Though IMHO I think the issue has more to do with continuation than a strong leadership. A strong leader isn't always necessary for continued success, (Apache, anyone?) although it does help a lot. The real issue is, how many of the supporters share the same original insight, motivation, or drive, that sparked the movement in the first place?
In any movement, you have roughly 4 groups of people: (1) the leader(s), (2) the ones who really believe in what they're doing (ie. the zealots), (3) the ones who not only believe in what they're doing but know what they're doing, and (4) the cheering team. The leaders, of course, are the ones who had the original insight/inspiration that started everything. The cheering team is there because it's the current cool trend, but who have no idea what it's really about. (2) are the zealots who are convinced by the movement and who will stick around even after everything dies down.
(3) is the important group. Unfortunately, it is also often a very small (or even non-existent) group. These are the people who actually understand the original leader's insights / inspirations, and perhaps has their own insights and ideas, and who know how to go on if the leader(s) resign.
Anyway, my point is, the lack of group (3) in a company/movement/anything is the real reason there is no continued success, because when the leaders leave, there is nobody who knows how to carry on, so everything dies off. But if there is a group (3), then they will know how to take the lead and continue what the founders started. They may not necessarily be visibly taking over the leadership, but they are the ones continually "fanning the flames" started by the original founder, so to speak.
Furthermore, in order for a movement to continue, group (3) must somehow be maintained. There needs to be a continual influx of people who actually know what it's all about, and not just there because it's the Next Hip Thing, or merely convinced to dedicate their lives to the Right Thing (but not really know the original insight that sparked it off).
Coming back to BSD / Linux, it's not so much a matter of having somebody capable enough to take over Linus when (if) he stops working on Linux; it's a matter of whether there are Linuxers who share his original insights and who continually have fresh ideas to carry on. Human beings cannot stand stagnation (although ironically they tend to stagnate as time passes); once a movement runs out of fresh ideas, people get bored and leave, and it dies off.
I actually never realized just how much BSD has influenced the free software movement until I started noticing just how many parts of Linux systems inherit from BSD. The whole socket abstraction to TCP/IP (and other protocols) came from BSD, basic utilities like renice, write, and others as well. This may not sound like much, but you just have to read the source for things like IRC clients or other net apps to realize just how pervasive that BSD idea of sockets is. Plus, I live on renice so much that I can't imagine life on Linux without that little contribution from BSD.:-)
Emacs is basically a full-fledged operating system running a text-editor as a shell. Whaddya expect?? Of course it must be the first windowing system. And not only so, its successor, XEmacs, even extends its ASCII-graphic capabilities to real pixel-graphics! With this latest innovation, we finally have the XEmacs OS, a full-featured replacement for all other poor attempts at an operating system, like winblows, linsux, etc., as well as all other poor attempts at windowing environments like winblows, X, Mac, etc., ad nauseum.
X is but a weenie off-shoot from the ultimate XEmacs OS. Not only the Emacs OS predates X, it will also ultimately be its replacement.
I think that the attitude shown by this article is nothing short of hubris. Yes, Linux mail clients are immune to such viruses at the moment, and yes, M$ crap is insecure because it allows executable content over email and the like. But that doesn't mean we should gloat over them or boast of our superiority. The price of freedom (from viruses in this case) is eternal vigilance. Once we start feeling smug and content that "they are the ones who will get infected not us" then something will come and bite us hard before we even know it.
The only reason Linux is so secure now is because people aren't complacent, they are looking out for bugs and exploits all the time, and they are aware of the dangers. As soon as Linux users start feeling "safe" and become careless, It Will Bite.
This is not intended as flamebait, but IMHO we need many more books like this for open source software. The problem is that the current open source / Linux documentation (manpages, the HOWTO's and mini-HOWTO's) require a LOT of time and reading on the part of the user, before they can even see any results. There aren't very many docs that guide you through, step-by-step, how to get some semblance of what you want up and running.
I'm not saying that that is a bad thing; after all, we do want to educate the masses and prevent (as much as possible) clueless people who wants to be spoon-fed and never RTFM, right? But we need to remember that people like to see results. Even a little result. Having to read through an entire HOWTO, and then perhaps still not quite understanding just what it is you have to do, is very discouraging for a new user.
We should have more walkthroughs -- pre-made "recipes", so to speak, that new users can follow and get at least some result. We need to at least get them started; then hopefully they will be more interested/inspired to actually tackle all the details in the HOWTO's or other docs that came with the software, and eventually learn what they should learn. You need to learn to walk before you can run. It's a bit harsh to stick to the "sink or swim" philosophy. Much better if we cater to those who want to learn but can't quite make it without extra help.
I'm all for a standard that allows applications to be written that can work seamlessly across Linux distributions. BUT. I hope this does not degenerate into uniformity. Let me explain.
When Oracle first decided to release version 8 for Linux, I was very interested and downloaded it. However, I found out that apparently it was only targeted for RedHat, and I, a Debian user, couldn't get it to work properly. Libraries were missing, and the installer insisted upon a particular path to JDK, which was extremely annoying. There isn't even an option for me to specify an alternate search path or anything. It was hard-coded, and so were certain libraries that had Debian equivalents but were in a different location.
What I'm trying to get at is, although a unified standard for where stuff should go in Linux is good, I fear that this may encourage developers to become lazy and simply assume a certain configuration and give no option for reconfiguration. For example, assuming that JDK must be installed in/usr/local/jdk/ or some such. I mean, I don't have a problem if they used/usr/local/jdk/ as a default, but if they don't allow you to re-configure where you want your stuff to be, that's very bad.
Now, I realize that the initial download of Oracle I had was probably a hurried hack, so it's probably not their fault (that was probably the first thing they ever released for Linux IIRC -- not surprisingly they went for the commercially better known RedHat). But it underlines a problem with a lot of application developers: hard-coding platform-specific assumptions and leaving no room for reconfiguration.
I know that it's easier (and arguably, results in more efficient products) to code for a specific platform, perhaps for the future Linux Standard. However, not allowing any room for reconfiguration is very annoying, and limits the scope of the application. An app that can be configured (with various amounts of effort) to run on, say, any UNIX system, would be more successful than one that just had to run on Linux because it was hard-coded with some directory paths or some obscure libraries that only existed on Linux.
Programs should be portable, more or less (ie. it should come with reasonable defaults that can run as-is on the specific system it was designed for, but it should not require massive recompilation or source-level hacking to get it to work on a slightly differently-configured system). A standard is meant to serve as a reasonable default, and not as an excuse for lazy, non-portable programming habits.
You people got it all wrong. English isn't the language of the Internet, neither is Esperanto.
The language of the Internet is TCP/IP!! I mean, c'mon, without English, the Internet still exists. Without Esperanto, the Internet still exists. But without TCP/IP, there is no Internet! I don't understand why you people are still looking for the "Language of the Internet". You all disappoint me. I mean, of all people, shouldn't Slashdotters be the people most clueful about the fact that TCP/IP is that language of the Internet?! Why are we still looking for a universal language when we already have one??
(Disclaimer: moderators without a sense of humour should not read this post.)
I think one of the major factors in people's dissatisfaction is due to the designer of the UI recognizing that there is no such thing as one UI to suit everybody. Almost all UI designers are motivated by seeking the "holy grail" of UI's, so to speak. This is especially true of GUI's. However, my opinion is that there is no such thing as a Holy Grail of GUI's (or any other UI for that matter). Everyone has their own preferences, and different people have incompatible preferences.
This is why GUI's like MS Windows are loved by some and hated by others. This is why debates over whether or not Window's GUI is good or not will never be resolved. There is no one UI that satisfies everybody, and until UI designers realize this, we will always be complaining.
What programmers and designers need to realize is that they need to provide alternatives. Or at least, they need to make it possible for the user to choose/install a third-party UI if they so choose. What turns people off is when they are force-fed with one and only one, irreplacable UI, which they happened to dislike, be it CLI or GUI or whatever else is out there.
We can argue forever over what features are "necessary" and what features are "superfluous" but IMHO we will never get anywhere until we accept the fact that different people consider different things as necessary, and they are often irreconciliable. Let's not even talk about GUI's: even with CLI, some people prefer bash, some prefer csh, others prefer other shells out there. Just try to convince a csh lover to switch to bash and watch their reaction.
There are already too many UI's out there designed by people who are seeking the "holy grail" of UI's. IMHO what we need isn't a "better" UI, what we need is a system where the user can choose his/her own UI easily, and where there are many alternatives that the user can choose from to find one that best fits his/her need.
And: How many people are actually taking advantage of the Source part of the Open Source equation, not just the Open/Free part? Is there anything more to the Linux hype than that it provides low-income hackers with cool stuff to play with? I can't answer your other questions, and I'm probably the wrong person to answer this one, but anyway... I'm a programmer, and also somewhat an idealist. And yes, I in fact do take a lot of advantage of the Source part of the equation, as you put it. Open Source projects are an invaluable resource of working, industrial-strength source code. I find this resource endlessly helpful -- it allows me to look at real-world code as opposed to oversimplified textbook examples. Moreover, the amount of open source code out there makes it even more valuable, because I get to see different coding styles, different designs, different approaches, etc.. I get to learn a lot of real-world solutions to real-world problems, which is way beyond the necessarily theoretical framework of programming text books. As somewhat an idealist, I get to analyse as many large systems as I care to look at (gcc, Linux, binutils, etc.) and see programming concepts like modularity, top-down design, OO, etc., applied in a real system. To me, all this is very worthwhile. With the added bonus that not only I get to see the innards of these systems, I can actually use them -- compile them and watch them run, on my very own machine. I can make modifications and get to see what effect it has. What more could an inquisitive programmer ask for? (Except a salary, that is:-)
IMHO, both high-tech equipment and basic training are necessary. Throwing away high-tech stuff is just throwing out the baby with the bath water. High-tech equipment is necessary, and very useful. But. The Army should not be deceived by the illusion of safety that technology gives them. The soldiers need to learn basic skills that will be essential when the high-tech stuff fails. Technology does give an edge to the army -- however, only when used rightly. And relying on the false confidence (i.e. dependence) on technology is not to use it rightly. When the technology is available, by all means use it. But the soldiers also need to be trained what to do when there is no equipment to depend on. It's foolish to not fly when you have wings and jet engines. But it's equally foolish to not have landing gear just because you can fly. Use what is available, but always be prepared when it will no longer be available.
Yes, I'm aware of licenses such as Open Content licenses, etc.. What I'm interested in is more of what are the most fundamental principles that should underlie any GPL workalike license.
It seems to me that recently several GPL-like licenses are springing up, and there's a lot of talk about Open Music licenses, Open Book licenses, etc.. It seems that a lot of people want to extend the concepts embodied in the GPL to other areas.
How applicable do you think the GPL is to these other areas? (As in, the concepts embodied in the GPL). Also, what are the essential aspects of any license that wishes to convey the same kind of freedom the GPL conveys? (For example, if I want to come up with a GPL-like license for my music, what would be the most essential aspects of it?) Is there any set of principles that can be applied to any areas of endeavour, not only to software? (In other words, can the principles in GPL be generalized so that it also applies to other areas?)
You bring up a very good point. Customers are able to influence a big company's decisions, especially on issues like privacy. One key point I'd like to highlight is this: they can only do this if they are informed. I think it's extremely important that we try out best to make the average Joe user aware of all the potential violations of privacy that's going on today. The reason that so many users today have such poor habits online (in terms of protecting their own privacy) is because they aren't aware of it.
This may be a bit off-topic, but I think this principle can be applied to other things too. Such as things like DMCA. It went by because very few were actually aware of the threats it represents. But if the average Joe user is made aware of these issues, I'm sure the masses will be able to force the powers that be to change things. Just like this case: imagine if nobody knew that the latest Everquest upgrade scanned their computers. Nothing would be done about it, and privacy will be compromised. But once people found out about it, they took action, and things changed. I'm sure this can happen on other areas too, like DMCA, etc..
Gotta agree. Sure, a lot of channels on IRC are just crap, and a lot of people you meet are less-than-intelligent life, but there are places where you can actually find something valuable.
There are places where I've gotten a lot of help and encouragement in stuff like coding, music, etc., just by meeting people who share my views or who are further ahead in the field.
Another redeeming quality of IRC, IMHO, is the fact that you get to meet people you'll never have a chance to meet IRL (or you wouldn't want to meet IRL) and get to talk to them without the unconscious prejudices we all get when we see them IRL. To me, talking to somebody whom I'd never get along with IRL and learning to see things from their point of view is a valuable experience.
This isn't written by Linus. It's just some sm4rt13-p4nt5 doing the infamous "famous open source people" impersonation...
Besides, this Microsoft-is-adopting-Linux joke has gotten kinda old. It was TWO years ago when I got the MS Linux announcement on April 1st, for example. Man, people gotta come up with something more creative than this!
Coming in 2004: The Microsoft Beetle. It's their biggest bug yet!
ROTFL!!!
But seriously, I'd be really concerned what something like that happens... I mean, drunk drivers are bad enough... but at least we know a drunk driver when we see one. The problem with buggy robot drivers is that, in a future society filled with these things, people will have way too much confidence in these machines. It will be too late to realize your trust was misplaced when the buggy robot drives you off the highway into a tree at 100mph...
And of course, the other side is that future generations of open source hackers will produce an open source GNU driver, and some l33t skr1pt k1dd135 will think it's 3l33t to recompile their driver bot to cut corners and show off what a human driver would never dare to do. Yet another way to impress girls, but definitely a recipe for disaster...
Hahaha, good point. Just about every post on this article can be interpreted as a hoax if you're creative (or paranoid!) enough.
Re:My standard response...
on
Hoax-a-go-go!
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ROTFL!! You people just don't get it.
This post itself is a chain-letter!!! Can't you see the hint? Look:
10. This is the last forward that you will ever send. The next time someone forwards you junk, send this to them. Lets break the chain one link at a time. (Emphasis added)
I think this post deserves a few additional +1 Funny mods...
Disclaimer: if you don't have a sense of humour, please don't waste your moderator points on me.
I would choose to not support a non-free DVD player for Linux. Why?
Because the whole DeCSS issue is not merely about Linux. The issue is about freedom. I'm a Linux user (and in fact, I use Linux exclusively). However, for me, Linux is not the end of everything. I support Linux not because it's fashionable to do so; I support it because I believe the ideal that software should be free (in the open source sense). The DeCSS issue is not just about the availability of DVD players under Linux -- the issue is the availability of a Linux DVD player which is open source and not controlled by some commercial entity.
If you're merely for selling Linux (i.e. if you only care that everything is supported under Linux, whether free or proprietary), you've missed the point, IMHO. Linux is not about making itself popular and taking over the desktop market (or whatever other market). Linux is about producing commercial-quality products using open source methods. And the fact that we must use a proprietary DVD player on Linux is what bugs me. If you want proprietary, why not go back to Windows? After all, there is better vendor support, application availability, new-hardware compatibility, blah blah blah, under Windows (sarcasm).
The whole reason I use only Linux now is because I believe that it should be possible to produce, using free software methods, the same (or even better) quality of products that are produced by commercial vendors.
I know there is this whole argument that if we don't provide what the "public" asks for (like a DVD player for Linux) then Linux will never grow. But my take on this is, so what if you convinced everybody to switch to Linux? It's merely switching from OS #1 to OS #2. It's no different from convincing someone to switch to a Mac or to anything else. All you'd produce is a generation of users who knows nuts about free software. And who knows, when that happens, you will have a user base who would be oblivious when one day some big company somewhere decided to produce a proprietary version of Linux. As long as the proprietary version is more attractive than the GPL'd version, they would go for the proprietary version. Then all our efforts would be vain -- if the end of Linux, and the whole open source movement is such, we might as well stop using and developing Linux now and go back to producing proprietary software systems.
There is a difference between Linux zealotry and being part of the open source movement. As other slashdotters often point out, Linux != open source movement. I don't treat Linux in a religious way. If a better open-source OS comes out, I'd happily use that instead of Linux. But at the moment, Linux best represents what the open source movement is capable of. And that's why I'm supporting it now. If you promote Linux just because Linux happens to be your choice, you're no different from the guy who insists on Windows just because he likes it.
The banning of DeCSS is an infringement of our right to produce, via open-source methods, software with equivalent quality and functionality as proprietary solutions. That is why I will not support a proprietary Linux DVD player. The whole point is that I don't want to be controlled by some commercial entity. That is why I support the open source movement in the first place.
And thank you for not being the typical Slashdot flame-warrior...;-)
I'd just add a little point which perhaps I didn't make quite clear in my post. And that is that, at least for me (I do not speak for anyone else here), I find it not impossible to be both logic-oriented and God-oriented. I enjoy studying science, mathematics, etc., and rational thought for me is reasonable in that context. At the same time, I also believe in a living God, and I have personal contact with Him regularly. These two do not contradict at all.
I hope you don't take this in the wrong way, but one of my points was, to put it in a nutshell, why choose only one or the other? Logical thought and belief in God do not necessarily contradict. They only contradict when you try to reconcile them. But there is nothing wrong with accepting both. And at least for me, this combination has become a source of a lot of eye-opening insights.
You gotta be kidding. Look at how many ppl jump on NASA's back and badmouth them when they made just a slight mistake. (When you're in the aerospace industry, "slight mistake" usually means disaster.) Purposely sabotaging their mission(s) will cut their budget rather than increase it.
But yeah, NASA has done some pretty amazing things even with their limited budget. I mean, look at the Galileo spacecraft. It's survived way beyond its originally-planned mission, and it's still doing wonderful. I find it sad that people always see the flaws more than the achievements. When NASA loses a mission, they get flamed and defamed. But how many people thank NASA for the Galileo mission, besides the scientists who actually benefitted from it? How many people even realize how incredibly successful the Galileo mission was and still is?
Now, if only the powers that be would see beyond the flaws and political agendas and see the value of giving NASA a more generous budget, we might actually see the results we want to see.
First of all, let me admit my biases: I am also a Christian. However, biases aside, allow me to present a point here:
This whole God-vs-science debate is basically, to put it very simply, a futile argument between two sides that have different measuring sticks and each refuses to use the other's measuring stick. Please, people, let's open up our minds and consider things from the other side's point of view. Judging God's existence or non-existence using reductionist methods is just as silly as using the Bible to construct scientific theorems. It's like trying to smell music or hear color. Science, and reductionist methods (or whatever other method out there) is in the realm of measuring physical things. Therefore, to consider a Being that is transcendent above the physical universe is futile. The opposite is also true -- the Bible is NOT a science textbook; therefore, constructing scientific theorems from it is just as stupid. Saying that God cannot exist just because God cannot be contacted by physical means is just as silly as saying science is wrong because scientific theorems cannot be derived from the Bible.
Personally, I find that there is no contradiction in simultaneously believing in God and doing science. The problem with people is that they want to shoe-horn everything into one system. Religious extremists (but not all who believe in God) want to shoe-horn everything into their religious doctrines, and many (not all) scientists want to shoe-horn everything into reductionist logic. How can this ever work? It's using the ears to hear color, and using the nose to smell vision!
If you care to actually read and examine the Bible, you will find that very often, two seemingly contradicting things are placed side by side. Human beings want to reduce everything into one system; but even the Bible itself shows that the universe cannot be reduced in this way. Therefore, in order for me, as a Christian, to make a fair judgment of science and scientific results, I cannot extrapolate Biblical teachings to cover physics theorems. And in order for a scientific person to make a fair judgment of the existence of God, he cannot attempt to shoe-horn God into the scientific method. What works for science doesn't necessarily apply to God; the spiritual aspects of the Bible cannot be shoe-horned to prove/disprove scientific theorems.
Before pronouncing judgment on each other's views, I suggest we go and really study things from the other side's point-of-view. And by study, I mean a true, open-minded study without trying to force things to your adopted system of thinking, whether it be scientific thinking or otherwise.
I do not claim, and I'm not trying to claim, that I know all the answers. But at least for me, my experience as a Christian has been one of continual learning to look at things differently. I'm not a fanatic who thinks he knows all the "true" principles and everything else that contradicts what he thinks is right must be false. And at least in my experience, having a personal relationship with God has helped to open up my thinking from my narrowmindedness, to look at things differently. This, in part, is why I am still firmly a Christian today -- contrary to popular belief, my relationship with God has not caused me to close my mind and lock myself into a box. That's why I find it rather ironic that the very people who claim they are "open-minded" and "not in the box" are the same ones who, without having seriously considered the subject from the proper point of view, make a careless assessment of God using the wrong means and conclude that the concept of God is absurd.
So please, people, let's learn to give the other points of view a reasonable consideration before making a judgment of what is "sensible" and what is "absurd".
Slashdot Mirror
I vote for WhereWare. It rhymes with "Where, where?" :-)
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This is a very interesting thought.
Though IMHO I think the issue has more to do with continuation than a strong leadership. A strong leader isn't always necessary for continued success, (Apache, anyone?) although it does help a lot. The real issue is, how many of the supporters share the same original insight, motivation, or drive, that sparked the movement in the first place?
In any movement, you have roughly 4 groups of people: (1) the leader(s), (2) the ones who really believe in what they're doing (ie. the zealots), (3) the ones who not only believe in what they're doing but know what they're doing, and (4) the cheering team. The leaders, of course, are the ones who had the original insight/inspiration that started everything. The cheering team is there because it's the current cool trend, but who have no idea what it's really about. (2) are the zealots who are convinced by the movement and who will stick around even after everything dies down.
(3) is the important group. Unfortunately, it is also often a very small (or even non-existent) group. These are the people who actually understand the original leader's insights / inspirations, and perhaps has their own insights and ideas, and who know how to go on if the leader(s) resign.
Anyway, my point is, the lack of group (3) in a company/movement/anything is the real reason there is no continued success, because when the leaders leave, there is nobody who knows how to carry on, so everything dies off. But if there is a group (3), then they will know how to take the lead and continue what the founders started. They may not necessarily be visibly taking over the leadership, but they are the ones continually "fanning the flames" started by the original founder, so to speak.
Furthermore, in order for a movement to continue, group (3) must somehow be maintained. There needs to be a continual influx of people who actually know what it's all about, and not just there because it's the Next Hip Thing, or merely convinced to dedicate their lives to the Right Thing (but not really know the original insight that sparked it off).
Coming back to BSD / Linux, it's not so much a matter of having somebody capable enough to take over Linus when (if) he stops working on Linux; it's a matter of whether there are Linuxers who share his original insights and who continually have fresh ideas to carry on. Human beings cannot stand stagnation (although ironically they tend to stagnate as time passes); once a movement runs out of fresh ideas, people get bored and leave, and it dies off.
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I actually never realized just how much BSD has influenced the free software movement until I started noticing just how many parts of Linux systems inherit from BSD. The whole socket abstraction to TCP/IP (and other protocols) came from BSD, basic utilities like renice, write, and others as well. This may not sound like much, but you just have to read the source for things like IRC clients or other net apps to realize just how pervasive that BSD idea of sockets is. Plus, I live on renice so much that I can't imagine life on Linux without that little contribution from BSD. :-)
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Emacs is basically a full-fledged operating system running a text-editor as a shell. Whaddya expect?? Of course it must be the first windowing system. And not only so, its successor, XEmacs, even extends its ASCII-graphic capabilities to real pixel-graphics! With this latest innovation, we finally have the XEmacs OS, a full-featured replacement for all other poor attempts at an operating system, like winblows, linsux, etc., as well as all other poor attempts at windowing environments like winblows, X, Mac, etc., ad nauseum.
X is but a weenie off-shoot from the ultimate XEmacs OS. Not only the Emacs OS predates X, it will also ultimately be its replacement.
Sarcasmometer reading: 1000
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Brief history of MS:
(The last "DOS" of course, doesn't mean Disk Operating System but Denial of Service :-)
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I think that the attitude shown by this article is nothing short of hubris. Yes, Linux mail clients are immune to such viruses at the moment, and yes, M$ crap is insecure because it allows executable content over email and the like. But that doesn't mean we should gloat over them or boast of our superiority. The price of freedom (from viruses in this case) is eternal vigilance. Once we start feeling smug and content that "they are the ones who will get infected not us" then something will come and bite us hard before we even know it.
The only reason Linux is so secure now is because people aren't complacent, they are looking out for bugs and exploits all the time, and they are aware of the dangers. As soon as Linux users start feeling "safe" and become careless, It Will Bite.
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This is not intended as flamebait, but IMHO we need many more books like this for open source software. The problem is that the current open source / Linux documentation (manpages, the HOWTO's and mini-HOWTO's) require a LOT of time and reading on the part of the user, before they can even see any results. There aren't very many docs that guide you through, step-by-step, how to get some semblance of what you want up and running.
I'm not saying that that is a bad thing; after all, we do want to educate the masses and prevent (as much as possible) clueless people who wants to be spoon-fed and never RTFM, right? But we need to remember that people like to see results. Even a little result. Having to read through an entire HOWTO, and then perhaps still not quite understanding just what it is you have to do, is very discouraging for a new user.
We should have more walkthroughs -- pre-made "recipes", so to speak, that new users can follow and get at least some result. We need to at least get them started; then hopefully they will be more interested/inspired to actually tackle all the details in the HOWTO's or other docs that came with the software, and eventually learn what they should learn. You need to learn to walk before you can run. It's a bit harsh to stick to the "sink or swim" philosophy. Much better if we cater to those who want to learn but can't quite make it without extra help.
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I'm all for a standard that allows applications to be written that can work seamlessly across Linux distributions. BUT. I hope this does not degenerate into uniformity. Let me explain.
When Oracle first decided to release version 8 for Linux, I was very interested and downloaded it. However, I found out that apparently it was only targeted for RedHat, and I, a Debian user, couldn't get it to work properly. Libraries were missing, and the installer insisted upon a particular path to JDK, which was extremely annoying. There isn't even an option for me to specify an alternate search path or anything. It was hard-coded, and so were certain libraries that had Debian equivalents but were in a different location.
What I'm trying to get at is, although a unified standard for where stuff should go in Linux is good, I fear that this may encourage developers to become lazy and simply assume a certain configuration and give no option for reconfiguration. For example, assuming that JDK must be installed in /usr/local/jdk/ or some such. I mean, I don't have a problem if they used /usr/local/jdk/ as a default, but if they don't allow you to re-configure where you want your stuff to be, that's very bad.
Now, I realize that the initial download of Oracle I had was probably a hurried hack, so it's probably not their fault (that was probably the first thing they ever released for Linux IIRC -- not surprisingly they went for the commercially better known RedHat). But it underlines a problem with a lot of application developers: hard-coding platform-specific assumptions and leaving no room for reconfiguration.
I know that it's easier (and arguably, results in more efficient products) to code for a specific platform, perhaps for the future Linux Standard. However, not allowing any room for reconfiguration is very annoying, and limits the scope of the application. An app that can be configured (with various amounts of effort) to run on, say, any UNIX system, would be more successful than one that just had to run on Linux because it was hard-coded with some directory paths or some obscure libraries that only existed on Linux.
Programs should be portable, more or less (ie. it should come with reasonable defaults that can run as-is on the specific system it was designed for, but it should not require massive recompilation or source-level hacking to get it to work on a slightly differently-configured system). A standard is meant to serve as a reasonable default, and not as an excuse for lazy, non-portable programming habits.
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You people got it all wrong. English isn't the language of the Internet, neither is Esperanto.
The language of the Internet is TCP/IP!! I mean, c'mon, without English, the Internet still exists. Without Esperanto, the Internet still exists. But without TCP/IP, there is no Internet! I don't understand why you people are still looking for the "Language of the Internet". You all disappoint me. I mean, of all people, shouldn't Slashdotters be the people most clueful about the fact that TCP/IP is that language of the Internet?! Why are we still looking for a universal language when we already have one??
(Disclaimer: moderators without a sense of humour should not read this post.)
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Absolutely agreed!
I think one of the major factors in people's dissatisfaction is due to the designer of the UI recognizing that there is no such thing as one UI to suit everybody. Almost all UI designers are motivated by seeking the "holy grail" of UI's, so to speak. This is especially true of GUI's. However, my opinion is that there is no such thing as a Holy Grail of GUI's (or any other UI for that matter). Everyone has their own preferences, and different people have incompatible preferences.
This is why GUI's like MS Windows are loved by some and hated by others. This is why debates over whether or not Window's GUI is good or not will never be resolved. There is no one UI that satisfies everybody, and until UI designers realize this, we will always be complaining.
What programmers and designers need to realize is that they need to provide alternatives. Or at least, they need to make it possible for the user to choose/install a third-party UI if they so choose. What turns people off is when they are force-fed with one and only one, irreplacable UI, which they happened to dislike, be it CLI or GUI or whatever else is out there.
We can argue forever over what features are "necessary" and what features are "superfluous" but IMHO we will never get anywhere until we accept the fact that different people consider different things as necessary, and they are often irreconciliable. Let's not even talk about GUI's: even with CLI, some people prefer bash, some prefer csh, others prefer other shells out there. Just try to convince a csh lover to switch to bash and watch their reaction.
There are already too many UI's out there designed by people who are seeking the "holy grail" of UI's. IMHO what we need isn't a "better" UI, what we need is a system where the user can choose his/her own UI easily, and where there are many alternatives that the user can choose from to find one that best fits his/her need.
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And: How many people are actually taking advantage of the Source part of the Open Source equation, not just the Open/Free part? Is there anything more to the Linux hype than that it provides low-income hackers with cool stuff to play with? I can't answer your other questions, and I'm probably the wrong person to answer this one, but anyway... I'm a programmer, and also somewhat an idealist. And yes, I in fact do take a lot of advantage of the Source part of the equation, as you put it. Open Source projects are an invaluable resource of working, industrial-strength source code. I find this resource endlessly helpful -- it allows me to look at real-world code as opposed to oversimplified textbook examples. Moreover, the amount of open source code out there makes it even more valuable, because I get to see different coding styles, different designs, different approaches, etc.. I get to learn a lot of real-world solutions to real-world problems, which is way beyond the necessarily theoretical framework of programming text books. As somewhat an idealist, I get to analyse as many large systems as I care to look at (gcc, Linux, binutils, etc.) and see programming concepts like modularity, top-down design, OO, etc., applied in a real system. To me, all this is very worthwhile. With the added bonus that not only I get to see the innards of these systems, I can actually use them -- compile them and watch them run, on my very own machine. I can make modifications and get to see what effect it has. What more could an inquisitive programmer ask for? (Except a salary, that is :-)
IMHO, both high-tech equipment and basic training are necessary. Throwing away high-tech stuff is just throwing out the baby with the bath water. High-tech equipment is necessary, and very useful. But. The Army should not be deceived by the illusion of safety that technology gives them. The soldiers need to learn basic skills that will be essential when the high-tech stuff fails. Technology does give an edge to the army -- however, only when used rightly. And relying on the false confidence (i.e. dependence) on technology is not to use it rightly. When the technology is available, by all means use it. But the soldiers also need to be trained what to do when there is no equipment to depend on. It's foolish to not fly when you have wings and jet engines. But it's equally foolish to not have landing gear just because you can fly. Use what is available, but always be prepared when it will no longer be available.
Yes, I'm aware of licenses such as Open Content licenses, etc.. What I'm interested in is more of what are the most fundamental principles that should underlie any GPL workalike license.
It seems to me that recently several GPL-like licenses are springing up, and there's a lot of talk about Open Music licenses, Open Book licenses, etc.. It seems that a lot of people want to extend the concepts embodied in the GPL to other areas.
How applicable do you think the GPL is to these other areas? (As in, the concepts embodied in the GPL). Also, what are the essential aspects of any license that wishes to convey the same kind of freedom the GPL conveys? (For example, if I want to come up with a GPL-like license for my music, what would be the most essential aspects of it?) Is there any set of principles that can be applied to any areas of endeavour, not only to software? (In other words, can the principles in GPL be generalized so that it also applies to other areas?)
You bring up a very good point. Customers are able to influence a big company's decisions, especially on issues like privacy. One key point I'd like to highlight is this: they can only do this if they are informed. I think it's extremely important that we try out best to make the average Joe user aware of all the potential violations of privacy that's going on today. The reason that so many users today have such poor habits online (in terms of protecting their own privacy) is because they aren't aware of it.
This may be a bit off-topic, but I think this principle can be applied to other things too. Such as things like DMCA. It went by because very few were actually aware of the threats it represents. But if the average Joe user is made aware of these issues, I'm sure the masses will be able to force the powers that be to change things. Just like this case: imagine if nobody knew that the latest Everquest upgrade scanned their computers. Nothing would be done about it, and privacy will be compromised. But once people found out about it, they took action, and things changed. I'm sure this can happen on other areas too, like DMCA, etc..
Gotta agree. Sure, a lot of channels on IRC are just crap, and a lot of people you meet are less-than-intelligent life, but there are places where you can actually find something valuable.
There are places where I've gotten a lot of help and encouragement in stuff like coding, music, etc., just by meeting people who share my views or who are further ahead in the field.
Another redeeming quality of IRC, IMHO, is the fact that you get to meet people you'll never have a chance to meet IRL (or you wouldn't want to meet IRL) and get to talk to them without the unconscious prejudices we all get when we see them IRL. To me, talking to somebody whom I'd never get along with IRL and learning to see things from their point of view is a valuable experience.
This isn't written by Linus. It's just some sm4rt13-p4nt5 doing the infamous "famous open source people" impersonation...
Besides, this Microsoft-is-adopting-Linux joke has gotten kinda old. It was TWO years ago when I got the MS Linux announcement on April 1st, for example. Man, people gotta come up with something more creative than this!
ROTFL!!!
But seriously, I'd be really concerned what something like that happens... I mean, drunk drivers are bad enough... but at least we know a drunk driver when we see one. The problem with buggy robot drivers is that, in a future society filled with these things, people will have way too much confidence in these machines. It will be too late to realize your trust was misplaced when the buggy robot drives you off the highway into a tree at 100mph...
And of course, the other side is that future generations of open source hackers will produce an open source GNU driver, and some l33t skr1pt k1dd135 will think it's 3l33t to recompile their driver bot to cut corners and show off what a human driver would never dare to do. Yet another way to impress girls, but definitely a recipe for disaster...
Hahaha, good point. Just about every post on this article can be interpreted as a hoax if you're creative (or paranoid!) enough.
ROTFL!! You people just don't get it.
This post itself is a chain-letter!!! Can't you see the hint? Look:
I think this post deserves a few additional +1 Funny mods...
Disclaimer: if you don't have a sense of humour, please don't waste your moderator points on me.
I would choose to not support a non-free DVD player for Linux. Why?
Because the whole DeCSS issue is not merely about Linux. The issue is about freedom. I'm a Linux user (and in fact, I use Linux exclusively). However, for me, Linux is not the end of everything. I support Linux not because it's fashionable to do so; I support it because I believe the ideal that software should be free (in the open source sense). The DeCSS issue is not just about the availability of DVD players under Linux -- the issue is the availability of a Linux DVD player which is open source and not controlled by some commercial entity.
If you're merely for selling Linux (i.e. if you only care that everything is supported under Linux, whether free or proprietary), you've missed the point, IMHO. Linux is not about making itself popular and taking over the desktop market (or whatever other market). Linux is about producing commercial-quality products using open source methods. And the fact that we must use a proprietary DVD player on Linux is what bugs me. If you want proprietary, why not go back to Windows? After all, there is better vendor support, application availability, new-hardware compatibility, blah blah blah, under Windows (sarcasm).
The whole reason I use only Linux now is because I believe that it should be possible to produce, using free software methods, the same (or even better) quality of products that are produced by commercial vendors.
I know there is this whole argument that if we don't provide what the "public" asks for (like a DVD player for Linux) then Linux will never grow. But my take on this is, so what if you convinced everybody to switch to Linux? It's merely switching from OS #1 to OS #2. It's no different from convincing someone to switch to a Mac or to anything else. All you'd produce is a generation of users who knows nuts about free software. And who knows, when that happens, you will have a user base who would be oblivious when one day some big company somewhere decided to produce a proprietary version of Linux. As long as the proprietary version is more attractive than the GPL'd version, they would go for the proprietary version. Then all our efforts would be vain -- if the end of Linux, and the whole open source movement is such, we might as well stop using and developing Linux now and go back to producing proprietary software systems.
There is a difference between Linux zealotry and being part of the open source movement. As other slashdotters often point out, Linux != open source movement. I don't treat Linux in a religious way. If a better open-source OS comes out, I'd happily use that instead of Linux. But at the moment, Linux best represents what the open source movement is capable of. And that's why I'm supporting it now. If you promote Linux just because Linux happens to be your choice, you're no different from the guy who insists on Windows just because he likes it.
The banning of DeCSS is an infringement of our right to produce, via open-source methods, software with equivalent quality and functionality as proprietary solutions. That is why I will not support a proprietary Linux DVD player. The whole point is that I don't want to be controlled by some commercial entity. That is why I support the open source movement in the first place.
And thank you for not being the typical Slashdot flame-warrior... ;-)
I'd just add a little point which perhaps I didn't make quite clear in my post. And that is that, at least for me (I do not speak for anyone else here), I find it not impossible to be both logic-oriented and God-oriented. I enjoy studying science, mathematics, etc., and rational thought for me is reasonable in that context. At the same time, I also believe in a living God, and I have personal contact with Him regularly. These two do not contradict at all.
I hope you don't take this in the wrong way, but one of my points was, to put it in a nutshell, why choose only one or the other? Logical thought and belief in God do not necessarily contradict. They only contradict when you try to reconcile them. But there is nothing wrong with accepting both. And at least for me, this combination has become a source of a lot of eye-opening insights.
ROTFLOL!!!! Man, this one deserves a +5 funny. I'm getting cramps from trying not to laugh out loud and wake my housemates up!! :-))
You gotta be kidding. Look at how many ppl jump on NASA's back and badmouth them when they made just a slight mistake. (When you're in the aerospace industry, "slight mistake" usually means disaster.) Purposely sabotaging their mission(s) will cut their budget rather than increase it.
But yeah, NASA has done some pretty amazing things even with their limited budget. I mean, look at the Galileo spacecraft. It's survived way beyond its originally-planned mission, and it's still doing wonderful. I find it sad that people always see the flaws more than the achievements. When NASA loses a mission, they get flamed and defamed. But how many people thank NASA for the Galileo mission, besides the scientists who actually benefitted from it? How many people even realize how incredibly successful the Galileo mission was and still is?
Now, if only the powers that be would see beyond the flaws and political agendas and see the value of giving NASA a more generous budget, we might actually see the results we want to see.
First of all, let me admit my biases: I am also a Christian. However, biases aside, allow me to present a point here:
This whole God-vs-science debate is basically, to put it very simply, a futile argument between two sides that have different measuring sticks and each refuses to use the other's measuring stick. Please, people, let's open up our minds and consider things from the other side's point of view. Judging God's existence or non-existence using reductionist methods is just as silly as using the Bible to construct scientific theorems. It's like trying to smell music or hear color. Science, and reductionist methods (or whatever other method out there) is in the realm of measuring physical things. Therefore, to consider a Being that is transcendent above the physical universe is futile. The opposite is also true -- the Bible is NOT a science textbook; therefore, constructing scientific theorems from it is just as stupid. Saying that God cannot exist just because God cannot be contacted by physical means is just as silly as saying science is wrong because scientific theorems cannot be derived from the Bible.
Personally, I find that there is no contradiction in simultaneously believing in God and doing science. The problem with people is that they want to shoe-horn everything into one system. Religious extremists (but not all who believe in God) want to shoe-horn everything into their religious doctrines, and many (not all) scientists want to shoe-horn everything into reductionist logic. How can this ever work? It's using the ears to hear color, and using the nose to smell vision!
If you care to actually read and examine the Bible, you will find that very often, two seemingly contradicting things are placed side by side. Human beings want to reduce everything into one system; but even the Bible itself shows that the universe cannot be reduced in this way. Therefore, in order for me, as a Christian, to make a fair judgment of science and scientific results, I cannot extrapolate Biblical teachings to cover physics theorems. And in order for a scientific person to make a fair judgment of the existence of God, he cannot attempt to shoe-horn God into the scientific method. What works for science doesn't necessarily apply to God; the spiritual aspects of the Bible cannot be shoe-horned to prove/disprove scientific theorems.
Before pronouncing judgment on each other's views, I suggest we go and really study things from the other side's point-of-view. And by study, I mean a true, open-minded study without trying to force things to your adopted system of thinking, whether it be scientific thinking or otherwise.
I do not claim, and I'm not trying to claim, that I know all the answers. But at least for me, my experience as a Christian has been one of continual learning to look at things differently. I'm not a fanatic who thinks he knows all the "true" principles and everything else that contradicts what he thinks is right must be false. And at least in my experience, having a personal relationship with God has helped to open up my thinking from my narrowmindedness, to look at things differently. This, in part, is why I am still firmly a Christian today -- contrary to popular belief, my relationship with God has not caused me to close my mind and lock myself into a box. That's why I find it rather ironic that the very people who claim they are "open-minded" and "not in the box" are the same ones who, without having seriously considered the subject from the proper point of view, make a careless assessment of God using the wrong means and conclude that the concept of God is absurd.
So please, people, let's learn to give the other points of view a reasonable consideration before making a judgment of what is "sensible" and what is "absurd".