In an article full of wrong things, the wrongest of them all is:
Also, remember that Linux is still Unix. One of the reasons for Windows' growth has been the complexity of configuring and maintaining Unix operating systems. Simply because a low-cost version of Unix is now available, it does not automatically generate more people capable of managing and configuring these systems.
I got my Linux for free (from lsl) two weeks ago. (at price=$0.00 the decision was easy to make:) I'm now capable of managing and configuring a linux system. In short, low-cost Unix made me, and I'll wager, 10,000's of others like me.
By default, I earned the title of resident Linux guru at my company and my boss has already asked me to set up his laptop next week.
3DFX has a stick up their bum because they think that if people write wrappers to allow Glide programs to run on other cards, they won't have to buy Voodoo's any more. They are misguided in this analysis. In fact, they should encourage people to write wrappers, even help them. That way, they can claim that the only way to get the best, wrapperless performance, is to run on a genuine Voodoo. But alas, their PHB's have prevailed and they are now well advanced in the process of alientating their former most loyal supporters.
BUY RIVA (good corporate citizens, and besides, TNT kicks butt)
What we in the open source community need is really a fresh start on the desktop. Linux is evolving wonderfully as a server and workstation OS for the power user, but if open source is going to win the average user, I really do believe we're going to need something very different from UNIX.
I disagree - what is being built will do quite nicely, thankyou. Make a CD that boots straight into 600x800 SVGA resolution (for example) under KDE (disclaimer: I use BOTH gnome and KDE), automatically supporting as much hardware as possible. *Now* the install program starts - it doesn't have to ask the user much more than whether the system should be permanently installed on the hard disk, and if so, whether it should attempt to preserve the system that's already on there. User says yes, it does it, then (optionally!) reboots just to make sure everything's OK, straight into a normal user account (already set up) and with the xterm buried a couple of menues down.
The innocent new user sees no Unix anywhere, just a slick desktop with lots of apps, ready to play. If the innocent user wants to lose their innocence, of course, just find the xterm, su to root and play away.
This is not science fiction... we're 99.9% of the way to being able to such a CD *now*. To make it perfect, the file format of the CD will have a windows-clickable linload on it, and the CD will be windows-autoplay (*evil grin*).
Linux 2.6 ?? 5 years.. naaaahh, make it Linux 3:-)
ah, I'd say that the pace of Linux development is increasing exponentially and that in 5 years time we'll hit version 5, released less than a year after version 4.
put up a forum (with associated search engine, categorization system, history mechanism, etc) where free software developers can describe what they want to do, in their own terms, on their own schedules, with their own priorities and requirements, and then let companies who want some new products to sell bid on the opportunity to fund its development
and you said:
I don't believe your forum model would work all that well
That will be a certainty if it isn't tried.
In your model, many developers will state what they wish to work on.
Yes, for example, *I* will.
Some will go ahead and do it anyhow
Naturally, but some of them will pull in a sponser midway though the project. Others will be able to justify the effort only if they have a sponser, e.g., your wife might tolerate the project more readily if she knew you were getting paid for it. In other words, some good projects will never happen or never be completed if they're not sponsored.
Others might simply be blowing hot air.
Strike "might", write "will". And so? Refine the mechanism by which matches are made between project initiators and project sponsors to deal with this. Design the arrangements so that if nothing happens on the project, only part of the money gets paid.
Businesses will not want to wade through the hundreds of postings on such a site to see if anything comes close to matching their needs
And? Don't *you* wade through hundreds of postings on Slashdot to see if there's something interesting/important to you? 95% of the time you only have to read the subject lines.
Two different systems, bounty hunting and sponsor hunting (a la Christopher Columbus) can both exist in the same world.
Just from the abstract, it looks like a generalization of the idea of regression testing. My (shoot from the hip) guess is that the needed this to check the logic of their new processor in simulation, to verify that each iteration of the design result in a functional system, and if it didn't to pinpoint the place where it started going wrong.
Who do you blame here? If the programmers who wrote Codewarrior felt the need to target a specific distribution, that means that there must be a difference in distributions that one release could not address. If that's the case, then let's distribute the blame evenly, not just at RedHat's door.
Exactly. And after we're finished blaming each other, let's do someting about it. Perhaps Metroworks, if politely asked, would provide a list of the specific items they found to be inconveniently different between the various distributions. We take that list, compare it to the LSB, and decide what to do about each item on it (perhaps even going so far as to ammend the LSB if justifiable). Then, we go back to Metroworks, tell them it's all taken care of, now where's our *LINUX* release of the product??
"Windows NT is slow, it's buggy, and we don't trust it," says Marcus Ranum, founder of security software company Network Flight Recorder, who faults NT-centric networking strategies for contributing to decreased security.
This is really going to help me overcome any remaining resistance to the idea of beginning a migration from NT to Linux at the company I work for.
The problem that I see here is one of expectations. You wanted Linux to become a mainstream operating system, but you wanted it to remain open and free.
Yes, that's what we want. That's what we will get. We must insist on it. There is *no reason* why a mainstream os may not also be open and free.
Bruce Peren's post was on-topic. The topic was: NVidia releases linux drivers. Any response of the form "well, when is everybody else going to do that, and not just for video cards" is most certainly on topic - there is nothing grey about it. --
and it is this page we need to mirror since it explains how to convert from IPIX's image format
This is clearly the best strategy, since it will demonstrate clearly that sending threatening legal letters over matters such as this, with thin legal pretext, is a *bad idea*. The mirrors should lead to the development of a converter to some other format, preferrable a better on. And needless to say, an unencumbered format. My only slight reservation is it would also lead to wider recognition of whatever their stupid format is.
--
Re:Some Thoughts on GNOME/KDE
on
The KDE Future
·
· Score: 1
I've spent the last couple of hours stewing in a cauldron of raw emotions. This last post just hit my "mad" button again.
I think both KDE and Gnome are wonderful. I love them both. They are not the same. That's *GOOD*. One is older than the other, and more mature. That's *NORMAL*. They both beat the heck out of Windows. That's a *RELIEF*.
Why can't there be more people like me? --
Re:The real target audience for KDE
on
The KDE Future
·
· Score: 1
I suspect that many will start to use Linux _because_ of KDE
There is not the slightest doubt that this is true. As soon as you can plop a CD into a PC, answer the single question "Do you want to install Linux on your PC? (yes, no, expert)" then basically sit back and wait 10 minutes for a beautiful, stable gui to pop up, there will be an incredibly massive migration to Linux that will completely eclipse last year's exponential increase. We're maybe 5-6 months away from that. --
2) Linux is cheaper, and runs on cheaper hardware.
Watch out before you say this. MS can twist that around to "Linux is a cheap OS for cheap little jobs. Use NT to get real work done".
Ok,
less expensive
then. This is a fact that will not go unnoticed by corporate been-counter. I know this from first hand experience... when managers at my company found out about the cost of Linux licences (what's the per-seat cost? whaaaaat?) they just started giggling.
There are other ways to counter Microsoft's "cheap little OS" FUD. The best way is it keep improving the code to get more and more big-system design wins.
As Microsoft taught Netscape, it's awfully hard to compete with free.
I say we shouldn't pull any punches about the "cheap" part.
2) Linux is cheaper, and runs on cheaper hardware.
Watch out before you say this. MS can twist that around to "Linux is a cheap OS for cheap little jobs. Use NT to get real work done".
Ok,
less expensive
then. This is a fact that will not go unnoticed by corporate been-counter. I know this from first hand experience... when managers at my company found out about the cost of Linux licences (what's the per-seat cost? whaaaaat?) they just started giggling.
There are other ways to counter Microsoft's "cheap little OS" FUD. The best way is it keep improving the code to get more and more big-system design wins.
As Microsoft taught Netscape, it's awfully hard to compete with free.
I say we shouldn't pull any punches about the "cheap" part.
2) Linux is cheaper, and runs on cheaper hardware.
Watch out before you say this. MS can twist that around to "Linux is a cheap OS for cheap little jobs. Use NT to get real work done".
Ok,
less expensive
then. This is a fact that will not go unnoticed by corporate been-counter. I know this from first hand experience... when managers at my company found out about the cost of Linux licences (what's the per-seat cost? whaaaaat?) they just started giggling.
There are other ways to counter Microsoft's "cheap little OS" FUD. The best way is it keep improving the code to get more and more big-system design wins.
As Microsoft taught Netscape, it's awfully hard to compete with free.
I say we shouldn't pull any punches about the "cheap" part.
2) Linux is cheaper, and runs on cheaper hardware.
Watch out before you say this. MS can twist that around to "Linux is a cheap OS for cheap little jobs. Use NT to get real work done".
Ok,
less expensive
then. This is a fact that will not go unnoticed by corporate been-counter. I know this from first hand experience... when managers at my company found out about the cost of Linux licences (what's the per-seat cost? whaaaaat?) they just started giggling.
There are other ways to counter Microsoft's "cheap little OS" FUD. The best way is it keep improving the code to get more and more big-system design wins.
As Microsoft taught Netscape, it's awfully hard to compete with free.
I say we shouldn't pull any punches about the "cheap" part.
However, if they attack us as they attacked Java, that is, by taking Linux and extending it in a proprietary fashion, we could be in trouble.
How could they do that? I proposed one method: create a version of MS-Office that will only run when a specific library is installed, and make that library available only with MS-Linux. Since it is not part of the kernel, they wouldn't have to release it as free software.
There is no difference between Microsoft selling MS-office or MS-office+library. The benefits of having Microsoft cave in and start providing their products on Linux far outweigh the risk of giving them a chance to try an "embrace and extinguish" strategy.
Re:Importance of a good compiler on IA-64
on
Gcc for the IA-64.
·
· Score: 1
John Taschek over at PCWeek has an interesting editorial about just how important getting a good compiler will be for all OS's, not just Linux. He suggests that MS is going to have serious problems with the port, since the EPIC architecture is vastly different from the traditional Intel CISC architecture that MS is used to. For RISC vendors, they are used to dealing with extremely complex compilers.
He seems to have forgotten that MS already has NT for Alpha - the compiler issues are obviously not such a big deal for them.
Man, this article got me hot at first... I thought it came straight out of M$'s PR department, but by the end of the article I realized that it's actually pretty good journalism, Bottom line: it makes the case that people need to learn more about Linux, and have it explained better. Hmm. Kinda cool.
This part in particular looked just like something I've seen mentioned frequently in anti-linux FUD stuff:
Linux isn't even free -- not for corporate IT shops, anyhow. Add up the costs of installation, testing, support, training and the political infighting that comes with any new technology in an IT shop, and your total cost of running Linux is about the same as NT, Unix or anything else. The "free" sticker price is a tiny fraction of that cost.
Well, true... kinda. I don't know about you, but the price makes a big difference to me... can't beat free. For corporate shops, I just plain don't agree that the price of owning linux will be anywhere near the price of owning NT.. you've got big licences to pay, and getting bigger all the time. Plus you've got a lot more downtime, that's gotta cost. Well.... hmm, ok, so I guess the best thing to do is try'n educate this guy, and clear up some of his.... confusion
(Oops, I just read the advice about not starting new threads, but, oh well, it's my first time soo...)
----------- I'm supposed to write something clever here but I couldn't think of anything clever so I wrote this
This is big if only because it's the first public release of code from Netscape since coming under the wing of AOL (though the deal's not done yet, Netscape is surely already dancing to AOL's tune). This bodes well for AOL's future relationship with the OS world.
Slashdot Mirror
In an article full of wrong things, the wrongest of them all is:
Also, remember that Linux is still Unix. One of the reasons for Windows' growth has been the complexity of configuring and maintaining Unix operating systems. Simply because a low-cost version of Unix is now available, it does not automatically generate more people capable of managing and configuring these systems.
I got my Linux for free (from lsl) two weeks ago. (at price=$0.00 the decision was easy to make:) I'm now capable of managing and configuring a linux system. In short, low-cost Unix made me, and I'll wager, 10,000's of others like me.
By default, I earned the title of resident Linux guru at my company and my boss has already asked me to set up his laptop next week.
3DFX has a stick up their bum because they think that if people write wrappers to allow Glide programs to run on other cards, they won't have to buy Voodoo's any more. They are misguided in this analysis. In fact, they should encourage people to write wrappers, even help them. That way, they can claim that the only way to get the best, wrapperless performance, is to run on a genuine Voodoo. But alas, their PHB's have prevailed and they are now well advanced in the process of alientating their former most loyal supporters.
BUY RIVA (good corporate citizens, and besides, TNT kicks butt)
What we in the open source community need is really a fresh start on the desktop. Linux is evolving wonderfully as a server and workstation OS for the power user, but if open source is going to win the average user, I really do believe we're going to need something very different from UNIX.
I disagree - what is being built will do quite nicely, thankyou. Make a CD that boots straight into 600x800 SVGA resolution (for example) under KDE (disclaimer: I use BOTH gnome and KDE), automatically supporting as much hardware as possible. *Now* the install program starts - it doesn't have to ask the user much more than whether the system should be permanently installed on the hard disk, and if so, whether it should attempt to preserve the system that's already on there. User says yes, it does it, then (optionally!) reboots just to make sure everything's OK, straight into a normal user account (already set up) and with the xterm buried a couple of menues down.
The innocent new user sees no Unix anywhere, just a slick desktop with lots of apps, ready to play. If the innocent user wants to lose their innocence, of course, just find the xterm, su to root and play away.
This is not science fiction... we're 99.9% of the way to being able to such a CD *now*. To make it perfect, the file format of the CD will have a windows-clickable linload on it, and the CD will be windows-autoplay (*evil grin*).
Linux 2.6 ?? 5 years .. naaaahh, make it Linux 3 :-)
ah, I'd say that the pace of Linux development is increasing exponentially and that in 5 years time we'll hit version 5, released less than a year after version 4.
He suggested:
put up a forum (with associated search engine, categorization system, history mechanism, etc) where free software developers can describe what they want to do, in their own terms, on their own schedules, with their own priorities and requirements, and then let companies who want some new products to sell bid on the opportunity to fund its development
and you said:
I don't believe your forum model would work all that well
That will be a certainty if it isn't tried.
In your model, many developers will state what they wish to work on.
Yes, for example, *I* will.
Some will go ahead and do it anyhow
Naturally, but some of them will pull in a sponser midway though the project. Others will be able to justify the effort only if they have a sponser, e.g., your wife might tolerate the project more readily if she knew you were getting paid for it. In other words, some good projects will never happen or never be completed if they're not sponsored.
Others might simply be blowing hot air.
Strike "might", write "will". And so? Refine the mechanism by which matches are made between project initiators and project sponsors to deal with this. Design the arrangements so that if nothing happens on the project, only part of the money gets paid.
Businesses will not want to wade through the hundreds of postings on such a site to see if anything comes close to matching their needs
And? Don't *you* wade through hundreds of postings on Slashdot to see if there's something interesting/important to you? 95% of the time you only have to read the subject lines.
Two different systems, bounty hunting and sponsor hunting (a la Christopher Columbus) can both exist in the same world.
Just from the abstract, it looks like a generalization of the idea of regression testing. My (shoot from the hip) guess is that the needed this to check the logic of their new processor in simulation, to verify that each iteration of the design result in a functional system, and if it didn't to pinpoint the place where it started going wrong.
Who do you blame here? If the programmers who wrote Codewarrior felt the need to target a specific distribution, that means that there must be a difference in distributions that one release could not address. If that's the case, then let's distribute the blame evenly, not just at RedHat's door.
Exactly. And after we're finished blaming each other, let's do someting about it. Perhaps Metroworks, if politely asked, would provide a list of the specific items they found to be inconveniently different between the various distributions. We take that list, compare it to the LSB, and decide what to do about each item on it (perhaps even going so far as to ammend the LSB if justifiable). Then, we go back to Metroworks, tell them it's all taken care of, now where's our *LINUX* release of the product??
This is my favorite quote from the article:
"Windows NT is slow, it's buggy, and we don't trust it," says Marcus Ranum, founder of security software company Network Flight Recorder, who faults NT-centric networking strategies for contributing to decreased security.
This is really going to help me overcome any remaining resistance to the idea of beginning a migration from NT to Linux at the company I work for.
$20,000 is big money for a student, or even a team of students, and students can produce excellent results on a project like this. Let 'em at it.
The problem that I see here is one of expectations. You wanted Linux to become a mainstream operating system, but you wanted it to remain open and free.
Yes, that's what we want. That's what we will get. We must insist on it. There is *no reason* why a mainstream os may not also be open and free.
Bruce Peren's post was on-topic. The topic was: NVidia releases linux drivers. Any response of the form "well, when is everybody else going to do that, and not just for video cards" is most certainly on topic - there is nothing grey about it.
--
1) He's looking to go in as a spy
or
2) He works in MS personnel, but happens to be a linux lover, it's just his day job
or
3) Know your enemy
--
and it is this page we need to mirror since it explains how to convert from IPIX's image format
This is clearly the best strategy, since it will demonstrate clearly that sending threatening legal letters over matters such as this, with thin legal pretext, is a *bad idea*. The mirrors should lead to the development of a converter to some other format, preferrable a better on. And needless to say, an unencumbered format. My only slight reservation is it would also lead to wider recognition of whatever their stupid format is.
--
I've spent the last couple of hours stewing in a cauldron of raw emotions. This last post just hit my "mad" button again.
I think both KDE and Gnome are wonderful. I love them both. They are not the same. That's *GOOD*. One is older than the other, and more mature. That's *NORMAL*. They both beat the heck out of Windows. That's a *RELIEF*.
Why can't there be more people like me?
--
I suspect that many will start to use Linux _because_ of KDE
There is not the slightest doubt that this is true. As soon as you can plop a CD into a PC, answer the single question "Do you want to install Linux on your PC? (yes, no, expert)" then basically sit back and wait 10 minutes for a beautiful, stable gui to pop up, there will be an incredibly massive migration to Linux that will completely eclipse last year's exponential increase. We're maybe 5-6 months away from that.
--
Ah, this must be Microsoft FUD
Percentage of Web Servers running Linux: 31.3%
--
Watch out before you say this. MS can twist that around to "Linux is a cheap OS for cheap little jobs. Use NT to get real work done".
Ok,
- less expensive
then. This is a fact that will not go unnoticed by corporate been-counter. I know this from first hand experience... when managers at my company found out about the cost of Linux licences (what's the per-seat cost? whaaaaat?) they just started giggling.There are other ways to counter Microsoft's "cheap little OS" FUD. The best way is it keep improving the code to get more and more big-system design wins.
As Microsoft taught Netscape, it's awfully hard to compete with free.
I say we shouldn't pull any punches about the "cheap" part.
--
Watch out before you say this. MS can twist that around to "Linux is a cheap OS for cheap little jobs. Use NT to get real work done".
Ok,
- less expensive
then. This is a fact that will not go unnoticed by corporate been-counter. I know this from first hand experience... when managers at my company found out about the cost of Linux licences (what's the per-seat cost? whaaaaat?) they just started giggling.There are other ways to counter Microsoft's "cheap little OS" FUD. The best way is it keep improving the code to get more and more big-system design wins.
As Microsoft taught Netscape, it's awfully hard to compete with free.
I say we shouldn't pull any punches about the "cheap" part.
--
Watch out before you say this. MS can twist that around to "Linux is a cheap OS for cheap little jobs. Use NT to get real work done".
Ok,
- less expensive
then. This is a fact that will not go unnoticed by corporate been-counter. I know this from first hand experience... when managers at my company found out about the cost of Linux licences (what's the per-seat cost? whaaaaat?) they just started giggling.There are other ways to counter Microsoft's "cheap little OS" FUD. The best way is it keep improving the code to get more and more big-system design wins.
As Microsoft taught Netscape, it's awfully hard to compete with free.
I say we shouldn't pull any punches about the "cheap" part.
--
Watch out before you say this. MS can twist that around to "Linux is a cheap OS for cheap little jobs. Use NT to get real work done".
Ok,
- less expensive
then. This is a fact that will not go unnoticed by corporate been-counter. I know this from first hand experience... when managers at my company found out about the cost of Linux licences (what's the per-seat cost? whaaaaat?) they just started giggling.There are other ways to counter Microsoft's "cheap little OS" FUD. The best way is it keep improving the code to get more and more big-system design wins.
As Microsoft taught Netscape, it's awfully hard to compete with free.
I say we shouldn't pull any punches about the "cheap" part.
--
However, if they attack us as they attacked Java, that is, by taking Linux and extending it in a proprietary fashion, we could be in trouble.
How could they do that? I proposed one method: create a version of MS-Office that will only run when a specific library is installed, and make that library available only with MS-Linux. Since it is not part of the kernel, they wouldn't have to release it as free software.
There is no difference between Microsoft selling MS-office or MS-office+library. The benefits of having Microsoft cave in and start providing their products on Linux far outweigh the risk of giving them a chance to try an "embrace and extinguish" strategy.
John Taschek over at PCWeek has an interesting editorial about just how important getting a good compiler will be for all OS's, not just Linux. He suggests that MS is going to have serious problems with the port, since the EPIC architecture is vastly different from the traditional Intel CISC architecture that MS is used to. For RISC vendors, they are used to dealing with extremely complex compilers.
He seems to have forgotten that MS already has NT for Alpha - the compiler issues are obviously not such a big deal for them.
---
Man, this article got me hot at first... I thought it came straight out of M$'s PR department, but by the end of the article I realized that it's actually pretty good journalism, Bottom line: it makes the case that people need to learn more about Linux, and have it explained better. Hmm. Kinda cool.
This part in particular looked just like something I've seen mentioned frequently in anti-linux FUD stuff:
Linux isn't even free -- not for
corporate IT shops, anyhow. Add
up the costs of installation,
testing, support, training and the
political infighting that comes
with any new technology in an IT
shop, and your total cost of
running Linux is about the same
as NT, Unix or anything else. The
"free" sticker price is a tiny
fraction of that cost.
Well, true... kinda. I don't know about you, but the price makes a big difference to me... can't beat free. For corporate shops, I just plain don't agree that the price of owning linux will be anywhere near the price of owning NT.. you've got big licences to pay, and getting bigger all the time. Plus you've got a lot more downtime, that's gotta cost. Well.... hmm, ok, so I guess the best thing to do is try'n educate this guy, and clear up some of his.... confusion
(Oops, I just read the advice about not starting new threads, but, oh well, it's my first time soo...)
-----------
I'm supposed to write something clever here but I couldn't think of anything clever so I wrote this
This is big if only because it's the first public release of code from Netscape since coming under the wing of AOL (though the deal's not done yet, Netscape is surely already dancing to AOL's tune). This bodes well for AOL's future relationship with the OS world.