And while some people might see this as a good reason for that pesky Right to Bear Arms that you Americans hold onto so dearly, *I* see it a good reason to not have an orginized fighting force at all. Yes yes, I know. I'm living in a dream world - its never going to happen, for all the obvious reasons, but a guy can dream, can't he?
No, that's a reasonable opinion. In fact, I believe it is more or less what Costa Rica did. They were smart enough to realise that the best way to stop military coupes is to disband the military. For many states (I don't think the US is one of them) the domestic military pose a considerable threat to the nation's freedom, and do very little to protect it. They are best disbanded in that circumstance.
No, that's not flame bait, although I guess it's one end of the spectrum. I've seen a whole load of Perl that just plain hurts (NOCOL springs to mind).
But that's not really a good reason to decide what languages to learn.
If you are interested in human languages you should enjoy Perl. Perl has in my mind the distinction of being possibly the only language that is at once genuinely different and innovative and at the same time widely used and practical.
For me, learning Python would be like learning Esperanto. I don't like my languages clean, I like them clever and I like them useful.
You boss might have fits at the notion of a programming language with the capacity for slang, but once you're there, you're hooked.
Bruce wrote: "They are completely unknown in the Linux community, their officers are newcomers to Linux, and nobody known in the Linux community is on their technical staff (if they really have one)."
While I broadly agree with you that LinuxOne appear to be a fraud, and a sleezly one at that, I can't let this comment get away.
You seem to me to be suggesting that companies wishing to base a business on Linux should somehow serve an apprenticeship in 'the community' where they will recieve the benevolent blessing of the 'known figures' of the community, and they can then trade acceptably.
This is not a bazaar. This is a situation remarkably similar to the late medieval trade guilds in northern Europe, which did an excellent job of serving their own interests and stifling competition, all in the name of maintaining standards.
To hell with the ESRs, ACs, and the other figures of our supposed worship and gratitude. If I one day have a great idea for a new kind of folding chair, do I need to grovel before the established figures of the chair industry? Do I need to play the game of being a good little manufacturer that doesn't push their luck? Do I need to employ some 'well known' chair designers to establish my credibility in the market place?
The hell I do. I get my capital together, I go out there, and I try to prove my products and ideas in the marketplace.
Likewise with Linux. If one day I say "That's it!!" "I've just figured out a create way to do package management!", do I then need to prove my worthiness by hanging around on some RPM mailing list and demonstrating on my CV that I've contributed to previous package management projects?
No, I do not. I write my code, and I go out there and say fair and square "This is a better way of doing it. You've never heared of me, you don't know I am, I don't employ any 'known figures' but I've got a new product that frankly works a hell of alot better than the old ones. Please use it".
Employ known figures indeed. Sounds like some of the famous traders in the old bazaar don't want too many newcomers setting up stalls unless they pay their dues.
Currently/. generates ad revenue and creates a fuzzy 'brand value'.
Is there a scheme to move to something else? To move to subscriptions for certain features (e.g. making the ability to filter out AC posts or low moderation posts a subscription-only features)
Or maybe to do more commercial tie-ins - such as interviews with Major hardware manufacturers, or QA sessions with corporate sponsorship.
Or to boost the ad revenue by turning/. into a complete geek-focused portal with not just news and trivia but incorporating everything from freemail services and cheesy 'yourname.slashdot.org' web space to a peronsalised geek calendar and movie review service?
Or, maybe andover.net is just looking to get bought out by one of the media industry's big players like VNU or Disney or ZD or whatever?
The point is (I think) that while everything you say is true, it is still true if you simply replace 'GPL' with 'Artistic License' or 'BSD license'.
If everything RedHat did now were under the BSD license, and RH were bought up by MS, then all the BSD stuff would be ours to continue working on and with. Sure, MS might do a close fork, but that's a whole other issue.
I know this is tired, but I figure someone has to say it.
The Marshall Plan was 'a good thing' but strangely the people of, say, Britain were rather confused about the way the US was so keen to help the vanquished, and yet at the same time, so very unwilling to help the victors. Britain's war debt to the US was crippling for years after the end of the war, and the US wasn't all that keen to write it off.
I'm no expert on the history of all this, but more than one person has pointed out that the Marshall Plan, as well as ensuring a sort of peace, also ensured increased power for the US and a nice market to export to.
So, not everyone in Europe sees the Marshall Plan as the most wonderful act of generosity ever conceived....
I would not go so far myself, but it is a GREAT FALLACY to say that the GPL ensures the survival of good OS projects in the face of money (or any other threats).
There are many reasons OS projects die out, here are a few:
1. Too hard 2. Too boring 3. A key developer leaves 4. LACK of PUBLICITY 5. Infighting 6. A rival project
Now, how many of these factors can be easily influenced by any corporation with alot of free cash?
1. No, a hard task is still hard 2. Not per se, but a salary can make up for dull coding. 3. Absolutely. I doubt that a KDE hacker will leave to work on Gnome just because RH offers a fat cheque, but a similar situation is quite easy to imagine. 4. Currently the biggest. Who wants to work on a litte backwater project when you can work on Teh GIMP and brag to all your friends about it? Publicity has a massive effect on the momentum of OS projects - And lets see now: linux.com (commercially owned) slashdot.org (commercially owned) freshmeat.net (commercially owned)
Looking just great:-(
5. Not especially. There's nothing like an ego to rise above cupidity:-| 6. Very definitely. A little project that's been chugging along fine can be killed off in a flash if a company decides to throw a few full time developers at it. Sure, if everything is GPL then the little project can take code from the big new one - but as we all know that's rarely how things work. Lots of NIH syndrome.
Now, you ask, why would our loverly OS company like RH or VA linux want to kill off an OS project? Well, pretty damn obvious I'd say. Are you going to tell me that RH has no interest in seeing, say, harmony bite the dust*
*Yes I KNOW harmony isn't around, and no I'm not making any conspiracy theories, but as we see different companies go down different architecture paths like this, you MUST realise that they have vested interests in alternative OS projects failing.
Since this is in reply to TC, I'll leave conjecture on financial backing for Perl vs Python as an excercise for readers:-)
"If you have to work on closed-source to eat, there's a powerful incentive for you to concentrate on that closed-source work."
Otherwise known as a contract of employment. I do believe even OS companies have contracts for their staff.
Sure, BigEvilCompany may not be very thrilled about me working on OS projects in my own time, but...
Do you think RH looks kindly on its core developers deciding that frankly SuSE is more interesting and doing work on SuSE in their spare time? I doubt it very much. Sure, I don't suppose that's much of a problem at the moment, but it will be once more companies are open source. At the end of the day you spend your working time doing what your company wants you to do. The GPL may or may not help that time be of use to others.
"For one thing, it's a great motivational boost to know that what you are doing could make you mega-rich. Some people like that kind of incentive. "
Yes, and more's the pity. So there is AN hacker working hard on his new app, and he thinks to himself 'Well, I reckon I should use libfoo becuase that's a well made library - but - gee MegaDistro, the most populat Linux distro has gone down the libbar path. So, If I make my app use libbar in stead, my app might get included in the MegaDistro distribution, and they might employ me or give me little sweetners or 'goodwill stock options' so yeah, I reckon I'll dump libfoo.
Lovely.
"Secondly, it is clear that the open source movement as a whole will benefit from the injection of cash and corporate credibility that these kind success stories bring. It's a necessary step in maintaining the progress of free software."
Rubbish. Your definition of progress is not the same as everyone else's. I write free software to make people (not least myself) happy. I don't do it to crush MS, I don't do it so I can become one of the high priests if the OS cathedral like ESR and AC, and I sure as hell don't do it for the fucking silicon value mickey mouse money stock options.
"But most importantly, it is clear that the business model of firms like Red Hat rely upon the goodwill of the open source community."
No. RH has not been in existence long enough to prove a business model one way or another. RH is currently a vapour company. It makes losses. MASSIVE LOSSES AND INCREASINGLY LARGE LOSSES. Its stock rides on publicity and vibe. I'll readily admit that good publicity and good vibes rely upon the goodwill of the OS community. But as for the business model, we'll wait and see.
What you do with your life is good or bad. The way you spend you time is good or bad. Some people prefer to spend their time accumulating money, and then using that money to convince other people to do good. Others may prefer to simply do something good directly. A rare few may manage both at once.
Trying to convince someone that money was worthless one day, I burnt a ten pound note. He was really quite angry about it, complaining that it was a bad thing to do - If I wanted to make a point about how cool I was I should have given the money to a homeless person or a charity.
He was missing the point in a big way. Money is not this wonderful substance that can be converted in a flash into wonderful things, great deeds, and life saving substances. Money is just a mutually agreed incentive to perform acts. Some of us rather prefer a life where we go out and do those acts directly. There's something much cleaner about that - it's hard to explain.
So, I've got a whole lot of time for people who opt out of the money go round, and alot more respect than I do for those who make a stack of cash selling crap to bored housewives and then "Donate millions to good causes".
So, If I hear people fawning over ESR in a years time for personally donating 1 million bucks to the FSF or whatever, then I'm going to feel pretty damned unimpressed, compared with a guy who just sits there and gets on doing with his life what he thinks is the right thing to do.
It can't be worse than the 1000 years of darkness religion cost us in the Dark Ages (roughly 0 to 1000 A.C.) where man made no notable progress thanks to overt, oppressive, Christianity.
Your definition of 'man' appears to only include Northern Europe. I do believe the Chinese, for instance, were progressing just fine, and that we all benefited when their ideas were eventually brought to other parts of the world.
Your definition of 'progress' appears only to include technology and manufacturing. During the period 0 - 1000A.D. in northern Europe, architecture improved dramatically, decorative arts and techniques spread and developed, societies became more advanced and homogenous, and great works such as Beowulf and the Book of Kells were created.
And as for the technology, I think you'll find shipbuilding took great steps forward as well.
In fact, I think you'll find the 'Dark Ages' are so called because much of the advances of Roman civilisation were lost, which had everything to do with Romes loss of military power and political cohsesion, and nothing to do with religion, which at the time was in any case largely non-christian.
That's an interesting perspective, but the things you talk about are not private or personal.
How would you feel about a computer that tracked your login session and looked for 'unusual' activity in your command history?
Personally, I feel much better about the system that detects overcrowding on the tube platform, because it is dealing with 'the crowd' or 'the platform' rather than with individuals.
As soon as you start analysing an individual person (regardless of whether you also identify them) rather than a behaviour removed from individuals, the whole thing becomes more invasive.
Yes, I think Sun will become more predatory and MS will become less so.
Companies seem to become protective when they think of themselves as being technology companies rather service companies or manufacturers.
Microsoft is strongly assocciated with Windows. Therefore it acts strongly to defend and promote windows technology. Sun is not strongly assocciated with Unix - unix is a technology that Sun is interested in, but that Sun does not own particularly - thus with Solaris we see a good deal of openess and sanity, and little pressure.
But Java is Sun's Windows. And Sun is starting to behave with Java just as MS did with DOS. When you think 'Java' you think 'Sun' even though as a language spec it is theoretically available from many places. Same with the old dos - you thought 'DOS' and thought 'Microsoft' evne though IBM, Corel and so on were in the game.
Now, Sun wants it to stay that way. And that's why they are getting agressive.
IBM don't make much fuss about technology these days. It used to me 'computer' == 'IBM' but those days are gone. Even IBM's technologies(db2, AS/400, lotus) are not strongly assocciated with them. IBM are more of a service company now - they provide end to end solutions for all sorts of things. IBM are never going to try to own apache or own Linux, because they have moved on from the 'lets invent a cool technology and flog it for everything we can get' mentality.
Sun are in a tight spot. The hardware is good, but still expensive and under threat from IA64, Merced and friends. Solaris is good, but it's under threat from Linux, OS X, even NT. Sun didn't have much else until it created Java and bought Netscape.
Now, we can all see how protective Sun are getting over Java, and I can tell you that if you talk to them about Netscape stuff, they are just as bullish and aggressive about it. You think "Web" and you think "Netscape" - and Sun is trying to buy into that assocciation.
Perl has been unusual in being a language that started in a small niche were it was used by non-computer-science folk (Unix sysadmin), moved into ANOTHER niche of the same kind (simple CGI), and is now widening its usage into a general applications programming language.
That's why these kinds of books are very useful - so many Perl programmers such as me never went near a CompSci class.
"it ignores the very interchangeability of languages at the heart of such things as the open- source movement"
Errr.. ?
I think you are missing the point. There are plenty of books on Algorithms. Loads. Really, lots and lots and lots. However, until now there were few that focussed on Perl.
Some consider Perl to have outgrown its old 'Unix scripting language' roots, and so a book that looks at a strong foundation of programming principles for Perl is welcome.
If this book is shelved with 'Algorithms' then it has been misshelved, I'll grant you. If it is shelved with 'Perl' then it is a very useful contribution.
I don't think the author's were trying to promote greater understanding of algorithms and forcing people to learn Perl while they did it.
Hmmm.. So much for all the sites like/. that use another server for images.
Technical solutions are rarely suitable to these kinds of problems. The only reason that this sort of thing happens is because of the inherent openness and flexibility of the net. That flexibility makes it very hard to pin down a weakness and plug it. There is no design weakness here - merely an unfortunate usage.
Personally I'd far rather have an Internet that provided no technological means for me to stop this sort of thing, than an Internet that was restrictive and full of rules and regulations.
>>"You can't buy house paint with lead in it. Why >>not? Why not let consumers decide if they want >>lead in their paint? "
>Why not? I mean, who would buy it in the first >place? Can you see the advertising campaign? Try >our new foo paint, now with extra lead! >Guaranteed to cause cancer or double your money >back!
For the youngsters out there, lead is was put in paint for any number of good reasons. Some colours are easier to achieve with it, and more importantly it results in a smoother finish on the coat of paint, with drips and brushstrokes less of a problem. I'm sure technology has moved on since lead was banned, but when it was first banned it represented something of a step back from the painters point of view.
> >> If there's one thing I don't ever feel >> towards a commerical organisation, it's >> indebted. > >Not even when that organisation has been paying >people to write cool software, and then >releasing it under the GPL?
Certainly not. Either they pay people to write GPL software in the expectation that somehow they will get a return on their investment. Fine, best of luck to them.
Or they pay people to write GPL software because they just love free software. In that case the people who should be indebted are the programmers, who are being given a job by people who don't expect to get anything back.
I write software because its fun. It is its own reward. I hang out on mailing lists and usenet, because for every 25 answers I give, one person mails me back saying "Great - I understand now and it's all working, thanks!". That reply makes me happy, and it's why I do it. No-one should really feel indebted.
I owe Larry Wall nothing except a smile and a hello if I ever meet him, despite have earned a salary for a year or so on the back of Perl.
This is the basis of Open Source as it interests me. I use software without owing, and I write it without being owed. It is its own reward.
I think you are wrong. There is a widespread and damaging perception that good == big in the technology world.
One of the great benefits of OSS is that we might be able to get away from the fear that if I buy into a minority technology I'll be left standing. I'd love to see Linux distros filling tiny little niche markets, and being able to do so becuase people know that they will be able to painlessly switch of their vendor goes belly up.
The other relevant point is that RH are growing by acquisition, which is what MS is famous for. To be fair, the skills shortage is so accute in some areas that it's nigh on impossible to grow except by acquisition, which exonerates many of the MS buyouts as well as this one.
Nonetheless, acquiring companies is a sure fire way to spread the message 'we are a big company who can buy little companies - we won't go bust'.
It's also wrong, of course.
The one thing I know about OSS is that it got where it is without commercial interest, and while I'd like to see some OSS business models work out, there is not the slightest evidence that any of them do*.
*A few people sustaining a turnover for a couple of years, and paying a few hundred salaries does not prove a business model:-)
"who do you think has been maintaining all that stuff for the last bundle of years? Anyone who uses gcc or gdb is heavily indebted to their work on it. "
If there's one thing I don't ever feel towards a commerical organisation, it's indebted. Unless maybe I steal their goods. That's the whole point of the business transaction. Now, if we are talking about a whole new business ethic, where people purchase from a company not just for a positive ROI, but for reasons such as moral support, strategic alignment and so on, then that's very interesting, but it's not at all obvious.
Every day I go to small butchers and bakers and get a worse ROI on my cash than if I go to the supermarket. That's because I morally prefer small shops and I'm willing to keep them in business even when I'm forced to agree that they basically offer a worse product at a higher price than in the local Waitrose.
However, I struggle to apply that way of thinking to RedHat. A typical US startup, full of geeks and suits and cash. Great, best of luck to them, but these aren't people I talk to on mailing lists - they aren't part of my community, and I don't feel like being charitable. I'm 100% not indebted to RH for anything.
I'm all in favour of making purchasing decisions based on more than a cold calculation of product ability versus product TCO, but RedHat is not behaving like that kind of company. I'm looking forward to seeing how these OSS business models end up...
"Then microsoft will go and find another situation in which Linux performs worse than NT and will focus their PR machine on that."
You make this sound like a criticism. It's what PR machines do. Last I checked RedHat were pretty happy to focus on Linux's superior stability. Apache advocates focus on Apache's features, not its speed or ease of configuration. It's the way things work, deal with it.
Microsoft's PR machine does an excellent job of showing which of Linux's weaknesses most concern people in business. That helps us.
". Download a linux dist, get a geek who lives for it, and understands it. "
Sadly, this is _not_ a recipe for success. A geek who knows all the command flags for ls by heart and prides himself on being up to date with _all_ the latest bind vulnerabilities is not your ideal sysadmin. You need someone who sees the wood as well as the trees, and administrator who can think strategically as well as perform competant operational tasks.
In this light, you realise that a good sysadmin is not someone who understands an OS thoroughly. It is someone who understands the aims of you IT systems thoroughly, and knows how to implement those aims properly. There's a world of difference.
That said, yes, I think the TCO of *nix is generally lower once you are talking about large installations and Enterprises. For smaller organisations I'm not at all sure that is true. A 20 person company with a need for a file and print server is perfectly suited to an NT box.
"And Linux has better SMP support. Also add in tech support (assuming you outsource for both NT and Linux) and Linux still kinda-sorta comes out on top. "
Um. What makes you say that Linux has better SMP support? Most test seem to indicate that NT makes more efficient use of multiple CPUs. And what makes you think there is better tech support from 3rd parties for Linux? I'm not saying there isn't, but I've certainly found the tech support from large resellers for NT to be good.
I'm not saying that you are wrong, but these are both pretty contentious claims without any evidence. Linux's superior stability is probably widely enough accepted.
An embarrassingly bad article from someone who shows little experience of either Enterprises or NT.
"How many "common customers" use 4-way NT boxes? Very few, in my experience. "
What little experience you have, then. Such hardware is commonplace in the Enterprise.
"Understand that while Linux is not the correct choice for every server application it's becoming increasingly hard to find an application for which it's not the best fit. "
Well, all applications that want to access storage faster than SCSI. All ones that require efficient LAN speeds >100MBs. All ones that require not only a jounaled fs, but one that is supported by applications. All the ones that require hot-swappable CPU's. All the ones that require more than 4 displays. All the ones that require more than 4 CPU's. I'm not saying NT does all this either - but your statement made it look as though Linux was overtaking Solaris. I think not.
"While your support options for Windows are limited, your support options for Linux are not. "
I see. So you are saying that there are fewer support options for Windows? Companies such as ICL, HP, Compaq don't count? All the integrators such as Logica don't count? Resellers don't count?
FAR more companies support NT than support Linux. More importantly, they support large complex, customised rollouts and systems, not just a particular distro or general unix q and a. Cygnus is a proper support company. There are many, excellent companies like Cygnus in the NT world.
"Although you can purchase local support for Microsoft products, such support is strictly limited to training and workarounds. "
This is simply untrue. Call it FUD or a lie.
"As for the availability of applications, let me simply tell you about my own experience. I've used Linux on the desktop in my home exclusively for the past two years. "
Right. I thought we were trying to get beyond personal anecdotes, and that we were talking about the Enterprise, not your home. Enterprise desktops have requirements as different from home user desktops as you can imagine. If you had worked in the IT department of an Enterprise on desktop builds, you'd know that.
"For business use, the major general purpose tool Linux lacks at the moment is a Lotus Notes client. "
And Office. And Remedy. What's remedy? Ah, it's the fault management and order handling system used in many many enterprises. Enterprises, remember? What about front ends to SAP and Baan? What about call center software? What about ProE? What about Oracle Financials and OSM? Ah.
"Now PCs ship with no language at all (unless MS Office shipped with your PC, in which case VBA sort of counts). You have to buy a language on your own, which takes desire and money... lots of it"
Right. So I have to buy Perl for Windows? And I have to buy the djgpp C compiler for windows? And I have to buy lisp for Windows too, eh?
Less of the FUD please.
I think that's plenty of criticism for one evening. This article discredited Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
Bear Arms that you Americans hold onto so dearly, *I* see it a good reason to not
have an orginized fighting force at all.
Yes yes, I know. I'm living in a dream world - its never going to happen, for all the
obvious reasons, but a guy can dream, can't he?
No, that's a reasonable opinion. In fact, I believe it is more or less what Costa Rica did. They were smart enough to realise that the best way to stop military coupes is to disband the military. For many states (I don't think the US is one of them) the domestic military pose a considerable threat to the nation's freedom, and do very little to protect it. They are best disbanded in that circumstance.
No, that's not flame bait, although I guess it's one end of the spectrum. I've seen a whole load of Perl that just plain hurts (NOCOL springs to mind).
:-)
But that's not really a good reason to decide what languages to learn.
If you are interested in human languages you should enjoy Perl. Perl has in my mind the distinction of being possibly the only language that is at once genuinely different and innovative and at the same time widely used and practical.
For me, learning Python would be like learning Esperanto. I don't like my languages clean, I like them clever and I like them useful.
You boss might have fits at the notion of a programming language with the capacity for slang, but once you're there, you're hooked.
Hmmmm. Perl - the thieves cant of the Internet
Bruce wrote: "They are completely unknown in the Linux community, their officers are newcomers to Linux, and nobody known in the Linux community is on their technical staff (if they really have one)."
While I broadly agree with you that LinuxOne appear to be a fraud, and a sleezly one at that, I can't let this comment get away.
You seem to me to be suggesting that companies wishing to base a business on Linux should somehow serve an apprenticeship in 'the community' where they will recieve the benevolent blessing of the 'known figures' of the community, and they can then trade acceptably.
This is not a bazaar. This is a situation remarkably similar to the late medieval trade guilds in northern Europe, which did an excellent job of serving their own interests and stifling competition, all in the name of maintaining standards.
To hell with the ESRs, ACs, and the other figures of our supposed worship and gratitude. If I one day have a great idea for a new kind of folding chair, do I need to grovel before the established figures of the chair industry? Do I need to play the game of being a good little manufacturer that doesn't push their luck? Do I need to employ some 'well known' chair designers to establish my credibility in the market place?
The hell I do. I get my capital together, I go out there, and I try to prove my products and ideas in the marketplace.
Likewise with Linux. If one day I say "That's it!!" "I've just figured out a create way to do package management!", do I then need to prove my worthiness by hanging around on some RPM mailing list and demonstrating on my CV that I've contributed to previous package management projects?
No, I do not. I write my code, and I go out there and say fair and square "This is a better way of doing it. You've never heared of me, you don't know I am, I don't employ any 'known figures' but I've got a new product that frankly works a hell of alot better than the old ones. Please use it".
Employ known figures indeed. Sounds like some of the famous traders in the old bazaar don't want too many newcomers setting up stalls unless they pay their dues.
Pah (with respect, but Pah, nonetheless)
Currently /. generates ad revenue and creates a fuzzy 'brand value'.
/. into a complete geek-focused portal with not just news and trivia but incorporating everything from freemail services and cheesy 'yourname.slashdot.org' web space to a peronsalised geek calendar and movie review service?
Is there a scheme to move to something else? To move to subscriptions for certain features (e.g. making the ability to filter out AC posts or low moderation posts a subscription-only features)
Or maybe to do more commercial tie-ins - such as interviews with Major hardware manufacturers, or QA sessions with corporate sponsorship.
Or to boost the ad revenue by turning
Or, maybe andover.net is just looking to get bought out by one of the media industry's big players like VNU or Disney or ZD or whatever?
The point is (I think) that while everything you say is true, it is still true if you simply replace 'GPL' with 'Artistic License' or 'BSD license'.
If everything RedHat did now were under the BSD license, and RH were bought up by MS, then all the BSD stuff would be ours to continue working on and with. Sure, MS might do a close fork, but that's a whole other issue.
I know this is tired, but I figure someone has to say it.
The Marshall Plan was 'a good thing' but strangely the people of, say, Britain were rather confused about the way the US was so keen to help the vanquished, and yet at the same time, so very unwilling to help the victors. Britain's war debt to the US was crippling for years after the end of the war, and the US wasn't all that keen to write it off.
I'm no expert on the history of all this, but more than one person has pointed out that the Marshall Plan, as well as ensuring a sort of peace, also ensured increased power for the US and a nice market to export to.
So, not everyone in Europe sees the Marshall Plan as the most wonderful act of generosity ever conceived....
I would not go so far myself, but it is a GREAT FALLACY to say that the GPL ensures the survival of good OS projects in the face of money (or any other threats).
:-(
:-|
:-)
There are many reasons OS projects die out, here are a few:
1. Too hard
2. Too boring
3. A key developer leaves
4. LACK of PUBLICITY
5. Infighting
6. A rival project
Now, how many of these factors can be easily influenced by any corporation with alot of free cash?
1. No, a hard task is still hard
2. Not per se, but a salary can make up for dull coding.
3. Absolutely. I doubt that a KDE hacker will leave to work on Gnome just because RH offers a fat cheque, but a similar situation is quite easy to imagine.
4. Currently the biggest. Who wants to work on a litte backwater project when you can work on Teh GIMP and brag to all your friends about it? Publicity has a massive effect on the momentum of OS projects - And lets see now:
linux.com (commercially owned)
slashdot.org (commercially owned)
freshmeat.net (commercially owned)
Looking just great
5. Not especially. There's nothing like an ego to rise above cupidity
6. Very definitely. A little project that's been chugging along fine can be killed off in a flash if a company decides to throw a few full time developers at it. Sure, if everything is GPL then the little project can take code from the big new one - but as we all know that's rarely how things work. Lots of NIH syndrome.
Now, you ask, why would our loverly OS company like RH or VA linux want to kill off an OS project? Well, pretty damn obvious I'd say. Are you going to tell me that RH has no interest in seeing, say, harmony bite the dust*
*Yes I KNOW harmony isn't around, and no I'm not making any conspiracy theories, but as we see different companies go down different architecture paths like this, you MUST realise that they have vested interests in alternative OS projects failing.
Since this is in reply to TC, I'll leave conjecture on financial backing for Perl vs Python as an excercise for readers
"If you have to work on closed-source to eat, there's a powerful incentive for you to concentrate on that closed-source work."
Otherwise known as a contract of employment. I do believe even OS companies have contracts for their staff.
Sure, BigEvilCompany may not be very thrilled about me working on OS projects in my own time, but...
Do you think RH looks kindly on its core developers deciding that frankly SuSE is more interesting and doing work on SuSE in their spare time? I doubt it very much. Sure, I don't suppose that's much of a problem at the moment, but it will be once more companies are open source. At the end of the day you spend your working time doing what your company wants you to do. The GPL may or may not help that time be of use to others.
I beg to differ:
"For one thing, it's a great motivational boost to know that what you are doing could make you mega-rich. Some people like that kind of incentive. "
Yes, and more's the pity. So there is AN hacker working hard on his new app, and he thinks to himself 'Well, I reckon I should use libfoo becuase that's a well made library - but - gee MegaDistro, the most populat Linux distro has gone down the libbar path. So, If I make my app use libbar in stead, my app might get included in the MegaDistro distribution, and they might employ me or give me little sweetners or 'goodwill stock options' so yeah, I reckon I'll dump libfoo.
Lovely.
"Secondly, it is clear that the open source movement as a whole will benefit from the injection of cash and corporate credibility that these kind success stories bring. It's a necessary step in maintaining the progress of free software."
Rubbish. Your definition of progress is not the same as everyone else's. I write free software to make people (not least myself) happy. I don't do it to crush MS, I don't do it so I can become one of the high priests if the OS cathedral like ESR and AC, and I sure as hell don't do it for the fucking silicon value mickey mouse money stock options.
"But most importantly, it is clear that the business model of firms like Red Hat rely upon the goodwill of the open source community."
No. RH has not been in existence long enough to prove a business model one way or another. RH is currently a vapour company. It makes losses. MASSIVE LOSSES AND INCREASINGLY LARGE LOSSES. Its stock rides on publicity and vibe. I'll readily admit that good publicity and good vibes rely upon the goodwill of the OS community. But as for the business model, we'll wait and see.
"Money... is good. "
:-|
No, it isn't. It's just paper. It's boring.
What you do with your life is good or bad. The way you spend you time is good or bad. Some people prefer to spend their time accumulating money, and then using that money to convince other people to do good. Others may prefer to simply do something good directly. A rare few may manage both at once.
Trying to convince someone that money was worthless one day, I burnt a ten pound note. He was really quite angry about it, complaining that it was a bad thing to do - If I wanted to make a point about how cool I was I should have given the money to a homeless person or a charity.
He was missing the point in a big way. Money is not this wonderful substance that can be converted in a flash into wonderful things, great deeds, and life saving substances. Money is just a mutually agreed incentive to perform acts. Some of us rather prefer a life where we go out and do those acts directly. There's something much cleaner about that - it's hard to explain.
So, I've got a whole lot of time for people who opt out of the money go round, and alot more respect than I do for those who make a stack of cash selling crap to bored housewives and then "Donate millions to good causes".
So, If I hear people fawning over ESR in a years time for personally donating 1 million bucks to the FSF or whatever, then I'm going to feel pretty damned unimpressed, compared with a guy who just sits there and gets on doing with his life what he thinks is the right thing to do.
Sermon over
It can't be worse than the 1000 years of darkness religion cost us in the Dark Ages (roughly 0 to 1000 A.C.) where man made no notable progress thanks to overt, oppressive, Christianity.
Your definition of 'man' appears to only include Northern Europe. I do believe the Chinese, for instance, were progressing just fine, and that we all benefited when their ideas were eventually brought to other parts of the world.
Your definition of 'progress' appears only to include technology and manufacturing. During the period 0 - 1000A.D. in northern Europe, architecture improved dramatically, decorative arts and techniques spread and developed, societies became more advanced and homogenous, and great works such as Beowulf and the Book of Kells were created.
And as for the technology, I think you'll find shipbuilding took great steps forward as well.
In fact, I think you'll find the 'Dark Ages' are so called because much of the advances of Roman civilisation were lost, which had everything to do with Romes loss of military power and political cohsesion, and nothing to do with religion, which at the time was in any case largely non-christian.
Thanks.
That's an interesting perspective, but the things you talk about are not private or personal.
How would you feel about a computer that tracked your login session and looked for 'unusual' activity in your command history?
Personally, I feel much better about the system that detects overcrowding on the tube platform, because it is dealing with 'the crowd' or 'the platform' rather than with individuals.
As soon as you start analysing an individual person (regardless of whether you also identify them) rather than a behaviour removed from individuals, the whole thing becomes more invasive.
Yes, I think Sun will become more predatory and MS will become less so.
Companies seem to become protective when they think of themselves as being technology companies rather service companies or manufacturers.
Microsoft is strongly assocciated with Windows. Therefore it acts strongly to defend and promote windows technology. Sun is not strongly assocciated with Unix - unix is a technology that Sun is interested in, but that Sun does not own particularly - thus with Solaris we see a good deal of openess and sanity, and little pressure.
But Java is Sun's Windows. And Sun is starting to behave with Java just as MS did with DOS. When you think 'Java' you think 'Sun' even though as a language spec it is theoretically available from many places. Same with the old dos - you thought 'DOS' and thought 'Microsoft' evne though IBM, Corel and so on were in the game.
Now, Sun wants it to stay that way. And that's why they are getting agressive.
IBM don't make much fuss about technology these days. It used to me 'computer' == 'IBM' but those days are gone. Even IBM's technologies(db2, AS/400, lotus) are not strongly assocciated with them. IBM are more of a service company now - they provide end to end solutions for all sorts of things. IBM are never going to try to own apache or own Linux, because they have moved on from the 'lets invent a cool technology and flog it for everything we can get' mentality.
Sun are in a tight spot. The hardware is good, but still expensive and under threat from IA64, Merced and friends. Solaris is good, but it's under threat from Linux, OS X, even NT. Sun didn't have much else until it created Java and bought Netscape.
Now, we can all see how protective Sun are getting over Java, and I can tell you that if you talk to them about Netscape stuff, they are just as bullish and aggressive about it. You think "Web" and you think "Netscape" - and Sun is trying to buy into that assocciation.
I think you've hit the nail on the head.
Perl has been unusual in being a language that started in a small niche were it was used by non-computer-science folk (Unix sysadmin), moved into ANOTHER niche of the same kind (simple CGI), and is now widening its usage into a general applications programming language.
That's why these kinds of books are very useful - so many Perl programmers such as me never went near a CompSci class.
"it ignores the very interchangeability of languages at the heart of such things as the open- source movement"
Errr.. ?
I think you are missing the point. There are plenty of books on Algorithms. Loads. Really, lots and lots and lots. However, until now there were few that focussed on Perl.
Some consider Perl to have outgrown its old 'Unix scripting language' roots, and so a book that looks at a strong foundation of programming principles for Perl is welcome.
If this book is shelved with 'Algorithms' then it has been misshelved, I'll grant you. If it is shelved with 'Perl' then it is a very useful contribution.
I don't think the author's were trying to promote greater understanding of algorithms and forcing people to learn Perl while they did it.
"No remote images"
/. that use another server for images.
Hmmm.. So much for all the sites like
Technical solutions are rarely suitable to these kinds of problems. The only reason that this sort of thing happens is because of the inherent openness and flexibility of the net. That flexibility makes it very hard to pin down a weakness and plug it. There is no design weakness here - merely an unfortunate usage.
Personally I'd far rather have an Internet that provided no technological means for me to stop this sort of thing, than an Internet that was restrictive and full of rules and regulations.
>>"You can't buy house paint with lead in it. Why >>not? Why not let consumers decide if they want >>lead in their paint? "
>Why not? I mean, who would buy it in the first >place? Can you see the advertising campaign? Try >our new foo paint, now with extra lead! >Guaranteed to cause cancer or double your money >back!
For the youngsters out there, lead is was put in paint for any number of good reasons. Some colours are easier to achieve with it, and more importantly it results in a smoother finish on the coat of paint, with drips and brushstrokes less of a problem. I'm sure technology has moved on since lead was banned, but when it was first banned it represented something of a step back from the painters point of view.
Of course it's a bit on the poisonous side, too.
>
>> If there's one thing I don't ever feel
>> towards a commerical organisation, it's
>> indebted.
>
>Not even when that organisation has been paying >people to write cool software, and then >releasing it under the GPL?
Certainly not. Either they pay people to write GPL software in the expectation that somehow they will get a return on their investment. Fine, best of luck to them.
Or they pay people to write GPL software because they just love free software. In that case the people who should be indebted are the programmers, who are being given a job by people who don't expect to get anything back.
I write software because its fun. It is its own reward. I hang out on mailing lists and usenet, because for every 25 answers I give, one person mails me back saying "Great - I understand now and it's all working, thanks!". That reply makes me happy, and it's why I do it. No-one should really feel indebted.
I owe Larry Wall nothing except a smile and a hello if I ever meet him, despite have earned a salary for a year or so on the back of Perl.
This is the basis of Open Source as it interests me. I use software without owing, and I write it without being owed. It is its own reward.
I think you are wrong. There is a widespread and damaging perception that good == big in the technology world.
:-)
One of the great benefits of OSS is that we might be able to get away from the fear that if I buy into a minority technology I'll be left standing. I'd love to see Linux distros filling tiny little niche markets, and being able to do so becuase people know that they will be able to painlessly switch of their vendor goes belly up.
The other relevant point is that RH are growing by acquisition, which is what MS is famous for. To be fair, the skills shortage is so accute in some areas that it's nigh on impossible to grow except by acquisition, which exonerates many of the MS buyouts as well as this one.
Nonetheless, acquiring companies is a sure fire way to spread the message 'we are a big company who can buy little companies - we won't go bust'.
It's also wrong, of course.
The one thing I know about OSS is that it got where it is without commercial interest, and while I'd like to see some OSS business models work out, there is not the slightest evidence that any of them do*.
*A few people sustaining a turnover for a couple of years, and paying a few hundred salaries does not prove a business model
"who do you think has been maintaining all that stuff for the last bundle of years? Anyone who uses gcc or gdb is heavily indebted to their work on it.
"
If there's one thing I don't ever feel towards a commerical organisation, it's indebted. Unless maybe I steal their goods. That's the whole point of the business transaction. Now, if we are talking about a whole new business ethic, where people purchase from a company not just for a positive ROI, but for reasons such as moral support, strategic alignment and so on, then that's very interesting, but it's not at all obvious.
Every day I go to small butchers and bakers and get a worse ROI on my cash than if I go to the supermarket. That's because I morally prefer small shops and I'm willing to keep them in business even when I'm forced to agree that they basically offer a worse product at a higher price than in the local Waitrose.
However, I struggle to apply that way of thinking to RedHat. A typical US startup, full of geeks and suits and cash. Great, best of luck to them, but these aren't people I talk to on mailing lists - they aren't part of my community, and I don't feel like being charitable. I'm 100% not indebted to RH for anything.
I'm all in favour of making purchasing decisions based on more than a cold calculation of product ability versus product TCO, but RedHat is not behaving like that kind of company. I'm looking forward to seeing how these OSS business models end up...
"Then microsoft will go and find another situation in which Linux performs worse than NT and will focus their PR machine on that."
You make this sound like a criticism. It's what PR machines do. Last I checked RedHat were pretty happy to focus on Linux's superior stability. Apache advocates focus on Apache's features, not its speed or ease of configuration. It's the way things work, deal with it.
Microsoft's PR machine does an excellent job of showing which of Linux's weaknesses most concern people in business. That helps us.
". Download a linux dist, get a geek who lives for it, and understands it. "
Sadly, this is _not_ a recipe for success. A geek who knows all the command flags for ls by heart and prides himself on being up to date with _all_ the latest bind vulnerabilities is not your ideal sysadmin. You need someone who sees the wood as well as the trees, and administrator who can think strategically as well as perform competant operational tasks.
In this light, you realise that a good sysadmin is not someone who understands an OS thoroughly. It is someone who understands the aims of you IT systems thoroughly, and knows how to implement those aims properly. There's a world of difference.
That said, yes, I think the TCO of *nix is generally lower once you are talking about large installations and Enterprises. For smaller organisations I'm not at all sure that is true. A 20 person company with a need for a file and print server is perfectly suited to an NT box.
"And Linux has better SMP support. Also add in tech support (assuming you outsource for both NT and Linux) and Linux still kinda-sorta comes out on top.
"
Um. What makes you say that Linux has better SMP support? Most test seem to indicate that NT makes more efficient use of multiple CPUs. And what makes you think there is better tech support from 3rd parties for Linux? I'm not saying there isn't, but I've certainly found the tech support from large resellers for NT to be good.
I'm not saying that you are wrong, but these are both pretty contentious claims without any evidence. Linux's superior stability is probably widely enough accepted.
Hmmm. I see I ended up posting my first draft as well as my second. Ooops. Not an attempt at spammage, more an inability to use a browser :-)
An embarrassingly bad article from someone who shows little experience of either Enterprises or NT.
"How many "common customers" use 4-way NT boxes? Very few, in my experience. "
What little experience you have, then. Such hardware is commonplace in the Enterprise.
"Understand that while Linux is not the correct choice for every server application it's becoming increasingly hard to find an application for which it's not the best fit. "
Well, all applications that want to access storage faster than SCSI. All ones that require efficient LAN speeds >100MBs. All ones that require not only a jounaled fs, but one that is supported by applications. All the ones that require hot-swappable CPU's. All the ones that require more than 4 displays. All the ones that require more than 4 CPU's. I'm not saying NT does all this either - but your statement made it look as though Linux was overtaking Solaris. I think not.
"While your support options for Windows are limited, your support options for Linux are not. "
I see. So you are saying that there are fewer support options for Windows? Companies such as ICL, HP, Compaq don't count? All the integrators such as Logica don't count? Resellers don't count?
FAR more companies support NT than support Linux. More importantly, they support large complex, customised rollouts and systems, not just a particular distro or general unix q and a. Cygnus is a proper support company. There are many, excellent companies like Cygnus in the NT world.
"Although you can purchase local support for Microsoft products, such support is strictly limited to training and workarounds. "
This is simply untrue. Call it FUD or a lie.
"As for the availability of applications, let me simply tell you about my own experience. I've used Linux on the desktop in my home exclusively for the past two years. "
Right. I thought we were trying to get beyond personal anecdotes, and that we were talking about the Enterprise, not your home. Enterprise desktops have requirements as different from home user desktops as you can imagine. If you had worked in the IT department of an Enterprise on desktop builds, you'd know that.
"For business use, the major general purpose tool Linux lacks at the moment is a Lotus Notes client. "
And Office. And Remedy. What's remedy? Ah, it's the fault management and order handling system used in many many enterprises. Enterprises, remember? What about front ends to SAP and Baan? What about call center software? What about ProE? What about Oracle Financials and OSM? Ah.
"Now PCs ship with no language at all (unless MS Office shipped with your PC, in which case VBA sort of counts). You have to buy a language on your own, which takes desire and money... lots of it"
Right. So I have to buy Perl for Windows? And I have to buy the djgpp C compiler for windows? And I have to buy lisp for Windows too, eh?
Less of the FUD please.
I think that's plenty of criticism for one evening. This article discredited Linux.