Linux is that there isn't much application software for it. But that's because so few people use it. It wouldn't be fair to count this as a negative in weighing Linux's intrinsic merits. And so, of course, I won't."
Ummmmmm. I don't know about you but I think that counted as a negative!! To people not knowledgeable about Linux, he's simply stating "It doesn't have much software because only an insignificant amount of people use it!"
It seemed to me thank this "techie" was looking at Linux from his own limited MS world, like "Hey everyone, look at this little Linux thing I found...Isn't is cute?, Oh well, back to the 'real world'..."
The other article was also pretty bad, making MS look like some kind of hero that could help her, even if it wasn't an MS product, as if the MS Helpdesk knew everything. It also didn't mention the fact that just as often installs of MS products from scratch are difficult and frustrating.
Both these articles are really biased and have many inaccuracies, subtle jabs, and enough MS plugs and FUD to be seen as an attempt to dissuade readers from Linux.
Oh well I guess I shouldn't have expected better from Slate...
Respectfully,
Kevin Christie
kwchri@maila.wm.edu
Just stop posting them.
94.9%(guesstimate) of computer owners...
- purchased their computers with an Operating
- will never install any Operating System
- do not know what an "Operating System" is,
therefore, this and all other articles related toSystem preinstalled,
on a computer, including the one they own,
the installation of Linux are moot.
If these were among the first of such articles,
there would be no objection, however, that is not
the case.
Free software promotes freedom and sharing; if
you treat it as just another consumable item,
that is all you will get out of it. Go to a
friendly neighborhood Installfest rather than
buying the latest copy of Red Hat from Barnes &
Noble and installing it alone.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
I tend to agree that the traditional software development process is all screwed up.
Closed software companies often seem to have a problem with testing. Often, testers only know what to test because developers told them what to test. They tend to use the product "the right way", without really mirroring the real world. This is why so many products make it to market with problems, even though testing did its job.
IMHO, free software gets a more effective workout because it's beaten up in the real world right away. In the free software world, it's ok to release multiple versions back-to-back. This simply doesn't fly in a closed environment, where version x.x must be IT for at least a few months.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
The lady's install article was almost fair, and
an echo of things heard in the highly flamed
Katz install dilemma (I think she faired much
more admirably than Katz actually).
The "techie" article was, IMHO, one of the more
disturbing pieces of propaganda that I have seen
as of late. It reminds me of "Purple Heart" -
a WWII-era propaganda movie (one of *ours* folks)
aimed at the Japanese culture and war machine.
By the second paragraph he is already setting out
to portray Linux as confusing, different, and
something that Windows people don't have any
contact with. It appears to me that he is
targeting the average Windows user who has no
contact with Linux (to their knowledge) and
who wants their questions settled in an article
from someplace safe. He makes Linux immediately
seem confusing and alien. Good strategy. Many
of his finer facts are wrong, but within the
realm of plausible deniability. He sets out
immediately the "good guy/bad guy" duality
(Linux is made by one guy instead of a faceless
monolith, but really it's made by a bunch of
faceless organizations who can't decide on
names. Shreds of truth on both counts, but
the second one is where he puts his emphasis)
he uses throughout the rest of the article
to establish "objectivity" while he trashes the
system.
He continues on to draw upon the party line to
subtly attack the FSF's motives. Far be it from
me to side with a Microsoft instrument, but I
have to agree that I don't expect to see sellable
software vanish from the world in my lifetime,
but I don't think that's the point. I'll let
the debaters rage on that one -- I just enjoy
having a choice, being able to use good software
that I can muck around in with the code.
His description of Linux as merely a kernel to
which one could add a windowing system, etc. Is
the first point where I began to get disturbed
and decided to post a response. The author
slips from debatable propaganda/FUD and slight
confusion of facts into a not-so-subtle attack
on the (debatable) weaknesses of Linux with the
implication of "...and so the thing's useless. Go
now back to your homes and play with your Windows
boxes and enjoy your hair." You are free to go
now. The verdict is in.
Linux *is* short of application software when
compared to the Windows software base. To split
hairs one can install Linux without X, but if a
GUI is important to you then you would install
it. The implication that significant extra work
or (as with NT for example) extra purchases must
be performed to install the OS with what should
be considered "standard" features is another
example of fine propaganda techniques. The
implication that the web (similarly Internet) is
the domain of the average Microsoft user, and
therefore must have come from Microsoft, is one
that must resonate well with their user base.
So when the author says "I even installed a web
browser." He is masterfully drawing upon this
unspoken belief -- as one of them.
The basic premises of the article are what I would
call the "Party Line" of the MStocracy:
- free software can't win
- the Linux community is too disorganized to
stay around
- they started from 1 guy, but they have the
same corporate disadvantages as the rest of
the industry
- to get their free software you have to pay
- you don't get any functionality with Linux
- Linux is struggling to emulate Windows
- Linux is nearly impossible to install and won't
recognize your hardware
- the stability of the system isn't important
- Linux doesn't really perform any better/faster
- you can't run your old DOS/Win3.1 programs on
Linux
Any of these points can be the basis for a healthy
flame war or otherwise religious debate.
The propaganda techniques the author uses include:
- identifies himself as a member of the reader
community (here day-to-day MS users with little
known contact with Linux). This is
particularly ironic since his initial
credibility takes him, by definition, out of
that group.
- establish apparent objectivity by supporting
facets of the system which do not conflict with
the "party line" tenets
- establish that Linux is associated with a group
very different from the reader community
- make that different group seem overly complex,
strange, non-conformist. The important
psychological tactic here is that the
demographic of the reader group (due to the
way the article is targeted) is exceedingly
conformist, and will react adversely towards
a non-conformist representation.
- focus upon the valued facets of the reader's
current beliefs (Word documents are important,
printing is important...) and analyze the
competitor rigidly within this framework.
- make the reader group appear to be the
important group, the misunderstood group;
further highlighting the difference between
"us" and "them"
- resting upon the implied conclusions, show that
the enemy must necessarily fall since our way
must be superior to theirs
- allow the reader to believe that since "we"
drew these conclusions then the reader shares
some of the credit
- finally establish a feeling of membership in
the knowledgeable group by letting the reader
know that there are others (fools) around who
will still pursue the Linux phenomenon, but
"we" know better
A fairly broad array of effective psychological
tools. Well done, Herr Shuman.
roundeye
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
Pre-installed Windows vs. you-install Linux ...
I am SICK AND TIRED of articles comparing pre-installed Windows systems vs. "you-install" Linux. Totally unfair.
Can we PLEASE get some REAL ARTICLES showing a pre-installed Linux system vs. a pre-installed Windows 98 system?
And also, compare Linux more to Windows NT since Windows 98 IS easier to understand from a layman's standpoint since it is a single user system. Of course that comes with the fact that a cracker can trash it in their sleep!
My $0.02 and damn good pennies too!
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
Did anyone notice that there's not one mention of the word "Netscape" throughout the entire technical article? It's always sani-flush clean referred to with the euphemism Linux Compatible Web Browser. Go ahead, try an ALT-F (find in page) and see if that article mentions netscape even once. I wonder what's up with that???? Microsoft employees can't even utter (type) the word?
The second article by the slate staff writer mentions Netscape exactly twice.
I pointedly decided to copy neither Windows _or_ my MacOS environment in my Linux environment. I set it up with Window Maker, clip and dock, several workspaces with specific themes ('net', 'editing', 'admin' etc) and even went so far as to rewrite the Afterstep animated desktop menu feature as Window Maker menus. :(
...except release more GPLed software, and continue to support the extremity of RMS, the hardcore cadre of Linux: anybody who actually likes to handle stuff in xterms or runs FVWM etc, or decides, hey, this is my virtual home, why should I let my decisions on interior decoration and structure be made by Redmond?
...WITHOUT my help, thank you-
...because I won't go along with that.
It angers me that this guy can so easily dismiss the notion of anything not working and acting like Windows, because I already felt that your typical Linux desktops (my experience is primarily with KDE, but Gnome does the same things) are simply annoying Windows clones. They are not _worse_ than Windows: there's no reason buttons can't be different or whatever, and there's nothing inherently evil and ugly about even Motif widgets. But they are not better than Windows because they're trying to do all the same things, and this is exactly the trap that approach falls into. How can anyone deny that Linux desktop systems are rips of Windows?
I'd pointedly add that I didn't say X: X can and usually has looked and worked _very_ unlike Windows. Set these people in front of FVWM and they won't say it's like Win. Set 'em in front of my menu-driven, xterm-filemanaging Window Maker setup and they won't say it's like Win. Set them in front of KDE and what, exactly, do you expect? Why work so hard to approach that which already has total vendor and user lock-in? Expecting people to go, oh, I'll use this, it's just like what I'm already totally used to only it's not, and I can't run Half-Life?
I'm sorry: when I got heavy into linux (now I'm a Mac dude with the capacity for dual, matched, _striped_ IBM SCSI drives and I'm not _using_ that just because it means that much to me to have a linux disk to dualboot off) I knew I wanted to hack it. I'm not much of a coder but at least I could make ChrisOS out of it, and by God I did- and now I read this article where the guy basically informs the world that what I did doesn't even exist! To him, X is KDE, or maybe it was Gnome he saw, and what are the linux desktop people doing to shake that assumption even a little bit?
There's nothing I can do about that: those aren't my projects to gripe about. KDE _will_ persist. People _will_ begin using linux and form the idea that KDE _is_ linux, or that it is X, or that linux is X, and so on. I can't stop that, but it doesn't prevent me feeling a sense of betrayal when some guy makes a comment like that- because to more and more people, that's the simple truth. X looks like Windows to them. It acts that way too. And as they clamor for programs that are specially enhanced for their Windows-like X, they will increasingly marginalize me yet again, and there isn't a thing I can do about it
Revision of history is a reality. I'll accept that, and that X will come to be known as that which looks almost like Windows, but not really, and that Linux will be most closely associated with whichever desktop, KDE or Gnome, happens to be installed.
It's no different, really, from all the anti-Mac fud, of which I've heard some really spectacular examples that were totally false or seriously maliciously deceptive: in this case, assuming people can't be prevented from looking at Linux, the agenda from both the enemy camp and from large numbers of Linux users themselves, is to make sure that those who come to Linux still see all of computing as it was prescribed and planned out in Redmond.
In this way, Linux people help to further the eternal legacy of Microsoft even should the latter die- if their user interfaces are never significantly varied from or altered, they will never die: they will have changed the world for good, reaching out even from the grave to set the tone for computer use.
I've been sitting here reading through all the posts on this board about the conspiracy of Microsoft to damage Linux. And though I certainly believe that it is in Microsoft's best interest for Linux to be slighted, I am thoroughly disgusted with the general attitude of the Linux "community". All this board is filled with is people sitting around whining about a questionably negative ariticle. When in reality you should be overjoyed that Linux has gained so much publicity that these articles were written in the first place.
The reality of the situation is this. Windows in one form or another is installed on almost every PC sold today. Windows will continue to be installed in this manner as long as consumers continue to consider it acceptable. Right now the "average" end user will generally only buy a PC if it has Windows installed. The Linux "community" can sit around and argue about why this is the case all they want, but right now it is simple reality and it isn't going to change until the people actually buying the computers demand otherwise. What this means is that the vast majority of people buying computers that could be running Linux are currently running Windows on those computers. This makes the scenario described in these ariticles very much in line with what a new Linux user would most likely experience. And despite what the Linux elite want to proffer, the way many people will get their exposure is through a CD from a book or magazine. For the average end user with an analog modem downloading from the net is simply too large a barrier for any but the extremely curious to cross. Also it is not at all uncommon for the "average" end user to have less then state of the art hardware sometimes even older then that described in the Slate aritcles. The question for Linux is not whether it is as easy to install as Windows or not. The question is whether it is easy enough that someone who already has Windows installed will make the effort. Because of this Linux must not be as easy as Windows to install, it must be much much easier.
Ok so what is my point, first don't be so quick to dismiss articles like this, no matter what their source, as being pure FUD. In order for the Linux community and the open source community in general to prosper it needs to be much more introspective of its faults and use criticism as a rallying cry for improvement rather then to simply fuel the flames of hatred against Microsoft. Try to make the imaginative leap and look through the eyes of the "average" end user. Look at your beloved Linux and ask is it really ready for wide spread use by the general computing population? Is it really easy enough for the average end user to install? Should a person installing it really need to know what a BIOS or a drive partition is? Should they even care? Remember whose eyes you're looking through, these are people who want to use a computer as a means to an end not as the end in itself. They simply want the computer to make it easy from them to do their work or to let them play. I guarantee you, they don't care one bit about how the drive is partitioned or whether it is partitioned at all or for that matter whether the computer even has a hard drive. The only thing they care about is whether their computer lets them do what they want to do and is friendly while doing it.
Since the "average" end user is most likely already using Windows (which they probably perceived as being free due to the fact that it came on their PC) why should they switch to Linux? What is the added value that Linux brings to the table. What outstanding quality about Linux makes it so desirable that the "average" end user will scale the barriers to acceptance that they are confronted with? Are there compeling enough answers to these questions to make this type of user switch? If there aren't then the articles like those published by Slate should not be derided but should be embraced as an indication of the work still to be done. Only by focusing on the flaws percieved by your enemies can you implement the necessary improvements to eliminate future criticism.
So what is my challenge? Linux is great for technical users, there is no doubt about that, but I believe that it is no where near ready for use by the general computing population. From the tone of the posts here it is apparent that the Linux community believes it is ready. My challenge to you then is to convince me otherwise. I am about to purchase a new computer for my sister's family. Her family consists of my sister of course, her husband and 3 female children all under the age of 10. A couple years ago I gave them their first computer running Windows 95 and they've used it extensively for school work, her husband's work, playing games and all the other things the average computer user uses a computer for. Not once have they had a problem with the operating system. Now their computer is pretty dated and I want to get them a new one. So what I want to hear from the Linux community are solid reasons why I should install Linux on their new computer in place of Windows 98. Or for that matter solid reasons why I should install Linux at all, even in a dual boot configuration. If I can be convinced then I will install Linux on their new computer simple as that.
So what will it be?
K.S.