Just shows how diffifult it is to land something on another planet when there's no crew aboard.
Come to think of it, odds are the Apollo 11 lander would have crashed if pilots had not been onboard. If memory serves, the designated landing spot wasn't appropriate, so Armstrong flew the thing manually to another spot.
The BBC isn't calling this a "major setback", so you've obviously been engaging in that favorite Slashdot activity: Posting While Being Ignorant.
Look, the point is that the Reuters report used, without attribution, the phrase "major failure". In other words, it is Reuters itself calling this a "major setback". Reuters lacks the credentials to make that judgement. That's why it's sloppy journalism. If someone with credentials said it and Reuters omitted the attribution, that's one kind of sloppy journalism. If the Reuters reporter conjured the phrase out of thin air, that's another kind of sloppy journalism.
Journalism is full of talking heads and reporters who insist on telling us what they think. If I want to learn what someone thinks, I'll read the editorial page or look for a columnist, but I want unsourced opinions kept out of the news.
Reuters isn't the only one jumping the gun. Yahoo is headlining this story as "lost in space".
It's premature to call the failure to hear the initial signal as a "major setback". For Reuters to do so without attributed that assessment to anyone is sloopy journalism. Why would anyone care what Reuters thinks?
Well, this could drag on endlessly, but I don't interpret Red Hat's actions as replacing existing products with higher cost versions. Instead, they simply eliminated their entire shrink-wrapped retail product line. The fact that the higher-cost enterprise versions are essentially identical in content reflects the nature of Linux. Pricing products based on the support provided is traditional in the software industry.
Now, eliminating an entire product line is certainly more than enough to really annoy a lot of people, for the reasons you've outlined. (As someone who has bought a lot of those retail boxes, it annoys me.) But, a vendor has every right to stop selling a product; I don't see an ethical component here. If a business believes it can increase revenue and profits by shifting resources elsewhere, it has every reason to do that.
A business's obligation to those who buy its products does not include a commitment to continue selling that product, or a commitment to sell support for defunct products so long as someone wants to buy it.
Red Hat did not enact this policy change without prior notice, but, for whatever reasons, a lot of people apparently ignored or never saw those notices. And, certainly, Red Hat was slow off the mark to clarify things. I'd also criticize them for making a bad business decision by not providing and facilitating customer transfers to alternate sources of support for their now-defunct products. As you point out, this is indicative of Red Hat's failure to recognize the current state of its own market and, frankly, the sales potential it offers.
On a broader issue, I'm cynical enough to believe that many Linux vendors (Mandrake)and other Linux-related businesses (Slashdot) deliberately culture a sense of loyalty and community in their customers in order to increase revenue. Certainly this has always been a common practice in other industries, but the practice is enhanced by the use of the Internet to buld pseudo-communities. In the end, that loyalty is almost always a one-way street running from the customers to the business.
When installing any operating system, you need to be protected before you open your machine to the depravatoins of the internet.
Although Windows users incur a higher risk due to the ubiquity of the product. all operating systems are vulnerable to oen degree or another.
Personally, I am unable to install Windows and download the updates without being infected with at least one virus. When I need to install Windows, the first thing I do is to disconnect the machine from the internet. After the install, I set up my internet connection, enable the Windows firewall, and reboot. Then I download the minimim number of updates needed to install the current version of the Norton antivirus/firewall product. Then I disable the Windows firewall and install Norton.
The first widespread Linux virus will do damage to the OS' reputation beyond any reasomable limits. Consumer Linux distributions should disable all servers and activate a simple firewall by default. Give the user the option to turn it , not on.
The existence of a large number of people who are upset about Red Hat's altered support policy doesn't convince me that Red Hat has an unmet ethical obligation.
It is my impression -- clearly subjective -- that many who are complaining about this policy have never actually purchased Red Hat or Red Hat support. And, that many who did buy a shrink-wrapped consumer version of Red Hat are using it in corporate and enterprise environments and have not purchased additional support from Red Hat.
The parameters of what both of these groups could expect in tems of support were clearly outlined when they initially acquired Red Hat.
If someone has a support contract with Red Hat, then Red Hat is ethically and legally obligated to provide support. (The obligation is ethical precisely because the contract exists.) Red Hat is not oligated, ethically or legally, to provide support that has not been purchased.
I don't believe the "openness" of open source software burdens the distributor ("repackager" is a more precise term for Red Hat) with the responsibility of providing free support in perpetuity. Many people do appear, frankly, to equate "open source" with "free as in beer" and "they owe me". In other word, these people are attracted to open source because they don't have to pay for it, not because they want to support that software development model. I think that attitude run counter to the original spirit of open source and risks morphing open source into a code base that survives only because a small number of businesses pay staff developers to write it
Red Hat's decision may prove to be a bad business decision, but that lies outside the realm of ethics.
I agree that RH's decision may turn out to be less than wise from a business point of view, but I also think it is pointless to argue that RH has an ethical obligation to sell soething (support) it doesn't want to sell.
I've purchased several shrink-wrapped RH products and I've never seen a written committment to support the product until a specified date. Perhaps I missed it. In any case, absent a statement from RH that they will provide a specific level of support for a product until a specific date in return for the purchase price of that product, I wouldn't have any recourse if they altered their support policy for that product. I might be ticked off, of course, but that's a different issue.
Yes, RH -- and pretty much every vedor of every kind of product -- does nothing to combat the impression that everything they sell will be supported forever. But, that's obviously unrealistic.
Much of the hostility directed at Red Hat appears to be motivated by a misunderstanding of how businesses behave. As is often the case,/. posters assert what they think should prevail, and then castigate their target for not adhering to that. In this case, people assert that RH has etical obligations that, in fact, do not exist.
Personally, I don't understand the notion of a customer supporting a business. Why would anyone feel the need to do that? Your purchase of a Red Hat product gave Red Hat all the "support" they deserve: your money.
If you purchased support through a specfic date and RH has prematurely terminated that support, you have every right to be angry and to seek legal redress. If that's not the case, I don't think you have a leg to stand on, regardless of how muich free advertising you provided for Red Hat.
It's natural to be ticked off if a favorite product moves in a direction you don't like. I've used PC's long enough to have owned several that were orpaned when the vendor went belly up. That's more than $10,000 worth of dead-end hardware. Annoying, yes, but inevitable. Those companies owed me only what I paid for, nothing more.
You may be annoyed at RH, but it's inappropriate to argue that RH is ethically required to continue to sell something (support) it doesn't want to sell.
Yes, non-profit organizations exist, but even they must maintain a revenue stream from somewhere. If someone wants to form a non-profit to distribute Linux, we should recognize that they're doing it out of ideological motives.
You're being a bit pedantic to assert that corporations "exist to comply with the articles of incorporation." Businesses are created when someone sees a chance to make money, not when someone sees a chance to draft "incorporation".
bY definition, a business exists to make a profit. If an organization isn't seeking a prfit, it isn't a business.
If you think making a profit obligates people to break the law or engage in unethical nehavior, it doesn't, I didn't say it does, and the vast majority in businesses today do neither.
I read phrases like "shall nor restrict" and "shall not require" as not mandating the provision of software gratis. In any case, the second sentence appears to contradict the first.
But, as you say, the loons are running the looney bin. Clearly, many open source "fans" (meaning non-coding users) believe open source means "never having to pay for it".
Since the vast majority of software users don't have a clue about source code, providing source ought not to eliminate opportunities to make money in support. Yet, as Red Hat and Mandrake both demonstrate in different ways, non-enterprise Linux users clearly aren't a revenue stream.
1. Your happiness with Mandrake has no bearing on claims that RH should support people who have not purchased that support.
2. How do I know that the developers who wrote the software I use are in the MandrakeClub? I use vi. Is Bill Joy giving away free support? What about Mozilla and Epiphany? Are those developers providing free support in the MandrakeClub? Or is it just the case that the people who collected software that is in Mandrake provide support for Mandrake-specific issues?
3. A company may be pissed off at RH, but if they don't have a support contract, they've no grounds for a complaint. If they do have a support contract and they think RH has violated it, they can sue. I've purchased lots of RH shrinkwrapped copies, never bought a support contract, and never expected RH to provide any level of support beyond that outlined in the product's EULA. That's the purpose of the EULA.
4. You may argue about what you think RH "should" have done, but that doesn't make their behavior unethical. Time will tell if it was a smart business decision.
5. An investor doesn't have an obligaton to see a company turn a profit. It's the company that has an obligation to the investor to turn a profit.
6. If people were relying on RH to provide support that they had not purchased, they made a mistake. Simple as that. You know those "extend warranty" deals stores try to sell you? Well, if you don't buy one, you can't claim they have an obligation to provide the same support at no cost. Yet that's what people seem to expect from commercial Linux companies.
If you're learning about ethics in a school, you're learning about ethics in the wrong place.
BTW, Fedora explicitly offers no support. That's the deal.
I've no issues with whatever support policy Mandrake wants to have. I think their "ad" is a transparent attempt to score some points off Red Hat. Not unethical, just transparent.
But, I do think it is hyprocritical and naive for anyone who hasn't paid for a current RedHat support contract to bitch about their changed policy. If someone has a contract that Red Hat has broken, get a lawyer. Otherwise, stop whining in public.
Would people bitch if RMS stopped pushing free software or if the Gnome or KDE folks gave it up? Free software is about source availability; it isn't about an imagined obligation of someone else to spend their money to support you.
"Take a strong stand" about what?? That they're doing the same bloody thing they've been doing all along?
If Mandrake thinks Red Hat -- a competitor -- has an obligation to support every product for as long as any customer is using that product -- they ought to say so.
Faced with a choice between losing money risking the company and changing their support policy, what do you thinik Mandrake would do? If they continue to follow a policy that's losing them money, they're stupid businesspeople.
You're creating a strawman. I made no assertion about unethical behavior. I just said that any business has an ethical obligation to pursue a profit. I did not say -- as your strawman attempts -- that the obligation to turn a profit always takes precedence over any other obligation.
You might just as easily argue that a parent's ethical obligation to protect his or her children does not include behavior such as mass murder. True, but also an inane argument in extremis.
Obviously targetted at ideologues angry at Red Hat, this is a lame marketing ploy by Mandrake to rally True Believers in another attempt to sell product.
Nothing new is announced here. Mandrake -- a good distribution -- is simply engaging in a bit of transparent posturing.
Open source entails no obligation by any individual or any company to make their product available gratis. If it does, it will be the death of open source. Mandrake can continue to attempt to make a profit selling the same product it is also giving away, but lot's of people consider that to be an incredibly stupid business decision.
Open source does not obligate a business to provide support for a product any longer than it wants to, regardless of how angry that might make some people. Nothing that Red Hat released as open source has been withdrawn.
Open source is commonly touted as software that can be supported even if the company selling it goes away. So, then, why are different standards applied to the company known as Red Hat? Red Hat users have the source. Support it yourself, OK? Isn't that what open source is all about?
Red Hat has no ethical obligation to support any of its products for any longer than it wishes to, and assertions to the contrary are hypocritical and contradictory.
The primary ethical obligation of a business is to turn a profit. That's what Red Hat chose to do, and that is exactly what Mandrake is doing with this self-serving advertisement.
Good for you. Too many folks must believe businesses think computers are something other than an expense. That's wrong. They're a tool, like any other tool. Once a tool meets your reuqirements, buying extra goodies is a waste of money. Imagine all those Pentium 4's sitting on desktops out there used by people reading email and writing reports. It's like buying Porsche's for the mailroom.
Once, when working at a place where 99 percent of the computers were used for email and simple word processing, I suggested giving everyone 286 machines running DesqView, Word for DOS 5.5, Excel for DOS (although few actually knew how to construct a spreadsheet), and an email program. Of course, people looked at me like I was nuts.
>> Why not let the decision-makers at that company make that decision? The company could choose just one UI, but they could choose between KDE and GNOME. Now, Bruce Perens makes that choice for them.
That's an option, but one that could easily add cost to the decision. Managements is unlikely to recognize either "KDE" or "Gnome". Acquiring the expertise to make a rational choice adds to the cost. From a business perspective, remember, almost all of any UI's capabilities will go unused. As program launchers -- their primary purpose -- KDE and Gnome are identical.
The basic point is this: Beyond a certain threshold of functionality, choice of a UI is a secondary concern for businesses. Both KDE and Gnome are beyond that threshold. Perens is smart to pick just one.
>> Tools to do just that already exist in KDE, but they are not available for GNOME. So KDE has a clear advantage there.
Perhaps. Better yet, don't install or offer anything you don't want used. Environments I'm familiar with gave their employees Windows machines with Office. Nothing else. A limited set of other approved apps was available for installation after an employee's supervisor had approved the request. Automatic inventories ere periodically conducted, which flagged all unauthorized software.
Nuts. Choices like that cost money. If a business lets their employees choose either KDE or Gnome, then that business has to spend money supporting both KDE and Gnome. Why would a sensible business do that?
Business users, regardless of the operating system and regardless of the "desktop environment", typically use a very few applications, day in and day out. The rest of their "desktop" sits there, unused.
A smart business will lock down the desktops of their employees as much as possible, providing access to only the applications emloyees are authorized to use.
All this adolescent whimpering about "choice" is silly and completely beside the point.
Open source has nothing at all to do with creating spare time for developers. It's just one method of releasing software. Ditto for the public domain, proprietary licenses, etc.
If a developer chooses to code in his or her spare time, the release model is not going to increase that spare time. If a developer is under contract or employed by someone, the release model isn't going to give that developer the freedom to code something other than what he is obligated to code.
Any code can be stolen, reworked, copywritten, remarketed, etc., regardless of the license attached to the code. Without enforcement, a license is just a collection of powerless words. And, by definition, something in the domain can't be plagiarized.
The point is to refute ill-informed dweebs who think "open source" means they don't have to pay for software, and who fantasize about legions of developers thumbing their noses at the Evil Corporations.
Beyond looking at another's code, exactly how does open source add to a developer's freedom? Or a user's choices?
Actually, you could chain developers to their desks, force them to code only what you say, pay them starvation wagess, and still be open source if you released the product appropriately.
The freedom most open source developers enjoy to program what they wish is the freedom that comes from coding for no pay.
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Just shows how diffifult it is to land something on another planet when there's no crew aboard.
Come to think of it, odds are the Apollo 11 lander would have crashed if pilots had not been onboard. If memory serves, the designated landing spot wasn't appropriate, so Armstrong flew the thing manually to another spot.
The BBC isn't calling this a "major setback", so you've obviously been engaging in that favorite Slashdot activity: Posting While Being Ignorant.
Look, the point is that the Reuters report used, without attribution, the phrase "major failure". In other words, it is Reuters itself calling this a "major setback". Reuters lacks the credentials to make that judgement. That's why it's sloppy journalism. If someone with credentials said it and Reuters omitted the attribution, that's one kind of sloppy journalism. If the Reuters reporter conjured the phrase out of thin air, that's another kind of sloppy journalism.
Journalism is full of talking heads and reporters who insist on telling us what they think. If I want to learn what someone thinks, I'll read the editorial page or look for a columnist, but I want unsourced opinions kept out of the news.
Ummm....Reuters is British.
Reuters isn't the only one jumping the gun. Yahoo is headlining this story as "lost in space".
It's premature to call the failure to hear the initial signal as a "major setback". For Reuters to do so without attributed that assessment to anyone is sloopy journalism. Why would anyone care what Reuters thinks?
Well, this could drag on endlessly, but I don't interpret Red Hat's actions as replacing existing products with higher cost versions. Instead, they simply eliminated their entire shrink-wrapped retail product line. The fact that the higher-cost enterprise versions are essentially identical in content reflects the nature of Linux. Pricing products based on the support provided is traditional in the software industry.
Now, eliminating an entire product line is certainly more than enough to really annoy a lot of people, for the reasons you've outlined. (As someone who has bought a lot of those retail boxes, it annoys me.) But, a vendor has every right to stop selling a product; I don't see an ethical component here. If a business believes it can increase revenue and profits by shifting resources elsewhere, it has every reason to do that.
A business's obligation to those who buy its products does not include a commitment to continue selling that product, or a commitment to sell support for defunct products so long as someone wants to buy it.
Red Hat did not enact this policy change without prior notice, but, for whatever reasons, a lot of people apparently ignored or never saw those notices. And, certainly, Red Hat was slow off the mark to clarify things. I'd also criticize them for making a bad business decision by not providing and facilitating customer transfers to alternate sources of support for their now-defunct products. As you point out, this is indicative of Red Hat's failure to recognize the current state of its own market and, frankly, the sales potential it offers.
On a broader issue, I'm cynical enough to believe that many Linux vendors (Mandrake)and other Linux-related businesses (Slashdot) deliberately culture a sense of loyalty and community in their customers in order to increase revenue. Certainly this has always been a common practice in other industries, but the practice is enhanced by the use of the Internet to buld pseudo-communities. In the end, that loyalty is almost always a one-way street running from the customers to the business.
When installing any operating system, you need to be protected before you open your machine to the depravatoins of the internet.
Although Windows users incur a higher risk due to the ubiquity of the product. all operating systems are vulnerable to oen degree or another.
Personally, I am unable to install Windows and download the updates without being infected with at least one virus. When I need to install Windows, the first thing I do is to disconnect the machine from the internet. After the install, I set up my internet connection, enable the Windows firewall, and reboot. Then I download the minimim number of updates needed to install the current version of the Norton antivirus/firewall product. Then I disable the Windows firewall and install Norton.
The first widespread Linux virus will do damage to the OS' reputation beyond any reasomable limits. Consumer Linux distributions should disable all servers and activate a simple firewall by default. Give the user the option to turn it , not on.
Then I disagree. I believe you get what you pay for, and have never felt any reason to be "loyal" to a company that was selling me something.
If someone does something to merit my support and my loyalty, they'll get it. Taking my money in a retail transaction doesn't measure up.
The existence of a large number of people who are upset about Red Hat's altered support policy doesn't convince me that Red Hat has an unmet ethical obligation.
It is my impression -- clearly subjective -- that many who are complaining about this policy have never actually purchased Red Hat or Red Hat support. And, that many who did buy a shrink-wrapped consumer version of Red Hat are using it in corporate and enterprise environments and have not purchased additional support from Red Hat.
The parameters of what both of these groups could expect in tems of support were clearly outlined when they initially acquired Red Hat.
If someone has a support contract with Red Hat, then Red Hat is ethically and legally obligated to provide support. (The obligation is ethical precisely because the contract exists.) Red Hat is not oligated, ethically or legally, to provide support that has not been purchased.
I don't believe the "openness" of open source software burdens the distributor ("repackager" is a more precise term for Red Hat) with the responsibility of providing free support in perpetuity. Many people do appear, frankly, to equate "open source" with "free as in beer" and "they owe me". In other word, these people are attracted to open source because they don't have to pay for it, not because they want to support that software development model. I think that attitude run counter to the original spirit of open source and risks morphing open source into a code base that survives only because a small number of businesses pay staff developers to write it
Red Hat's decision may prove to be a bad business decision, but that lies outside the realm of ethics.
I agree that RH's decision may turn out to be less than wise from a business point of view, but I also think it is pointless to argue that RH has an ethical obligation to sell soething (support) it doesn't want to sell.
/. posters assert what they think should prevail, and then castigate their target for not adhering to that. In this case, people assert that RH has etical obligations that, in fact, do not exist.
I've purchased several shrink-wrapped RH products and I've never seen a written committment to support the product until a specified date. Perhaps I missed it. In any case, absent a statement from RH that they will provide a specific level of support for a product until a specific date in return for the purchase price of that product, I wouldn't have any recourse if they altered their support policy for that product. I might be ticked off, of course, but that's a different issue.
Yes, RH -- and pretty much every vedor of every kind of product -- does nothing to combat the impression that everything they sell will be supported forever. But, that's obviously unrealistic.
Much of the hostility directed at Red Hat appears to be motivated by a misunderstanding of how businesses behave. As is often the case,
That's exactly what I meant.
Nothing difficult about that. I said "primary", not "only". The rest is the word game you're playing.
Personally, I don't understand the notion of a customer supporting a business. Why would anyone feel the need to do that? Your purchase of a Red Hat product gave Red Hat all the "support" they deserve: your money.
If you purchased support through a specfic date and RH has prematurely terminated that support, you have every right to be angry and to seek legal redress. If that's not the case, I don't think you have a leg to stand on, regardless of how muich free advertising you provided for Red Hat.
It's natural to be ticked off if a favorite product moves in a direction you don't like. I've used PC's long enough to have owned several that were orpaned when the vendor went belly up. That's more than $10,000 worth of dead-end hardware. Annoying, yes, but inevitable. Those companies owed me only what I paid for, nothing more.
You may be annoyed at RH, but it's inappropriate to argue that RH is ethically required to continue to sell something (support) it doesn't want to sell.
Yes, non-profit organizations exist, but even they must maintain a revenue stream from somewhere. If someone wants to form a non-profit to distribute Linux, we should recognize that they're doing it out of ideological motives.
You're being a bit pedantic to assert that corporations "exist to comply with the articles of incorporation." Businesses are created when someone sees a chance to make money, not when someone sees a chance to draft "incorporation".
bY definition, a business exists to make a profit. If an organization isn't seeking a prfit, it isn't a business.
If you think making a profit obligates people to break the law or engage in unethical nehavior, it doesn't, I didn't say it does, and the vast majority in businesses today do neither.
I read phrases like "shall nor restrict" and "shall not require" as not mandating the provision of software gratis. In any case, the second sentence appears to contradict the first.
But, as you say, the loons are running the looney bin. Clearly, many open source "fans" (meaning non-coding users) believe open source means "never having to pay for it".
Since the vast majority of software users don't have a clue about source code, providing source ought not to eliminate opportunities to make money in support. Yet, as Red Hat and Mandrake both demonstrate in different ways, non-enterprise Linux users clearly aren't a revenue stream.
1. Your happiness with Mandrake has no bearing on claims that RH should support people who have not purchased that support.
2. How do I know that the developers who wrote the software I use are in the MandrakeClub? I use vi. Is Bill Joy giving away free support? What about Mozilla and Epiphany? Are those developers providing free support in the MandrakeClub? Or is it just the case that the people who collected software that is in Mandrake provide support for Mandrake-specific issues?
3. A company may be pissed off at RH, but if they don't have a support contract, they've no grounds for a complaint. If they do have a support contract and they think RH has violated it, they can sue. I've purchased lots of RH shrinkwrapped copies, never bought a support contract, and never expected RH to provide any level of support beyond that outlined in the product's EULA. That's the purpose of the EULA.
4. You may argue about what you think RH "should" have done, but that doesn't make their behavior unethical. Time will tell if it was a smart business decision.
5. An investor doesn't have an obligaton to see a company turn a profit. It's the company that has an obligation to the investor to turn a profit.
6. If people were relying on RH to provide support that they had not purchased, they made a mistake. Simple as that. You know those "extend warranty" deals stores try to sell you? Well, if you don't buy one, you can't claim they have an obligation to provide the same support at no cost. Yet that's what people seem to expect from commercial Linux companies.
If you're learning about ethics in a school, you're learning about ethics in the wrong place.
BTW, Fedora explicitly offers no support. That's the deal.
I've no issues with whatever support policy Mandrake wants to have. I think their "ad" is a transparent attempt to score some points off Red Hat. Not unethical, just transparent.
But, I do think it is hyprocritical and naive for anyone who hasn't paid for a current RedHat support contract to bitch about their changed policy. If someone has a contract that Red Hat has broken, get a lawyer. Otherwise, stop whining in public.
Would people bitch if RMS stopped pushing free software or if the Gnome or KDE folks gave it up? Free software is about source availability; it isn't about an imagined obligation of someone else to spend their money to support you.
"Take a strong stand" about what?? That they're doing the same bloody thing they've been doing all along?
If Mandrake thinks Red Hat -- a competitor -- has an obligation to support every product for as long as any customer is using that product -- they ought to say so.
Faced with a choice between losing money risking the company and changing their support policy, what do you thinik Mandrake would do? If they continue to follow a policy that's losing them money, they're stupid businesspeople.
You're creating a strawman. I made no assertion about unethical behavior. I just said that any business has an ethical obligation to pursue a profit. I did not say -- as your strawman attempts -- that the obligation to turn a profit always takes precedence over any other obligation.
You might just as easily argue that a parent's ethical obligation to protect his or her children does not include behavior such as mass murder. True, but also an inane argument in extremis.
Obviously targetted at ideologues angry at Red Hat, this is a lame marketing ploy by Mandrake to rally True Believers in another attempt to sell product.
Nothing new is announced here. Mandrake -- a good distribution -- is simply engaging in a bit of transparent posturing.
Open source entails no obligation by any individual or any company to make their product available gratis. If it does, it will be the death of open source. Mandrake can continue to attempt to make a profit selling the same product it is also giving away, but lot's of people consider that to be an incredibly stupid business decision.
Open source does not obligate a business to provide support for a product any longer than it wants to, regardless of how angry that might make some people. Nothing that Red Hat released as open source has been withdrawn.
Open source is commonly touted as software that can be supported even if the company selling it goes away. So, then, why are different standards applied to the company known as Red Hat? Red Hat users have the source. Support it yourself, OK? Isn't that what open source is all about?
Red Hat has no ethical obligation to support any of its products for any longer than it wishes to, and assertions to the contrary are hypocritical and contradictory.
The primary ethical obligation of a business is to turn a profit. That's what Red Hat chose to do, and that is exactly what Mandrake is doing with this self-serving advertisement.
Good for you. Too many folks must believe businesses think computers are something other than an expense. That's wrong. They're a tool, like any other tool. Once a tool meets your reuqirements, buying extra goodies is a waste of money. Imagine all those Pentium 4's sitting on desktops out there used by people reading email and writing reports. It's like buying Porsche's for the mailroom.
Once, when working at a place where 99 percent of the computers were used for email and simple word processing, I suggested giving everyone 286 machines running DesqView, Word for DOS 5.5, Excel for DOS (although few actually knew how to construct a spreadsheet), and an email program. Of course, people looked at me like I was nuts.
>> Why not let the decision-makers at that company make that decision? The company could choose just one UI, but they could choose between KDE and GNOME. Now, Bruce Perens makes that choice for them.
That's an option, but one that could easily add cost to the decision. Managements is unlikely to recognize either "KDE" or "Gnome". Acquiring the expertise to make a rational choice adds to the cost. From a business perspective, remember, almost all of any UI's capabilities will go unused. As program launchers -- their primary purpose -- KDE and Gnome are identical.
The basic point is this: Beyond a certain threshold of functionality, choice of a UI is a secondary concern for businesses. Both KDE and Gnome are beyond that threshold. Perens is smart to pick just one.
>> Tools to do just that already exist in KDE, but they are not available for GNOME. So KDE has a clear advantage there.
Perhaps. Better yet, don't install or offer anything you don't want used. Environments I'm familiar with gave their employees Windows machines with Office. Nothing else. A limited set of other approved apps was available for installation after an employee's supervisor had approved the request. Automatic inventories ere periodically conducted, which flagged all unauthorized software.
Nuts. Choices like that cost money. If a business lets their employees choose either KDE or Gnome, then that business has to spend money supporting both KDE and Gnome. Why would a sensible business do that?
Business users, regardless of the operating system and regardless of the "desktop environment", typically use a very few applications, day in and day out. The rest of their "desktop" sits there, unused.
A smart business will lock down the desktops of their employees as much as possible, providing access to only the applications emloyees are authorized to use.
All this adolescent whimpering about "choice" is silly and completely beside the point.
Open source has nothing at all to do with creating spare time for developers. It's just one method of releasing software. Ditto for the public domain, proprietary licenses, etc.
If a developer chooses to code in his or her spare time, the release model is not going to increase that spare time. If a developer is under contract or employed by someone, the release model isn't going to give that developer the freedom to code something other than what he is obligated to code.
Any code can be stolen, reworked, copywritten, remarketed, etc., regardless of the license attached to the code. Without enforcement, a license is just a collection of powerless words. And, by definition, something in the domain can't be plagiarized.
The point is to refute ill-informed dweebs who think "open source" means they don't have to pay for software, and who fantasize about legions of developers thumbing their noses at the Evil Corporations.
Beyond looking at another's code, exactly how does open source add to a developer's freedom? Or a user's choices?
Actually, you could chain developers to their desks, force them to code only what you say, pay them starvation wagess, and still be open source if you released the product appropriately.
The freedom most open source developers enjoy to program what they wish is the freedom that comes from coding for no pay.