Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Critque in Forbes
Anonymous Coward writes "A recent article in Forbes
does a decent job of understanding open source and offers some suggestions as to why Mozilla is struggling. "
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
It is really interesting to watch the industry. When MS was preoccupied with the DOJ trail there was little FUD from MS friends (PCWeek, Forbes, WUGNET etc). Now since we know that the DOJ trial will do little in changing MS's course the MS marketing masters have started slinging the FUD. (Linux is a small market, OpenSource is following the taillights, etc, etc, etc)
What is really interesting are the comments like I have been using LINUX since (insert year here), but (insert bad comment here)
I myself am a Windows dude, but do UNIX for corporates. Like all the others I have done LINUX (insert year here). However, I have to say that many people just do not get the point of LINUX. The news media and other people expect instant gratification. For example if Mozilla does not succeed within a year, its dead. Now Mozilla is becoming interesting with GECKO and NECKO. LINUX took how many years????
The true innovation of software is not "Push button and watch my icon flap". The true innovation is building systems that work together regardless of the background. There are people from the various OS's working together to solve a problem. For example BSD, Solaris and Linux. Sure they are UNIX's, but they still work together. The folks writing code are united. It is organic development in its coolest form. Sure there will always be binary software. But open source has taught everyone to "think differently"
The true innovation is LINUX, BSD, Apache, Perl and what it has brought. How do I know that this is true innovation? Simple the youth programmers (19-21) do not think in terms of int main()... But they think in Perl Scripts, Linux Add-ons, etc. Many have looked at Windows and said, cool, but that is for the old-geezers. Smells like Cobol to me.
Sure Cobol is still around and many people get paid big bucks, but who would really want to do it. Again, a young friend (19) did COBOL for a summer. Made good money, but then took it off his resume. Why? When the corporates saw COBOL they instantly jumped on that and ignored his other skills.
Sign of the times...
A lot of /. readers tend to agree that Linux does not tailgate Microsoft technologies. Or does it?
Ok, here is where M$ loses and Linux Wins. Enlightenment and GTK Themes. Without a doubt ahead of everybody, including Mac's Kaliedescope. But wait, is there a situation where M$ wins and Linux loses, and where Linux is tring to catch up? Yes.
Put away your flame guns and just listen for once, you Linux wanna-be software designer jerks, lets talk software development. Let's talk CORBA development. Let's talk how KDE and GNOME (which sucks, KDE rocks!) are playing tailgate with M$ technologies. Mainly COM, OLE, ActiveX, etc.... Lets talk about visual developments. Well not M$ tools, but lets talk Borland tools (which also rock, big time!). Let's talk "where is the visual development tools for Linux". Let's talk about "how can I make a custom control?" Let's talk about "how can I visually design an application, and to boot wrap it in a custom control. Boom, suddenly you got all that application's technologies in another program?" Let's talk about Accessing objects dynamically on a machine, locally and remotely.
There are more examples. But the main point is that there are some M$ techonologies that Linux lacks, and those M$ techonologies are not that bad. COM and ActiveX do make increadibly easy and powerful software development on a large scale. And where is this with gcc in an xterm, editing with vi or emacs?? I looked at Glade for GTK, heh, nope, not even close.
I like Linux, and I am not totally pro M$, there is good parts in both worlds (oh god, I would do anything for Borland tools for Linux). But to hear these newbie Linux users who bring nothing but anit-M$ flame with little, or no facts, and then arogantly state that Linux plays tailgate with no one definitly has their head up their ass!! Before bashing M$ technologies, why don't you try them out first. Not all, I repeat, not all are that bad (try Borland tools though, because M$ Visual BASIC and Visual C++ do suck).
Problems with your analysis:
1) the original UNIX operating system was not Open Source. That's why the free UNIX clones don't use any code from the original AT&T UNIX. It was innovative software, but innovative proprietary software.
2) X would qualify, but that's hardly a project of the free software community. It's a collaboration of the major players in the proprietary UNIX software market. It probably was made free because each was scared of the others controlling it. Now XFree86 is a true Free Software project, but it's not really innovative, since it's just based on the X Consortium's specs.
There are several innovative Free Software projects, but the majority are, unfortunately, clones of proprietary software. Linux, FreeCiv, GNUStep, and GPG, just to name a few of the more high-profile clones.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Standard "Open-Source-Can't-Innovate" FUD. Excuse me, but can you say "World Wide Web?" Who is following who's taillights, Jimmy?
This is such popular FUD, I would love to see someone publish a comprehensive refutation of it. I can think of a few open source innovations, I'm sure others can add more: the original UNIX operating system, the IMAP mail system (some will argue that the UW license isn't really open source, but its close enough), the GUI (I think-wasn't the original X open sourceish?), hrmrmmm it's actually harder than I thought to come up with true innovations that are open source, but I'm not that knowledgeable...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Moral: It may be that programmers will happily craft code for open software that doesn't belong to any one company--the Linux operating system or free Apache for Web servers--but they balk at helping the Netscapes of the world get richer.
As we all know, this is somewhat inaccurate. I, for example, would have been more than willing to help Mozilla were it not for the fact that the code they just dumped on us wouldn't even compile, much less work. The code they released was pure and utter crap. You can't polish a turd. Now, if they'd funded an effort to write a completely new browser from scratch, I think that'd have worked a hell of a lot better for them. Or, at the very least, they could have released some functional sourcecode (i.e. Netscape 4.0 for Linux final build); at least give us something that we can run through gdb and fix the bugs in first before trying to extend functionality, yaknow?
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
Open Source is based on the premise that any person can take a WORKING piece of software, add a small piece or bug fix, and end up with a WORKING piece of software. If the source isn't working, or is too complicated to add a feature quickly, most hackers will toss it aside.
Word to OSS projects -- always make sure your "current" developers release runs, and keep an arcitecture that is simple and easy to understand and pick up. Unfortunately, none of the ambitious web browser projects (Mnemonic and Mozilla) have followed either of these. Thus, they are failing.
-- Bob
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
Put away your flame guns and just listen for once, you Linux wanna-be software designer jerks, lets talk software development /. post intelligent comments. Many free-software programmers create excellent software. I find the tone of your comment derogatory and offensive.
. html, again contributing OpenPart components would be of infinitely more benefit than ignorant babble.
Many posters here are at
Let's talk how KDE and GNOME (which sucks, KDE rocks!)
I have been contributing to KDE for a few months now, and there is nothing I hate more than hearing "GNOME sucks". You discredit both projects with such mindless and destructive advocacy.
Let's talk "where is the visual development tools for Linux".
You may be interested in KDevelop http://www.cs.unipotsdam.de/~smeier/kdevelop/ "an easy to use IDE (Integrated Development Enviroment) for Unix/X11". Perhaps contributing to such a project would do more good than destructive criticism.
Let's talk about "how can I make a custom control?"
You may be interested in OpenParts http://developer.kde.org/openparts/html/openparts
Let's talk about... locally and remotely.
Again see the above technologies.
COM and ActiveX do make increadibly easy and powerful software development on a large scale
Incorrect, COM is not suitable for large scale deployment. Hence the development of COM+ and MTS, for more information I suggest you read "How Microsoft Transaction Server Changes the COM Programming Model" by David Chappell in the January '98 edition of Microsoft Systems Journal (a good mag) which states "it's arguable whether COM makes creating software a whole lot easier. In particular, building powerful COM servers can be daunting."
Before bashing M$ technologies, why don't you try them out first. Not all, I repeat, not all are that bad
Though it may seem suprising, despite the fact that I develop free software for *nix my day job is as a Windows Programmer. I expend considerable effort to ship products on time in an enviroment that is closed and hence hostile towards productivity.
The prettiest IDE is not substitue for the source.
The stuff at PARC never took off, it was apple that MADE it a reality after getting permission from Xerox. Two fundamental components of real innovation: Risk and Effort. While Xerox spent a fair sum on their R&D they were afraid to move on the fruits it bore. But none of the projects were anything close to marketable. It was apple that put it all on the line and -WORKED- to make the GUI a reality for the consumer.
The article was incomplete, in that it failed to mention JWZs lamenting the fact that Nutscrape didn't provide the sourceware community with a working product from which to base its efforts.
Linux, Apache, and (F|N|O)BSD, GNUtils, and the like weren't put together in a day, and didn't face the hurdles of tons of legacy cruft to wade through, incomplete subsystems (okay, in the case of 4.4BSD a lot had to be re-implemented), and a general glut of poorly designed and poorly documented spaghetti to wade through. JWZ was correct. Software is hard. Starting from scratch is sometimes easier than maintaining/patching an incomplete, non-working codebase.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
Yes, it's been a year since the Mozilla project began, and no, there's no Mozilla 5.0 yet. Yes, Netscape was horsing around in the early days, and released 4.5 before comitting to Mozilla seriously and wasted 6 months. Yes, there are only around 30 people outside Netscape who work on Mozilla.
So what? That's a 1/3 increase in the developer base, for free. It's still a success in terms of money, even if it hasn't taken off as a major open source project.
As for you idiots spouting off about Netscape releasing "crap", try looking at the code recently. Mozilla IS a brand-new browser; very little of the code remains from 4.x at this point. The reason Mozilla 5.0 is not yet released is because Mozilla 5.0 has only been in the works for 6 months!
The first 6 months were, granted, wasted. That was a mistake, and an acknoledged one (by jwz at least.) The days when you can write a modern respectable web browser in six months went out with Navigator 1.0, however, so give them some time. They're moving quickly with it, and for what Mozilla 5.0 offers they're moving damned fast.
I know this is probably too much to ask, but if you don't understand the software engineering process or the way businesses look at the open source model, then please just stay quiet. You can't run around calling things like Mozilla a failure until they bust.