A "point," used in this context, implies a logical argument leading to a conclusion. The only logic you've presented has only one point: the Mac and Linux are developed differently. On that, we can agree.
Otherwise, you have presented dogma and rhetoric, with no point. As I've stated elsewhere, your only supporting evidence for ease-of-use (the Mac) is a counter-example; the Mac was designed by programmers, *not* by ease-of-use experts.
Ditto with the NeXT.
Now, ease-of-use was a design goal. But it is also a design goal for KDE and Gnome. KDE is already easy to use; Gnome is approaching that ease-of-use.
Installation is still a problem, but that is separate from, though not independent of, ease-of-use issues.
The biggest problem with your argument is your use of absolutes. To claim that something will *never* happen just indicates you operate on dogma and faith. It's hard to take you seriously.
If you claimed that it will be difficult for Linux to match the Mac's ease-of-use, and is not likely to happen, I might agree. To say it will never catch up is a statement of ignorance and lack of imagination.
People who talk about the Linux interfaces always bring up this argument: "Programmers cannot design interfaces. It takes lots of research to make a good interface-- research done by interface professionals." Then they always mention how grand the Mac interface is.
I hate to >*pop* your little bubble, but the Mac interface was designed by programmers. Almost all of the research done in human/computer interfaces for the Mac has contributed little tiny modifications; the original interface was written by programmers who saw a similar interface at PARC; and that interface too was designed by programmers.
There are some interesting assumptions implicit in these arguments:
1) Programmers are idiots who know only how to code
2) Users are idiots who don't know the first thing about actually using a computer and figuring out logical interfaces on their own
3) Programmers, removed of corporate direction, don't know what to do
4) Money, and only money, can solve all problems
Almost all arguments against Linux ease-of-use rely on at least 2 of the above preconceptions. And I don't believe any of them.
And as far as the Mac being a paragon of usability, lets look at some really foobar features:
The program's controls are at the top of the screen, as far away from the actual application as possible. Also, windows keep disappearing. I'm never allowed to launch more than one instance of an application, so if the application isn't programmed to allow more than one open window, I'm screwed. To switch to an application that is not active, and is hidden, I have to go to the multi-finder. There's only one mouse button-- you have to use the keyboard if you want to emulate more than on button. And this sucks if you are missing an arm. (This is more than a nitpick-- I've worked in a university environment where I've had to help disabled people like that.)
This addresses just the basic ease-of-use GUI choices-- it doesn't even touch on the more complicated technical issues (such as the lack of pipes, redirection, and CLI).
Plus, have you ever wondered why it took so long to change anything but the most cosmetic aspects of MacOS? It's because the core OS was poorly designed. Copeland failed because it was hair^2 to add basic pre-emptive multitasking.
Oh, I know why some of the design decisions went the way they did. The original Mac screen was low-resolution, so there was limited screen real-estate. Instead of putting the application controls with the application, they saved a few vertical pixels by putting the controls at the top of the screen. Since there wasn't enough RAM for virtual desktops, they made it so only one application displayed at a time. And the mouse had only one button because.... well, I'm not sure why. A friend of mine swears you only need one, and the other buttons are on the keyboard ("Where they belong!"), but I *like* having 3 buttons. It's easier to use, for me.
And that is the rub-- just because you find the Mac easy to use does not mean *everyone* thinks it's easy to use. For me, there are many annoyances.
But then, some people like Anne Gedes ("So cute!"). Ya can't account for taste.
The NeXT had better ease-of-use than the Mac without all the terrible drawbacks and limitations. (Yes, I know OS-X is based on NeXTStep. But it is no NeXT.)
There have been so many, "Linux will never do foo," statements that Linux has already overcome. Keep the faith in whatever way you wish; but faith has never stopped progress before, and I doubt it will now.
The Mac interface has barely changed in 10 years. This is a good thing, in some ways, and a testament to the greatness of the original design; but it is not the ease-of-use utopia.
Perhaps Linux will never match the MacOS in ease-of-use-- but then again, perhaps it will.
And people will never fly faster than the speed of sound, either. And forget getting to the moon-- it's impossible. There's nothing to push against in space, so nothing can move. And don't go too far from shore-- you'll fall off the edge of the world.
What does not matter? What do you mean, "Built on top of a CLI?"
The CLI is a shell. A shell is just a program. Linux is not the shell; Linux is not the CLI. Linux is the kernel, which does *not* have a CLI. The kernel controls memory, CPU use, program context-switching, and low-level I/O. The CLI controls launching programs from a command-line-interface (hence the name).
The GNU portion of a typical Linux system is mostly made up of CLI-based programs. A lot of programs are geared to the CLI.
X is not a CLI, nor is it built on a CLI. X is a set of system functions for low-level display and input-device handling. There are X programs that do not use a CLI at all.
I'm not sure what you are complaining about; are you upset because there/is/ a CLI for Linux, or are you complaining because there is something/other than/ a CLI? I hope you are not complaining that X is just a hack on top of a CLI, because then I'd have to suggest you learn something about system design before commenting.
I'm reading White's "The Once and Future King," which is a retelling of the Arthur legend. In his book, Arthur creates the knights of the round table to address the fuedal system's "might-makes-right" attitudes.
So how do we go about fixing this in today's society? How do we fight "might-makes-right" and rescuing websites in distress? We should create a new "Knights of the Round Internet" to oppose injustice and stupidity everywhere.
Lancelot, where are you? Sir Gawain? I'd settle for Don Quixote de la Mancha at the moment.
Anyone want to prepare a FAQ on things to do when Ogres attack your freedom?
Sendmail, bind, and the BSD networking code have been around for a *very* long time, and there have been no "incompatible" splintering. I think this shoots a hole in one of the major tenets of this article-- that free software is doomed to many splintered, incompatible versions of each package.
This whole article was a crock, anyway; it assumes MS is good for consumers ("They chose MS-Windows," instead of, "They don't even know they have a choice,") and that free software is trying to destroy the software industry.
The rest of their web-site is just as clueless; they advocate a return to "classical education," which is impossible. They suggest that anyone who quibbles with Unions are leftest commie pinko bolsheviks. They claim in one article that "consumer advocates" like Ralph Nader are owned by certain companies, and then admit (in this article) that they have no allegience to any company (with the implication that this is a Bad Thing).
Their thinking is constrained by pre-conception. They can get the facts right, but the interpretation of the facts are distorted through a warped fresnel lens of bias.
Hmmm. I still don't agree with you WRT the idea that a corporation can have the same rights as an individual; and I am firmly convinced that, since MS has been able to intimidate very large corporations (IBM and Disney and DEC), they hold an effective monopoly.
However, I think we both agree on one thing-- since the net has essentially de-commodotized MS-Windows, the only monopoly MS has held (essentially, the MS-Windows platform itself) is becoming worthless as a club. And so, in the long run I suspect we do agree that, even if MS held a monopoly at one point, it will be hard pressed to maintain it. So I don't know what I'm all het up about.
Did I just say Microsoft has the monopoly on MS-Windows? Yep, I guess I did. I believe that that in itself constitutes a monopoly, since it held the vast majority of market share. Since you do not believe that constitutes a monopoly, we are destined to disagree on that point.
And I know of no company that can start from scratch with a bunch of college kids and hope to start with a billion dollars. So I disagree that the barrier is low. Disagree strongly. But I guess that's semantics.
Since I understand your viewpoint, I don't have much more steam to argue with you-- I can see the argument from both sides, and that just destroys the fun. I don't agree with you on a lot of points, but I do understand where you are coming from.
So, you're saying that the only operating system to challange Microsoft in many years has been written by thousands of people donating their time (recently estimated at a worth of close to a billion dollars) and the market entry threshold is *low?*
Microsoft has stiffled innovation by buying out and destroying innovative products. (When it looked like Java was going to be a success, MS purchased *many* companies with innovative products in the works, squashed the products, and said they were buyint "talent.")
OS/2 could have been a real competitor, but IBM screwed that up. I agree, there was once a potential competitor.
But, in the early days of DOS, every major PC maker signed a deal with MS tieing OEM licenses of DOS with every processor sold. At the time, this was not a big deal, as there was not other OS, and everyone was happy. But when DR-DOS came out with a version of DOS that was *far* superior to MS-DOS (with on-the-fly disk compression, true multi-tasking on 386 equipment, and good MS-Windows 3.0 support). But they could not gain entry in the market, because of the per-processor licensing.
Slimey licensing. Yes. Not illegal. No. Because MS was not the monopoly then they are now.
But until recently, *people have been afraid to piss MS off.* *Several* of the industry witnesses in this case have stated they have made decisions based on how MS would react, because they were afraid to make any other decision.
You say:
"The only way Microsoft could ensure that no one could compete with it, would be if they could forcibly prevent anyone from writing a competing product."
See? You *do* understand!
They have managed to keep people from writing competing products. The only platform to compete on is MS-Windows-- and by controlling MS-Windows, they control who will compete, and how they will compete. They controlled the Desktop operating systems by controlling desktop distribution channels.
Ayn Rand wrote her philosophy at the height of the industrial revolution; at that time, the producers controlled the market. Now, the distribution channels control the market (which explains Wal*Mart). MS controls (or at least, controlled) the desktop distribution channels.
Lets use one of your operating systems you mentioned as potential competition-- Be. Recently, the Be CEO offered every single desktop system vendor free licensing for Be if they would pre-install Be on their systems. Yet not one US vendor was willing to do that.
Why? Why have distributors never considered installing a competing OS on their platforms? If you can explain that to me without invoking the name of Microsoft, I will be thrilled. And maybe I'll believe that MS has not ever held a monopoly. And don't try to tell me the customers choose Microsoft; I didn't. I wanted OS/2 pre-installed, and not one of the big vendors would pre-install OS/2. So customer choice has nothing to do with it. (There were tens of thousands of OS/2 users at the time.)
1) Correct. It wasn't illegal. And if OEMs wanted to ship any MS products at all, they had to agree to this.
2) They were discovered in the Beta before the actual product could ship. It checked *specifically* for DR-DOS, and was also the *only* encrypted code in MS-Win3.x . Although the code checked for DR-DOS *specifically,* the error code made it sound like an actual technical incompatibility. And memoes that have surfaced during this trial indicate they had no intention of removing that code until it was discovered.
3) MS did plan on dumping OS/2, although you're right-- IBM screwed that one. That was just a business deal gone sour. The stuff that MS did to OS/2 *after* the divorce was kinda shady, though-- releasing MS-Win3.11 (the only numbered upgrade in the MS-Windows 3.x family) served one purpose only-- it broke Win/OS2 compatibility. There was *nothing* else in that pack-- the "bug fixes" had already been released (quietly) as MS-Win3.1 , and later as MS-Win3.1 .
4) MS does, has, and will use undocumented APIs. This is easily checkable by reading "Undocumented DOS," and "Undocumented Windows," both released a few years ago. The authors did exactly as you suggest-- they used a debugger, and found out that MS products used undocumented OS features.
5) Correct. The question is, though, is IE5 a standard icon? When this was an issue, IE5 was still nothing but an add-on product.
6) This is still in contention. But it is certainly silly. So what? So they proposed a market split? So although I am not convinced it was a fabrication, I think it isn't a very big deal.
7) There is every indication that MS *did* know about the grass-roots campaign, and had given tacit approval. The scheme was in preparation when a San Jose Mercury reporter found out about it; only after that was there scrambling, PR campaign cancellation, and denials.
8) "The tape could have been edited better?" You mean, they shouldn't suck so bad at lies and deception? And they never proved anything later; the second attempt was equally bogus, with different types of hardware. But since it was an internal modem, MS had hoped nobody would notice. And they were caught red-handed for the second time.
Sorry, your defense is just as bad as Microsoft's. And I don't believe MS had anyone killed, either.
MS does not deserve its dominant market position; and now that the market has a choice, it is slowly loosing its lead. So though there are plenty of choices today, there have been no effective choices until recently.
There are two incorrect assumptions with Rand's philosophy.
First, she basis her entire philosophy on Enlightened Self-Interest. ESI is certainly the way educated people conduct themselves; altruism is not often altruistic, entirely. However, this works only when the entities involved are all on equal footing.
In other words, once someone gets the upper hand, it is in their best interest to maintain that upper hand. Individuals cannot do this, because, in a group, one person will have problems overpowering the entire group.
But in corporations, one corporation can become larger and more powerful than all its competitors combined. When this happens, it is no longer in its best interest to play nicely; it is in its best interest to bully, push around, and dictate. Since its strength is greater than the combined strength of all its opponents, nothing can be done. Essentially, *we have to take it.*
Now Ayn Rand suggests that consumers have the power to overthrough a corporation. But this is not true; in the case of Microsoft, until recently, consumers had no option. Anytime a competitor arose, Microsoft would use its strength to destroy the competition before consumers ever got the chance to choose. So consumers never got the choice.
Once corporations get that large, and that powerful, they have no incentive to pander to the consumer. They have only one concern-- shareholders. And since shareholders are only concerned about the bottom line, the corporation is only concerned about the bottom line. And since it is easier to extort and bully than innovate and develop-- when you don't have to worry about the consumer, anyway-- that is what monopolies tend to do.
The second misconception Ayn Rand makes is that corporations deserve the same rights, priveleges, and protections that individuals deserve. This is patently false. A corporation is nothing more than a charter, an entity legally bound to the terms of the charter. In the goverment of the United States (which is the representative body of the people of the US), corporations are charterred under the terms and laws of the United States.
Individuals within the corporation are granted the same rights and privileges as every other citizen; however, the *corporation* does not have the same rights. Even though it is the duty of all people to protest laws by ignoring them ("Civil Disobedience"), corporations do not have that luxery. Our rights as individuals are unique and embodied in our citizenship; they are not granted by charter.
Is it right? Yes, it is. Without such restrictions, a corporation could control our lives much more than the government ever could. Our government (in the US) was formed and designed with "checks and balances," as any third-grader could tell you. Corporations are not. When they have no self-interest in serving the public, they will not do so; and when they are so powerful nobody can challange them, they have no incentive to help anyone but themselves.
I agree! We don't want anyone to regulate the industry-- next thing you know, they'll start closing down innovative software companies just because they will "unfairly" compete with some other, larger, company. They'll start forcing other software companies to give away their products. Any truly innovative and competitive product (like say, another Operating System/2) will be unable to find a large-scale distributor because of all the "restrictions."
God, that world would suck! And even more! I can imagine they would start regulating that competing products can't work together, thereby *forcing* people to buy products from only one vendor. Even worse, they'll start collecting statistics on all the operating system users out there, and storing them in a database, so they can track us. They will force gratuitious inconsistencies in file formats, forcing people to upgrade products that don't require upgrading.
And they won't stop there, I'm sure. Given a chance to start regulating, they'll go after internet service providers, regulating what software they can give away or advertise. Once they start regulating, they'll be unable to stop!
No, I agree. I don't want any damned regulation in *my* software industry.
I was not talking about risk: I was talking about change. In an historical context, your comments are senseless-- today, the percentage of oppressed is shrinking *in proportion* to the spread of technology.
Oppression occurs when there is an imbalance of power. In today's world, power is measured in information. As the Internet spreads, the shift of power will continue, and those who control the information have the power.
Does this help the Hutus? No. Not yet. In their country, power is still measured economically, where whoever can buy the most bullets has the power. But as power shifts, we may be able to keep the balance of power out of the hands of those who would oppress us.
Now is the time to act, when the power is shifting. Once someone has power, it is harder to wrest control of it from them.
And, out of curiosity-- what the hell are you doing to fix the world's problems? I mean, besides jumping in with self-righteous indignation, calling people idiots, etc?
And actually, I'm American Indian, middle-class, and I own two computers and an X-Terminal.
I just finished installing SuSE 5.2. VERY advanced, and relatively easy. (Easier than Red Hat 5.2, in my opinion.) And 6.0 is rumoured to be *extremely* simple.
My point? The "difficult to install" myth is now just that-- it's a myth. "Difficult to use" may still be true, but the install is painless. My S.O. could do it, and she *hates* computers.
I sill wouldn't expect her to set up Gnome or anything, but the next Red Hat distribution should solve that problem. And I'm working on the "lack of applications" myth. Are you?
And I think this takes care of another myth-- that "the computer elite" that develops Linux doesn't care about ease-of-use. We do. We've been working on an easy-to-use and powerful desktop; the KDE team is already there. (Personally, I think Gnome has more potential; that's why I develop for Gnome. But KDE is already easy-to-use, and well along the development path.)
So. Linux is now easy-to-install; we have lots of applications; and now we turn our attention to easy-to-use applications, which is the *only* Linux shortcoming in the personal-use sphere. (In server space, we still need a journalling filesystem, and a transparent clustering technology. Beowolf is not transparent, though it is powerful.)
Actually, he's (partially) right
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The up-front costs of an operating system are still considerable. We're currently using Wincenter here to serve out MS-Windows apps to our X-Terminals. The cost of "upgrading" to MS-Windows Terminal Server is astronomical; it'd eat up our entire IT budget. The cost of licensing is considerable, and the cost of support is overblown.
As far as support personell go, a hospital in Anchorage, AK is looking at moving to Network Computers because they can no longer afford to support 1300 PC desktops. They're coming to look at our setup, since X-Terminals are just NCs. (Our X-Terminals have their own JVM.) In a network environment, it takes more people to handle a distributed NT network than it does a comparably-priced Unix or Linux network. So your support costs are greater for NT, as well as your upfront costs.
Plus, he underestimates how different Free (Open Source) Software is as a development model from the other models that came before. Sure, IBM distributed source code; but it wasn't available to just *any*one. And nobody could contribute back to the source. Frank Hayes shows his lack of imagination; he's a stodgy Big Iron man who's followed the growth of PCs from a Microsoft perspective. He's a decent enough reporter; he just lacks imagination and understanding.
*I* am a commercial IT person, and Linux is more than just software; it is freedom. I am in a position to make my own decisions, because my business superiors realize they pay me big bucks to make the correct decisions for them. Because of that, I use Linux where possible, because it *is* less expensive in both support and direct costs.
One misconception: there is any design whatsoever in the emerging Internet, or its society. And the idea that the government can easily get a list of "dangerous" elements by the newsgroups they keep is a bit of misdirection; the government could always get a list of usavories simply by the subscription lists of underground papers, for instance.
I'd like to believe that cluelessness is transient. The future I work for is a future filled with slightly-clueful people, people who know the difference between a hacker and a cracker. Maybe even Ted Koppel will one day understand the communications society we've evolved.
The article's paranoia of ignorance and government maliciousness is unseemly. The government is not clueful enough to use the digital realm against us-- even the groups savvy enough (NSA) to cull useful information from the 'net don't have the manpower to do anything with it. They barely have the power to take out people like Kevin Mitnick.
>B:) We will send people to Mars over my dead body.
Cool. That can be arranged.
Face it-- NASA has added *way* more to the economy than we've ever put into it. NASA's budget for a decade doesn't even match Tang revenue, let alone the computer advances directly attributable to the space industry. More money goes into making bad movies about space than actually goes into space.
Space exploration is more than just flicking mass into space. It's about research, exploration, and adventure. Yes, other research projects need funded; the US govmnt doesn't give a tinkey-winkey about science. ALL research needs more money. Knowledge is our only path to salvation; that, and Oreo cookies and hot chocolate (the kind with the mini-marshmallows).
The quote I read was, paraphrased, "We have no idea what the hell we're doing, so we haven't made up our minds yet."
And as far as GUIs: Don't even go there. I cannot see one single reason why 2 or more interfaces can't survive side-by-side. Giving an example of a lame interface dieing off through evolution doesn't make your point.
Okay. If we're going to predict future use based on the present, let's at least do *one* thing-- use the first derivitive of growth-- let's not look at the swelling numbers of Linux apps, but the *rate* at which they are swelling, and the rate at which that rate is increasing.
The number of applications for Linux is growing tremendously. Although there are few end-user apps (relatively), the infrastructure is now in place, and has been for a couple of years. The number of applications announced *daily* is astounding. As the number of Linux users grows, the number of Linux programmers grows. (No, the rate of programmer/user growth is not linear, but the number of users is irrelevent. Only the number of programmers matters; and it follows that the more users we have, the more programmers we have.)
Besides, there are more IRC clients for Linux than there are total MS-Windows applications. So Linux *does* have more software than MS-Windows.
They called a month ago when arranging this thing. The offices were supposed to be open. Plus, MS has known about this event (and the timing of it) for at least a couple of weeks-- they have had official and unofficial reponses. You figure they could have mentioned it then, if the hours had changed.
Nope. They are just hiding. Scared of bad press-- so they figure no press is better.
So, you're saying that coders can't create a decent UI? That's like saying we're morons, and have no skills other than coding.
Most programmers are well-rounded people, with interests in the arts. A *lot* of programmers are artists on the side; and a lot of us know how to design and build user interfaces. Take a look at the Gimp-- version 1.1 has a *great* UI. Very user-friendly. And Gnome and E have very nice configuration utilities-- very user-friendly. Far beyond the commercial equivelents.
The free-software crowd can produce whatever we want, at whatever level we want. And as OS development is evolutionary, you only see the rough first-draft of the user desktop right now. Even KDE has a long way to evolve-- but the evolution is evident right now. Just 18 months ago people were saying Linux would never have a decent UI-- now we have KDE and Gnome. And soon we'll have Gnustep. And now you prophesy that free software can't have commercial-grade applications without commercial help? That's a little short-sighted.
The source of power in all corporations are the people who produce something. In the software market, there is no cost of creation or distribution (and yes, my time is worth something-- my self-respect). So, for raw resources, software makers have absolutely *nothing* that free software projects don't.
Direction? Have you ever been involved in a large free-software project? Direction is from within, and usually better-organized and with steadier direction than corporate development. Corporate development tends to have shifting goals, based on shifting markets or changing management. Rewards? Me, I work as a DBA. I make enough money to support my habit-- coding. Am I a good coder? Not really. But I don't try to lead projects. I just follow, and help where I can.
So there is no inherent advantage to software companies over free-software alternatives. And as the free-software platforms evolve, you will see more and more users move to the easier-to-use, more flexible, free platforms.
To call MS visionary is silly. They haven't been visionary at any point-- every major advance MS made was based on some other company's research. And Microsoft's biggest strength has not been its vision-- it's been the ablility to change direction on a dime. Consider the Internet: MS had no intention of entering the Internet market. Bill Gates publicly scoffed the internet (in his first edition of the ghost-written "The Road Ahead"). It took the threat of a web-based desktop replacing MS-Windows as the dominant desktop to force them into the arena. And once they were there, they did nothing half-heartedly.
Why would someone writing a novel care about the underlying OS? Because they don't want to lose an hour's work. How many working hours have been lost to blue screens of death? Hmm? For me, it could be reckoned in days. That was back before I discovered OS/2 and Linux. With Linux, I have never lost a single word. (I write technical articles and SF short stories.)
MS has never been a company of the people. They have been a company of the profits. They have just been in the right place at the right time, with the right contacts. They have used their early, dominant position to maintain a dominant postion; and a monopoly power has to follow different rules of conduct than a non-monopoly power. That is why this trial has focused on Microsoft's dominant position (is it a monopoly or not) as much as specific instances of penis-waving and muscle-flexing.
Other companies have given better, more stable, easier-to-use products. (NeXT, anyone?) So that argument does not hold.
However, I do agree with you. Blocking even Microsoft from adding to their own product is insanely stupid. Stopping them from tieing the browser or a commercial-grade database to the system is one thing; to stop them from producing a truly feature-rich product is another. Not that I think Microsoft is capable of producing any good code. (MS is too big and too paranoid to produce anything good anymore. And they haven't had a good product in about 3 years. Well, maybe MS-SQL Server 7.0, but I've not used it myself.)
That's what MS does. But shutting out all supply channels to competitors, they effectively force people to buy Windows with every PC purchased. It worked for IE, it worked for MS-Office, and it will work for any other "innovative" (meaning, innovatively filling MS-Coffers) product.
I don't want the government to stifle innovation. But, by the same token, I don't want Microsoft stifling innovation, either-- and Microsoft has a history of doing just that. The government hasn't done much bad, except cryptography, patents, CDA and CDA-- The Sequel. As far as I know, they have never purchased and gutted a company simply to stop an innovative product (like Microsoft has).
Sorry, but that is incorrect. The accepted meaning of the word means, at its purest, "one who enjoys programming." There is quite a bit of skill connotated. Check out the Jargon file for more info.
Software "engineers" tend to produce adequate but rather bland code. Hackers produce interesting code. There is a place for both types of programming, but to think that an "engineered" program is of better quality than a program produced by hackers is quite a misconception.
Linux is the ultimate hack-- it does exactly what is needed, and is produced by people who program because they love to program. And in that respect, it is much better than engineered systems; as with any art, the love for the project translates to pride and personal investment.
You can define "hack" and "hacker" however you wish, but that does not change the accepted definition. You can define intelligence as the ability to speak, but the accepted definition is much more than that.
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A "point," used in this context, implies a logical argument leading to a conclusion. The only logic you've presented has only one point: the Mac and Linux are developed differently. On that, we can agree.
Otherwise, you have presented dogma and rhetoric, with no point. As I've stated elsewhere, your only supporting evidence for ease-of-use (the Mac) is a counter-example; the Mac was designed by programmers, *not* by ease-of-use experts.
Ditto with the NeXT.
Now, ease-of-use was a design goal. But it is also a design goal for KDE and Gnome. KDE is already easy to use; Gnome is approaching that ease-of-use.
Installation is still a problem, but that is separate from, though not independent of, ease-of-use issues.
The biggest problem with your argument is your use of absolutes. To claim that something will *never* happen just indicates you operate on dogma and faith. It's hard to take you seriously.
If you claimed that it will be difficult for Linux to match the Mac's ease-of-use, and is not likely to happen, I might agree. To say it will never catch up is a statement of ignorance and lack of imagination.
My point still stands.
Here is an irony:
People who talk about the Linux interfaces always bring up this argument: "Programmers cannot design interfaces. It takes lots of research to make a good interface-- research done by interface professionals." Then they always mention how grand the Mac interface is.
I hate to >*pop* your little bubble, but the Mac interface was designed by programmers. Almost all of the research done in human/computer interfaces for the Mac has contributed little tiny modifications; the original interface was written by programmers who saw a similar interface at PARC; and that interface too was designed by programmers.
There are some interesting assumptions implicit in these arguments:
1) Programmers are idiots who know only how to code
2) Users are idiots who don't know the first thing about actually using a computer and figuring out logical interfaces on their own
3) Programmers, removed of corporate direction, don't know what to do
4) Money, and only money, can solve all problems
Almost all arguments against Linux ease-of-use rely on at least 2 of the above preconceptions. And I don't believe any of them.
And as far as the Mac being a paragon of usability, lets look at some really foobar features:
The program's controls are at the top of the screen, as far away from the actual application as possible. Also, windows keep disappearing. I'm never allowed to launch more than one instance of an application, so if the application isn't programmed to allow more than one open window, I'm screwed. To switch to an application that is not active, and is hidden, I have to go to the multi-finder. There's only one mouse button-- you have to use the keyboard if you want to emulate more than on button. And this sucks if you are missing an arm. (This is more than a nitpick-- I've worked in a university environment where I've had to help disabled people like that.)
This addresses just the basic ease-of-use GUI choices-- it doesn't even touch on the more complicated technical issues (such as the lack of pipes, redirection, and CLI).
Plus, have you ever wondered why it took so long to change anything but the most cosmetic aspects of MacOS? It's because the core OS was poorly designed. Copeland failed because it was hair^2 to add basic pre-emptive multitasking.
Oh, I know why some of the design decisions went the way they did. The original Mac screen was low-resolution, so there was limited screen real-estate. Instead of putting the application controls with the application, they saved a few vertical pixels by putting the controls at the top of the screen. Since there wasn't enough RAM for virtual desktops, they made it so only one application displayed at a time. And the mouse had only one button because.... well, I'm not sure why. A friend of mine swears you only need one, and the other buttons are on the keyboard ("Where they belong!"), but I *like* having 3 buttons. It's easier to use, for me.
And that is the rub-- just because you find the Mac easy to use does not mean *everyone* thinks it's easy to use. For me, there are many annoyances.
But then, some people like Anne Gedes ("So cute!"). Ya can't account for taste.
The NeXT had better ease-of-use than the Mac without all the terrible drawbacks and limitations. (Yes, I know OS-X is based on NeXTStep. But it is no NeXT.)
There have been so many, "Linux will never do foo," statements that Linux has already overcome. Keep the faith in whatever way you wish; but faith has never stopped progress before, and I doubt it will now.
The Mac interface has barely changed in 10 years. This is a good thing, in some ways, and a testament to the greatness of the original design; but it is not the ease-of-use utopia.
Perhaps Linux will never match the MacOS in ease-of-use-- but then again, perhaps it will.
And people will never fly faster than the speed of sound, either. And forget getting to the moon-- it's impossible. There's nothing to push against in space, so nothing can move. And don't go too far from shore-- you'll fall off the edge of the world.
What does not matter? What do you mean, "Built on top of a CLI?"
/is/ a CLI for Linux, or are you complaining because there is something /other than/ a CLI? I hope you are not complaining that X is just a hack on top of a CLI, because then I'd have to suggest you learn something about system design before commenting.
The CLI is a shell. A shell is just a program. Linux is not the shell; Linux is not the CLI. Linux is the kernel, which does *not* have a CLI. The kernel controls memory, CPU use, program context-switching, and low-level I/O. The CLI controls launching programs from a command-line-interface (hence the name).
The GNU portion of a typical Linux system is mostly made up of CLI-based programs. A lot of programs are geared to the CLI.
X is not a CLI, nor is it built on a CLI. X is a set of system functions for low-level display and input-device handling. There are X programs that do not use a CLI at all.
I'm not sure what you are complaining about; are you upset because there
I'm reading White's "The Once and Future King," which is a retelling of the Arthur legend. In his book, Arthur creates the knights of the round table to address the fuedal system's "might-makes-right" attitudes.
So how do we go about fixing this in today's society? How do we fight "might-makes-right" and rescuing websites in distress? We should create a new "Knights of the Round Internet" to oppose injustice and stupidity everywhere.
Lancelot, where are you? Sir Gawain? I'd settle for Don Quixote de la Mancha at the moment.
Anyone want to prepare a FAQ on things to do when Ogres attack your freedom?
Sendmail, bind, and the BSD networking code have been around for a *very* long time, and there have been no "incompatible" splintering. I think this shoots a hole in one of the major tenets of this article-- that free software is doomed to many splintered, incompatible versions of each package.
This whole article was a crock, anyway; it assumes MS is good for consumers ("They chose MS-Windows," instead of, "They don't even know they have a choice,") and that free software is trying to destroy the software industry.
The rest of their web-site is just as clueless; they advocate a return to "classical education," which is impossible. They suggest that anyone who quibbles with Unions are leftest commie pinko bolsheviks. They claim in one article that "consumer advocates" like Ralph Nader are owned by certain companies, and then admit (in this article) that they have no allegience to any company (with the implication that this is a Bad Thing).
Their thinking is constrained by pre-conception. They can get the facts right, but the interpretation of the facts are distorted through a warped fresnel lens of bias.
- Tony
Hmmm. I still don't agree with you WRT the idea that a corporation can have the same rights as an individual; and I am firmly convinced that, since MS has been able to intimidate very large corporations (IBM and Disney and DEC), they hold an effective monopoly.
However, I think we both agree on one thing-- since the net has essentially de-commodotized MS-Windows, the only monopoly MS has held (essentially, the MS-Windows platform itself) is becoming worthless as a club. And so, in the long run I suspect we do agree that, even if MS held a monopoly at one point, it will be hard pressed to maintain it. So I don't know what I'm all het up about.
Did I just say Microsoft has the monopoly on MS-Windows? Yep, I guess I did. I believe that that in itself constitutes a monopoly, since it held the vast majority of market share. Since you do not believe that constitutes a monopoly, we are destined to disagree on that point.
And I know of no company that can start from scratch with a bunch of college kids and hope to start with a billion dollars. So I disagree that the barrier is low. Disagree strongly. But I guess that's semantics.
Since I understand your viewpoint, I don't have much more steam to argue with you-- I can see the argument from both sides, and that just destroys the fun. I don't agree with you on a lot of points, but I do understand where you are coming from.
So, you're saying that the only operating system to challange Microsoft in many years has been written by thousands of people donating their time (recently estimated at a worth of close to a billion dollars) and the market entry threshold is *low?*
Microsoft has stiffled innovation by buying out and destroying innovative products. (When it looked like Java was going to be a success, MS purchased *many* companies with innovative products in the works, squashed the products, and said they were buyint "talent.")
OS/2 could have been a real competitor, but IBM screwed that up. I agree, there was once a potential competitor.
But, in the early days of DOS, every major PC maker signed a deal with MS tieing OEM licenses of DOS with every processor sold. At the time, this was not a big deal, as there was not other OS, and everyone was happy. But when DR-DOS came out with a version of DOS that was *far* superior to MS-DOS (with on-the-fly disk compression, true multi-tasking on 386 equipment, and good MS-Windows 3.0 support). But they could not gain entry in the market, because of the per-processor licensing.
Slimey licensing. Yes. Not illegal. No. Because MS was not the monopoly then they are now.
But until recently, *people have been afraid to piss MS off.* *Several* of the industry witnesses in this case have stated they have made decisions based on how MS would react, because they were afraid to make any other decision.
You say:
"The only way Microsoft could ensure that no one could compete with it, would be if they could forcibly prevent anyone from writing a competing product."
See? You *do* understand!
They have managed to keep people from writing competing products. The only platform to compete on is MS-Windows-- and by controlling MS-Windows, they control who will compete, and how they will compete. They controlled the Desktop operating systems by controlling desktop distribution channels.
Ayn Rand wrote her philosophy at the height of the industrial revolution; at that time, the producers controlled the market. Now, the distribution channels control the market (which explains Wal*Mart). MS controls (or at least, controlled) the desktop distribution channels.
Lets use one of your operating systems you mentioned as potential competition-- Be. Recently, the Be CEO offered every single desktop system vendor free licensing for Be if they would pre-install Be on their systems. Yet not one US vendor was willing to do that.
Why? Why have distributors never considered installing a competing OS on their platforms? If you can explain that to me without invoking the name of Microsoft, I will be thrilled. And maybe I'll believe that MS has not ever held a monopoly. And don't try to tell me the customers choose Microsoft; I didn't. I wanted OS/2 pre-installed, and not one of the big vendors would pre-install OS/2. So customer choice has nothing to do with it. (There were tens of thousands of OS/2 users at the time.)
1) Correct. It wasn't illegal. And if OEMs wanted to ship any MS products at all, they had to agree to this.
2) They were discovered in the Beta before the actual product could ship. It checked *specifically* for DR-DOS, and was also the *only* encrypted code in MS-Win3.x . Although the code checked for DR-DOS *specifically,* the error code made it sound like an actual technical incompatibility. And memoes that have surfaced during this trial indicate they had no intention of removing that code until it was discovered.
3) MS did plan on dumping OS/2, although you're right-- IBM screwed that one. That was just a business deal gone sour. The stuff that MS did to OS/2 *after* the divorce was kinda shady, though-- releasing MS-Win3.11 (the only numbered upgrade in the MS-Windows 3.x family) served one purpose only-- it broke Win/OS2 compatibility. There was *nothing* else in that pack-- the "bug fixes" had already been released (quietly) as MS-Win3.1 , and later as MS-Win3.1 .
4) MS does, has, and will use undocumented APIs. This is easily checkable by reading "Undocumented DOS," and "Undocumented Windows," both released a few years ago. The authors did exactly as you suggest-- they used a debugger, and found out that MS products used undocumented OS features.
5) Correct. The question is, though, is IE5 a standard icon? When this was an issue, IE5 was still nothing but an add-on product.
6) This is still in contention. But it is certainly silly. So what? So they proposed a market split? So although I am not convinced it was a fabrication, I think it isn't a very big deal.
7) There is every indication that MS *did* know about the grass-roots campaign, and had given tacit approval. The scheme was in preparation when a San Jose Mercury reporter found out about it; only after that was there scrambling, PR campaign cancellation, and denials.
8) "The tape could have been edited better?" You mean, they shouldn't suck so bad at lies and deception? And they never proved anything later; the second attempt was equally bogus, with different types of hardware. But since it was an internal modem, MS had hoped nobody would notice. And they were caught red-handed for the second time.
Sorry, your defense is just as bad as Microsoft's. And I don't believe MS had anyone killed, either.
MS does not deserve its dominant market position; and now that the market has a choice, it is slowly loosing its lead. So though there are plenty of choices today, there have been no effective choices until recently.
*sigh*
There are two incorrect assumptions with Rand's philosophy.
First, she basis her entire philosophy on Enlightened Self-Interest. ESI is certainly the way educated people conduct themselves; altruism is not often altruistic, entirely. However, this works only when the entities involved are all on equal footing.
In other words, once someone gets the upper hand, it is in their best interest to maintain that upper hand. Individuals cannot do this, because, in a group, one person will have problems overpowering the entire group.
But in corporations, one corporation can become larger and more powerful than all its competitors combined. When this happens, it is no longer in its best interest to play nicely; it is in its best interest to bully, push around, and dictate. Since its strength is greater than the combined strength of all its opponents, nothing can be done. Essentially, *we have to take it.*
Now Ayn Rand suggests that consumers have the power to overthrough a corporation. But this is not true; in the case of Microsoft, until recently, consumers had no option. Anytime a competitor arose, Microsoft would use its strength to destroy the competition before consumers ever got the chance to choose. So consumers never got the choice.
Once corporations get that large, and that powerful, they have no incentive to pander to the consumer. They have only one concern-- shareholders. And since shareholders are only concerned about the bottom line, the corporation is only concerned about the bottom line. And since it is easier to extort and bully than innovate and develop-- when you don't have to worry about the consumer, anyway-- that is what monopolies tend to do.
The second misconception Ayn Rand makes is that corporations deserve the same rights, priveleges, and protections that individuals deserve. This is patently false. A corporation is nothing more than a charter, an entity legally bound to the terms of the charter. In the goverment of the United States (which is the representative body of the people of the US), corporations are charterred under the terms and laws of the United States.
Individuals within the corporation are granted the same rights and privileges as every other citizen; however, the *corporation* does not have the same rights. Even though it is the duty of all people to protest laws by ignoring them ("Civil Disobedience"), corporations do not have that luxery. Our rights as individuals are unique and embodied in our citizenship; they are not granted by charter.
Is it right? Yes, it is. Without such restrictions, a corporation could control our lives much more than the government ever could. Our government (in the US) was formed and designed with "checks and balances," as any third-grader could tell you. Corporations are not. When they have no self-interest in serving the public, they will not do so; and when they are so powerful nobody can challange them, they have no incentive to help anyone but themselves.
And so I contend that Ayn Rand was wrong.
Just one thing they stole?
The Intellimouse.
I agree! We don't want anyone to regulate the industry-- next thing you know, they'll start closing down innovative software companies just because they will "unfairly" compete with some other, larger, company. They'll start forcing other software companies to give away their products. Any truly innovative and competitive product (like say, another Operating System/2) will be unable to find a large-scale distributor because of all the "restrictions."
God, that world would suck! And even more! I can imagine they would start regulating that competing products can't work together, thereby *forcing* people to buy products from only one vendor. Even worse, they'll start collecting statistics on all the operating system users out there, and storing them in a database, so they can track us. They will force gratuitious inconsistencies in file formats, forcing people to upgrade products that don't require upgrading.
And they won't stop there, I'm sure. Given a chance to start regulating, they'll go after internet service providers, regulating what software they can give away or advertise. Once they start regulating, they'll be unable to stop!
No, I agree. I don't want any damned regulation in *my* software industry.
-Tony
Interesting.
I was not talking about risk: I was talking about change. In an historical context, your comments are senseless-- today, the percentage of oppressed is shrinking *in proportion* to the spread of technology.
Oppression occurs when there is an imbalance of power. In today's world, power is measured in information. As the Internet spreads, the shift of power will continue, and those who control the information have the power.
Does this help the Hutus? No. Not yet. In their country, power is still measured economically, where whoever can buy the most bullets has the power. But as power shifts, we may be able to keep the balance of power out of the hands of those who would oppress us.
Now is the time to act, when the power is shifting. Once someone has power, it is harder to wrest control of it from them.
And, out of curiosity-- what the hell are you doing to fix the world's problems? I mean, besides jumping in with self-righteous indignation, calling people idiots, etc?
And actually, I'm American Indian, middle-class, and I own two computers and an X-Terminal.
- Tony
I just finished installing SuSE 5.2. VERY advanced, and relatively easy. (Easier than Red Hat 5.2, in my opinion.) And 6.0 is rumoured to be *extremely* simple.
My point? The "difficult to install" myth is now just that-- it's a myth. "Difficult to use" may still be true, but the install is painless. My S.O. could do it, and she *hates* computers.
I sill wouldn't expect her to set up Gnome or anything, but the next Red Hat distribution should solve that problem. And I'm working on the "lack of applications" myth. Are you?
And I think this takes care of another myth-- that "the computer elite" that develops Linux doesn't care about ease-of-use. We do. We've been working on an easy-to-use and powerful desktop; the KDE team is already there. (Personally, I think Gnome has more potential; that's why I develop for Gnome. But KDE is already easy-to-use, and well along the development path.)
So. Linux is now easy-to-install; we have lots of applications; and now we turn our attention to easy-to-use applications, which is the *only* Linux shortcoming in the personal-use sphere. (In server space, we still need a journalling filesystem, and a transparent clustering technology. Beowolf is not transparent, though it is powerful.)
The up-front costs of an operating system are still considerable. We're currently using Wincenter here to serve out MS-Windows apps to our X-Terminals. The cost of "upgrading" to MS-Windows Terminal Server is astronomical; it'd eat up our entire IT budget. The cost of licensing is considerable, and the cost of support is overblown.
As far as support personell go, a hospital in Anchorage, AK is looking at moving to Network Computers because they can no longer afford to support 1300 PC desktops. They're coming to look at our setup, since X-Terminals are just NCs. (Our X-Terminals have their own JVM.) In a network environment, it takes more people to handle a distributed NT network than it does a comparably-priced Unix or Linux network. So your support costs are greater for NT, as well as your upfront costs.
Plus, he underestimates how different Free (Open Source) Software is as a development model from the other models that came before. Sure, IBM distributed source code; but it wasn't available to just *any*one. And nobody could contribute back to the source. Frank Hayes shows his lack of imagination; he's a stodgy Big Iron man who's followed the growth of PCs from a Microsoft perspective. He's a decent enough reporter; he just lacks imagination and understanding.
*I* am a commercial IT person, and Linux is more than just software; it is freedom. I am in a position to make my own decisions, because my business superiors realize they pay me big bucks to make the correct decisions for them. Because of that, I use Linux where possible, because it *is* less expensive in both support and direct costs.
- Tony
One misconception: there is any design whatsoever in the emerging Internet, or its society. And the idea that the government can easily get a list of "dangerous" elements by the newsgroups they keep is a bit of misdirection; the government could always get a list of usavories simply by the subscription lists of underground papers, for instance.
I'd like to believe that cluelessness is transient. The future I work for is a future filled with slightly-clueful people, people who know the difference between a hacker and a cracker. Maybe even Ted Koppel will one day understand the communications society we've evolved.
The article's paranoia of ignorance and government maliciousness is unseemly. The government is not clueful enough to use the digital realm against us-- even the groups savvy enough (NSA) to cull useful information from the 'net don't have the manpower to do anything with it. They barely have the power to take out people like Kevin Mitnick.
And ignorance is a passing fad. I hope.
-Tony
AC sez:
>B:) We will send people to Mars over my dead body.
Cool. That can be arranged.
Face it-- NASA has added *way* more to the economy than we've ever put into it. NASA's budget for a decade doesn't even match Tang revenue, let alone the computer advances directly attributable to the space industry. More money goes into making bad movies about space than actually goes into space.
Space exploration is more than just flicking mass into space. It's about research, exploration, and adventure. Yes, other research projects need funded; the US govmnt doesn't give a tinkey-winkey about science. ALL research needs more money. Knowledge is our only path to salvation; that, and Oreo cookies and hot chocolate (the kind with the mini-marshmallows).
The quote I read was, paraphrased, "We have no idea what the hell we're doing, so we haven't made up our minds yet."
And as far as GUIs: Don't even go there. I cannot see one single reason why 2 or more interfaces can't survive side-by-side. Giving an example of a lame interface dieing off through evolution doesn't make your point.
Okay. If we're going to predict future use based on the present, let's at least do *one* thing-- use the first derivitive of growth-- let's not look at the swelling numbers of Linux apps, but the *rate* at which they are swelling, and the rate at which that rate is increasing.
The number of applications for Linux is growing tremendously. Although there are few end-user apps (relatively), the infrastructure is now in place, and has been for a couple of years. The number of applications announced *daily* is astounding. As the number of Linux users grows, the number of Linux programmers grows. (No, the rate of programmer/user growth is not linear, but the number of users is irrelevent. Only the number of programmers matters; and it follows that the more users we have, the more programmers we have.)
Besides, there are more IRC clients for Linux than there are total MS-Windows applications. So Linux *does* have more software than MS-Windows.
They called a month ago when arranging this thing. The offices were supposed to be open. Plus, MS has known about this event (and the timing of it) for at least a couple of weeks-- they have had official and unofficial reponses. You figure they could have mentioned it then, if the hours had changed.
Nope. They are just hiding. Scared of bad press-- so they figure no press is better.
So, you're saying that coders can't create a decent UI? That's like saying we're morons, and have no skills other than coding.
Most programmers are well-rounded people, with interests in the arts. A *lot* of programmers are artists on the side; and a lot of us know how to design and build user interfaces. Take a look at the Gimp-- version 1.1 has a *great* UI. Very user-friendly. And Gnome and E have very nice configuration utilities-- very user-friendly. Far beyond the commercial equivelents.
The free-software crowd can produce whatever we want, at whatever level we want. And as OS development is evolutionary, you only see the rough first-draft of the user desktop right now. Even KDE has a long way to evolve-- but the evolution is evident right now. Just 18 months ago people were saying Linux would never have a decent UI-- now we have KDE and Gnome. And soon we'll have Gnustep. And now you prophesy that free software can't have commercial-grade applications without commercial help? That's a little short-sighted.
The source of power in all corporations are the people who produce something. In the software market, there is no cost of creation or distribution (and yes, my time is worth something-- my self-respect). So, for raw resources, software makers have absolutely *nothing* that free software projects don't.
Direction? Have you ever been involved in a large free-software project? Direction is from within, and usually better-organized and with steadier direction than corporate development. Corporate development tends to have shifting goals, based on shifting markets or changing management. Rewards? Me, I work as a DBA. I make enough money to support my habit-- coding. Am I a good coder? Not really. But I don't try to lead projects. I just follow, and help where I can.
So there is no inherent advantage to software companies over free-software alternatives. And as the free-software platforms evolve, you will see more and more users move to the easier-to-use, more flexible, free platforms.
You, Sir, are either very ignorant, or insane.
To call MS visionary is silly. They haven't been visionary at any point-- every major advance MS made was based on some other company's research. And Microsoft's biggest strength has not been its vision-- it's been the ablility to change direction on a dime. Consider the Internet: MS had no intention of entering the Internet market. Bill Gates publicly scoffed the internet (in his first edition of the ghost-written "The Road Ahead"). It took the threat of a web-based desktop replacing MS-Windows as the dominant desktop to force them into the arena. And once they were there, they did nothing half-heartedly.
Why would someone writing a novel care about the underlying OS? Because they don't want to lose an hour's work. How many working hours have been lost to blue screens of death? Hmm? For me, it could be reckoned in days. That was back before I discovered OS/2 and Linux. With Linux, I have never lost a single word. (I write technical articles and SF short stories.)
MS has never been a company of the people. They have been a company of the profits. They have just been in the right place at the right time, with the right contacts. They have used their early, dominant position to maintain a dominant postion; and a monopoly power has to follow different rules of conduct than a non-monopoly power. That is why this trial has focused on Microsoft's dominant position (is it a monopoly or not) as much as specific instances of penis-waving and muscle-flexing.
Other companies have given better, more stable, easier-to-use products. (NeXT, anyone?) So that argument does not hold.
However, I do agree with you. Blocking even Microsoft from adding to their own product is insanely stupid. Stopping them from tieing the browser or a commercial-grade database to the system is one thing; to stop them from producing a truly feature-rich product is another. Not that I think Microsoft is capable of producing any good code. (MS is too big and too paranoid to produce anything good anymore. And they haven't had a good product in about 3 years. Well, maybe MS-SQL Server 7.0, but I've not used it myself.)
That's what MS does. But shutting out all supply channels to competitors, they effectively force people to buy Windows with every PC purchased. It worked for IE, it worked for MS-Office, and it will work for any other "innovative" (meaning, innovatively filling MS-Coffers) product.
I don't want the government to stifle innovation. But, by the same token, I don't want Microsoft stifling innovation, either-- and Microsoft has a history of doing just that. The government hasn't done much bad, except cryptography, patents, CDA and CDA-- The Sequel. As far as I know, they have never purchased and gutted a company simply to stop an innovative product (like Microsoft has).
Sorry, but that is incorrect. The accepted meaning of the word means, at its purest, "one who enjoys programming." There is quite a bit of skill connotated. Check out the Jargon file for more info.
Software "engineers" tend to produce adequate but rather bland code. Hackers produce interesting code. There is a place for both types of programming, but to think that an "engineered" program is of better quality than a program produced by hackers is quite a misconception.
Linux is the ultimate hack-- it does exactly what is needed, and is produced by people who program because they love to program. And in that respect, it is much better than engineered systems; as with any art, the love for the project translates to pride and personal investment.
You can define "hack" and "hacker" however you wish, but that does not change the accepted definition. You can define intelligence as the ability to speak, but the accepted definition is much more than that.