Even of the few that knows, most of us don't care and maybe a few even like Debian "making RMS look soft" Legal. And it's so most definately in the category of "nice to have", if not "get a life".
This is exactly the problem, as far as Linux ever becoming anything that could be called mainstream is concerned. Normal people simply don't (and have no desire to) share the Debian developers' sociopolitical perspectives...and although there *are* instances where I do feel that FOSS minority thinking is a good thing, virtually none of what I've seen of Debian's policy or unofficial attitude is, in my mind.
They don't care about things which in my own mind anywayz are genuinely important...all they really accomplish with their so-called moral stands is the alienation of potential new users/co-developers, and the continuation of Linux being associated in the mainstream mind with abnormal, retrograde people...because in the case of Debian in particular, it genuinely is. People outside Linux looking in though don't have any real way of knowing that there actually are normal, sane individuals using the operating system...people who don't subscribe to RMS/Debian's divisive, faux moral crusade. The main reason being is that the normal majority of users are silent...they're simply busy coding, getting tasks performed, and helping people...it's only the zealots who are so noisy, and so sadly, it's the zealots which form the impressions of people who don't know that the silent majority exist. I only know because I've seen them on Freenode and in other places myself.
The Debian developers don't do themselves any favours whatsoever...it's been said before that people are the only real resource we have...if they keep pushing people away with their zealotry and their determination to dictate how others think, eventually they're only going to choke off their own possible future...because eventually, the current generation of Debian devs will get old, get tired, burn out, and need new blood. If they don't start behaving in different ways, they're potentially going to find said new blood very difficult to find.
I am really desperately hoping that a time is eventually going to come where Linux as a kernel is the only thing that exists. Linux as a social movement needs to die...because if it doesn't, Linux as a kernel eventually could...and unlike the cult, the kernel is something which genuinely *is* worth preserving.
Get off your soap box, Debian...and start realising that if the way you think is genuinely beneficial to people, they'll adopt it themselves, of their own free will...the only reason why you and the FSF need to try and ram it down people's throats is because it isn't something which they actually *want*.
1. Linux doesn't exist as on OS - its just a kernel.
Linux isn't - FreeBSD is. They have their own kernel, C library, and toolchain if you use TenDRA.
2. Fragmentation - too many distros with few standards or cooperation
See above.;)
3. linux fanboys think their fav distro is the "be-all and end-all" of existence
Debian fanboys are a particularly obnoxious breed. I don't consider FreeBSD perfect...hardware support admittedly is still sketchy...but it's a damn sight better than anything I've come across in the Linux scene.
4. Its too hard for users to simply run the apps they want 5. package management sucks
Ports is VASTLY more user friendly and stable than any form of package management I've used with Linux...don't take my fanboyish word for it, though. *grin* Try it yourself and see.
What Linux distro for speed and stability? Slackware. Because it is faster, more stable and has the best hardware compatibility there is among distros, and package management is simple, if simplistic.
Enormously agreed. Debian seems to have deviated from what used to be the norm (and is now only represented by Slackware, tragically) in seemingly just about every way possible, and the rationale generally seems to have been, "because we can."
Re:It's too early to discount Oracle/MS/Novell
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Another one of the unique abilities of FOSS is the fact that it allows you to rely on the work of others.
Coughing up $300 or so for a box with an XP CD inside it isn't relying on the work of Microsoft?;-)
There's no need for people to be hand-rolling their own distros.
Yeah...that might actually involve self-responsibility and intellectual proactivity, (horrors!) and at all costs, we CAN'T have people exercising either of those, can we?
Vista is nothing more than XP with a new interface with a few security enhancements copied from other operating systems that are already exploited or easily turned off, making them useless.
I haven't used any of the betas myself, but I suspected as much. If Microsoft could have stayed on track with the features of Longhorn that they'd originally promised, (particularly WinFS) they would have likely had something unstoppable. As it stands however, my prediction is that the Vista release is going to be largely inconsequential.
I think 2007 is the year of linux if we can rid ourselves of the zealots and create a stable desktop with easy to install programs with alot of power.
Liberating Linux from the stranglehold of the zealots would be an enormous step forward, but unfortunately, it isn't going to happen. Both the Debian Project and the FSF (Linux zealotry's two primary sources) are here to stay; my most optimistic projection on that score has the FSF gradually becoming irrelevant between five and ten years from now, however that isn't likely. They have been around for a long time and their core demographic, although small, is exceptionally tenacious.
The most interesting determinant of the FSF's long term future at this point is probably going to be who succeeds Stallman as leader when the time comes. Statistically speaking, cults generally do not survive the loss of their founder, and Stallman's heir, whoever it is, is going to have to invest major effort if they plan to buck that trend.
Although Ubuntu is a wonderful thing in terms of non-technical usability for Linux, its' provision of revival for Debian is something which I'm less than enthusiastic about. After the FSF itself, Debian is the single biggest source of Linux zealotry, as well as contibuting to the difficulty in shedding Linux's traditional attendant negative stereotypes generally. Whatever good Debian might do Linux technically is almost entirely undone by the enormous and ongoing harm that the distribution's developers do politically, in my own opinion.
That's why he threatened Linux. Microsoft is very afraid of the success of Linux because I blows their content protection monopoly out of the water.
My money says Microsoft will no longer exist by 2020, largely irrespective of what they do at this point. Their descent began nearly 10 years ago, around the time of the release of IE 4. Microsoft's destruction will ultimately be entirely by the corporation's own hand; it will have virtually nothing to do with Apple or Linux.
The reasons for the company's now largely inevitable disintegration are primarily two fold:-
a) Massive and irreparable erosion of consumer good will on a global scale, which will be exacerbated by the DRM present in Windows Vista. People the world over have grown to viciously hate Microsoft, and very few who still use Windows do so entirely willingly. As Machiavelli wrote, a ruler can be safely feared by the population, but if he wishes to preserve himself, the one thing a prince must avoid above all others is being hated.
b) The NT codebase has reached the end of the line, developmentally. Microsoft have never had a long term roadmap past the release of NT 4, and they've been treading water ever since. This is not difficult to see; XP and now Vista are essentially glorified graphics patches for the underlying NT core. I don't bother mentioning the supposed security enhancements associated with Vista, because in reality they are futile. Once hostile code is running locally, NT's lack of an ACL model still means the show is over...and as any of the BSD people will likely tell you, security cannot be retrofitted onto a fundamentally insecure operating system design. If it is not designed for security from its' inception, then it will remain insecure throughout its' existence. Generally speaking, patching will not change that.
The question is not now whether the mainstream operating system torch will pass from Microsoft, bu
Re:It's too early to discount Oracle/MS/Novell
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Our loaded cost for a Windows machine is cheaper than that for Linux. I'm a die hard linux evangelist, but the numbers don't lie.
Then go here and learn how to create your own system. You can also use such services as this and others in order to stay on top of security vulnerabilities. There is also this site which talks about designing network infrastructure.
You'll need to do some homework, and it might seem daunting at first, but the amount of money you could save surely makes this at least worth thinking about. I can't understand why this unique ability that FOSS gives you (to strike out completely on your own, independent of a vendor) isn't capitalised on by more organisations. There is absolutely no need to pay a Linux vendor a single cent if you don't want to...it is entirely a choice.
Re:"Support" model seems to be a misnomer
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A) RMS/GNU will complain that Redhat is violating the spirit of the GPL by not providing 100% equal access to free-loaders and then change the GPL
I can't see RMS denouncing Red Hat, for a couple of different reasons. The first is that despite Stallman considering corporations evil, Red Hat still works to bring them into the fold. Corps using Red Hat means corps finding out that Stallman exists, which can in turn at least potentially mean more people which Stallman has influence over. You'll never hear him say it, but power is what Stallman is primarily interested in. He also believes that the most effective way of getting it is to create at least a very convincing illusion of holding the moral high ground...hence why all the other stuff surrounding him is there.
The second thing to realise is that despite what it might sound like in speeches that he gives at times, Stallman doesn't have as much of a problem with money as people might think. He might not like the idea of other people making it, but he has no qualms whatsoever about it flowing in the FSF's direction. Corporations using Red Hat again means that organisations with potentially very large amounts of money fall under the FSF's legal jurisdiction, via the GPL...which is really something to widen the gnu head's smile.
Stallman is also a member of that particular branch of anarcho-communism which advocates using the infrastructure of the pre-existing society in order to bring about its' downfall...which means utilising what corporations can do for him at the same time as working to destroy them.
Also, in a recent half-page interview with Red Hat's XO, he used the word "community" probably four times. Red Hat knows exactly which side it's bread is buttered on, which also explains the attempts to revitalise the Fedora project. Probably the main reason why Red Hat wouldn't enter into something like Novell's agreement with Microsoft is because it knows that to do so would be biting the hand that feeds it.
While there's still some unencumbered content left, sure. It might even be true that a handful of truly hard core individuals such as some of the Debian people would prefer to live in a cultural/information vacuum than possibly concede to DRM. However, we're talking about a very, very small number of people.
Vista's release is truly going to be an interesting test of human nature...whether the majority are willing to accept the chains with which Microsoft are so desperate to bind them. Once again, apparently the least intelligent/aware/self-responsible segment of the population apparently holds the fate of the rest of us in their hands.
The Mac existed at the time, as did OS/2 and commercial UNIX. Come to that, so did the Amiga.
Yes, Microsoft are good at trying as hard as they can to keep people locked in...and their ability to intimidate OEMs went close to ensuring it...but people still had options.
If anyone in the community had bothered to stop and think about this, they might have realised that it is possible that causing such division is exactly what Microsoft intended with this agreement. As those of you who've read ESR might remember him saying, the greatest (and ultimately only) strength FOSS people have is their programming ability.
If Allison had stayed with the company, he might have been able to keep securing funding for the Samba project, which in turn would mean that code would continue to get written...presumably GPLed code which Microsoft thus would have been unable to co-opt.
Throwing a tantrum and leaving accomplishes nothing. It will not hurt Microsoft in the slightest, nor is it likely to impress anyone watching with Allison's "moral stand." The only thing it will accomplish is possibly throw the future of the Samba project into question, at least with regards to his ability to continue maintaining it.
A number of people involved in FOSS need to read Machiavelli and get a clue about how the real world works. Isolated exceptions like Gandhi aside, "principled" martyrdom generally accomplishes exactly nothing. 99.9...% of the population are only ever going to care about FOSS purely on the basis of how doing so benefits them. They DO NOT CARE about moral abstractions of any kind. I wish I knew why so many people associated with Linux had such difficulty comprehending this.
Please try and understand one simple concept. Windows became the dominant system purely because it gave people what they wanted. No other reason. If the people who develop Linux want it to become the dominant system, then they are ultimately going to have to abandon any other consideration; technical superiority, "principle," whatever. If Linux's developers want it to take over the world, the *only* thing that can matter is that it does what people want.
If principle is something that Linux's developers care more about than relevance, that's fine...but people need to start recognising that the two are mutually exclusive. If you want one, you're going to have to let go of the other. In terms of gaining the type of popularity for Linux that many of its' developers seem to want, Hobbesian ethics are far more likely to be of assistance than the Lockean philosophy that such groups as Debian claim to adhere to.
This more than anything else is how I know that people are naive when they believe that Stallman is the being of light that they do, while still having managed to gain the marginal degree of influence that he has. Power doesn't work that way. It comes from giving people whatever pleasant mirage they want to see. In Stallman's case, the Prophet, St Ignucius, is the image some people want, and which with a certain demographic, Stallman has managed to rate pretty highly...but again, it's purely because by following along with his crusade, people expect to either be able to get free software, or make money from it...straight back to the "what's in it for me?" principle.
As an example of this, it nearly made me vomit the other night when, in a reply to one of my posts here, someone from India in particular had the gall to quote the FSF's party line on morality and principle.
I know exactly why Stallman is so popular in India; it's because Linux is one of the primary elements enabling India to do a role reversal with the US as an economic member of the Third World. If you think it's because contemporary Indians take after Gandhi in being pillars of virtue and caring about the FSF's "principles", then please, pass me some of what you're smoking.
Does that mean that going vegan means a door is open for coming to agree with him about the extermination of the Jewish people?
No, because being vegan and the extermination of the Jews have nothing to do with each other. Hardware DRM on the one hand and licensing on the other both have to do with the unrestricted circulation (or lack thereof) of software. That's why if he gets people's agreement about DRM, it's going to be easier to get it about the GPL...because they *are* related...he wants them to be.
" truly miraculous programmer [...], (altruistic *and* a genius...he's looking more like God by the second)." That's indefensible nonsense.
No, it isn't. Go and read Stallman's article on Wikipedia...the people who maintain it have an opinion of him which is entirely subjective and irrational...and if anyone does try to inject another opinion, it is immediately removed. Among his faithful, he *is* worshipped, and dissent/critical opinions of him are not tolerated.
Worse, you seem to be actively rejecting a good cause for no other reason than that he supports it. I've seen nothing in your arguments about why DRM is a good thing -- only that Stallman is fearmongering against it.
For starters, as I've said I do not consider it a truly legitimate threat. Microsoft have already come under extensive legal fire for being a monopoly; I can in no way envision a scenario in any legal jurisdiction where Microsoft's remote control of computers which other people have paid for would be tolerated. It simply is not going to happen. Yes, it might be tolerated with regards to individual files...it might even be accepted with regards to preventing piracy of the operating system. It will *not*, however, be accepted in any scenario where Microsoft have the ability to remotely render a computer entirely physically inoperable against the wishes of the individual who paid money for it.
The other area where the scenario within the story, "The Right to Read," is proven to be rubbish is that Stallman is apparently oblivious to the fact that piracy laws have never been, and will never be, enforceable on the basis of more than isolated cases. This is true for the simple reason (if for no other) that there are far more people interested in committing acts of piracy than there are people interested in the prevention of said acts...it therefore simply comes down to an economy of scale; the number of people working to prevent piracy are hopelessly outnumbered by those pirating.
This was demonstrated not so long ago with the MPAA congratulating itself over having destroyed the largest server on the EDonkey peer to peer network, Razorback 2. The other servers in the network merely absorbed the destroyed server's traffic, and continued on, entirely without interruption. That also does not even mention the amount of piracy that takes place on IRC networks, Bit Torrent, and Direct Connect. The media industry might as well try and bale out the North Atlantic with a teaspoon; they'd probably have better chances of accomplishing that, quite seriously. Piracy benefits a much larger number of people than it hurts...that more than any other single reason is the main reason why it is largely impossible to prevent.
To summarise, I *don't* believe that DRM is a good thing. However, I have sufficient confidence in human intelligence that I feel that when faced with something that is as blatantly detrimental to them as DRM is, people will universally reject it. We have already heard about how poorly the Zune is faring in the marketplace. Stallman has never given the intelligence of human beings other than himself enough credit, and it is insulting.
MS Word, I do worry about. A lot of corporate and legal documents are done in Word. Who knows how much of a future President's early career may be lost to us?
Not that I'm advocating the loss of such material, but I find myself wondering how possible it really is to establish a genuinely objective assessment of
I don't often find myself quoting Scripture, but I remembered one passage in connection with this that I felt was appropriate...
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
Matthew 7:16-20, King James Version
I've noticed that people associated with Debian love talking about moral superiority, the project's "social contract," and it's commitment to principle. However, things are less attractive beneath the surface. I've never heard of another distribution which has suffered from so much internal infighting, or that has caused as much division externally. As I read recently, before corporations began getting involved, Microsoft had no reason to see Linux as a threat, because Linux's volunteer developers spend so much time fighting amongst themselves that despite a genuinely technically viable system having developed, the mainstream population is still alienated by the degree of internal conflict. For this conflict and division, Debian and the Free Software Foundation (and those who think in similar ways) are almost entirely to blame. They claim it's because they care about principle...in reality, what they really care about is retaining the ability to tell other people what to do and how to think.
Personally I'd like to see Debian (as it currently exists organisationally) collapse entirely, and for the codebase to be adopted by Ubuntu, or other projects which will hopefully be run by people who are not so interested in dominating others.
I saw someone predict on kerneltrap once that the FSF also is unlikely to last, long term. Organisations are only worth keeping for as long as they actually work *towards* human benefit. Once the focus instead becomes on dominating others, attempting to dictate how they think, and limiting self-determination, it's time for them to go. What Jesus says here about bad fruit being burned does not necessarily need to be interpreted in the classic apocalyptic sense; rather, it simply means that ultimately, only those institutions which actually consistently benefit people tend to last. Those which are not beneficial end up being routed around, and fade away as naturally as rain drying with the return of the sun after a thunderstorm.
The impermanence of modern data storage vs. printed or written works from the past.
This one I can see, definitely...although I don't see books going anywhere any time soon. Mind you, I'd agree with you that even if they stay around, they are by no means a total solution.
The inability to read propietary formats centuries or even decades in the future.
In the late 70s/early 80s, I might have agreed that such was a possibility...however, first ASCII and now Unicode are fairly powerful deterrents to such a future scenario, methinks. To me PDF is a large potential threat there...I consider it unlikely however that anything that's likely to be of importance centuries from now will use Microsoft Word as its' sole format.
Strange. Stallman must've used his GNU powered time machine to go back to 1997 after the DMCA was passed to right "The Right to Read."
I've read "The Right to Read." The dating of that particular story aside, I stand by my original assertion that the FSF's current level of militancy doesn't date back much further than 2002. There *has* been a change...The message itself isn't so much it...it's the degree of volume, and also his degree of tolerance for people who hold ideas that differ from his own, which in turn has created a new level of division that wasn't there earlier to the same degree.
DRM is a major part of this, and while I don't support the FSF on everything, this is the good fight. (Emphasis mine)
Bingo. Exactly. You expressed it perfectly. DRM is a subject about which there can only possibly be one perspective, right? Opposition. In other words, it's an utterly perfect rallying point. There in fact has possibly never been a better one, because with either Communism or Al Quaeda there were people who were sympathetic to both of those. Outside of corporations anywayz, *nobody* thinks of DRM (at least the type that Microsoft advocates) as a potentially good thing.
In other words, although you might not agree with Stallman on the rest of his ideas, you *do* agree with him that DRM is a bad thing. Thus, he has a foot in the door with regards to potentially (at some point later) getting you to agree with the rest of his philosophy as well.
By starting from a position where he has a group of people who have disparate perspectives on other issues, but who are willing to agree (and agree forcefully, even better) with him on one point, he thus has an opportunity to persuade people to accept the rest of his ideas over time. One idea slowly becomes two, two gradually becomes three, and before you know it, you're an unquestioning footsoldier in the GNU army.
The degree of fear which people feel with regards to DRM makes this far more powerful and effective, and in that sense, promoting the idea of being people's Messiah in the face of the unspeakable evil that is DRM sets up a mutually reinforcing loop. Because Stallman only wants to do the right thing and save you from this monstrous DRM, and because people keep talking about what a truly miraculous programmer he is, (altruistic *and* a genius...he's looking more like God by the second) you end up thinking that it's just a lot easier if you allow *him* to make all those messy ideological decisions for you...especially considering that he knows how to save you from such evil things as DRM. After all, you're also obviously nowhere near either as supernaturally intelligent or as divinely, altruistically good as he is, are you? Freedom is so important to him...you don't need to worry about maintaining (or defining) that yourself any more. He'll take good care of it.
Whenever I see someone expressing this perspective, I make very sure to feel grateful that it is only held by a fairly small minority.
Imagine how much more work could be done to a package manager if every distro was using the same. Imagine how good OpenOffice and KOffice could have been if there were not 200 other Open Source alternatives.
You're probably not consciously aware of it, but the only reason why you think like this is because Microsoft introduced and then encouraged/enforced a monoculture, during which time you were brainwashed to believe that such was actually a good thing. That being the case, I would like to invite you to continue to use Windows, rather than attempting to promote ideas which, if they were to be sufficiently widely adopted, (although mercifully, they won't be) would potentially lead to the destruction (or at least severe technological compromise) of Linux/FOSS.
20 years (roughly the length of time since the 80s) is more than a quarter of most people's lfetimes. It isn't the Stone Age, but it's not insignificant, either. In order to have been an adult at the time, he would have to be at least 45 years of age today; presumably older.
DRM is nothing more than a bogeyman that the FSF can use to try and intimidate mainstream society into accepting positions which the FSF knows that the mainstream population would not be willing to accept otherwise. DVD copy protection has been broken, WGA in its' various incarnations has been broken and/or worked around, and the fact that no legal jurisdiction on the planet with antitrust laws would tolerate a situation where Microsoft can completely remotely control people's computers is conveniently overlooked. It is totally baseless fearmongering, plain and simple...and I utterly reject both it, and the people promoting it.
As far as evangelism is concerned, the single main problem facing Stallman and the FSF is that they are, to put it delicately, one hell of a long way off the mainstream radar. Because of this fact, they need to resort to fearmongering in order to try and coerce normal people into listening to them...they are aware that without said fearmongering, their fellow Marxist aberrations are the only group they'd be able to get airtime with.
I've said before that it isn't a coincidence that DRM only really became a serious pet topic of the FSF after the start of the War on Terror...Guess where Stallman got the idea from?
(Of course, I am anticipating that Stallman's resident enforcers here will mod me down as always. You'd better hurry up, guys; the more time this post spends above -1, the more people are likely to read it and potentially be influenced by it...and we just CAN'T have that, can we?)
Whatever you do with your new package format, please ditch -devel packages.
The use of -devel packages is my single biggest objection to both rpm and dpkg. I went to #debian on Freenode the other night and complained about this...the idiots there of course tried to justify it. IT IS NOT JUSTIFIABLE. It is an *obscenity*, and it *destroys* installations.
There are very few things in the world that I feel more passionate about than the use of subpackaging...it should NEVER, EVER, -=*EVER*=- be done.
My other primary objection to dpkg/rpm is that they are single (or at most, dual) process monoliths which are an abomination in the face of UNIX philosophy. Jeff Johnson and the people behind dpkg need to go and read this and educate themselves about the operating system they are developing for...either that or go and write for Windows instead. Study ports. That is a system which uses a collection of small, co-operating processes, not one or two giant opaque blocks. Both rpm and dpkg are products of *exceedingly* poor design, and it's why they have the degree of problems that they do.
The message is: "Customers are wrong to think the way they do. They need to think the way we tell them to."
Yep...and as I keep saying to anyone who will listen, that's exactly the same message as the one that gets promoted by the FSF...As I heard it put once, "Free as in do as I say."
My own definition of freedom includes the freedom to tell Richard Stallman exactly where I think he should go.
This isn't the first time I've read one of this guy's articles. He makes his biases clear right up front, and they aren't subtle...so you might want to be cautious of that. He's a very heavy advocate of Apple, which always leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but for all that he writes well and occasionally makes valid points, when he isn't busy telling us about how Steve Jobs is supposedly the Messiah. There are also some surrealist charicatures of Steve Ballmer which I'm sure Ballmer wouldn't find flattering.
He also has a good grasp of history...he knows the 80s well enough that I can only assume he was alive at the time. For that alone, his articles are worth the price of admission, since even if you don't agree with his final premises, you'll get enough out of the 80s side trips that it won't much matter.
...To quote the film Brewster's Millions, "None of the above."
I heartily recommend evaluating FreeBSD. For people seeking something a little less prickly than the vanilla tree, PC-BSD is also available, which adds a graphical user interface by default and a more graphically oriented form of package management, among other things.
Stallman raises some valid points with regards to how Vista users are likely to get the shaft...but what Stallman isn't likely to want you to know is that there is a third option, which means you don't have to climb aboard the FSF/Linux bandwagon either.
FreeBSD is a very solid system. The Linux binary support means you can get such things as Adobe's binary browser plugins working with it, and FreeBSD also has native binary nVidia video card drivers available, meaning that you can play World of Warcraft and all of the usual 3D games with Wine. Ports, the package management system, has makefiles for over 16,000 applications, and it's also pretty much the only package management system I've used that I consider genuinely reliable and decent.
You will possibly see some people aligned with the FSF shouting me down for writing this...Stallman doesn't want anyone using FreeBSD or the BSD license, and the reason why is because if people do, that's less people who end up seeing him as an authority figure, or who he has to use as extra bodies for his activism.
It's got to the point where to a large degree, using an operating system associated with any particular group means you're vulnerable to control by that particular group. With Microsoft, sure, you end up with DRM. With Linux, you end up with *only* the license/s Stallman wants you to use, and no other...as well as possibly getting conscripted for his activism if you become sufficiently close with the FSF.
The only solution I've been able to find is to seek an operating system which isn't affiliated with any particular group...or at least controlling agenda. FreeBSD is one, and is probably the most mature that I've been able to find...but there are a few others, for people who want to investigate those. That however is what we need...an operating system, without economic, political, or technological control. Microsoft want economic and technological control of people...Richard Stallman wants political control of people. The reason why I don't find the offerings of either of those two camps appealing is because I value self-determination...the ability to make my own choices.
I can feel my karma taking another bruising here, but what the hell.
Debian want to fork all and sundry, or at the very least create internal patchsets for pretty much everything they get their hands on, and then people don't understand why they don't get support from upstream vendors?
Said people might support their own applications, but they are under no obligation to support Debian's own non-standard, patched versions of their apps.
On a related note, I had my last negative compiling experience with Ubuntu the other night, and as a single individual at least am hereby boycotting Debian and its' derivatives entirely. The reasons are too numerous to count, but are both technical and political.
As a positive alternative, I advocate a rennaisance of Slackware. It's a clean, sane, non-fragmented distribution. It doesn't use any seriously concrete form of package management by default, meaning you're free to choose your own...and it also by extension doesn't use a particular, unholy form of perverted evil known as subpackaging. It also doesn't see Linux's heritage as a UNIX clone as something to be ashamed of, or a hindrance to the goal of creating a perfect imitation of Windows.
Going back to the parent topic, Slackware would also likely be great to use as a standard for vendors such as MySQL, *because* the Slack developers largely abstain from downstream patching, (at least AFAIK) and as mentioned are package management agnostic. Hence, it'd be a very easy distro to support.
If anyone here hasn't tried Slack themselves, I thoroughly suggest it. You can look forward to a level of transparency and reliability you'll scarcely find anywhere else. It's a form of Linux which isn't afraid of being itself, and that tragically is a very rare thing these days.
According to the survey 'Ninety-five percent approve of the collaboration between Novell and Microsoft,'
Reminds me of how Sadaam Hussein used to get close to a 100% positive vote in Iraqi elections...purely because the electorate knew what would happen to them if he didn't.
While I find myself wondering what Microsoft were really hoping to accomplish by inviting Mr Miller to the company site and then not allowing him to speak to anyone other than marketing people, some of what the article said also annoyed me.
As a minor detour here, I'm going to observe that I've noticed that my karma is slipping. There are a lot of areas where I disagree fairly adamantly with the conventional opinion held around here, and it seems to be the case recently that people are losing tolerance for my lack of adherence to the party line. If that's true, my karma level is probably only going to continue to deteriorate, since I am aware that many of my own perspectives are antagonistic to the ideology of the stereotypical Linux user, and said perspectives are not going to change simply because it turns out that they're unpopular. I feel that it is a deeply sad testament to the Linux community's inability to tolerate dissent. Said inability has always been present, but it seems to have become rather more chronic in recent years.
Going back to the topic of Microsoft, I really feel that what is needed is a generous dose of rational objectivity on both sides. Ballmer genuinely might have issues in the area of sociopathy, but as Roblimo seemed to point out, he is only a single individual, and I would not be surprised to find that it is in fact true that he does not have the level of support within the company that he might like. Ballmer is exceedingly bad for Microsoft; not least because he continues to reinforce the image of the company as a whole as sociopathic and amoral, when in reality, it is genuinely possible that said amorality primarily resides with him alone.
The part of the article that primarily annoyed me was where it was suggested that Microsoft conform to Bruce Perens' expectations. I'm still trying to understand who exactly died and made Perens God. There is a lot about Debian which I find enormously vexatious, both technically and politically...not least of which is the truly rage-inducing apparent tendency on the part of the Debian developers to try to insist that the rest of the planet conform to their will.
That however has actually caused me to realise what it is that has brought about my own fall from grace around here, however...not even so much that I express contrary opinions, but that I do so with such a degree of anger. I won't apologise for that, however...there is a lot about the way the more vocal segment of Linux's userbase thinks which genuinely *does* make me extremely angry. Microsoft wanted a software monopoly...at least a segment of Linux's userbase want an ideological monopoly. That's what I'm resisting...and it's why my karma is falling on this site; because I won't simply shut up and get with the program. It makes me wonder how many other people have been exiled from here for similar reasons.
Can you honestly tell me that the one is more morally desirable than the other?
...this wouldn't count as News for Nerds. It is, however, news for Communists, and given that the economic philosophy of the average Slashbot is the same colour as a tomato, that's highly appropriate. I'm still wondering when CowboyNeal is going to trade in the current/. favicon for a hammer and sickle.
Slashdot Mirror
Even of the few that knows, most of us don't care and maybe a few even like Debian "making RMS look soft" Legal. And it's so most definately in the category of "nice to have", if not "get a life".
This is exactly the problem, as far as Linux ever becoming anything that could be called mainstream is concerned. Normal people simply don't (and have no desire to) share the Debian developers' sociopolitical perspectives...and although there *are* instances where I do feel that FOSS minority thinking is a good thing, virtually none of what I've seen of Debian's policy or unofficial attitude is, in my mind.
They don't care about things which in my own mind anywayz are genuinely important...all they really accomplish with their so-called moral stands is the alienation of potential new users/co-developers, and the continuation of Linux being associated in the mainstream mind with abnormal, retrograde people...because in the case of Debian in particular, it genuinely is. People outside Linux looking in though don't have any real way of knowing that there actually are normal, sane individuals using the operating system...people who don't subscribe to RMS/Debian's divisive, faux moral crusade. The main reason being is that the normal majority of users are silent...they're simply busy coding, getting tasks performed, and helping people...it's only the zealots who are so noisy, and so sadly, it's the zealots which form the impressions of people who don't know that the silent majority exist. I only know because I've seen them on Freenode and in other places myself.
The Debian developers don't do themselves any favours whatsoever...it's been said before that people are the only real resource we have...if they keep pushing people away with their zealotry and their determination to dictate how others think, eventually they're only going to choke off their own possible future...because eventually, the current generation of Debian devs will get old, get tired, burn out, and need new blood. If they don't start behaving in different ways, they're potentially going to find said new blood very difficult to find.
I am really desperately hoping that a time is eventually going to come where Linux as a kernel is the only thing that exists. Linux as a social movement needs to die...because if it doesn't, Linux as a kernel eventually could...and unlike the cult, the kernel is something which genuinely *is* worth preserving.
Get off your soap box, Debian...and start realising that if the way you think is genuinely beneficial to people, they'll adopt it themselves, of their own free will...the only reason why you and the FSF need to try and ram it down people's throats is because it isn't something which they actually *want*.
i know i sound like a fanboy, but i simply love debian...
If it meets your needs, that's great. It doesn't meet everyone's.
1. Linux doesn't exist as on OS - its just a kernel.
;)
Linux isn't - FreeBSD is. They have their own kernel, C library, and toolchain if you use TenDRA.
2. Fragmentation - too many distros with few standards or cooperation
See above.
3. linux fanboys think their fav distro is the "be-all and end-all" of existence
Debian fanboys are a particularly obnoxious breed. I don't consider FreeBSD perfect...hardware support admittedly is still sketchy...but it's a damn sight better than anything I've come across in the Linux scene.
4. Its too hard for users to simply run the apps they want
5. package management sucks
Ports is VASTLY more user friendly and stable than any form of package management I've used with Linux...don't take my fanboyish word for it, though. *grin* Try it yourself and see.
What Linux distro for speed and stability? Slackware. Because it is faster, more stable and has the best hardware compatibility there is among distros, and package management is simple, if simplistic.
Enormously agreed. Debian seems to have deviated from what used to be the norm (and is now only represented by Slackware, tragically) in seemingly just about every way possible, and the rationale generally seems to have been, "because we can."
Another one of the unique abilities of FOSS is the fact that it allows you to rely on the work of others.
;-)
Coughing up $300 or so for a box with an XP CD inside it isn't relying on the work of Microsoft?
There's no need for people to be hand-rolling their own distros.
Yeah...that might actually involve self-responsibility and intellectual proactivity, (horrors!) and at all costs, we CAN'T have people exercising either of those, can we?
Vista is nothing more than XP with a new interface with a few security enhancements copied from other operating systems that are already exploited or easily turned off, making them useless.
I haven't used any of the betas myself, but I suspected as much. If Microsoft could have stayed on track with the features of Longhorn that they'd originally promised, (particularly WinFS) they would have likely had something unstoppable. As it stands however, my prediction is that the Vista release is going to be largely inconsequential.
I think 2007 is the year of linux if we can rid ourselves of the zealots and create a stable desktop with easy to install programs with alot of power.
Liberating Linux from the stranglehold of the zealots would be an enormous step forward, but unfortunately, it isn't going to happen. Both the Debian Project and the FSF (Linux zealotry's two primary sources) are here to stay; my most optimistic projection on that score has the FSF gradually becoming irrelevant between five and ten years from now, however that isn't likely. They have been around for a long time and their core demographic, although small, is exceptionally tenacious.
The most interesting determinant of the FSF's long term future at this point is probably going to be who succeeds Stallman as leader when the time comes. Statistically speaking, cults generally do not survive the loss of their founder, and Stallman's heir, whoever it is, is going to have to invest major effort if they plan to buck that trend.
Although Ubuntu is a wonderful thing in terms of non-technical usability for Linux, its' provision of revival for Debian is something which I'm less than enthusiastic about. After the FSF itself, Debian is the single biggest source of Linux zealotry, as well as contibuting to the difficulty in shedding Linux's traditional attendant negative stereotypes generally. Whatever good Debian might do Linux technically is almost entirely undone by the enormous and ongoing harm that the distribution's developers do politically, in my own opinion.
That's why he threatened Linux. Microsoft is very afraid of the success of Linux because I blows their content protection monopoly out of the water.
My money says Microsoft will no longer exist by 2020, largely irrespective of what they do at this point. Their descent began nearly 10 years ago, around the time of the release of IE 4. Microsoft's destruction will ultimately be entirely by the corporation's own hand; it will have virtually nothing to do with Apple or Linux.
The reasons for the company's now largely inevitable disintegration are primarily two fold:-
a) Massive and irreparable erosion of consumer good will on a global scale, which will be exacerbated by the DRM present in Windows Vista. People the world over have grown to viciously hate Microsoft, and very few who still use Windows do so entirely willingly. As Machiavelli wrote, a ruler can be safely feared by the population, but if he wishes to preserve himself, the one thing a prince must avoid above all others is being hated.
b) The NT codebase has reached the end of the line, developmentally. Microsoft have never had a long term roadmap past the release of NT 4, and they've been treading water ever since. This is not difficult to see; XP and now Vista are essentially glorified graphics patches for the underlying NT core. I don't bother mentioning the supposed security enhancements associated with Vista, because in reality they are futile. Once hostile code is running locally, NT's lack of an ACL model still means the show is over...and as any of the BSD people will likely tell you, security cannot be retrofitted onto a fundamentally insecure operating system design. If it is not designed for security from its' inception, then it will remain insecure throughout its' existence. Generally speaking, patching will not change that.
The question is not now whether the mainstream operating system torch will pass from Microsoft, bu
Our loaded cost for a Windows machine is cheaper than that for Linux. I'm a die hard linux evangelist, but the numbers don't lie.
Then go here and learn how to create your own system. You can also use such services as this and others in order to stay on top of security vulnerabilities. There is also this site which talks about designing network infrastructure.
You'll need to do some homework, and it might seem daunting at first, but the amount of money you could save surely makes this at least worth thinking about. I can't understand why this unique ability that FOSS gives you (to strike out completely on your own, independent of a vendor) isn't capitalised on by more organisations. There is absolutely no need to pay a Linux vendor a single cent if you don't want to...it is entirely a choice.
A) RMS/GNU will complain that Redhat is violating the spirit of the GPL by not providing 100% equal access to free-loaders and then change the GPL
I can't see RMS denouncing Red Hat, for a couple of different reasons. The first is that despite Stallman considering corporations evil, Red Hat still works to bring them into the fold. Corps using Red Hat means corps finding out that Stallman exists, which can in turn at least potentially mean more people which Stallman has influence over. You'll never hear him say it, but power is what Stallman is primarily interested in. He also believes that the most effective way of getting it is to create at least a very convincing illusion of holding the moral high ground...hence why all the other stuff surrounding him is there.
The second thing to realise is that despite what it might sound like in speeches that he gives at times, Stallman doesn't have as much of a problem with money as people might think. He might not like the idea of other people making it, but he has no qualms whatsoever about it flowing in the FSF's direction. Corporations using Red Hat again means that organisations with potentially very large amounts of money fall under the FSF's legal jurisdiction, via the GPL...which is really something to widen the gnu head's smile.
Stallman is also a member of that particular branch of anarcho-communism which advocates using the infrastructure of the pre-existing society in order to bring about its' downfall...which means utilising what corporations can do for him at the same time as working to destroy them.
Also, in a recent half-page interview with Red Hat's XO, he used the word "community" probably four times. Red Hat knows exactly which side it's bread is buttered on, which also explains the attempts to revitalise the Fedora project. Probably the main reason why Red Hat wouldn't enter into something like Novell's agreement with Microsoft is because it knows that to do so would be biting the hand that feeds it.
I'd rather have my freedom than their content.
While there's still some unencumbered content left, sure. It might even be true that a handful of truly hard core individuals such as some of the Debian people would prefer to live in a cultural/information vacuum than possibly concede to DRM. However, we're talking about a very, very small number of people.
Vista's release is truly going to be an interesting test of human nature...whether the majority are willing to accept the chains with which Microsoft are so desperate to bind them. Once again, apparently the least intelligent/aware/self-responsible segment of the population apparently holds the fate of the rest of us in their hands.
The Mac existed at the time, as did OS/2 and commercial UNIX. Come to that, so did the Amiga.
Yes, Microsoft are good at trying as hard as they can to keep people locked in...and their ability to intimidate OEMs went close to ensuring it...but people still had options.
If anyone in the community had bothered to stop and think about this, they might have realised that it is possible that causing such division is exactly what Microsoft intended with this agreement. As those of you who've read ESR might remember him saying, the greatest (and ultimately only) strength FOSS people have is their programming ability.
If Allison had stayed with the company, he might have been able to keep securing funding for the Samba project, which in turn would mean that code would continue to get written...presumably GPLed code which Microsoft thus would have been unable to co-opt.
Throwing a tantrum and leaving accomplishes nothing. It will not hurt Microsoft in the slightest, nor is it likely to impress anyone watching with Allison's "moral stand." The only thing it will accomplish is possibly throw the future of the Samba project into question, at least with regards to his ability to continue maintaining it.
A number of people involved in FOSS need to read Machiavelli and get a clue about how the real world works. Isolated exceptions like Gandhi aside, "principled" martyrdom generally accomplishes exactly nothing. 99.9...% of the population are only ever going to care about FOSS purely on the basis of how doing so benefits them. They DO NOT CARE about moral abstractions of any kind. I wish I knew why so many people associated with Linux had such difficulty comprehending this.
Please try and understand one simple concept. Windows became the dominant system purely because it gave people what they wanted. No other reason. If the people who develop Linux want it to become the dominant system, then they are ultimately going to have to abandon any other consideration; technical superiority, "principle," whatever. If Linux's developers want it to take over the world, the *only* thing that can matter is that it does what people want.
If principle is something that Linux's developers care more about than relevance, that's fine...but people need to start recognising that the two are mutually exclusive. If you want one, you're going to have to let go of the other. In terms of gaining the type of popularity for Linux that many of its' developers seem to want, Hobbesian ethics are far more likely to be of assistance than the Lockean philosophy that such groups as Debian claim to adhere to.
This more than anything else is how I know that people are naive when they believe that Stallman is the being of light that they do, while still having managed to gain the marginal degree of influence that he has. Power doesn't work that way. It comes from giving people whatever pleasant mirage they want to see. In Stallman's case, the Prophet, St Ignucius, is the image some people want, and which with a certain demographic, Stallman has managed to rate pretty highly...but again, it's purely because by following along with his crusade, people expect to either be able to get free software, or make money from it...straight back to the "what's in it for me?" principle.
As an example of this, it nearly made me vomit the other night when, in a reply to one of my posts here, someone from India in particular had the gall to quote the FSF's party line on morality and principle.
I know exactly why Stallman is so popular in India; it's because Linux is one of the primary elements enabling India to do a role reversal with the US as an economic member of the Third World. If you think it's because contemporary Indians take after Gandhi in being pillars of virtue and caring about the FSF's "principles", then please, pass me some of what you're smoking.
You'd get modded Funny if I currently had points. :)
Does that mean that going vegan means a door is open for coming to agree with him about the extermination of the Jewish people?
No, because being vegan and the extermination of the Jews have nothing to do with each other. Hardware DRM on the one hand and licensing on the other both have to do with the unrestricted circulation (or lack thereof) of software. That's why if he gets people's agreement about DRM, it's going to be easier to get it about the GPL...because they *are* related...he wants them to be.
" truly miraculous programmer [...], (altruistic *and* a genius...he's looking more like God by the second)." That's indefensible nonsense.
No, it isn't. Go and read Stallman's article on Wikipedia...the people who maintain it have an opinion of him which is entirely subjective and irrational...and if anyone does try to inject another opinion, it is immediately removed. Among his faithful, he *is* worshipped, and dissent/critical opinions of him are not tolerated.
Worse, you seem to be actively rejecting a good cause for no other reason than that he supports it. I've seen nothing in your arguments about why DRM is a good thing -- only that Stallman is fearmongering against it.
For starters, as I've said I do not consider it a truly legitimate threat. Microsoft have already come under extensive legal fire for being a monopoly; I can in no way envision a scenario in any legal jurisdiction where Microsoft's remote control of computers which other people have paid for would be tolerated. It simply is not going to happen. Yes, it might be tolerated with regards to individual files...it might even be accepted with regards to preventing piracy of the operating system. It will *not*, however, be accepted in any scenario where Microsoft have the ability to remotely render a computer entirely physically inoperable against the wishes of the individual who paid money for it.
The other area where the scenario within the story, "The Right to Read," is proven to be rubbish is that Stallman is apparently oblivious to the fact that piracy laws have never been, and will never be, enforceable on the basis of more than isolated cases. This is true for the simple reason (if for no other) that there are far more people interested in committing acts of piracy than there are people interested in the prevention of said acts...it therefore simply comes down to an economy of scale; the number of people working to prevent piracy are hopelessly outnumbered by those pirating.
This was demonstrated not so long ago with the MPAA congratulating itself over having destroyed the largest server on the EDonkey peer to peer network, Razorback 2. The other servers in the network merely absorbed the destroyed server's traffic, and continued on, entirely without interruption. That also does not even mention the amount of piracy that takes place on IRC networks, Bit Torrent, and Direct Connect. The media industry might as well try and bale out the North Atlantic with a teaspoon; they'd probably have better chances of accomplishing that, quite seriously. Piracy benefits a much larger number of people than it hurts...that more than any other single reason is the main reason why it is largely impossible to prevent.
To summarise, I *don't* believe that DRM is a good thing. However, I have sufficient confidence in human intelligence that I feel that when faced with something that is as blatantly detrimental to them as DRM is, people will universally reject it. We have already heard about how poorly the Zune is faring in the marketplace. Stallman has never given the intelligence of human beings other than himself enough credit, and it is insulting.
MS Word, I do worry about. A lot of corporate and legal documents are done in Word. Who knows how much of a future President's early career may be lost to us?
Not that I'm advocating the loss of such material, but I find myself wondering how possible it really is to establish a genuinely objective assessment of
I don't often find myself quoting Scripture, but I remembered one passage in connection with this that I felt was appropriate...
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
Matthew 7:16-20, King James Version
I've noticed that people associated with Debian love talking about moral superiority, the project's "social contract," and it's commitment to principle. However, things are less attractive beneath the surface. I've never heard of another distribution which has suffered from so much internal infighting, or that has caused as much division externally. As I read recently, before corporations began getting involved, Microsoft had no reason to see Linux as a threat, because Linux's volunteer developers spend so much time fighting amongst themselves that despite a genuinely technically viable system having developed, the mainstream population is still alienated by the degree of internal conflict. For this conflict and division, Debian and the Free Software Foundation (and those who think in similar ways) are almost entirely to blame. They claim it's because they care about principle...in reality, what they really care about is retaining the ability to tell other people what to do and how to think.
Personally I'd like to see Debian (as it currently exists organisationally) collapse entirely, and for the codebase to be adopted by Ubuntu, or other projects which will hopefully be run by people who are not so interested in dominating others.
I saw someone predict on kerneltrap once that the FSF also is unlikely to last, long term. Organisations are only worth keeping for as long as they actually work *towards* human benefit. Once the focus instead becomes on dominating others, attempting to dictate how they think, and limiting self-determination, it's time for them to go. What Jesus says here about bad fruit being burned does not necessarily need to be interpreted in the classic apocalyptic sense; rather, it simply means that ultimately, only those institutions which actually consistently benefit people tend to last. Those which are not beneficial end up being routed around, and fade away as naturally as rain drying with the return of the sun after a thunderstorm.
The impermanence of modern data storage vs. printed or written works from the past.
This one I can see, definitely...although I don't see books going anywhere any time soon. Mind you, I'd agree with you that even if they stay around, they are by no means a total solution.
The inability to read propietary formats centuries or even decades in the future.
In the late 70s/early 80s, I might have agreed that such was a possibility...however, first ASCII and now Unicode are fairly powerful deterrents to such a future scenario, methinks. To me PDF is a large potential threat there...I consider it unlikely however that anything that's likely to be of importance centuries from now will use Microsoft Word as its' sole format.
Strange. Stallman must've used his GNU powered time machine to go back to 1997 after the DMCA was passed to right "The Right to Read."
I've read "The Right to Read." The dating of that particular story aside, I stand by my original assertion that the FSF's current level of militancy doesn't date back much further than 2002. There *has* been a change...The message itself isn't so much it...it's the degree of volume, and also his degree of tolerance for people who hold ideas that differ from his own, which in turn has created a new level of division that wasn't there earlier to the same degree.
DRM is a major part of this, and while I don't support the FSF on everything, this is the good fight. (Emphasis mine)
Bingo. Exactly. You expressed it perfectly. DRM is a subject about which there can only possibly be one perspective, right? Opposition. In other words, it's an utterly perfect rallying point. There in fact has possibly never been a better one, because with either Communism or Al Quaeda there were people who were sympathetic to both of those. Outside of corporations anywayz, *nobody* thinks of DRM (at least the type that Microsoft advocates) as a potentially good thing.
In other words, although you might not agree with Stallman on the rest of his ideas, you *do* agree with him that DRM is a bad thing. Thus, he has a foot in the door with regards to potentially (at some point later) getting you to agree with the rest of his philosophy as well.
By starting from a position where he has a group of people who have disparate perspectives on other issues, but who are willing to agree (and agree forcefully, even better) with him on one point, he thus has an opportunity to persuade people to accept the rest of his ideas over time. One idea slowly becomes two, two gradually becomes three, and before you know it, you're an unquestioning footsoldier in the GNU army.
The degree of fear which people feel with regards to DRM makes this far more powerful and effective, and in that sense, promoting the idea of being people's Messiah in the face of the unspeakable evil that is DRM sets up a mutually reinforcing loop. Because Stallman only wants to do the right thing and save you from this monstrous DRM, and because people keep talking about what a truly miraculous programmer he is, (altruistic *and* a genius...he's looking more like God by the second) you end up thinking that it's just a lot easier if you allow *him* to make all those messy ideological decisions for you...especially considering that he knows how to save you from such evil things as DRM. After all, you're also obviously nowhere near either as supernaturally intelligent or as divinely, altruistically good as he is, are you? Freedom is so important to him...you don't need to worry about maintaining (or defining) that yourself any more. He'll take good care of it.
Whenever I see someone expressing this perspective, I make very sure to feel grateful that it is only held by a fairly small minority.
Imagine how much more work could be done to a package manager if every distro was using the same. Imagine how good OpenOffice and KOffice could have been if there were not 200 other Open Source alternatives.
You're probably not consciously aware of it, but the only reason why you think like this is because Microsoft introduced and then encouraged/enforced a monoculture, during which time you were brainwashed to believe that such was actually a good thing. That being the case, I would like to invite you to continue to use Windows, rather than attempting to promote ideas which, if they were to be sufficiently widely adopted, (although mercifully, they won't be) would potentially lead to the destruction (or at least severe technological compromise) of Linux/FOSS.
Thank you.
20 years (roughly the length of time since the 80s) is more than a quarter of most people's lfetimes. It isn't the Stone Age, but it's not insignificant, either. In order to have been an adult at the time, he would have to be at least 45 years of age today; presumably older.
DRM is nothing more than a bogeyman that the FSF can use to try and intimidate mainstream society into accepting positions which the FSF knows that the mainstream population would not be willing to accept otherwise. DVD copy protection has been broken, WGA in its' various incarnations has been broken and/or worked around, and the fact that no legal jurisdiction on the planet with antitrust laws would tolerate a situation where Microsoft can completely remotely control people's computers is conveniently overlooked. It is totally baseless fearmongering, plain and simple...and I utterly reject both it, and the people promoting it.
As far as evangelism is concerned, the single main problem facing Stallman and the FSF is that they are, to put it delicately, one hell of a long way off the mainstream radar. Because of this fact, they need to resort to fearmongering in order to try and coerce normal people into listening to them...they are aware that without said fearmongering, their fellow Marxist aberrations are the only group they'd be able to get airtime with.
I've said before that it isn't a coincidence that DRM only really became a serious pet topic of the FSF after the start of the War on Terror...Guess where Stallman got the idea from?
(Of course, I am anticipating that Stallman's resident enforcers here will mod me down as always. You'd better hurry up, guys; the more time this post spends above -1, the more people are likely to read it and potentially be influenced by it...and we just CAN'T have that, can we?)
Whatever you do with your new package format, please ditch -devel packages.
The use of -devel packages is my single biggest objection to both rpm and dpkg. I went to #debian on Freenode the other night and complained about this...the idiots there of course tried to justify it. IT IS NOT JUSTIFIABLE. It is an *obscenity*, and it *destroys* installations.
There are very few things in the world that I feel more passionate about than the use of subpackaging...it should NEVER, EVER, -=*EVER*=- be done.
My other primary objection to dpkg/rpm is that they are single (or at most, dual) process monoliths which are an abomination in the face of UNIX philosophy. Jeff Johnson and the people behind dpkg need to go and read this and educate themselves about the operating system they are developing for...either that or go and write for Windows instead. Study ports. That is a system which uses a collection of small, co-operating processes, not one or two giant opaque blocks. Both rpm and dpkg are products of *exceedingly* poor design, and it's why they have the degree of problems that they do.
The message is: "Customers are wrong to think the way they do. They need to think the way we tell them to."
Yep...and as I keep saying to anyone who will listen, that's exactly the same message as the one that gets promoted by the FSF...As I heard it put once, "Free as in do as I say."
My own definition of freedom includes the freedom to tell Richard Stallman exactly where I think he should go.
This isn't the first time I've read one of this guy's articles. He makes his biases clear right up front, and they aren't subtle...so you might want to be cautious of that. He's a very heavy advocate of Apple, which always leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but for all that he writes well and occasionally makes valid points, when he isn't busy telling us about how Steve Jobs is supposedly the Messiah. There are also some surrealist charicatures of Steve Ballmer which I'm sure Ballmer wouldn't find flattering.
He also has a good grasp of history...he knows the 80s well enough that I can only assume he was alive at the time. For that alone, his articles are worth the price of admission, since even if you don't agree with his final premises, you'll get enough out of the 80s side trips that it won't much matter.
...To quote the film Brewster's Millions, "None of the above."
I heartily recommend evaluating FreeBSD. For people seeking something a little less prickly than the vanilla tree, PC-BSD is also available, which adds a graphical user interface by default and a more graphically oriented form of package management, among other things.
Stallman raises some valid points with regards to how Vista users are likely to get the shaft...but what Stallman isn't likely to want you to know is that there is a third option, which means you don't have to climb aboard the FSF/Linux bandwagon either.
FreeBSD is a very solid system. The Linux binary support means you can get such things as Adobe's binary browser plugins working with it, and FreeBSD also has native binary nVidia video card drivers available, meaning that you can play World of Warcraft and all of the usual 3D games with Wine. Ports, the package management system, has makefiles for over 16,000 applications, and it's also pretty much the only package management system I've used that I consider genuinely reliable and decent.
You will possibly see some people aligned with the FSF shouting me down for writing this...Stallman doesn't want anyone using FreeBSD or the BSD license, and the reason why is because if people do, that's less people who end up seeing him as an authority figure, or who he has to use as extra bodies for his activism.
It's got to the point where to a large degree, using an operating system associated with any particular group means you're vulnerable to control by that particular group. With Microsoft, sure, you end up with DRM. With Linux, you end up with *only* the license/s Stallman wants you to use, and no other...as well as possibly getting conscripted for his activism if you become sufficiently close with the FSF.
The only solution I've been able to find is to seek an operating system which isn't affiliated with any particular group...or at least controlling agenda. FreeBSD is one, and is probably the most mature that I've been able to find...but there are a few others, for people who want to investigate those. That however is what we need...an operating system, without economic, political, or technological control. Microsoft want economic and technological control of people...Richard Stallman wants political control of people. The reason why I don't find the offerings of either of those two camps appealing is because I value self-determination...the ability to make my own choices.
I can feel my karma taking another bruising here, but what the hell.
Debian want to fork all and sundry, or at the very least create internal patchsets for pretty much everything they get their hands on, and then people don't understand why they don't get support from upstream vendors?
Said people might support their own applications, but they are under no obligation to support Debian's own non-standard, patched versions of their apps.
On a related note, I had my last negative compiling experience with Ubuntu the other night, and as a single individual at least am hereby boycotting Debian and its' derivatives entirely. The reasons are too numerous to count, but are both technical and political.
As a positive alternative, I advocate a rennaisance of Slackware. It's a clean, sane, non-fragmented distribution. It doesn't use any seriously concrete form of package management by default, meaning you're free to choose your own...and it also by extension doesn't use a particular, unholy form of perverted evil known as subpackaging. It also doesn't see Linux's heritage as a UNIX clone as something to be ashamed of, or a hindrance to the goal of creating a perfect imitation of Windows.
Going back to the parent topic, Slackware would also likely be great to use as a standard for vendors such as MySQL, *because* the Slack developers largely abstain from downstream patching, (at least AFAIK) and as mentioned are package management agnostic. Hence, it'd be a very easy distro to support.
If anyone here hasn't tried Slack themselves, I thoroughly suggest it. You can look forward to a level of transparency and reliability you'll scarcely find anywhere else. It's a form of Linux which isn't afraid of being itself, and that tragically is a very rare thing these days.
According to the survey 'Ninety-five percent approve of the collaboration between Novell and Microsoft,'
Reminds me of how Sadaam Hussein used to get close to a 100% positive vote in Iraqi elections...purely because the electorate knew what would happen to them if he didn't.
Keep trying, Steve. Keep trying.
While I find myself wondering what Microsoft were really hoping to accomplish by inviting Mr Miller to the company site and then not allowing him to speak to anyone other than marketing people, some of what the article said also annoyed me.
As a minor detour here, I'm going to observe that I've noticed that my karma is slipping. There are a lot of areas where I disagree fairly adamantly with the conventional opinion held around here, and it seems to be the case recently that people are losing tolerance for my lack of adherence to the party line. If that's true, my karma level is probably only going to continue to deteriorate, since I am aware that many of my own perspectives are antagonistic to the ideology of the stereotypical Linux user, and said perspectives are not going to change simply because it turns out that they're unpopular. I feel that it is a deeply sad testament to the Linux community's inability to tolerate dissent. Said inability has always been present, but it seems to have become rather more chronic in recent years.
Going back to the topic of Microsoft, I really feel that what is needed is a generous dose of rational objectivity on both sides. Ballmer genuinely might have issues in the area of sociopathy, but as Roblimo seemed to point out, he is only a single individual, and I would not be surprised to find that it is in fact true that he does not have the level of support within the company that he might like. Ballmer is exceedingly bad for Microsoft; not least because he continues to reinforce the image of the company as a whole as sociopathic and amoral, when in reality, it is genuinely possible that said amorality primarily resides with him alone.
The part of the article that primarily annoyed me was where it was suggested that Microsoft conform to Bruce Perens' expectations. I'm still trying to understand who exactly died and made Perens God. There is a lot about Debian which I find enormously vexatious, both technically and politically...not least of which is the truly rage-inducing apparent tendency on the part of the Debian developers to try to insist that the rest of the planet conform to their will.
That however has actually caused me to realise what it is that has brought about my own fall from grace around here, however...not even so much that I express contrary opinions, but that I do so with such a degree of anger. I won't apologise for that, however...there is a lot about the way the more vocal segment of Linux's userbase thinks which genuinely *does* make me extremely angry. Microsoft wanted a software monopoly...at least a segment of Linux's userbase want an ideological monopoly. That's what I'm resisting...and it's why my karma is falling on this site; because I won't simply shut up and get with the program. It makes me wonder how many other people have been exiled from here for similar reasons.
Can you honestly tell me that the one is more morally desirable than the other?
...this wouldn't count as News for Nerds. It is, however, news for Communists, and given that the economic philosophy of the average Slashbot is the same colour as a tomato, that's highly appropriate. I'm still wondering when CowboyNeal is going to trade in the current /. favicon for a hammer and sickle.
;-)
Onward, Comrades!