Yep. This vs. a maybe 30 minute install for Ubuntu. The irony is that the standard anti-FOSS troll these days is that an end user doesn't have time to waste hours and hours of their lives on a computer operating system, too.
All I can say is, if you don't have a lot of time, that's even more reason to use Linux or FreeBSD, guys.;)
I don't like haters either. I'm not a Windows hater, but I am using this thread to dispel some anti-FOSS trolling and FUD. It is happening on both sides.
Yes, it is a troll. Five years ago it might not have been, but today it is. As already mentioned, my system works perfectly, with no messing around or wasting time on broken code, or looking for drivers, or dependency hell, or whatever. I can surf the Web, watch DVDs, watch videos I download, watch YouTube, listen to mp3s, play World of Warcraft, or edit office documents. It all works fine.
Ubuntu installs in less than 45 minutes, and you will be able to do all of the above with a base install of that, as well. Other Linux distributions may need a somewhat greater initial time investment, but will work consistently, with a higher level of reliability than Ubuntu, once they are set up.
1. Windows 7 does not force a user to edit any configuration files for any normal desktop user. I cannot stress how important this is for most small business owners. This is not the 1980s. No one has any interest in programming or fiddling with tens of arcane text files to get work done. They just want to turn on their computer, use it to process data, and then go home. If you claim that this is not the case, you're just ignoring reality.
a) You're a troll, and we don't care about what you're saying. (Although for advocacy's sake, I'll bite)
b) You're also wrong. I run FreeBSD. There was an initial time investment when I first installed it, but now there is none whatsoever. When I get up in the morning, still half asleep, I can be in X and web surfing via Firefox in less than two minutes. There are no technical problems for me to deal with at all. It just works, and it has for nearly a year now, as well.
This, "Linux/FreeBSD will never be used by normal people, because they don't want to waste hours of their time," troll is old, erroneous, and needs to be retired.
The single main reason why I run FreeBSD is because I don't like wasting a lot of time with my system. I don't want to have to spend hours running virus/malware scanning programs, or waiting for the system to load due to registry creep, or trawling the Internet hunting for hardware drivers after a clean install.
I install the base system, install ports, install a few of the applications I want first up, install X, copy in my dotfiles, and the system is ready, and it works. I may need to fiddle a little in order to get new hardware working sometimes, but it's generally never more than two hours at the most, and once the hardware is set up, it keeps working.
My definition of user-friendliness, aside from being a system which doesn't cause me a lot of time, is a system which works continually because of its' level of reliability.
Although I still keep it around as well, I upgraded from Windows XP around nine months ago now.
Stability and security are better than ever, and the price of the upgrade was probably the single best part, as well. I thoroughly recommend it. Except for occasionally going into XP to play World of Warcraft, for the most part, I haven't looked back.
Although from what I read, Microsoft also helped it along, from memory Be died for the same reason that some of the people I've known who died from cancer, did; it was something from a parallel universe where good things actually happen, somehow wound up in this one by mistake, and thus had to be recalled.
Be is one of a long list of non-mainstream technologies which I've seen wither on the vine, again for the simple reason that they were too good. There is a status quo in virtually every area in this world, including computer software. If something shows up which is intelligent, positive, and therefore radical to the point where it exceeds the "just good enough," status quo, it tends to slip back below the surface, very rapidly.
I've often wondered how much more positive the world would be, if all of the things which have been repressed or destroyed because they were too innovative, too positive, or too endangering to a scarcity based economy, had actually been allowed to survive and be used.
Things like this make me realise that I need to stop being so hard on the Debian developers for their own political inclinations.
Corrupt, broken Capitalism is going to be responsible for the extinction of all life on this planet, include human. I originally prefixed that with, "if it is not stopped," but I think we all know that it isn't going to be. The people profiting from it currently will continue to do so, right up until the point that it kills both them, and everything else that breathes along with them.
At times I hate it with a degree of rabid savagery that is sufficiently intense to risk causing organ failure. For the good of the rest of the species, Ayn Rand in particular should have been repeatedly stabbed and allowed to incrementally bleed to death before she ever had a chance to put pen to paper.
They never cease to amaze me, however; they are tireless in their attempts to bring new, innovative, and endlessly wonderful varieties of malware to the computer using public.
I know eventually a true, almost impossible to counter exploit will be found by them, for Linux. They will probably employ it more for the purposes of proving that Linux is not immune to their wrath, than anything else.
When the first Linux malware exploiting that flaw is written by them, I fully expect that the first sign of infection will be a Linux user hearing a wav file of Carrie Ann Moss being played on their machine.
...is a flame war centred around the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Can one of our atheist friends here on Slashdot outline to us, where this discovery stands in relation to the Second Law? Have we finally arrived at the moment we've all been breathlessly waiting for; the Second Law's violation?
I'm seriously hoping so; I've waited for years now for the ability to have a magnetic motor next to the power supply in my desktop, and run it without plugging it into the wall. That would seriously be awesome.;)
Let this be a lesson to everyone who reads the article. Security is not something that happens by accident.
I've said for a long time that binary packaging is, fundamentally, a Hell-spawned abomination masquerading as a convenience; incidents like this only prove the point.
Then get the absolute minimum number of packages you need for a working system, such that you've got some chance of keeping them updated. Firefox for web browsing, maybe. A single media player; VLC or Xine. Vim/Emacs as an editor. OpenOffice.org if you need that. Whatever servers you need, but keep that list small. A firewall, which is hopefully obvious.
Use a minimal window manager which doesn't have a dep list as long as your arm, as well. I use Ratpoison. Do not laugh until you've tried it. It is very, very fast, and resource consumption is virtually nil. It's basically an X version of GNU Screen.
Once you've got this small list of packages, take full, ruthless, practical advantage of the fact that your system is open source. Subscribe to the announce or bug related mailing lists for the apps you've got, and keep local virgin tarballs. This way, whenever there is a bug or potential exploit, and the patch gets posted within a few minutes or hours, you can get it the moment it goes to CVS, patch your own source tarball, and recompile. The same goes for the kernel itself.
You won't be vulnerable to exploits, because you'll get the solutions to them as they are implemented, and you're also far less likely to end up with a compromised machine as a result.
Brainless Windows refugees, who will sneer at me, and/or complain about how this isn't, "user friendly," don't even bother. This post isn't for you. We already know that you've committed yourselves to being servile, unthinking sheep, and you are therefore invited to accept the consequences of your (lack of) actions in that regard.
Electronic Arts are the quintessential evil corporation, populated by soulless, commercialistic, bean-counting demoniacs. They might intend these sorts of stunts to be a parody of their public image, but in reality, they're just confirming what we already know.
As rabid as most of the pro-FSF crowd on this site are about Microsoft, that is more or less the way I feel here.
Burn in Hell, EA. Some of us still haven't forgotten what you did to Richard Garriott...or Spore, for that matter.
There is no - zero - onus on them to make that source fit in with the Linux kernel zeitgeist, only to provide what was used to build their binary, everything that was used to build their binary, and only what was used to build their binary.
You neglected to mention that given that it is Microsoft that we're talking about here, there are no sane standards for them to adhere to, anyway.
The GPL doesn't work as a legal agreement in the usual sense of the word. You don't purely have to fulfill the letter of the GPL in a legal sense, in order to be in compliance. You have to consume as many gallons of the Stallmanite Kool-Aid as the "community," feels like arbitrarily decreeing at any given point, as well. It's not purely about source with binaries; it's about thinking in a manner which the cult approves of.
The truly laughable element of all of this, of course, is the fact that generally speaking, the most rabid elements of the "community," generally wouldn't know decent code if they fell over it. The people doing the real development work where Linux is concerned, don't give a damn about the FSF's bullshit.
They're just working away, down in the trenches, making things work. They're not narcissists; they don't insist on taking credit for everything possible. They're not paranoid; they don't literally poison the very air around them with the intensity of their hatred for Microsoft.
How they got the OSI approval for one of their licenses is a mystery to me. I would have rejected it outright simply on grounds of principle. Here we have a company that has internally and publicly declared FOSS its enemy, after all.
Not bad, not bad. You've got the red eyed, foaming at the mouth vibe working well, but I'm afraid this is lacking the true vitriol usually seen in a member of the "community." The degree of paranoia about Microsoft, however, is a good start. However, you're also lacking any statement which could remotely be construed as anarcho-Communist, so I'm afraid I'll have to deduct points for that.
I'm feeling generous today, however, so I'll give you 6 out of 10, for this effort.
Some other points to work on would be ranting about how FOSS in general wouldn't exist if not for the FSF, and also implying that the GNU project represents the [b]only[/b] FOSS toolchain currently in existence.
...ummm so twitter has said that you have the rights that you always had.
Can we maybe lose the extreme Marxist douchebag vibe that seems so prevalent around here, Slashdot? It's really getting old.
Companies can't do anything right. If they genuinely do the wrong thing, as with DRM etc, then it is understandable to condemn their actions; but you're condemning Twitter here because they are affirming their users' rights?
I for one commend Twitter for this. It's radically different from the way a lot of companies behave; i.e., "Use our service and we own your SOUL." Here, they're saying that they're not even trying to be avaricious about users' material.
I hope this serves as a positive example to other such providers.
The incriminating part was Kuhn's implication that the GPL is the only license which should exist. Of course, thankfully there is no way for him to enforce such a position; but if he has it, that in itself is alarming enough.
Just curious, will anyone ever be able to do enough to get the GPL fanboys to stop their fucking whining?
Truthfully, they only really got bad after 2005. Before that point, the FSF was gradually sliding towards irrelevance; but unfortunately, Microsoft had to go and start the DRM flap. Because of that, Stallman was able to reinvent himself and change focus to real-world activism, (since actual code development of the GNU Project had been taken over by either Red Hat or Debian a few years earlier) and the cult came back.
These days, the slide back towards irrelevance has resumed, but they're resisting it every step of the way. They have a #gnu_generation channel on FreeNode which targets teenagers, (interesting when you consider that one of the key allegations levelled against Microsoft by the FSF on the Windows7Sins site is poisoning education) and there are reasonably regular reports of them taking on (and brainwashing) new interns as well.
Then there's the ever-present Trotskyite Debian cheerleading squad, as well. Because Ubuntu is Debian-based, and the Debian crowd are as heavily Stallmanite (and Communist) as they are, the cult is managing to skim off a steady trickle of the Windows refugees who are adopting Ubuntu.
Eventually the FSF are going to hang themselves. The Windows7Sins campaign doesn't look like anything other than a byproduct of toxic, crippling autism; it is pure preaching to the choir, and won't be earning them any credibility points at all with the general public.
The literature of cults provides very few examples of a cult outliving its' founder, as well. Stallman could hypothetically be around for as long as another 35 years yet; but it is unlikely that he could remain active as its' leader for all of that time. I could see Kuhn definitely becoming the FSF's David Miscavige, although that will probably depend on how old he is when the time comes.
Either way, they won't last forever; but the real issue, as you've pointed out, is how much damage they stand to do to Linux's reputation in the meantime. Linux is already largely recognised as being synonymous both with Stallman and with cultic radicalism by the online trade press. Red Hat might be doing well enough in the enterprise, but the non-profit community are generally regarded as hard leftist, extremist loons, and all too often with good reason, tragically. You'll never see a single article from the online trade press which dissents from the FSF party line, where the author isn't subjected to the most foul, blistering forms of abuse in the comments/talkback sections, if they have one.
Another recent issue of some concern is the "Linux Youth," phenomenon that has begun to be observed among Ubuntu users. These are generally teenagers, and are usually both fanatically pro-Ubuntu and pro-Stallman. They may be a product of the "GNU Generation," initiative, or they may simply be developing due to Ubuntu's aforementioned association with Debian. Either way, it is troubling, if only because it demonstrates the FSF's ability to gain new victims/footsoldiers from diverse sources.
Get over yourself... nobody here cares what you think.
I submit the GP's moderation, and my aforementioned karma, as evidence to the contrary.;)
You're right about one thing; my freaks list genuinely is rather extensive. However, I view it more or less as a roll call of Stallman's footsoldiers here on Slashdot. They know exactly who they are.
I've already had a few posts of my own down modded with, "Overrated." That's the moderation reason which, when FSF drones get mod points, they typically use, because it's the closest thing available to, "-1, Disagree," or, "-1, Author is writing statements contrary to our programming, which is unacceptable."
I'm also noticing that everyone who says the right things, about how evil Microsoft are, and about how perfectly just the community response is, predictably gets modded Insightful, as well.
How long is Linux going to be choked and held back by your existence, FSF? How long will we have a scenario here on Slashdot, where it is forbidden to make statements which are contrary to your mind control?
Keep modding me down, you corrupt, brainwashed cowards. My karma here is high enough that I can withstand it just fine. You haven't silenced me in nearly 10 years now, and I don't know why you'd think you're going to be able to at this point.
I will be interested to see if any of you actually have the spine to respond to this, or if you'll just respond rapidly and predictably, by down-modding me to -1. I've made it easy for you; you can almost claim your use of -1, Offtopic was legitimate!
If you're over zealous about it, MS will just stop contributing.
Bradley Kuhn is a dangerous fanatic. If there's one thing I'm tired of around here, it is people who are willing to condemn Microsoft as being entirely evil on the one hand, yet completely overlook individuals among their own who behave in largely the same ways.
Also, for anyone who wants to me to cite sources to back up the claim that Kuhn is evil, just ask. There's any amount of material on the Web, and I'm more than happy to link to it.
Slashdot Mirror
Then you have to provide tools for your users to complete a task.
What sort of tasks are we talking about? If you mean office stuff, there is OpenOffice for that. Be specific.
Now we have 1220 minutes
Yep. This vs. a maybe 30 minute install for Ubuntu. The irony is that the standard anti-FOSS troll these days is that an end user doesn't have time to waste hours and hours of their lives on a computer operating system, too.
All I can say is, if you don't have a lot of time, that's even more reason to use Linux or FreeBSD, guys. ;)
Windows 7 is a good stable os. Get over it.
I don't like haters either. I'm not a Windows hater, but I am using this thread to dispel some anti-FOSS trolling and FUD. It is happening on both sides.
Coz it ain't
Yes, it is a troll. Five years ago it might not have been, but today it is. As already mentioned, my system works perfectly, with no messing around or wasting time on broken code, or looking for drivers, or dependency hell, or whatever. I can surf the Web, watch DVDs, watch videos I download, watch YouTube, listen to mp3s, play World of Warcraft, or edit office documents. It all works fine.
Ubuntu installs in less than 45 minutes, and you will be able to do all of the above with a base install of that, as well. Other Linux distributions may need a somewhat greater initial time investment, but will work consistently, with a higher level of reliability than Ubuntu, once they are set up.
1. Windows 7 does not force a user to edit any configuration files for any normal desktop user. I cannot stress how important this is for most small business owners. This is not the 1980s. No one has any interest in programming or fiddling with tens of arcane text files to get work done. They just want to turn on their computer, use it to process data, and then go home. If you claim that this is not the case, you're just ignoring reality.
a) You're a troll, and we don't care about what you're saying. (Although for advocacy's sake, I'll bite)
b) You're also wrong. I run FreeBSD. There was an initial time investment when I first installed it, but now there is none whatsoever. When I get up in the morning, still half asleep, I can be in X and web surfing via Firefox in less than two minutes. There are no technical problems for me to deal with at all. It just works, and it has for nearly a year now, as well.
This, "Linux/FreeBSD will never be used by normal people, because they don't want to waste hours of their time," troll is old, erroneous, and needs to be retired.
The single main reason why I run FreeBSD is because I don't like wasting a lot of time with my system. I don't want to have to spend hours running virus/malware scanning programs, or waiting for the system to load due to registry creep, or trawling the Internet hunting for hardware drivers after a clean install.
I install the base system, install ports, install a few of the applications I want first up, install X, copy in my dotfiles, and the system is ready, and it works. I may need to fiddle a little in order to get new hardware working sometimes, but it's generally never more than two hours at the most, and once the hardware is set up, it keeps working.
My definition of user-friendliness, aside from being a system which doesn't cause me a lot of time, is a system which works continually because of its' level of reliability.
Although I still keep it around as well, I upgraded from Windows XP around nine months ago now.
Stability and security are better than ever, and the price of the upgrade was probably the single best part, as well. I thoroughly recommend it. Except for occasionally going into XP to play World of Warcraft, for the most part, I haven't looked back.
Ah, loserboy nerd, your rage puts a smile on my face.
I appreciate you having chosen the username that you have. It helped me to determine whether or not you should be taken seriously.
Although from what I read, Microsoft also helped it along, from memory Be died for the same reason that some of the people I've known who died from cancer, did; it was something from a parallel universe where good things actually happen, somehow wound up in this one by mistake, and thus had to be recalled.
Be is one of a long list of non-mainstream technologies which I've seen wither on the vine, again for the simple reason that they were too good. There is a status quo in virtually every area in this world, including computer software. If something shows up which is intelligent, positive, and therefore radical to the point where it exceeds the "just good enough," status quo, it tends to slip back below the surface, very rapidly.
I've often wondered how much more positive the world would be, if all of the things which have been repressed or destroyed because they were too innovative, too positive, or too endangering to a scarcity based economy, had actually been allowed to survive and be used.
Two words:- Artificial scarcity.
[i]"Where do you put in the meter?"[/i]
-- JP Morgan, in response to Tesla's power idea.
Things like this make me realise that I need to stop being so hard on the Debian developers for their own political inclinations.
Corrupt, broken Capitalism is going to be responsible for the extinction of all life on this planet, include human. I originally prefixed that with, "if it is not stopped," but I think we all know that it isn't going to be. The people profiting from it currently will continue to do so, right up until the point that it kills both them, and everything else that breathes along with them.
At times I hate it with a degree of rabid savagery that is sufficiently intense to risk causing organ failure. For the good of the rest of the species, Ayn Rand in particular should have been repeatedly stabbed and allowed to incrementally bleed to death before she ever had a chance to put pen to paper.
I've already drawn a portrait of them here.
They never cease to amaze me, however; they are tireless in their attempts to bring new, innovative, and endlessly wonderful varieties of malware to the computer using public.
I know eventually a true, almost impossible to counter exploit will be found by them, for Linux. They will probably employ it more for the purposes of proving that Linux is not immune to their wrath, than anything else.
When the first Linux malware exploiting that flaw is written by them, I fully expect that the first sign of infection will be a Linux user hearing a wav file of Carrie Ann Moss being played on their machine.
"Dodge this."
...is a flame war centred around the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Can one of our atheist friends here on Slashdot outline to us, where this discovery stands in relation to the Second Law? Have we finally arrived at the moment we've all been breathlessly waiting for; the Second Law's violation?
I'm seriously hoping so; I've waited for years now for the ability to have a magnetic motor next to the power supply in my desktop, and run it without plugging it into the wall. That would seriously be awesome. ;)
Let this be a lesson to everyone who reads the article. Security is not something that happens by accident.
I've said for a long time that binary packaging is, fundamentally, a Hell-spawned abomination masquerading as a convenience; incidents like this only prove the point.
Compile yourself a minimalistic base system, a la Hardened Linux From Scratch.
Then get the absolute minimum number of packages you need for a working system, such that you've got some chance of keeping them updated. Firefox for web browsing, maybe. A single media player; VLC or Xine. Vim/Emacs as an editor. OpenOffice.org if you need that. Whatever servers you need, but keep that list small. A firewall, which is hopefully obvious.
Use a minimal window manager which doesn't have a dep list as long as your arm, as well. I use Ratpoison. Do not laugh until you've tried it. It is very, very fast, and resource consumption is virtually nil. It's basically an X version of GNU Screen.
Once you've got this small list of packages, take full, ruthless, practical advantage of the fact that your system is open source. Subscribe to the announce or bug related mailing lists for the apps you've got, and keep local virgin tarballs. This way, whenever there is a bug or potential exploit, and the patch gets posted within a few minutes or hours, you can get it the moment it goes to CVS, patch your own source tarball, and recompile. The same goes for the kernel itself.
You won't be vulnerable to exploits, because you'll get the solutions to them as they are implemented, and you're also far less likely to end up with a compromised machine as a result.
Brainless Windows refugees, who will sneer at me, and/or complain about how this isn't, "user friendly," don't even bother. This post isn't for you. We already know that you've committed yourselves to being servile, unthinking sheep, and you are therefore invited to accept the consequences of your (lack of) actions in that regard.
Electronic Arts are the quintessential evil corporation, populated by soulless, commercialistic, bean-counting demoniacs. They might intend these sorts of stunts to be a parody of their public image, but in reality, they're just confirming what we already know.
As rabid as most of the pro-FSF crowd on this site are about Microsoft, that is more or less the way I feel here.
Burn in Hell, EA. Some of us still haven't forgotten what you did to Richard Garriott...or Spore, for that matter.
There is no - zero - onus on them to make that source fit in with the Linux kernel zeitgeist, only to provide what was used to build their binary, everything that was used to build their binary, and only what was used to build their binary.
You neglected to mention that given that it is Microsoft that we're talking about here, there are no sane standards for them to adhere to, anyway.
The GPL doesn't work as a legal agreement in the usual sense of the word. You don't purely have to fulfill the letter of the GPL in a legal sense, in order to be in compliance. You have to consume as many gallons of the Stallmanite Kool-Aid as the "community," feels like arbitrarily decreeing at any given point, as well. It's not purely about source with binaries; it's about thinking in a manner which the cult approves of.
The truly laughable element of all of this, of course, is the fact that generally speaking, the most rabid elements of the "community," generally wouldn't know decent code if they fell over it. The people doing the real development work where Linux is concerned, don't give a damn about the FSF's bullshit.
They're just working away, down in the trenches, making things work. They're not narcissists; they don't insist on taking credit for everything possible. They're not paranoid; they don't literally poison the very air around them with the intensity of their hatred for Microsoft.
They just write code.
How they got the OSI approval for one of their licenses is a mystery to me. I would have rejected it outright simply on grounds of principle. Here we have a company that has internally and publicly declared FOSS its enemy, after all.
Not bad, not bad. You've got the red eyed, foaming at the mouth vibe working well, but I'm afraid this is lacking the true vitriol usually seen in a member of the "community." The degree of paranoia about Microsoft, however, is a good start. However, you're also lacking any statement which could remotely be construed as anarcho-Communist, so I'm afraid I'll have to deduct points for that.
I'm feeling generous today, however, so I'll give you 6 out of 10, for this effort.
Some other points to work on would be ranting about how FOSS in general wouldn't exist if not for the FSF, and also implying that the GNU project represents the [b]only[/b] FOSS toolchain currently in existence.
...ummm so twitter has said that you have the rights that you always had.
Can we maybe lose the extreme Marxist douchebag vibe that seems so prevalent around here, Slashdot? It's really getting old.
Companies can't do anything right. If they genuinely do the wrong thing, as with DRM etc, then it is understandable to condemn their actions; but you're condemning Twitter here because they are affirming their users' rights?
I for one commend Twitter for this. It's radically different from the way a lot of companies behave; i.e., "Use our service and we own your SOUL." Here, they're saying that they're not even trying to be avaricious about users' material.
I hope this serves as a positive example to other such providers.
The incriminating part was Kuhn's implication that the GPL is the only license which should exist. Of course, thankfully there is no way for him to enforce such a position; but if he has it, that in itself is alarming enough.
Just curious, will anyone ever be able to do enough to get the GPL fanboys to stop their fucking whining?
Truthfully, they only really got bad after 2005. Before that point, the FSF was gradually sliding towards irrelevance; but unfortunately, Microsoft had to go and start the DRM flap. Because of that, Stallman was able to reinvent himself and change focus to real-world activism, (since actual code development of the GNU Project had been taken over by either Red Hat or Debian a few years earlier) and the cult came back.
These days, the slide back towards irrelevance has resumed, but they're resisting it every step of the way. They have a #gnu_generation channel on FreeNode which targets teenagers, (interesting when you consider that one of the key allegations levelled against Microsoft by the FSF on the Windows7Sins site is poisoning education) and there are reasonably regular reports of them taking on (and brainwashing) new interns as well.
Then there's the ever-present Trotskyite Debian cheerleading squad, as well. Because Ubuntu is Debian-based, and the Debian crowd are as heavily Stallmanite (and Communist) as they are, the cult is managing to skim off a steady trickle of the Windows refugees who are adopting Ubuntu.
Eventually the FSF are going to hang themselves. The Windows7Sins campaign doesn't look like anything other than a byproduct of toxic, crippling autism; it is pure preaching to the choir, and won't be earning them any credibility points at all with the general public.
The literature of cults provides very few examples of a cult outliving its' founder, as well. Stallman could hypothetically be around for as long as another 35 years yet; but it is unlikely that he could remain active as its' leader for all of that time. I could see Kuhn definitely becoming the FSF's David Miscavige, although that will probably depend on how old he is when the time comes.
Either way, they won't last forever; but the real issue, as you've pointed out, is how much damage they stand to do to Linux's reputation in the meantime. Linux is already largely recognised as being synonymous both with Stallman and with cultic radicalism by the online trade press. Red Hat might be doing well enough in the enterprise, but the non-profit community are generally regarded as hard leftist, extremist loons, and all too often with good reason, tragically. You'll never see a single article from the online trade press which dissents from the FSF party line, where the author isn't subjected to the most foul, blistering forms of abuse in the comments/talkback sections, if they have one.
Another recent issue of some concern is the "Linux Youth," phenomenon that has begun to be observed among Ubuntu users. These are generally teenagers, and are usually both fanatically pro-Ubuntu and pro-Stallman. They may be a product of the "GNU Generation," initiative, or they may simply be developing due to Ubuntu's aforementioned association with Debian. Either way, it is troubling, if only because it demonstrates the FSF's ability to gain new victims/footsoldiers from diverse sources.
http://linux.omnipotent.net/article.php?article_id=12503
This is probably about the most incriminating one that immediately springs to mind.
Predictably, you got modded Offtopic.
Thank you for this, however. :)
Get over yourself... nobody here cares what you think.
I submit the GP's moderation, and my aforementioned karma, as evidence to the contrary. ;)
You're right about one thing; my freaks list genuinely is rather extensive. However, I view it more or less as a roll call of Stallman's footsoldiers here on Slashdot. They know exactly who they are.
Yeah... I'm kind of impressed that my original post is still moderated above zero.
LOL. Yes, I wrote a rant about that as well. I'm fully expecting it to go down to -1. Two of my other comments in this thread have already been hit.
"Onward, brothers! Comrades Stallman and Kuhn appreciate your efforts! The enemies of freedom must be stopped!"
I've already had a few posts of my own down modded with, "Overrated." That's the moderation reason which, when FSF drones get mod points, they typically use, because it's the closest thing available to, "-1, Disagree," or, "-1, Author is writing statements contrary to our programming, which is unacceptable."
I'm also noticing that everyone who says the right things, about how evil Microsoft are, and about how perfectly just the community response is, predictably gets modded Insightful, as well.
How long is Linux going to be choked and held back by your existence, FSF? How long will we have a scenario here on Slashdot, where it is forbidden to make statements which are contrary to your mind control?
Keep modding me down, you corrupt, brainwashed cowards. My karma here is high enough that I can withstand it just fine. You haven't silenced me in nearly 10 years now, and I don't know why you'd think you're going to be able to at this point.
I will be interested to see if any of you actually have the spine to respond to this, or if you'll just respond rapidly and predictably, by down-modding me to -1. I've made it easy for you; you can almost claim your use of -1, Offtopic was legitimate!
If you're over zealous about it, MS will just stop contributing.
Bradley Kuhn is a dangerous fanatic. If there's one thing I'm tired of around here, it is people who are willing to condemn Microsoft as being entirely evil on the one hand, yet completely overlook individuals among their own who behave in largely the same ways.
Also, for anyone who wants to me to cite sources to back up the claim that Kuhn is evil, just ask. There's any amount of material on the Web, and I'm more than happy to link to it.
MS only gave it because they got caught with their hands in the open source cookie jar and nanny GPL made them sit in the sharing corner.
I know this has been modded insightful, but am I the only one who's noticed how chronically juvenile it also sounds?