The article details the running argument between DotGNU's Norbert Bollow and Mono's Miguel de Icaza on the issues of commercial involvement, software patents and all the 'religious' stuff that the Free software community holds against the open source community.
You know, it's funny, but all things considered i've noticed more ire coming from open source people towards free software people than the other way around. I've heard at least seventeen thousand rants on slashdot regarding the 'utter flaming stupidity' or 'rotten worthlessness' of RMS, but very few free software 'zealots' as they're so often called blasting the open source community for their beliefs, or lack therof. I've never heard anyone on slashdot call Linus a wanker.
why is that?
i'll tell you why, it's actually very simple. open source advocates are hobbyists at heart. It's true. even if your job, career, whatever focuses on OSS, you're almost inevetably doing it because you enjoy playing with computers. And i mean that in the most positive way; i enjoy playing with computers, i think they're very fun and interesting things. But the software... doesn't really matter as long as you can play with it and do something interesting -- usually meaning that you can see the code. but either way, you're good, as long as there's something interesting to mess around with.
Free Software 'zealots', on the other hand, are not hobbyists, they are activists. They want to change things for the better. They are very serious, and operate on principle, not interest. That is why they don't flame the slashdot trolls, because the real FS guys -- they're to busy trying to enact permenant change for the better.
So, the next time anyone (you) talks about, 'oh, the free software people are such a bunch of zealots, i wish they would just calm down'... i hope they think about that ire and from whence it really comes. And then i hope they tell me, because i don't know -- i wish i did. What i do know, is that you're mad, but it's not me you should be mad at.
I SO want to see that movie... it would have to be apeshit crazy.
Imagine, an intelligent being cut off from all stimulous and told to produce a work of expression for free people to see. that's gotta be one angry movie.
because then there are less replies, comments, unoriginal thoughs, and repetitive flames cramming slashdot repositories and archives, obstructing my view.
this is obviously a simple paradigm issue; neither is better, both are easy to adapt to. if you have trouble adapting, then in the interim use a crutch to remind yourself what's going on.
in short, the reason why it's better is because all the solutions are boring and pointless because they solve non-existant problems.
every week (sometimes more often) someone posts on slashdot a link to an article that says, summarized, "nanotechnology is the only thing that will save us! but, oh, it's so great, it will definitely save us!"
it's like a bunch of little machine supermen. but years from now, when it becomes practical, slashdotters (if they still exist) will resurrect all the arguments we've got against technologies like rfid and refuse to submit.
Point is - you think you're smart but really the people who you deal with see you as what you are - an unprofessional, antisocial pimple-head with an attitude.
The truth that you have failed to consider is that most people in the IT world are damaged goods, in one way or another. They were picked on in their youth for being smart/a nerd, or they have an inferiority complex because they went to a tech school instead of a 'real' college, or they went to a state school instead of a 'real' college, or because the suits treat the IT department like shit.
The truth is, it's a vicious cycle; you say they suck and have a bad attitude and treat them accordingly, then they're always going to suck and have a bad attitude.
yes, because there are 120,000 terrorists. And they've been identified by software. we should arrest them.
I think that the ACLU is not worried about arresting terrorists... i think that they're generally for it. I think they're more worried about the ratio of actual terrorists to non-terrorists in our investigations being way, way, way to low.
What do you find to be illegitimate about existing TCO studies, except for the fact that the conclusion isn't what you'd like it to be?
That they're published by organizations with clear conflict of interest issues. Most of ones with published papers are funded by Microsoft directly or indirectly.
hmm, i wonder what they'll say about the competition of the people paying them... hmmm...
... Legitimate TCO analysis studies out there? Obviously it's different from company to company, but it would be nice if there were something we could point to when we tell our various employers that they should be using Free Software.
no, i know. the way he made it sound it would have been actually easy... laser + guidance system = dot on moon.
wait, it wasn't a laser, it was something that fired a small magnesium pellet... that was it.
anyway, several teams just made stupid pictures of the moon with alterations & got some of the points depending on how much they sucked up to the judges.
sorry i got it so wrong. I'm just going based on what i remember AJ saying.
Glad you came in with the real story.
Also (out of curiosity), do you know what happened with that guidance system (or whatever it was) that they wanted to use with the laser for the "Permanant change in the moon" item in 2002?
Some of the kids successfully built a working breeder reactor...
the last time the reactor was seen, it was in the back of one of the "idiot twins" cars. The idiot twins were genius physics students, one of which went on to work at los alamos...
I know that every year there's about a two or three month period when everyone starts to think that 'linux' (gnu/linux) is finally staking a claim on the computing world at large, and then all the fanboys (linux, MS, & Apple) start duking it out in the forums.
And i'm a natural skeptic, i am... but something about this time around feels good. We're hearing about adoption in the public and private sector. Companies are including OSS in their IT road maps. Microsoft is FUD-foaming at the mouth every day, scrambling to patent everything about an OS that's not coming out for probably at least two years.
What does everyone else think? Am i alone in this feeling that the wind has changed?
Obviously there's a lot of work ahead, and i don't think that we've gotten past even the worst of the danger. But the last few months have been... well, positive.
call it offtopic if you want, but troll? right. the parent was a troll; maybe this comment is even flamebait. But to mod "sorry, not looking for a job with red hat:)" as troll, that's just some bad moderation.
The point was that not everyone is cruising around redhat employment pages looking for a job often enough to know what kind of employees they've been looking for.
on a better day, other moderators would call that insightful.
sounds right. now that i think about it, though, i think they were discontinuing their 'personal' edition, or somesuch. although at least one poster on this story seems to think that's not the case.
whatever. for better or worse, to the public, red hat is linux is gnu/linux. that's fine, i'll happily use gentoo & be outside the crowd.
ctually, it's much more complicated than that. "True geeks" prefer different distributions for different purposes.
I myself use debian on my laptop and gentoo on my desktop. I've used Slackware, Redhat, Knoppix (a livecd), Mandrake, SuSE, LinuxPPC, Yellow Dog , and probably others i can't recall, and in addition NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. Most have their strengths, all have their weaknesses.
Slashdot Mirror
fuck karma, no one can take a joke -- a funny one at that.
The article details the running argument between DotGNU's Norbert Bollow and Mono's Miguel de Icaza on the issues of commercial involvement, software patents and all the 'religious' stuff that the Free software community holds against the open source community.
You know, it's funny, but all things considered i've noticed more ire coming from open source people towards free software people than the other way around. I've heard at least seventeen thousand rants on slashdot regarding the 'utter flaming stupidity' or 'rotten worthlessness' of RMS, but very few free software 'zealots' as they're so often called blasting the open source community for their beliefs, or lack therof. I've never heard anyone on slashdot call Linus a wanker.
why is that?
i'll tell you why, it's actually very simple. open source advocates are hobbyists at heart. It's true. even if your job, career, whatever focuses on OSS, you're almost inevetably doing it because you enjoy playing with computers. And i mean that in the most positive way; i enjoy playing with computers, i think they're very fun and interesting things. But the software... doesn't really matter as long as you can play with it and do something interesting -- usually meaning that you can see the code. but either way, you're good, as long as there's something interesting to mess around with.
Free Software 'zealots', on the other hand, are not hobbyists, they are activists. They want to change things for the better. They are very serious, and operate on principle, not interest. That is why they don't flame the slashdot trolls, because the real FS guys -- they're to busy trying to enact permenant change for the better.
So, the next time anyone (you) talks about, 'oh, the free software people are such a bunch of zealots, i wish they would just calm down'... i hope they think about that ire and from whence it really comes. And then i hope they tell me, because i don't know -- i wish i did. What i do know, is that you're mad, but it's not me you should be mad at.
I SO want to see that movie... it would have to be apeshit crazy.
Imagine, an intelligent being cut off from all stimulous and told to produce a work of expression for free people to see. that's gotta be one angry movie.
why do you put unix in parentheses after linux?
darl? is that you?
that's just ape shit crazy.
ctrl+k copies text? what apps? i've gotta see that, as it is weird.
because then there are less replies, comments, unoriginal thoughs, and repetitive flames cramming slashdot repositories and archives, obstructing my view.
this is obviously a simple paradigm issue; neither is better, both are easy to adapt to. if you have trouble adapting, then in the interim use a crutch to remind yourself what's going on.
in short, the reason why it's better is because all the solutions are boring and pointless because they solve non-existant problems.
also, Ctrl-A takes you to the beginning of a line, Ctrl-E to the end. not not as relevant to cut & paste, but handy time savers over the arrow keys.
yeay.
it's called, "paste in emacs first if neccessary"
it's a pretty advanced system, seems to work on most distros i've worked with out of the box.
I'm sorry, i think this article is fluff as far as "ask slashdot" goes. yesterdays girl vs. gaming discussion was more interesting.
every week (sometimes more often) someone posts on slashdot a link to an article that says, summarized, "nanotechnology is the only thing that will save us! but, oh, it's so great, it will definitely save us!"
it's like a bunch of little machine supermen. but years from now, when it becomes practical, slashdotters (if they still exist) will resurrect all the arguments we've got against technologies like rfid and refuse to submit.
it's funny, that way.
The "IT Guy" treats them like complete dipshits.
and ...
Point is - you think you're smart but really the people who you deal with see you as what you are - an unprofessional, antisocial pimple-head with an attitude.
The truth that you have failed to consider is that most people in the IT world are damaged goods, in one way or another. They were picked on in their youth for being smart/a nerd, or they have an inferiority complex because they went to a tech school instead of a 'real' college, or they went to a state school instead of a 'real' college, or because the suits treat the IT department like shit.
The truth is, it's a vicious cycle; you say they suck and have a bad attitude and treat them accordingly, then they're always going to suck and have a bad attitude.
yes, because there are 120,000 terrorists. And they've been identified by software. we should arrest them.
I think that the ACLU is not worried about arresting terrorists... i think that they're generally for it. I think they're more worried about the ratio of actual terrorists to non-terrorists in our investigations being way, way, way to low.
What do you find to be illegitimate about existing TCO studies, except for the fact that the conclusion isn't what you'd like it to be?
That they're published by organizations with clear conflict of interest issues. Most of ones with published papers are funded by Microsoft directly or indirectly.
hmm, i wonder what they'll say about the competition of the people paying them... hmmm...
... Legitimate TCO analysis studies out there? Obviously it's different from company to company, but it would be nice if there were something we could point to when we tell our various employers that they should be using Free Software.
Actually, someone told me the story in person, so... it has nothing to do with the internet.
but, uh... good luck with that anger. that's some real... anger. yeah.
no, i know. the way he made it sound it would have been actually easy... laser + guidance system = dot on moon.
wait, it wasn't a laser, it was something that fired a small magnesium pellet... that was it.
anyway, several teams just made stupid pictures of the moon with alterations & got some of the points depending on how much they sucked up to the judges.
There should be an allstar alumni scavhunt.
sorry i got it so wrong. I'm just going based on what i remember AJ saying.
Glad you came in with the real story.
Also (out of curiosity), do you know what happened with that guidance system (or whatever it was) that they wanted to use with the laser for the "Permanant change in the moon" item in 2002?
I love that damn movie.
now that i think about it, strikingly similar personalities involved in the Scavhunt story & the guy in repo man. But there were two of them.
Some of the kids successfully built a working breeder reactor...
the last time the reactor was seen, it was in the back of one of the "idiot twins" cars. The idiot twins were genius physics students, one of which went on to work at los alamos...
makes you think.
I know that every year there's about a two or three month period when everyone starts to think that 'linux' (gnu/linux) is finally staking a claim on the computing world at large, and then all the fanboys (linux, MS, & Apple) start duking it out in the forums.
And i'm a natural skeptic, i am... but something about this time around feels good. We're hearing about adoption in the public and private sector. Companies are including OSS in their IT road maps. Microsoft is FUD-foaming at the mouth every day, scrambling to patent everything about an OS that's not coming out for probably at least two years.
What does everyone else think? Am i alone in this feeling that the wind has changed?
Obviously there's a lot of work ahead, and i don't think that we've gotten past even the worst of the danger. But the last few months have been... well, positive.
call it offtopic if you want, but troll? right. the parent was a troll; maybe this comment is even flamebait. But to mod "sorry, not looking for a job with red hat:)" as troll, that's just some bad moderation.
The point was that not everyone is cruising around redhat employment pages looking for a job often enough to know what kind of employees they've been looking for.
on a better day, other moderators would call that insightful.
sorry, not looking for a job with red hat:)
sounds right. now that i think about it, though, i think they were discontinuing their 'personal' edition, or somesuch. although at least one poster on this story seems to think that's not the case.
whatever. for better or worse, to the public, red hat is linux is gnu/linux. that's fine, i'll happily use gentoo & be outside the crowd.
that they weren't interested in the desktop a few months ago... ?
I wish i used Plan 9. Such a cool name, such a cool set of ideas, and their mascot is so cuddly despite it's odly alien appearance.
Plus, i'd be cool then. But instead, i'm just a run of the mill GNU/Linux user. <sigh>
ctually, it's much more complicated than that. "True geeks" prefer different distributions for different purposes.
I myself use debian on my laptop and gentoo on my desktop. I've used Slackware, Redhat, Knoppix (a livecd), Mandrake, SuSE, LinuxPPC, Yellow Dog , and probably others i can't recall, and in addition NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. Most have their strengths, all have their weaknesses.