...is that from everything I keep seeing, the bubble has burst where Linux is concerned. A lot of people and companies tried to migrate to Linux from Windows, had endless problems both legal and technical in the process, and also had Microsoft in the background asking them why they were putting themselves through so much needless pain, and ended up migrating back.
I also tried looking up the word Linux in Google trends earlier today; it turns out there's been a steady downward curve in search volume since 2004.
I really believed that Linux was going to become mainstream, once...but right when it seemed about to happen, (prolly last year/late 2005) the FSF had a renaissance and everything went to hell. Now it's on it's way back into the closet.
Because of the GPL distribution requirement, our legal staff does not permit GPL licensed components to be used in applications. We have some allowances for BSD, Apache and in some cases LGPL, because they do not mandate source code distribution, which for competitive reasons we do not wish to do.
Yep. Sound economic logic; something which the GPL zealots are sadly rather short of.
only real knowledge of Linux is "if it's so good, why would you give it away for free"?"
While I can't help much with the advocacy side, I may be able to help you with this one.
Normal people don't care about this. While you're busy explaining all of this to your boss, he's scratching his head and thinking about how much less complicated Windows is.
Focus on the software alone. Leave dogma totally out of the discussion. Do not mention it at all. It is nothing other than a millstone around Linux's neck.
Don't try and advocate that Linux be the only thing that ever gets used anywhere. Instead, adopt the attitude that there are some applications where Linux offers tremendous benefits, with others where it really doesn't. If you already use Linux yourself, you should be able to identify where those are. Above all, if there are any individuals at your workplace who do not want Linux, accept it. Do not try and force it on them.
Do not mention "freedom," or any of the FSF's rhetoric as one of Linux's supposed "strengths," because it isn't. Mentioning it will only cause you to be perceived as wierd and probably threatening, and will alienate whichever muggles you attempt to speak to about it. People want to be able to perform computer-related tasks. They generally do not want to become political activists. End of story.
Realise that although you yourself might be an ardent Marxist, most muggles aren't. What that means is that if something is considered valuable, they expect a dollar value to be assigned to it. Don't attempt to fight this, either, because doing so will simply mean again that you are seen as weird, and the person you're talking to is alienated from Linux. Instead, tell them about one of the companies that have put Linux in a box, but that aren't signatories to a Microsoft agreement, (Red Hat comes to mind) and explain that said company offers support as well, so that management won't feel as though installing Linux means trying to do something that they have no knowledge of, alone.
Try to figure out how to come across as normal in general. That means that you're clean, that the FSF doesn't get mentioned, and that none of the other meaningless abstractions that you might foam at the mouth about (but which normal people again don't care about) don't get mentioned either.
If you focus purely and solely on what Linux can do for management on a technical level in a few key areas, you will have a chance to sell it to them. Forget the rest, (in terms of philosophy/politics etc) because management will only view that as bullshit, which, (despite what you might think) it genuinely is.
"Person expressing views contrary to my own, or that I percieve are anti-Linux = troll/shill/paid Microsoft astroturfer."
This canard is incredibly old and tired. A person is not a shill or a troll simply because they happen to write something which goes against reality as it exists in your personal bubble. As this so eloquently states, the FUD/troll retort is a very simply means for Linux users to block their ears and avoid being confronted with unpalatable realities.
One of those realities is that Linux, in any remotely mainstream sense, is losing people's attention. People have been hearing about how Linux is going to usurp Windows for 10 years now. A lot of them are becoming deeply sick of it, not only because it consistently fails to happen, but also because Linux's conventional userbase are still as dislikable and insular as they've ever been, if not moreso. The Stallmanite zealots are still on the front page, which in itself has always been the primary millstone around Linux's neck; Eben Moglen threw one of the usual kinds of juvenile, cultic tantrums in front of Tim O'Reilly only a week or so ago.
Whether you want to write it off as trolling or not, it's the simple truth. Linux had its' chance at mainstream success, and blew it. The single main reason is because the FSF were allowed and even encouraged to continue to spout their crap when they should have been summarily cut loose. Contrary to what people might think, the FSF have never truly been good for Linux, and they never will be.
I'm not saying that it's the end all and be all of existence but to shrug it off and say "oh it's not all that" when you haven't actually experienced the depth of the act is silly.
So if someone doesn't agree with your perspective on sex, it's obvious that they don't have any real knowledge of it? Gee...that's broad minded.
I bet you don't watch porn either, because, you know, you're above that.
It's interesting, actually. I indulged in a heap of porn before losing my virginity, presumably because back then I still saw sex as something undiscovered and mysterious; hence, there was still a degree of anticipation there.
Since then, however, my use of porn has become non-existent; not so much even because I felt hypocritical, but actually because it felt degrading. Before losing my virginity, my self image was considerably worse than it is now, to the point where degredation didn't bother me. It now does, so I don't engage in degrading acts any more.
As an example case, I was a virgin until I was 26. Yes, if I'm honest it's true that I had utterly no clue how to understand or communicate with the opposite sex, but I'll also admit that sex quite simply isn't something that I've ever consistently had a strong interest in.
Although this is nothing whatsoever against the person who this happened with, even after losing my virginity, I can remember thinking of that experience, while reasonably enjoyable and positive, as not seeming to deserve anything like the degree of hype that most people associate with the act. Most of the people I've known seem to regard sex as being the pinnacle of human experience, and that is an attitude which I find deeply sad.
I know that a predictable response to this will probably be to speculate that I am in fact homosexual, but I do not believe that to be the case, and to be honest, that is something else about the customary attitude towards sex that I find deeply pathetic. Namely the idea that if a person doesn't have one preference, then they *must* by definition have another, because not being helplessly addicted to sex in either straight or gay form is supposedly completely impossible...in most people's minds, it just doesn't compute.
Some of us honestly view reproduction as being the domain of animals. Given that we have more than enough other human beings who are quite happy to devote their own lives to that activity, this means that those of us who have that attitude are also able to persue the expansion and enhancement of our minds, without fear as to the possible consequences to the human population.
If you're someone for whom sex is the most important element of your existence, I'd strongly advocate getting a life.
I just wish someone else had the brains to actually start another one. It seems like a fiendishly difficult process.
However, Linus is apparently massively overworked, his ego has gone berserk, there are apparently any number of technical problems, and then there's been the whole brouhaha about whether or not the thing is going to be pushed to the GPL 3 over the heads of people who don't actually want that. In other words, it's a mess.
I'd honestly almost expect Merriam Webster to include a reference to Apple in their definition of the word "fringe."
Apple as a company, and their userbase, are and always have been the computing world's answer to the Addams family. They don't produce computers or an operating system of the kind that normal people are willing to use; this has been shown time and time and time again.
If you're a neurological, social, and/or genetic aberration who also happens to have an above average amount of money at your disposal, then congratulations...you're part of Apple's traditional target demographic. The rest of us will just keep doing what we've always done; using Windows, while Linux and the MacOS remain in the outer limits, where they've proven they belong.
The thing that makes me really angry, grieved, and frustrated is that in the case of Linux in particular, it didn't have to be that way, and indeed for a long time, I didn't think it was going to. I thought Linux was going to become truly mainstream. Alas, at the proverbial eleventh hour, when it was right on the edge, the traditional legion of basement-dwelling freaks somehow managed to re-assert their predominance, when I'd almost allowed myself to dare to hope that the system had somehow managed to pull free of them.
The Mac has always been fringe, and I've never expected or wanted anything better for Apple. With Linux, though, things were different...for a time, it looked as though the proverbial critical mass was genuinely in sight. You blew it...and when I say that, the people who I'm talking to know, deep down, who they are.
Linux is not free. What you might not pay in money, you end up paying in having to deal with crap like this on the one hand, and becoming part of the collectivist nightmare of a userbase that think they own you, body, mind, and soul, if you use Linux at all on the other.
Think of this as "Reason to Say No Thanks to Linux, No. 702,409,312,867." Keep XP and be happy. Your life will be a lot less complicated.
If being a member of a cult is something you really feel you need, there are plenty of other options available where even though you'll get shafted to an equal or greater degree, most of the others also try and make the process more pleasurable than in the case of Linux.
It's attitudes like the parent that are the reason why I started distancing myself from using Linux, and why I'm betting a whole lot of other people have as well.
Go and crawl back into your parents' basement until you learn:-
a) Some basic mental stability, and b) How to communicate with others without needing to resort to profanity.
So I really don't see Linux going GPL 3, in whole or in part.
Give it time. Alan Cox has been chipping away at Linus about it more or less ever since the GPL 3 was first thought of, and the FSF sends its' minions to apply pressure on a fairly regular basis, as well.
1) Companies attempt to investigate/convert to FOSS and Linux.
2) The "community" does zero to assist with transition or education, instead preferring to focus on childishly deriding them as "evil" if they step so much as an inch out of line with Stallmanite philosophy.
3) Said companies do not have sufficient knowledge about Linux to be able to complete the changeover (which is often a large scale process) on their own. They don't know which hardware Linux will or won't work with, and so they try and get it to work with hardware that it might be fine with on Windows, only to find it failing. Tech support becomes an unspeakable nightmare, and the people on the helpdesk usually don't have any more idea of how to solve their users' problems than the users themselves. Also, which distribution do companies use? Ubuntu? Red Hat? Debian? Slackware?
4) Meanwhile, Microsoft are standing in the background, asking said companies why they're bothering to put themselves through this much pain and suffering in the first place. The "community" continues to distance itself from said companies, supporting Microsoft's portrayal of them as nothing more than a gang of fanatical, anarcho-communist malcontents who simply demand that everyone get with the new religion without lifting a finger to actually make it happen on a practical basis.
5) Microsoft offers said companies whatever concessions they wanted which prompted said companies to try and switch to Linux in the first place, and said companies finally, after much failed effort, revert back to Microsoft.
6) The "community" stand around alternating between the usual chorus about said companies being "evil," on the one hand, and wondering why companies are unable to escape the lure of Microsoft on the other.
Seems hardly a few days go past without hearing about a nonprofit distro shutting down, or a commercial one signing up with Microsoft. Then you've got the looming spectre of the GPL 3 scaring other people away. The future at this point ain't looking so bright.
I don't see the point.
on
New X-Files Movie
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· Score: 1, Insightful
The last episode tied up all loose ends, and said pretty much everything that they needed to say, IMHO. Not only that, I also felt that the X Files was only really sociologically relevant to the 90s, as well...I think pop culture is well and truly over the paranormal/ufology in general. The Greys have more than had their 15 minutes.
- Websites that are inherently multi-user, by design. They wouldn't make sense in a single-user scenario. There also is no dividing line between content provider and content producer; they are both one and the same.
- Websites that primarily use AJAX.
- Websites that try and do the "online application" thing.
YouTube, digg, Flickr, and ghost are probably the best examples I can think of of 2.0 sites. They're difficult to quantify exactly, but I know a 2.0 site when I'm looking at it.
You aren't forced to use GPL v3 software, you do so voluntarily.
That's true now, yes...and seeing as it looks as though any real opportunity that Linux might have had for becoming the dominant operating system has passed, it's likely to stay true now, also. If Linux had become the dominant OS however, then if you wanted to use a computer at all, the above might not have stayed true.
To release code under GPL v2, and then whine about GPL v3, which has the same intent but merely closes a couple of loopholes and makes a few technical improvements, is certainly hypocritical.
Can you possibly elaborate on how that is all it does? I get the feeling that the reason why Linus is objecting is because he doesn't think that.
Slashdot Mirror
He lists concrete reasons why he isn't using Apache; you respond with nothing other than emotive namecalling.
Fantastic open source advocacy, there...although truth be told, it's on about the same level it normally is.
And you wonder why people stick with Windows.
...is that from everything I keep seeing, the bubble has burst where Linux is concerned. A lot of people and companies tried to migrate to Linux from Windows, had endless problems both legal and technical in the process, and also had Microsoft in the background asking them why they were putting themselves through so much needless pain, and ended up migrating back.
I also tried looking up the word Linux in Google trends earlier today; it turns out there's been a steady downward curve in search volume since 2004.
I really believed that Linux was going to become mainstream, once...but right when it seemed about to happen, (prolly last year/late 2005) the FSF had a renaissance and everything went to hell. Now it's on it's way back into the closet.
It's genuinely sad.
Because of the GPL distribution requirement, our legal staff does not permit GPL licensed components to be used in applications. We have some allowances for BSD, Apache and in some cases LGPL, because they do not mandate source code distribution, which for competitive reasons we do not wish to do.
Yep. Sound economic logic; something which the GPL zealots are sadly rather short of.
only real knowledge of Linux is "if it's so good, why would you give it away for free"?"
While I can't help much with the advocacy side, I may be able to help you with this one.
Normal people don't care about this. While you're busy explaining all of this to your boss, he's scratching his head and thinking about how much less complicated Windows is.
Focus on the software alone. Leave dogma totally out of the discussion. Do not mention it at all. It is nothing other than a millstone around Linux's neck.
Don't try and advocate that Linux be the only thing that ever gets used anywhere. Instead, adopt the attitude that there are some applications where Linux offers tremendous benefits, with others where it really doesn't. If you already use Linux yourself, you should be able to identify where those are. Above all, if there are any individuals at your workplace who do not want Linux, accept it. Do not try and force it on them.
Do not mention "freedom," or any of the FSF's rhetoric as one of Linux's supposed "strengths," because it isn't. Mentioning it will only cause you to be perceived as wierd and probably threatening, and will alienate whichever muggles you attempt to speak to about it. People want to be able to perform computer-related tasks. They generally do not want to become political activists. End of story.
Realise that although you yourself might be an ardent Marxist, most muggles aren't. What that means is that if something is considered valuable, they expect a dollar value to be assigned to it. Don't attempt to fight this, either, because doing so will simply mean again that you are seen as weird, and the person you're talking to is alienated from Linux. Instead, tell them about one of the companies that have put Linux in a box, but that aren't signatories to a Microsoft agreement, (Red Hat comes to mind) and explain that said company offers support as well, so that management won't feel as though installing Linux means trying to do something that they have no knowledge of, alone.
Try to figure out how to come across as normal in general. That means that you're clean, that the FSF doesn't get mentioned, and that none of the other meaningless abstractions that you might foam at the mouth about (but which normal people again don't care about) don't get mentioned either.
If you focus purely and solely on what Linux can do for management on a technical level in a few key areas, you will have a chance to sell it to them. Forget the rest, (in terms of philosophy/politics etc) because management will only view that as bullshit, which, (despite what you might think) it genuinely is.
"Person expressing views contrary to my own, or that I percieve are anti-Linux = troll/shill/paid Microsoft astroturfer."
This canard is incredibly old and tired. A person is not a shill or a troll simply because they happen to write something which goes against reality as it exists in your personal bubble. As this so eloquently states, the FUD/troll retort is a very simply means for Linux users to block their ears and avoid being confronted with unpalatable realities.
One of those realities is that Linux, in any remotely mainstream sense, is losing people's attention. People have been hearing about how Linux is going to usurp Windows for 10 years now. A lot of them are becoming deeply sick of it, not only because it consistently fails to happen, but also because Linux's conventional userbase are still as dislikable and insular as they've ever been, if not moreso. The Stallmanite zealots are still on the front page, which in itself has always been the primary millstone around Linux's neck; Eben Moglen threw one of the usual kinds of juvenile, cultic tantrums in front of Tim O'Reilly only a week or so ago.
Whether you want to write it off as trolling or not, it's the simple truth. Linux had its' chance at mainstream success, and blew it. The single main reason is because the FSF were allowed and even encouraged to continue to spout their crap when they should have been summarily cut loose. Contrary to what people might think, the FSF have never truly been good for Linux, and they never will be.
This need is so strong that it permeates our every waking moment.
;)
Speak for yourself.
I'm not saying that it's the end all and be all of existence but to shrug it off and say "oh it's not all that" when you haven't actually experienced the depth of the act is silly.
So if someone doesn't agree with your perspective on sex, it's obvious that they don't have any real knowledge of it? Gee...that's broad minded.
I bet you don't watch porn either, because, you know, you're above that.
It's interesting, actually. I indulged in a heap of porn before losing my virginity, presumably because back then I still saw sex as something undiscovered and mysterious; hence, there was still a degree of anticipation there.
Since then, however, my use of porn has become non-existent; not so much even because I felt hypocritical, but actually because it felt degrading. Before losing my virginity, my self image was considerably worse than it is now, to the point where degredation didn't bother me. It now does, so I don't engage in degrading acts any more.
As an example case, I was a virgin until I was 26. Yes, if I'm honest it's true that I had utterly no clue how to understand or communicate with the opposite sex, but I'll also admit that sex quite simply isn't something that I've ever consistently had a strong interest in.
Although this is nothing whatsoever against the person who this happened with, even after losing my virginity, I can remember thinking of that experience, while reasonably enjoyable and positive, as not seeming to deserve anything like the degree of hype that most people associate with the act. Most of the people I've known seem to regard sex as being the pinnacle of human experience, and that is an attitude which I find deeply sad.
I know that a predictable response to this will probably be to speculate that I am in fact homosexual, but I do not believe that to be the case, and to be honest, that is something else about the customary attitude towards sex that I find deeply pathetic. Namely the idea that if a person doesn't have one preference, then they *must* by definition have another, because not being helplessly addicted to sex in either straight or gay form is supposedly completely impossible...in most people's minds, it just doesn't compute.
Some of us honestly view reproduction as being the domain of animals. Given that we have more than enough other human beings who are quite happy to devote their own lives to that activity, this means that those of us who have that attitude are also able to persue the expansion and enhancement of our minds, without fear as to the possible consequences to the human population.
If you're someone for whom sex is the most important element of your existence, I'd strongly advocate getting a life.
I just wish someone else had the brains to actually start another one. It seems like a fiendishly difficult process.
However, Linus is apparently massively overworked, his ego has gone berserk, there are apparently any number of technical problems, and then there's been the whole brouhaha about whether or not the thing is going to be pushed to the GPL 3 over the heads of people who don't actually want that. In other words, it's a mess.
I'd honestly almost expect Merriam Webster to include a reference to Apple in their definition of the word "fringe."
Apple as a company, and their userbase, are and always have been the computing world's answer to the Addams family. They don't produce computers or an operating system of the kind that normal people are willing to use; this has been shown time and time and time again.
If you're a neurological, social, and/or genetic aberration who also happens to have an above average amount of money at your disposal, then congratulations...you're part of Apple's traditional target demographic. The rest of us will just keep doing what we've always done; using Windows, while Linux and the MacOS remain in the outer limits, where they've proven they belong.
The thing that makes me really angry, grieved, and frustrated is that in the case of Linux in particular, it didn't have to be that way, and indeed for a long time, I didn't think it was going to. I thought Linux was going to become truly mainstream. Alas, at the proverbial eleventh hour, when it was right on the edge, the traditional legion of basement-dwelling freaks somehow managed to re-assert their predominance, when I'd almost allowed myself to dare to hope that the system had somehow managed to pull free of them.
The Mac has always been fringe, and I've never expected or wanted anything better for Apple. With Linux, though, things were different...for a time, it looked as though the proverbial critical mass was genuinely in sight. You blew it...and when I say that, the people who I'm talking to know, deep down, who they are.
Linux is not free. What you might not pay in money, you end up paying in having to deal with crap like this on the one hand, and becoming part of the collectivist nightmare of a userbase that think they own you, body, mind, and soul, if you use Linux at all on the other.
Think of this as "Reason to Say No Thanks to Linux, No. 702,409,312,867." Keep XP and be happy. Your life will be a lot less complicated.
If being a member of a cult is something you really feel you need, there are plenty of other options available where even though you'll get shafted to an equal or greater degree, most of the others also try and make the process more pleasurable than in the case of Linux.
It's attitudes like the parent that are the reason why I started distancing myself from using Linux, and why I'm betting a whole lot of other people have as well.
Go and crawl back into your parents' basement until you learn:-
a) Some basic mental stability, and
b) How to communicate with others without needing to resort to profanity.
Can I ask...
What is your own definition of the word community?
So I really don't see Linux going GPL 3, in whole or in part.
Give it time. Alan Cox has been chipping away at Linus about it more or less ever since the GPL 3 was first thought of, and the FSF sends its' minions to apply pressure on a fairly regular basis, as well.
1) Companies attempt to investigate/convert to FOSS and Linux.
2) The "community" does zero to assist with transition or education, instead preferring to focus on childishly deriding them as "evil" if they step so much as an inch out of line with Stallmanite philosophy.
3) Said companies do not have sufficient knowledge about Linux to be able to complete the changeover (which is often a large scale process) on their own. They don't know which hardware Linux will or won't work with, and so they try and get it to work with hardware that it might be fine with on Windows, only to find it failing. Tech support becomes an unspeakable nightmare, and the people on the helpdesk usually don't have any more idea of how to solve their users' problems than the users themselves. Also, which distribution do companies use? Ubuntu? Red Hat? Debian? Slackware?
4) Meanwhile, Microsoft are standing in the background, asking said companies why they're bothering to put themselves through this much pain and suffering in the first place. The "community" continues to distance itself from said companies, supporting Microsoft's portrayal of them as nothing more than a gang of fanatical, anarcho-communist malcontents who simply demand that everyone get with the new religion without lifting a finger to actually make it happen on a practical basis.
5) Microsoft offers said companies whatever concessions they wanted which prompted said companies to try and switch to Linux in the first place, and said companies finally, after much failed effort, revert back to Microsoft.
6) The "community" stand around alternating between the usual chorus about said companies being "evil," on the one hand, and wondering why companies are unable to escape the lure of Microsoft on the other.
Seems hardly a few days go past without hearing about a nonprofit distro shutting down, or a commercial one signing up with Microsoft. Then you've got the looming spectre of the GPL 3 scaring other people away. The future at this point ain't looking so bright.
The last episode tied up all loose ends, and said pretty much everything that they needed to say, IMHO. Not only that, I also felt that the X Files was only really sociologically relevant to the 90s, as well...I think pop culture is well and truly over the paranormal/ufology in general. The Greys have more than had their 15 minutes.
Web 2.0 is a buzzword
IMHO it does signify a couple of things:-
- Websites that are inherently multi-user, by design. They wouldn't make sense in a single-user scenario. There also is no dividing line between content provider and content producer; they are both one and the same.
- Websites that primarily use AJAX.
- Websites that try and do the "online application" thing.
YouTube, digg, Flickr, and ghost are probably the best examples I can think of of 2.0 sites. They're difficult to quantify exactly, but I know a 2.0 site when I'm looking at it.
...from the intro of Command and Conquer: Red Alert sums up my attitude towards what the GPL v3 will potentially do to Linux.
"Time will tell. Sooner or later, time will tell."
Giant squid need love too. ;)
If you disagree with the global warming explanation, can you offer us an alternative?
You aren't forced to use GPL v3 software, you do so voluntarily.
That's true now, yes...and seeing as it looks as though any real opportunity that Linux might have had for becoming the dominant operating system has passed, it's likely to stay true now, also. If Linux had become the dominant OS however, then if you wanted to use a computer at all, the above might not have stayed true.
To release code under GPL v2, and then whine about GPL v3, which has the same intent but merely closes a couple of loopholes and makes a few technical improvements, is certainly hypocritical.
Can you possibly elaborate on how that is all it does? I get the feeling that the reason why Linus is objecting is because he doesn't think that.