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Suck on Linux Evolution
Jonny Royale writes "Today's Suck has an interesting perspective on the Red Hat IPO, and the future of Linux in general. Warning in advance: It's not pretty. " Ouch-I think there's a lot of honesty in this article, particularly the attention to human nature. What do you folks think?
"You're obviously not a coder and haven't followed linux much if you think that the community hasn't been filled with "serious competition" since its conception. The "serious competition" is one of the things that draws a lot of us to it. It's made a huge difference too, Linux is far better because of competition."
/. have a KDE-positive counterpart posted immediately thereafter? (or vice versa)
Really? If you consider HURD vs. Linux, or WM vs. Afterstep or TWIN vs. WINE competition, then perhaps there has always been serious competition in the Linux domain. But I am a coder, and I have followed Linux software development for a long time. What I saw in those projects was peaceful coexistence and even cooperation between differing products. Sure WM is a lot like AfterStep, but then again, it is a lot unlike AfterStep as well. One doesn't exist just to outdo the other. WINE and TWIN? Same thing. In fact, there has been a lot of cross-communication between those projects recently.
Contrast this to the GNOME/KDE wars. Do these developers communicate with each other as effectively? Why are there two disparate object models being developed? Why is there very little cooperation on the CORBA front? Why must every GNOME-positive article on
How about the drafting of the GNOME WM compliance specification? As I recall there was/is a lot of dissention regarding how closely the spec was tied to E. Several WM authors decided not even to implement the spec because of this. Is this cooperation?
Perhaps we should create a distinction: community competition vs. corporate competition. Community competition leads to better products and common ideals. Corporate competition leads to lawsuits and fragmentation. And the Linux community seems to be moving from the former to the latter, IMO.
If you need one more piece of anecdotal evidence, reconsider for a moment the scuffle between LinuxCare and RedHat over a certain advertisement. This type of thing can't help but spill over into the code at some point.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
The Suck article should be required reading for Linux zealots. Not because it is completely right, correct, and reflects the absolute truth, but because it is focused, edgy, nasty, and says the dirty words without flinching. The guys at Suck have a point and they make it very well indeed. You may disagree with the article or parts of it (at least I do), but the issue is not going to go away. That's the same issue that has been repeatedly surfacing at Slashdot and subject of much discussion by a lot of very smart people -- Linux and the big bad commercial world out there.
I'm not going to try to recap these discussions, but I think it's worth pointing out some quite trivial facts:
RHAT is a public corporation. Its management has legal duty to maximize shareholder value by whatever legal means necessary. Historically, courts have given a lot of leeway to company management in deciding how to go about it, but on the other hand, management has been sued, sometimes successfully, for doing (or not doing) something useful for shareholders. Think about it: if they believe, e.g. that writing and selling proprietary extensions to Linux, will make the company more profitable, then the RedHat management has a duty to do this. I really would not be surprised to see an effective fork of Linux (on the same kernel base) into a "corporate" Linux, sold, say, by RedHat and Corel, and a "pure" Linux, distributed by e.g. Debian. It's not a good thing to happen, but welcome to the real world.
So, yes, the transition from the academic/hobbyist/sysadmin world into the rat-eats-dog-eats-rat corporate world is dangerous and will probably affect Linux in some way and the Suck article pointed it out with a very-well-sharpened finger.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Well, I haven't read it yet, but if it says something bad about Linux, it must be bad, right?
:)
The only way that Linux is going to gain marketshare and respectability is if there's only good news put forth about it. Whomever published the article therefore must not like Linux and hence is on the Microsoft payroll in some way shape or form.
What we need these days is more objective news covering the linux phenomenon. If it degrades linux, obviously they don't see the full picture, and therefore is not objective and they're being paid-off by Bill Gates.
This is slashdot.
Now I'm gonna go read it!
I have tried for over a year not to rant on /., but the discussion under this topic has finally sent me beyond the precipice. This is WAY OFF TOPIC (or is it?)
/. moderation. Moderation doesn't censor anything. Just set your threshold to -1 folks and you can read every post. Slashdot is a group and as the cliche goes the IQ of a group is equal to the loswest IQ in the group divided by the number of people in the group. Moderators are slashdot readers. Try to get over the pain of being moderated down and try making your point again, but this time use careful language that doesn't fall to personal abuse. You'd be surprised how suggesting someone has a Philistine attitude gets moderated up while calling someone a shithead gets moderated down. Just try to write like you would actually speak to someone in person and maybe you'll be happier with the moderating (but maybe not).
Rant 1: Re: People who complain about
Rant 2: People who flame anything anti-Linux. I use Linux. I use Windows (although I do not want to). I use other Unices. I like Linux. I want Linux to win. I want people to like Linux just like I want people to like the TV shows I like and worship the God I worship. And that's what we need to beware of. I am often reminded of that scene from Life of Brian where the "Vow of Silence" man attacks Brian and the reaction of the crowd, esp. Cleese shouting, "Heretic! Unbeliever! Persecute! Kill!" For goodness sake, it's a computer program!
Rant 3: People who talk about Slashdot readers and posters as if they were all of like mind. There is astounding diversity of opinion on Slashdot. Read the thread a couple of days ago on the Kansas/Evolution thing. Now there happen to be certain overlapping domains (like Linux-love) in the nerd/geek community, but there is some part of each of us unique and outside all the overlaps. That's what brings me back again and again. I can get perpetual self-congratulation by watching any E! program.
Rant 4: People who think anything Microsoft does matters in the slightest. Linux is not and cannot be destroyed. It is not in even the slightest way threatened by anything Microsoft does. Linux businesses may be, but the network is here. The code is here. It cannot be taken away or destroyed. If every Linux business were forced to fold tomorrow the whole thing would just keep right on going. I do not care what Microsoft does.
Rant 5: People who just don't get it. It seems to be an American disease, but it is spreading everywhere. The only thing that matters is money. People talk about the quality of movies on the basis of how much was spent to make them, or how much they are making. An amazing number of people think I am "exploited" because I have given away code I have written. They do not understand that I wrote that code for my personal needs or pleasure. These same people think that I am not exploited when I code things I don't want to code for other people to make them richer forty hours a week, 52-weeks a year (that's ~87 days a year folks, for 45 years that's 3,900 days, or about 10 years 6 months of my life), for which I get paid just enough to keep me in debt for most of that time, after which I become a liability to the healthcare system until I die. Exploitation comes in many forms. Writing source code and giving it away is not one of those forms as far as I am concerned. (BTW, consider that between work, school, and sleep you use about 16 of every 24 hours of your life for 60 years not doing what you want. That's 40 years of your life spent not doing what you want. Let's assume you live to 75 years and that you sleep 8 hours a day for those years you are not working or going to school. That's another 5 years of sleep. So, out of 75 years of living, you get to do what you want to for yourself for 30 years out of 75. Now talk to me about exploitation.)
Rant 6: People who sneer at anything. Given the numbers above, why do so many of us feel that there is time to sneer at anything? Maybe we should try to form some genuine, sincere, honest, trusting, real relationships between actual caring living people in the time we have left?
Boy, I feel a lot better having gotten that off my chest.
Anyone who's ever had to install Windows will tell you that the Linux install process is generally easier.
I beg to differ. I installed Windows for the first time without a hitch. It auto-detected my non-IDE CD-ROM (and installed drivers), set up my video card, set up my monitor, set up my network card and basically did everything else.
Then I installed Linux for the first time. I had to make a special boot disk (sbpcd.i) to enable me to use my non-IDE CD-ROM, manually configure the ethernet card, and mess around in XF86Setup for about 45 minutes (plus two reboots) before getting my video card and monitor set up.
Compared to win95/8, that just plain sucks.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Some corrections,
1. The GNU OS is a high quality operating system created by a group of talented people. Unfortunately, it is not yet complete.
2. Linux is a high quality kernel created by a group of talented people, thus completing the GNU OS.
3. Both the GNU OS and the Linux kernel are available for free.
4. Because of 1-3, most people consider GNU/Linux systems a Good Thing.
5. Red Hat sells a "value-added" product that includes the GNU/Linux OS.
6. Red Hat is successful.
7. Red Hat issues an IPO, offering shares to some of the people involved in 2 (above). Some of those people accept the offer. (Did they offer any to those involved in 1 (above)?)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I have no problem with people informally calling their operating system "Linux." I certainly don't expect people to say "GNU/Linux" each time. However, I do object to blatantly wrong statements such as "I run the Linux Operating System." There is no such thing. Saying "I run Linux," would, however, be correct.
In addition, implying that the Linux kernel is the entire OS, and that those who created the kernel created the OS, is disrespectful to the many people who spent the previous 10+ years writing the operating system that the Linux kernel plugged into.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
All those trendy magazines and news channels that keep saying linux is the next big thing, they're wrong. They're not thinking in terms of geeks and end-users. All the geeks that want linux already have it, it's very popular among the hackers, wannabee hackers, nerds, and techies. But that is the farthest its goin to go without a 1BRI (1 Brain Cell Required Interface).
Its near its peek since all us geeks already have linux and all the companies that want to switch are about to do it. But thats it. Linux is not an end user product. Like it or not, MS is easy to use, and the users don't really mind rebooting every five minutes. They want to be able to turn on their computer, fire up MS Office, type up some fancy documents and reboot a couple of times. No more, no less. And thats what theyre getting, so they're happy. They don't want linux or the flexibility and stability it has to offer. And damn it, that's how its gonna stay wether we like it or not.
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Are they going to ban this discussion in Kansas?
George
...because I'm going to defy the great penguin.
/. has witnessed more posts from people who believe that it is their Deity-given right to be financially compensated for writing free software--something that these same developers were patting themselves on the back for doing without compensation just a month before. I didn't think it would happen, but the aura surrounding Linux has notably shifted from one of community to one of serious competition, and while not all of this is due to $$ (witness the KDE/GNOME wars), it certainly hasn't helped. The RedHat IPO, as far as I can tell, has made the situation worse. Perhaps it won't affect the quality and reputation of the kernel, but the kind of corporate squabbling coming down the pipe can't help Linux's overall public image.
That article was not only honest, but it was accurate, given the amount of complaints that the RH IPO fiasco generated from the *altruistic* linux developers on this site.
In the last month
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Let's see:
1. Linux is a high quality operating system created by a group of talented people.
2. Linux is available for free.
3. Because of 1 and 2, most people consider Linux a Good Thing.
4. Red Hat sells a "value-added" product that includes Linux.
5. Red Hat is successful.
6. Red Hat issues an IPO, offering shares to some of the people involved in 1 (above). Some of those people accept the offer.
7. The aptly-named suck.com considers this a Bad Thing.
From this I deduce that you can only remain Good so long as you are NOT an economic success.
Let's all work hard to ensure that suck.com remains a Good site. I'd hate for them to suffer the ignominious fate of Linux.
With that little Devil icon, it shows you that BSD was made by the devil himself. Since they want religion in the schools, they consider this a good thing, believe it or not. Of course, nobody can BUY this tool of satan, but they can mention it in schools.
rooooar
The little cartoons are pretty amusing, but I think that they miss the point (calling KDE and Gnome development pointless double effort is very clueless).
The people that are coding now have been doing it for months without any monetary reward, several have been doing it for years now. They do it because they like it. Suddenly they are paid for it. Perhaps some of the coders will fall victim to the evils of money, perhaps some new people will join up hoping to get rich. The folks who have been doing this out of love aren't going to care, they still love to fiddle with the code, in fact this may help them, maybe they will be able to quit there day job and fiddle full time now.
Personally I wonder how market forces are going to be able to influence Linux development. Most coders out there don't have a marketing team telling them "what the people want". Sure perhaps Redhat or Caldera or "insert favoprite Linux company here" sponsored development efforts will be market driven, but there is nothing barring any Joe Blow from going the opposite direction.
We shall see, I personally have more faith in my fellow man than Suck apparently does.
Q.
It also doesn't mean that's the whole story. The one thing I've heard over and over since I started using Linux (about three years now) is that it's a fundamentally different beast. This was true then, it's true now. What that means in the current context is that while all that Suck said is true (and it is; don't delude yourself), Linux is in the unique situation of being able to maintain infinite alternate realities.
As an example - I go to LinuxWorld. I talk to many people. We discuss who uses what. Most people seem to run RedHat or Debian (I was in the Debian booth, so that may be skewed). On this, most run WindowMaker or E with KDE or GNOME (in order of popularity). These are the hot new things, many being driven by some of these new forces at play. Myself? I run a version of AfterStep 1.0 that I've done some hacking on (and I'm not even a programmer; I'm a hardware guy). Do these guys have functionality I don't? Not really. Themeing, but I don't consider that important, and I can get most of that functionality other ways. Some stuff like drag n' drop in KDE or GNOME, but I don't use that.
And there my friends, is the big difference. All these new things are available, becoming part of the system, and I don't have to use them. It's all optional. As long as the source remains available, there will be versions of Linux out there driven purely by the motives it has always been driven by. It's every bit as sure as the fact that versions and products will appear that are driven purely by greed. They're both human nature.
Your little gripe reads like something Bill Gates wrote many years ago to a bunch of cretins who actually had the nerve to give away software.
Red Hat give away the code, they don't sell it because they don't own it, or have you forgotten that? If you don't want others to profit from your work, then don't release it under an Open Source license--be like Bill.
OSS just got raped? Care the explain how? Is it rape when I use OSS at work? After all, I'm being paid for the work I produce with OSS. Is it rape when a consultancy make money installing and maintaining OSS-based networks for their customers? Is it rape when Red Hat invest millions of dollars into Linux, GNU, and other OSS?
slashdot broke my sig