Slashdot Mirror
Linux Community vs. Linux Industry
RC Pavlicek
writes "An opinion about the notion that the Linux community must be sacrificed to expand the Linux industry. 'The concept that the Linux community must cease in order for the Linux industry to grow is utter twaddle.'
" (Russ Pavlicek, who wrote this, is one of the most outstanding
Linux advocates I've ever met. Well worth reading.)
Ok, I totally agree with your last argument about administrators and the like.
But I think you may have misintrepreted my post, I wasn't saying that it was ok to flame people, I just wanted to stress the fact that some people are doing some very good and effective promotion for Linux. We don't have the money for adds in the papers, so these advocates are doing a good job.
I'll keep the DIY-advice at my heart in the future!
(Same coward)
This term is thrown about slashdot all the time, yet seems to have no definite meaning at all.
People here seem to dichotomize linux "users" as either "PHB's" or "members of the community". How silly is that?
Firstly, don't make the mistake of associating the slashdot posting crowd with the linux "community". Some slashdot people live outside the linux sphere, and most of them couldn't even locate the source code on their own systems.
Secondly, there are quite a few "PHB's" who have made substantial contributions to the linux codebase and documentation.
Thirdly, with millions of linux users out there, its simply idiotic to pigeonhole them.
Its just an operating system folks. It isn't a spiritual movement. For those of you who think it is, try reading some books that aren't published by O'Reilly. Broaden your persepctives.
Read the thread....it started with the statement that DOS is no longer sold. It IS still sold in a number of flavors.
As far as PC-DOS 2000 being Y2K compliant, well that's a hell of a lot more than can be said for MS-DOS, NT4, Win 95 and Win 98.
Is people jumping on the linux "bandwagon", people who want to seem all cool and geeky and use linux, then become fanatical about it. Or the anti-everything people, to whom all closed source, corporations, microsoft products are just the work of the devil. It is a set of software that runs an unintelligent machine that responds to some commands to issue into it by whatever means to prefer, it is not a new way to experience Nirvana. Open-source is cool, but open source didnt start and wont end with linux, it has been around longer than linux (long live Emacs) and will continue to exist even after Linus and fellows get tired of writing new kernels. The most damaging aspect I see are the fanatic people in the "linux community" who seem like they are willing to die for source code, and the so called pundits in the media who really know little of linux intrinsically yet rant, rave and praise it beyond comprehension. Neither group are doing much to make linux any more stable or do much in the way of improving it. They are the ones Joe Average sees on TV of reads about then pictures all linux users as such, which makes them all look rather silly. It's these types that tend to make the linux "industry" clash with the "community", at least thats what I've seen. Someone releases a program in linux but heaven save us from the closed source devils, oh know it's time for some prayers to the gods of open source. Geez, get a grip. People need to make money to do basic things like eat in our society. I would pay for a closed source linux program if it was worth the money, partially because it's something I need and second it's a respect thing, they have a good idea thats useful to you so you support them by buying what they make. Whats so wrong with that? When they start pressuring companies to only use their product and ignore all other alternatives, then you can complain. The linux "industry" still helps out where fanatic ranters do not, they learn to do things with the OS that some people may have never thought of, the open nature of hte kernel means they can make a very stable and secure product, make suggestions on development to the elder gods of kernal hacking, donate money to open source projects which benefit them, help develop for open source projects. This is all being done by someone somewhere. Fanaticism also leads to letting yourself become blind to alternatives, only using open source, only using GNOME or KDE, or the like. These all make you blind to the credits of the alternative. All fanatics must die.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
That community is a new word doesn't mean it has no meaning! The community is all the people that contribute to the community, by generating bug-reports, doing testing, reading source codes, argue over design decissions, write documentation and even make fonts! The community is you!
i think, member is anyone who feels like member. :) (a count myself as lazy linux advocate, as linux user and as linux administrator).
membersip in linux community is not about taking advantage of membership. it's about supporting the whole idea.
there are no rights because of being a member of linux community - [using/contributing to] linux is a favor, not a right.
you can get or reject a gift. but you can't claim right to dictate something to someone who gives it to you.
hany
while community is about you it does not matter what other (corporate, industry, other communities, politicians, ...) think/do about it (as long as they are not violating your rights).
hany
Well...no, actually.
:-)
Linux has both a technically advanced (in the sense of 'having lots of useful features') text UI & a number of technically rather advanced GUIs.
Textwise, you can use bash, csh, ksh, etc. - all of which provide tremendously groovy task management, customisation and extensibility via scripts.
For more mousey types, the X window system provides a powerful client server architecture unrivalled by the likes of NT or MacOS (I presume it was these to which you were offering a comparison) which plays host to a variety of GUIs offering customisation, ease of use and innovation.
Also, you get a third mouse button - which has got to be better, no?
-- Stu
Apple HATED the knock-offs like the Franklin and pineapple.
Part of Jobs pitch to the board was that the Macintosh was clone-proof.
At least ONE of theoriginal Apple crew (the ones that signed the case) had commented at the time 'what makes the Mac is the software. We are a software company who happens to make hardware....follow the software model->spread it everwhere, licence!' Alas, the board listened to Jobs
(did ya know if you call Jobs a Cartoon Marker the rabid Mac users get upset?)
Look. I understand your sentiment, and while I can tell you are an insightful person (you have to be otherwise your post wouldn't have scored '2' right?), but you are wrong in this instance.
/. and debian mailing lists, and know me to be both a regular guy and a law student (soon to be lawyer).
Some people have seen me posting on
While I can understand your sentiment about lawyers (not liking them), your statement that we have "no valuable skills" is just plain wrong.
What you don't realize is that we have very similar skills. We both are experts in rule sets.
You are an expert in computer rules. I am an expert in government rules. Plain and simple.
Our expertises are implemented in different but complimentary ways. You program something that provides someone with a useful computer service. I advise the programmer as what he or she wants to do with what he or she has produced (i.e., the present legal implications of the production).
I did not create these government rules. I merely memorized them and then understood them for what they are. I have done nothing more than this. In one sense you are right, we do not produce anything, neither do doctors. If someone (or something) sues you we will produce legal documents that advocate legal positions in your defense. You are wrong when you say we have no valuable skills. The only way to get rid of lawyers would be to get rid of governments and social rules. If that were to happen, I would gladly move to Humbolt County California and start cultivating my horticultural talents (think GREEN). (Open Source, Open Mind, Open Universe)
I can completely understand how and why your sentiments have arisen. The reason is not because the concept of 'lawyer' or 'advocate' is flawed. Rather it is because the manner in which our capitalistic system has evolved has created an atmosphere where valuable services must be horded and protected to retain market dominance.
The net result is that fewer people receive the services. In most cases, people do even receive services at all. These things called corporations that we inhereted from jolly-old England have become the main beneficiaries of the legal profession. This obviously must change.
Would your sentiments change if lawyers and government rules experts adopted some of the practices that have benefited the open source community?
What about an LDP (Legal Documentation Project)? Sounds useful. Is there a likelihood that lawyers will start participating in such a project in masse? Not likely so long as no one takes a leadership role much like LT did. However, once a strong leader emerges no one will be speculating and people will be wreaping the benefits of such services.
In other words, lawyers have built a culture of elitism around their profession. I hate elitism as much as the next nerd (unless the elitism is a merit based hierarchy in which case I agree with it [I think]).
Finally, your view is wrong but your sentiment is understandable. Lawyers do provide a valuable service, but the anger towards them is really a relfection of all of our frustration against the system of government rules we have allowed to invade our lives. All we have to do is change the rules. I believe the internet will arise as a virtual world. It will be a model of ideal society. If developed carefully, we can replace our actual rules with the model rules.
Apple HATED the knock-offs like the Franklin and pineapple.
There's a nice jog to the memory! I remember all the legal stuff going around about the ROMs in the Ace. I should qualify my previous statements a bit!
The Apple][ was open from the standpiont of third party add-ons and was cloned in spite of Apple.
Speaking of BIOS, you also reminded me of those funny notices in the first clone BIOS chips for the PC "NOT Copyright 1984 IBM Corp." or something to that effect.
The Linux community is a community because it choses to be. We all hop out on the net at 12pm after the evening news is over and fetch the latest tarball for this and that and happily compile some new software we've been watching the development of for a while now then happily go to bed. In the morning we tell our friends on IRC (or wherever) about this new tidbit. That creates community. We could choose to keep to ourselves, close all our source code, and hide in a ditch, but then none of us would benefit. So we choose to be a community. The Linux community could try and fall apart, but we'd all lose too much and just rally together again. It's better this way, and nothing can tear the community apart. (except maybe distro wars :)
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
The community is you!
But I could be anybody.
I never understand why people say "Platform X failed because their advocates are such Assholes!" I mean, the only place you see OS advocates is if you go to a flamey place like comp.*.advocacy or slashdot, and then you basically asking for trouble. It's not like OS advocates are running around keying your car or stealing your girlfriend or anything like that.
I see you've never encountered Mac advocates in the real world. Imagine an obnoxious religious fanatic, multi-level marketer and EST salesperson all rolled into one.
Not that I'm doubting these other reasons why the Mac failed (they are all valid reasons), but this type of blind fanaticism seems reserved for failed products. OS/2, Amiga, anyone? Will Linux be next?
Being a corporate type myself (but with a broad technical background), I can't emphasize enough how damaging excessive advocacy is.
Or put it another way, Microsoft didn't succeed because of fanaticism. They succeeded because they listened to corporate types, and made sure they could put a little check mark next to each little box on the R.F.P.
Isn't that the point?
Membership in ANY community is largely self-selecting: you are a member if you believe you are, as long as the other people who believe themselves to be members don't kick you out.
Yes I know Mac Zealots in the real world. I just avoid discussing computers with them. Plenty of other things to talk about. The corporate Mac users I've known usually have a legitimate gripe. Like one place that removed everyones Macs in the middle of the night and replaced them with slower PCs and then told them to open their Illustrator files in CorelDraw. Call it Anti-Mac advocacy.
The ongoing challenge of corporate MIS departments is to provide solutions. When you've got someone there yelling "Product X sucks! Use Product Y!", you've got someone with different interests, and it's just best to get the hell out of their way. And you're right about Microsoft - if someone says they've got a problem, Microsoft will try to build a solution for it.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
If that's the case then this whole "community" vs "non-community" argument is truly ridiculous.
I thought with MS it was a community of victims--you know, sort of a support group.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
You seem to have left out the Trilateral Commission and Bilderburg (not to mention Area 51, the Kaballah, and whatever Nosteradamus and Edger Cacey had to say about Linux).
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
If you want to write software you can make money on, come up with a killer app or three for the iMac and have it in the stores in time for next Christmas. A lot of first-time users who went with iMac's should be about ready to broaden their horizons about then.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
You left out another category where cottage industries can't compete. Need a hint? Mosey over to your local airport. See that big metal tube that holds 300+ people? Ah, now you've caught my point.
There are some systems that are so complex and require so much specialized knowledge that a cottage industry can't compete. I for one would never fly on a commercial aircraft produced by cottage industry.
This has nothing to do with producing mass quantities either. How many Concordes did the British and French build?
This does have some applicability to software. Joe Hacker cutting code in his basement isn't going to have the resources to perform usability testing or reach a non-computer literate audience. That's going to require the resources of a corporation. Try licensing Snoopy or some other piece of intellectual property. Again, a corporation (unless you happen to be a lawyer/hacker).
Do anal-retentive people hyphenate 'anal retentive'?
Had Apple kept things open like the Apple][, instead of having 100% of a 3% market share, they could have had 10% - 20% of a 50% or better market share. They were killed by (justifiable) fear of vendor lock-in. The PC had lock-in on the OS, but the Mac extended it to hardware as well.
IBM made the same attempt to grab a lock-in with microchannel, and look where it got them. They have only recently made a real return to the PC market by dropping MCA and returning to the world of open (more or less) hardware.
It's sad when the better technology looses out because of 'stupid suit tricks'.
The Linux community is the antithesis of lock-in. The Community must be careful to keep itself several arm's lengths away from any stupid suit tricks from the 'Linux Industry'
Too bad that isn't going to happen because so many people contributed to the kernel. You would have to buy out thousands of developers, each of whom probably have convictions.
In other words, it isn't happening. Linux is going to stay free.
Duh. I saw MS-DOS along with it's upgrade being sold yesterday. PC-DOS (from IBM) is still being sold and a new version: PC-DOS 2000 is out....check: http://www.software.ibm.com/os/dos/
And don't forget DR. DOS.
"Joe Hacker cutting code in his basement isn't going to have the resources to perform usability testing or reach a non-computer literate audience. That's going to require the resources of a corporation"
Really? Can you _prove_ that this is so? Simply stating an opinion doesn't make it fact.
I know of at least one software house where useability testing was given short shrift. At least in one of their flagship products: "OK to abort, Cancel to Debug". I suspect Joe Hacker would have the *common sense* to launch the debugger on "ok" and abort on "cancel". There are many other examples. (trust me...)
But what do I know. I am only a stupid graduate student, out of touch with the real world, whatever that is.
I liked it. I'm a journalist (well, sort of), and I'm sick of hearing that such and such is a market leader in advanced thermo-nuclear design blah blah blah.
If it's twattle, it's twattle. Why not call it like it is?
Not everyone in the debian camp has an rtfm attitude, although lately, this has certainly been more prevalent.
As for "hardcore" types, if you think you get to be "hardcore" by using a cli vice using a gui, well, we have no further basis for discussion.
I personally agree with Linus on user space issues. I don't know him personally, but I did hear him say (with my own ears) that user space is where all the interesting action is.
As it stands right now, I am back on NT and win32. Yes it's grotesque, and devstudio is not very fun, but I care about my customers and unix/mac/etc has market share of measure zero in that community. You see, they have work to do. They don't give a shit about command lines. They need stuff like spreadsheets. And I don't mean sc, siag, gnumeric, etc. I mean excel or quattro. You install, type in your billable hours, and print it for payroll.
It's WAY cheaper for me to spend a couple of grand a year on MS than it is for me to say, hack printing into gnome.
It's not just ignorant to think that all users should be hacking their own code, it's stupid to think that. Some users need to be redesigning that bridge you drive over every day, the one that s gonna go down in the next earthquake. Get my point?
Here's another: My five years of residential construction makes e uniquely qualified to state that no one that does not build their own house deserves to live indoors. If you didn't build it yourself, get out. Get out now. You don't deserve to live indoors.
As much as I really loathe MS, I really do understand that the unix community, with their rtfm heads up their asses, handed the desktop over to MS, with pleasure. And now sooooo many of those same people now have to admin NT boxes. My heart just pumps piss for these folks.
Ignore user space, and you are d-e-a-d bubba.
Have a nice day.
And probably wrong.
Read what Linus has to say about just this issue. Not that he's right, but the design of linux will surely reflect his belief in what constitutes viable and interesting technology. And as a (l)user myself, I appreciate the rising interest in user-space.
Some of us think Microsoft is shit, and always have, for longer than Linux has been around even. It's inevitable that many of us that have found fault in Microsoft products all these years would gravitate to some alternative (Linux, Be, Mac, Atari, Amiga).
However, this is not tantamount to calling Linux perfect (as many might claim). Microsoft is just not the entity to steal inspiration from.
This is also different from discounting all the third parties that gives Win32 it's real utility.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
uh...I'm a rabid Mac user and that doesn't upset me. Then again, random babbling rarely does.
Well thought out piece of work, though I feel it could have been expanded upon somewhat more, if just a little bit.. *shrug*
:)
Do we have a public repository for articles like this btw? It would be nice to look back 5 years from now at all the crap Free Speech had to go through relative to open source and the real ideaology of the network..
I refuse to say 'first post'.
Oh, whoopsie.
My feeling is that Linux is Linux and it will continue, unabated, in the presence or absence of business. That a cluster of businesses gather in its wake doesn't matter.
Sure, it will be nice if business continues to flock to Linux and helps it grow into a credible competitor for the desktop... But, if the Linux community ignores business and continues toward its "organic" destiny, will it matter? Isn't the solid foundation, independence, and openess of Linux the *reason* it is attactive to business in the first place?
I like this kind of inspirational article but I don't think that the challenges that inspire them are much more than wishful thinking from the minds that standardized business on Microsoft products.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
The author raises a rather important point. At the moment, Linux development can be compared with a cottage industry with all the charm of custom design and individual craftmanship. Can it evolve into the formal processes of mass production for a consumer market? This is a tough call as it pits the love and talent invested into a hand-made Rolls-Royce compared with need for testing and production control needed for an assembly-line model.
The spirit of hacking is exploring new heights and creating elegant structures. It is a beguilding song, speaking against shoddy software engineering and praising open source feedback. But who controls this dialog? Does the story-tellers shape the audience or are they slaves to the fans? Would Linux be changed by imposing the legal contracts and compelled performance of the almighty dollar? Or can the two coexist peacefully?
The software industry is a complex beast, ranging from the complete free source, to the patented intellectual property. For OpenSource to succeed in mainstream, it has to offer a superior business model than existing solutions. To a large extent, the OS is invisible to end-users as what people are interested in are the services that live on top. Linux may offer more stable platform at a lower cost but unless independent software vemdors see a viable market (and that means a financial justification for porting), then it will remain marginalised compared with Windows or even Java.
LL
There are plenty of people developing who would fit the bill. Since Linus isn't a threat no one's mobilizing.
A large-scale movement that succeeds in NOT eating itself...
Cool.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
I think it's clear that the "linux community" is important, since that's where much of the R&D for the Linux model comes from.
However, I must say that the biggest drag on Linux becoming successful are the radical elements of the community, who frothingly bash Microsoft and drool over Linux. Any reasonable person knows that there are some great elements of Microsoft's software, and there some elements of Linux that totally suck.
To a great extent, it's the Mac advocacy that killed the Macintosh in corporate America. What normal person wants to be affiliated with those people? In it's day, it blew away Win 3.1, yet Windows was perceived as more "professional". Nowadays, the Mac has the most technically primitive OS sold today (DOS isn't sold anymore), yet the advocacy still lives in 1984.
Make no mistake -- the Linux community is important, but the Linux radicals must be excised as soon as possible.
I was drawn to the linux world because of the community that exists around it. I haven't contributed yet, but it is my intention to, once I understand things better. I want to share with everyone else what I can, to become part of this greater whole.
The community is what makes linux strong. We supply a great deal of man hours and expertese that contributes to a solid system. The open competition that we engage in gives the users features that they want, and the cooperation on protocols and how systems interact give flexibilty unheard of in other systems.
I believe that any business that forgets this will flounder or fail. Traditional business models are incapable of dealing with the growing rate of change that is taking place in the world. Y2K is hiding this fact from many managers, but once next January is over, and all of the projects that have been on hold start being requested, there will be a flood of changes.
There are lots of oppurtunities for making money in the linux world, and the growth that is possible is amazing. As businesses start using linux there is large systems that need to be integrated and redeveloped. Support, training, development, are simply a few of the possible oppurtunities. What about changing business policies to fit the new international commerce arena? Best practices need to be modified, cultural understandings need to be developed, processes need to be completely rearranged.
The linux community, and the talent, passion, and dedication of that community is what makes linux great. We continue to scratch itches and grow. Once business managers, and any other PHBs out there, understand this, and allow us to take pride in what we do, the strength of the systems that we develop at work will start to match linux.
The only thing that'd bother me is who would take over. I hope that Linus has put it into his will so that at least there wouldn't be squabbles, or just everybody releasing their own version..
Maybe they'll all gang together into a core team style thing, as that would be cool. Even so, I think Linus could nominate a maintainer, such as Alan, and then if he did get blown up, it'd be easier and save us a couple of weeks sorting it out
There already exists an example of a 'community' come business. The Macintosh.
/.ers and the rabid GNU/Linux camp.
The history of the Mac is 'well' written about, and you can judge it for yourself.
Is Love right? Mostly yes. But, a community AND business can co-exist. To use the word MUST is WHY this will raise the ire of
In order for linux to gain widespread acceptance in industry, linux zealots are going to have to accept some comprimises they have yet to accept - namely, linux is not always the best tool for the job, and most business users really don't care about all the retarded flame wars like BSD vs GPL, KDE vs GNOME, etc.
> At the moment, Linux development can be compared
> with a cottage industry with all the charm of
> custom design and individual craftmanship. Can
> it evolve into the formal processes of mass
> production for a consumer market?
There is nothing wrong with `cottage industries'. They clearly produce superior products in every catagory: in use, flexibility, tuned to individual user needs, and desire for craftsmanship and individual expression, in both craftsman and the contracting consumer.
The only area where cottage industry falls down is in making large quantities of products. Hence the need to replace superior cottage industry technologies with the forced conformity of mass production. However, this limitiation applies only to physical world products; software production is not so limited. It is the first technology to come along where mass quantities of a cottage industry can be produced and distributed, without the straightjacket of mass production techniques.
The issue isn't community vs. business, it's whether Linux can afford the luxury of continuing to be power user/hacker-centric, instead of user-centric. If many of the more vocal (and obnoxious) members of the Linux community get their way, Linux will stay much as it is, never get beyond a few percentage points of the mainstream desktop market, and MS and Windows will own the world for the foreseeable future.
But that won't happen. Either businesses will step in and make Linux more user friendly, or the community will wake up and do it first. It's up to the community to decide between expanding their vision enough to meet the needs of a very different user base well enough to maintain control of the platform, or sitting back and sniping at Windows and Mac users and the big bad companies, and letting IBM, HP, Compaq, Oracle, and many others, exploit open source to force Linux to provide what they want.
Either way, it will happen, and now's the time for the community to decide whether it will lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Pavlicek make the greatest analogy saying people may think of the Linux industry about the Linux community: "now that a plant has leaves and berries, we can simply cut off those gnarled, unattractive roots." As he points out - that would be suicide. Linux grows only because of the community that feeds the market by producing code that adapts to the needs of those using Linux.
Terrific point of view.
In some senses the "Linux Community" isn't real but merely the latest incarnation of a community of instinctive engineers (aka "hackers") whose members, and fields of interest, come and go with time.
In the 1900s we would have been flyers, in the 1920s we would have been radio operators, in the 1930s we would have been experimental rocketeers, in the 1960s and 1970s some of us were building electronic devices. I hope in the near future we will be nanotechs.
The point is that "this too shall pass". The "Linux Industry" will end up "taking over" but only because we will have voluntarily moved on to more exciting and cutting edge areas. It is illogical to worry about the inevitable. Put that energy into new hacks instead.
By your argument, you could say that Microsoft has a community of users. Which is true I suppose, but it is in no way the same kind of community of users as Linux has.
The significant difference between the Linux development model and the MacIntosh development model is that Linux is OPEN. At the time that the Mac came out, IBM was still using DOS. The Mac OS was way ahead. Apple failed to gain a foothold because they kept all of their software development in-house. They did that for supposed "quality control" reasons, but the fact is it limited the amount of applications available drastically.
IBM, on the other hand, let others develop the code for their PC, and had many applications very quickly. That's why IBM got all the market share. The Mac technology was good, and there are several usability aspects about the Mac that I like. The Mac is still not too bad, but the whole idea that MacOS was developed in a community anything like Linux is hogwash.
Linux has taken the whole idea of opening up development to another level. Instead of merely supplying independent developers with the tools to develop applications, Linus has given the tools to work on the OS itself, and to see the actual source of the OS. Had either Apple or Microsoft done this, it's entirely possible that their OS's would have been a rock solid operating system by now. They have a huge installed base and they have a lot of problems in their code that could have been fixed rapidly when they were discovered. A lot of people use their OS. A lot of those people are coders who get sick of blue screens and freezes and are clever enough to fix the problem, and would have, given the tools to do so.
But the history of the Mac doesn't even come close to the history of Linux. Where Apple (and Microsoft) chose to keep stuff closed, Linux opened it up. That's what makes Linux special.
The men who hold high places must be the ones who start to mold a new reality... closer to the heart - RUSH
I thought with MS it was a community of victims--you know, sort of a support group.
I agree. In the Windows community you mostly see things like "how do I avoid this bug?" and "I wish MS would..."
The Linux community is more like "Here is a fix for the bug where..." and "Linux really needs ___ here is an alpha implementation of it.
Real communities are able to plan their own future, not simply react to someone elses plans (or lack thereof).
Well, there's little question that the needs and wants of the Linux community and the needs and wants of the Linux industry are divergent, and that this is a problem if you're trying to sell Linux.
Successful commercial software is customer-driven; it has to be -- even if you're Microsoft you can't _make_ customers buy totally crappy software. This leads to all the things about commercial software that the Linux community decries -- galloping featuritis, "dumbed down" user interfaces, wizards that lead the user by the hand through even simple tasks in baby talk. But that's what _sells_. Various flavors of Unix have been available for desktop platforms for decades, and they've always been the choice of a small minority regardless of price.
Why? Because Unix has always been presented as the World's Greatest Operating System, take it or leave it, we aren't about to change it to make it easier to use, or even change the almost universally lousy Unix documentation to make it possible to find out how to do what you need to do without knowing how to do it in the first place, or else memorizing two volumes of small print. Unix sold badly. This is not coincidental.
The same set of attitudes seems to prevail in the Linux community (whatever that is), and they can be summarized as the expectation that the customer will adapt to the operating system rather than the other way around. Ain't gonna happen. It's as simple as that, as fifteen years of trying to market Unix-on-the-desktop, with or without a GUI, go to show. I don't really care what the reasons for those attitudes are, as long as they persist Linux, like Unix, will remain a minority choice for desktop users.
Hitler had to get rid of the SA, because they were to fanatical and out of control; much like the linux community today. I'm not saying that we need a "Night of the Long Knives" or any thing similar, but the fanactics are killing the Linux Community's image in the eye of the public. A little known OS known as OS/2 had the same problem and it eventually fell from light. I don't want to see the same thing happen to Linux, but as history has shown us; it will happen.
-- Vance Palodichuk vtpalodichuk@bigfoot.com http://www.bigfoot.com/~vtpalodichuk/
no thanks, ill spend my time reading something
written by someone with an emotional age over 7.
As an external observer I'm afraid that the Linux community has created a different form of lock-in: the GNU public license. This is a real show-stopper for commercial software developers. Linux had the chance to become the one free OS everyone could have agreed on, but religious zeal and a questionable political agenda prevented this. Thank you, FSF.
There is no lock-in there. If you decide to move to other software, you will have no problems BECAUSE of the GPL (the data formats are public knowledge). If you want to write a closed source app for Linux, you can. All of the standard libraries are LGPL meaning non-free software may link with them. Linux exports an API that has no license terms at all, you just use it! Where is the show stopper?
GPL is much like other licenses from your perspective. You can freely source license the code to an app you want to incorperate into your product. Like any other license, there is a price for that (if you don't believe me, call MS and ask them the price to obtain and use some of their code for your product). In GPL, the price just happens to be that your code must be GPL. Of course in the MS example, you would pay money AND agree to their license terms (that is, no GPL, BSD, etc licensing). You MAY also have the option to license the source from the author (or authors) under a different license for a fee. As in all licensing, that's at the discression of the author.
In summary, under GPL, you are GUARENTEED the ability to use the source, but you are not guarenteed to like the terms. With a proprietary license you have no source guarentees at all.
The real show stopper for commercial apps on Linux (if indeed there is one) is the stiff competition from GPL authors who are willing to give the customer quality apps under a friendly license. If quality competition and consumer preferance is a show-stopper, perhaps that show shouldn't be produced! That's how competition works.
I learned to program Fortran by using a keypunch
...
and a card reader hooked up to an Univac 1100.
I never mistook the card reader for ther computer.
I moved on to use a PDP-11 running UNIX, installed
from a tape someone drove down from New Jersey.
I never mistook the terminal I typed into as the
computer.
Fast-forward 20 years. 40% of all AOL users only
use their computer for AOL. While they don't use
the word "terminal" for the thing in the den that
dials up AOL, for all intents and purposes, it is
just a terminal. And the computer that terminal
connects to runs UNIX.
What happens on the desktop is really not
consequential at this point, people -- with
every passing year, more and more of what
really matters to users is going to be in a
glass house somewhere, and if its not running
UNIX, its more likely to be running VM or MVS
that NT
Jus sayin'
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
There's something Interesting going on with all these marketing and lawyer fellows that like to make lotsa dire predictions about linux, how it's going to fail, etc. This is going to be a bit long, but bear with me please. It's bound to be interesting to us also.
People who are in marketing, lawyers, top-bosses, IT "journalists", etc, are really doing nothing. Actually, some, the more smart of them, actually know that they don't have a single valuable skill. They're like leeches, feeding off the work of those who really DO work, and --in our case-- like our work.
The thing is that they have to maintain this illusion of "work" in order to keep doing it. I mean, who wouldn't like to be propped up, made to feel like an important, knowledgeble, valuble person? It must be a heady feeling. And expensive also. Specially if your "work" doesn't actually produce anything. Nothing. Zip.
Then comes this new paradigm, which requires no money at all to enter, just true knowledge, or at least love of knowledge, true work; an expanded mind so to speak. It's only natural that they should fear it, after all, they know that they don't have anything to offer, that their lack of knowledge and work will become apparent if this new paradigm will become widespread.
Be prepared for lawyers, marketeers, "journalists", and the rest of their ilk to mount a fierce fight against this new way of life. Be prepared to fight leeches of all levels who are comfortable doing nothing, against this new form of enlightenment, where true ethics, and work, and knowledge, are the things to look for.
How many work in places where your bosses know nothing of the work that's done? How many actually respect your bosses as human beings and professionals? Very little, I suppose. It's the same everywhere. They are the ones who are gonna get purged, if this new paradigm takes hold.
But then again, maybe I'm mad, and these are just my rantings. But I do believe that this movement kicked into overdrive by Linux is much more important and pervasive than just the OS and computer arena; it can extend to every aspect of our lives, and to other's lives, if we know how to extend it.
Good luck fellow warriors.
>or become the very thing we struggle against.
/.
That hits the nail right on the head. This is damn good article. However, Pavlicek is much too kind when he states that the "concept that the Linux community must cease in order for the Linux industry to grow is utter twaddle."
The most powerful, and most dangerous, thing about Linux is that it adds and distributes real new wealth to the future world without creating new debt, and in its wake it creates a new prospect for freedom. If it succeeds, it also contains the seed for an idea that could destroy our modern debt-based war-based financial architecture.
This is not just flame bait, or bashing on our federal reserve system, which is a cartel of private banks all owned by British royals, and which collects interest for lending American currency as all new wealth is created and brought into the American marketplace. But that is exactly the idea of Mr. Ransom Love (ransom love?) of Caldera. He would surrender the creative impulse and love of freedom of this productive, struggling, innovative and sensitive community to the industrial [read financial] sector. This is more than utter twaddle. If that happens, the linux marketplace will go the way of other global "American" markets, and the creative persons, who create the endless stream of actual wealth new society may enjoy (be it linux gnu or cold fusion gnu or whatever), these creative persons will in effect become techno-slaves to the so-called "industrial" [read wall street financial] sector, which will gladly take their parasitic interest by issuance of a corresponding but fictitious currency for circulation in the linux-gnu marketplace. (Advances in technology are always deflationary, and new currency must be continuosly emitted for settlement on transfers of newly created wealth and to pay interest owed on creation of prior wealth and emission of prior currencies. The question is, why are the persons who are smart enough to create new wealth and bring it to market not also smart enough to settle their transactions with their own correspondingly created currency?)
At least in this community, they are smart enough to not place themselves under the thumb of financial parasites. To trade the wealth they have created for a borrowed currency. Forget microsoft. For each CD of linux which is distributed, i.e. for each box of NT that remains on the shelf, the federal reserve also misses out on the issuance of new currency. It does not get to lend the new currency that would otherwise have been *created by the sale* of a new box of NT.
Wealth is not a bank account, or more specifically, a non-existant borrowed currency, in a fictitious bank account, in a ficititious bank, is not wealth.
In a generic sense, linux (+ hardware) is real wealth. It is an actual thing which is beneficial and good used by people.
There will always be parasites trying to weasel into any community which organizes itself for the spontaneous creation of new wealth, such as the one created by the linux gnu. If the linux community chooses the wrong leaders, and allows itself to be subsumed by enchanting baubles and borrowed trinkets of what Mr. Ransom Love calls the "industrial community," it will become demoralized, decadent and lose its creativity, and the entire product concept will die. This cannot happen.
Hence the power of the gnu
What a sad piece of fluff. A community is a community is a community. No matter if they code device drivers or freeware games. (I prefer the latter, btw).
the only diference between linux comunity and flower/fruit tree is that those "gnarled, unattractive roots" (community) are more inteligent than those of plant :)
hany
Pavlicek cites a quote from a market analyst abou the need for the community to transform itself.
What the "market analyst" was really saying was that in order for him to get hired as a Linux market analyst, there have to be companies doing Linux business.
Of course, most end users don't really care where the software comes from. They just want to use it. The purpose of software is to be used, it does not exist so that programmers and market analysists can get work. If it can be done without the existence of a "Linux industry," well, that's how it will be done. If major publishers can provide enhancements or applications that people will voluntarily pay for, well, that's good too.
As long as the number of users keeps growing at a healthy pace, it means the users are satisfied. It doesn't matter whether anybody's making money providing the software, what matters is that it's being provided.
The Linux industry needs the Linux community a lot more than the other way around!
Millville, NJ Cape May, NJ Fulshear, TX and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia all lost power today (that's all I know of). And SETI@Home was hacked by aliens.
PLease tell me if you know of any other power failures. And be sure before you say.
Is Love right? Mostly yes. But, a community AND business can co-exist. To use the word MUST is WHY this will raise the ire of /.ers and the rabid GNU/Linux camp.
I forewarn you, this will probably look like rabid Gnulie ranting. It's still true:
The difference between these two communities: Macintosh users depend utterly on Apple to produce the hardware and the software that makes the community up. The community grew out of the product. Apple kicks the bucket, and Mac users are left with something worth less than an Amiga. This simply isn't the case with Linux.
I've used Linux since before anything even resembling a corporation packaged it, before there was a distribution (SLS) at all. I own it. I own Linux lock, stock and barrel, at least just as much as the next guy. It's not all that much ownership, but I have me my rights. As a result of the free licensing it's possible for Linus to get hit by a bus, Alan to get eaten by a toad, Stallman to be abducted by Microsoft... for Red Hat, Caldera, PHT, SPI, SuSE and all the rest to simply curl up and die -- and I still have Linux. I have source. I could maintain it myself, or pay someone else to. Or I could even bank on the fact that there is someone out there who needs Linux even more badly than I do, and let them maintain it, simply leeching a free ride. Hell, that's not so much different than what most users do today!
The community remains with or without commercial involvement. Viewing the community simply as a market is a very unwise assumption. Anyone betting their business on the assumption that Linux users are simply a market to be exploited is not someone I'd want to invest behind, that's for sure.
Will the community die? Maybe. MUST the community die? No. For if it does, it takes Linux with it. Without the community, Linux doesn't exist -- it's just another also-ran, like SCO.
I wouldn't say my ire is up, but I have to laugh as heartily as possible in the face of anyone who thinks that commercial success can and will come at the cost of the development and user communities. I could give a fsck less if Caldera (or any of the others) can't make enough to survive.
Can't sell Linux any more? Your users can drop a note, I'll burn you a source and binary CD. Can't sell your value-add product? Well, that's a damn shame, isn't it? Guess you should have paid more attention to that community you wished away.
This is a popular fallacy. The simple fact is that the Mac lost on 4 items
from the beginning.
1 : Openness. The Mac had a single source for everything. The IBM compatible during the time of Apples decline had multiple sources for Machines ( IBM, Compaq, Dell etc... ). It also had or appeared to have multiple sources for the OS. ( IBM-Dos, MS-Dos, DR-Dos, ).
2 : Price. In terms of absolute Maximum performance when price is no object the fastest Mac was generally well ahead of the fastest PC. However, if like most people you have a set limited amount of money and a specific task to accomplish you could get a better $ 2,000 PC than a $ 2,000 Mac. This is still true today. Is the low end iMac any competitor to the $ 1,299 PC ? 17" Monitor, 450MHz CPU, 128 Megs RAM, 8 Gig HD, 8Meg AGP Video, Floppy, CD-ROM, Zip disk and room to grow. I didn't think so.
3 : Games. At one point Apple actively discouraged game development on it's platform.
4 : Software availability and cost. The factors above led to the Mac's shrinking Market share which caused most vendors to target the growing kid ( Dos/Windows ) and the vendors who remained felt obliged to charge a significant premium for any quality applications. ( 30% - 70% ).
The $700 NT Tax is giving Linux a substantial boost in just this way. The big question is weather when Linux is a viable desktop ( It isn't yet though strange people like me use it ) the $80 Win9x tax will make a big difference. $200 PCs suggest it might.
The fact that MS is not the least bit scared of Apple while it's plotting how to survive Linux suggests this even more.
"Think" -:Former IBM motto.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
NT comes in dead last in user survey. See: http://www.deja.com/rat e/list_items.xp?CID=11997&PCID=11846
You also run into the flamey advocates half the time you read any zdnet forum, and watch the rabid advocates flaming the columnists.
The message can be gotten across without putting down Microsoft or their advocates. It just takes a little more class and brains than the zealots like to use.
Oh. Wow. PC-DOS 2000. For almost all intents and
purposes, it's the same thing as PC-DOS 7.
Let's see. They add euro symbol to their keymaps,
and make it y2k compliant. That's just about the
complete summary of changes.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Look, I hate to turn on someone who's obviously a fellow nerd (who the hell would name themselves "Ranger Elf" except for a roleplayer?), but you seem to have lost your mind.
The term "community" is not new in any way. When I attended the Atlanta Linux Showcase in 1997, I found that a community existed even then. At the time, it was made up of hackers, technical users, and some corporate folks (although VERY few that could be classified as "suits"; most fell into the corporate "geek" category), but it was clearly a functioning community and the term could be heard even back then.
Community becomes far less abstract when you've had lunch with Daryll Strauss, or a planning session with maddog Hall, or (many) a beer with folks you haven't actually known before, but who share much of the same context you do.
Sure, Slashdot folks are part of the community. But don't fall into the trap of thinking that the virtual community via Slashdot is the only community that exists. There is a very real, very concrete expression of that community which can be found at any number of Linux user meetings -- from local LUGs to international conferences.
When you have a group of people who dwell in a certain place (physically or metaphorically), who have related concerns, and who have a desire to work together with others to establish something that is good for the whole, you have something that has a strong basis for community.
I'm not talking about some mystic technical religion or some adolescent fantasy world here. There exists a very real Linux community. If you haven't seen it, I urge you to check out a local LUG or go to one of the technical conferences that are held throughout the world. You might just walk away with an appreciation of what this word "community" is all about.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
;-)
Will in Seattle
The British royal family owns banks? ROTFL.
Some people have this strange notion that every company must port to Linux because either Linux is *such* an important or to get back to Microsoft. While I would like to think so, it is certainly not true. Heck these companies are probably better off porting to the BeOS or the Mac, where the OS is on more desktops and workstations, and the users are used to propietary offerings, indeed, they have no choice.
One of the virtues of using a Open OS is that I don't need to be spoonfed by companies. Anyone know how many people who use the Mac or OS/2 are waiting and hoping that so-and-so company will port to their OS.
Anyone who thinks *Linux* needs these companies to port are hoping for the Linux Industry. The Community, in my mind, will eventually fill in the remaining needs.
As an example to this, there is an Open Source project to make a Delphi like project called Lazarus. This, my friends, is what Linux is about.
--
By your argument, you could say that Microsoft has a community of users.
This may be shocking to your Linux-addled brain, but Microsoft does have several gigantic user and technical communities. Community != Open Source.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
You? Bob Young of Red Hat? People working on WebSphere at IBM? RMS? ESR? Linus?
This ridiculous term "community" has no meaning - some of the "corporate" types certainly can claim membership before the average slashdot contributor.
5. Network interoperablity. Until recently, Apple refused to build Novell and MS/IBM client support into the OS. This forced network administrators to load semi-stable AppleShare extensions on their servers and leading to a Mac ban at many corporations.
6. Production Capablities. In the 80s and early 90s, Apple couldn't make enough Macs to meet demand (even with their 50% profit margin). A chunk of this missed opportunity probably ended up as Windows users.
7. Apple
PS - I never understand why people say "Platform X failed because their advocates are such Assholes!" I mean, the only place you see OS advocates is if you go to a flamey place like comp.*.advocacy or slashdot, and then you basically asking for trouble. It's not like OS advocates are running around keying your car or stealing your girlfriend or anything like that.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.