There's also nothing preventing Sun from deprecating half the API on a whim.. in fact, they do that all the damn time.
I'd love to see you support that statement with facts. As far as I am aware, Sun categorically cannot "deprecate half the API on a whim". Like everyone else they are bound by the Java Community Process and have to implement what the Expert Group has specified for any given Java standard (JSR).
Nice rant, but the facts say otherwise. Check out the ebXML web site for some facts and you'll find it has wide support, was created under the chairmanship of IBM and is supported by key current electronic business project RosettaNet, a range of current players like CommerceOne and Documentum and of course OASIS, which is huge consortium with wide membership including Microsoft and IBM.
Maybe closer to the truth is that the openness of ebXML is a huge threat to the market strategy of Microsoft, offering among other things a standardised XML markup for business transactions (UBL) that undermines the standard-connections, proprietary-content trojan horse that their web services strategy is creating.
Once again, I'd ask you to note that the original article on PCPro, while selective reportage, does in fact have a detailed discussion of each of ESR's points. Describing his views as "out of touch" does not seem to me to be ad hominem (the words others have used about me in the discussion here fit that description much better!) - it is just a summary of what I believe is proven by the points made. I understand you may not believe those points prove he's out of touch but I reject the claim that the comment is an ad hominem attack.
The comment was about open source and Java, not about GNU/Linux. IBM's record of starting and maintaining open source projects isn't that great, whereas Sun has a whole lot more history - see SunSource.net for all the details. But I'm sure there are plenty of folk here who will argue with me:-)
By the way, Sun bought the source rights to Unix (and thus became immune to SCO's unethical behaviour, which I believe IBM are rightly resisting) many years ago, long before SCO held them.
Well, keep in mind that reported speech is not necessarily what the speaker said even if there are quote marks...
I did say something like this - not all as one phrase as implied, though. To summarise, ESR criticises McNealy for saying Sun [...] is less threatened by a zero-revenue model for software than just about anybody out there." but these remarks were not politically-correct speech addressed to open source experts, they were summary comments addressed to analysts who do indeed regard open source (wrongly) as a zero-revenue activity. Taken in that context, McNealy is actually challenging their view, yet ESR treats the comment as cluelessness.
So yes, having regard for the intended audience of comments is important, as is regard for the possibility they may not have been quoted correctly or in context.
S. (probably an asshat but preferring to be treated courteously)
I'm on a tacky dial-up connection so rather than trying to take on everyone's comments I'll just point you to a blog posting that calmly and thoroughly addresses ESRs points.
S.
I'm interested in the idea "OpenOffice good, StarOffice bad" that is cited here. Surely StarOffice now has the status of a 'distribution' of OpenOffice and hence is no worse (or better) than the idea of Mandrake/Red Hat/etc producing a commercially-priced distribution of Linux?
Maybe it's because IBM makes so much money from selling Windows hardware and software? AS Linux supporters go, they are stunningly pro-Microsoft. I've noticed they insist on making constant distinction between Linux and UNIX when, compared with everything else, Linux and UNIX are blood brothers.
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There's also nothing preventing Sun from deprecating half the API on a whim.. in fact, they do that all the damn time.
I'd love to see you support that statement with facts. As far as I am aware, Sun categorically cannot "deprecate half the API on a whim". Like everyone else they are bound by the Java Community Process and have to implement what the Expert Group has specified for any given Java standard (JSR).
Nice rant, but the facts say otherwise. Check out the ebXML web site for some facts and you'll find it has wide support, was created under the chairmanship of IBM and is supported by key current electronic business project RosettaNet, a range of current players like CommerceOne and Documentum and of course OASIS, which is huge consortium with wide membership including Microsoft and IBM.
Maybe closer to the truth is that the openness of ebXML is a huge threat to the market strategy of Microsoft, offering among other things a standardised XML markup for business transactions (UBL) that undermines the standard-connections, proprietary-content trojan horse that their web services strategy is creating.
Once again, I'd ask you to note that the original article on PCPro, while selective reportage, does in fact have a detailed discussion of each of ESR's points. Describing his views as "out of touch" does not seem to me to be ad hominem (the words others have used about me in the discussion here fit that description much better!) - it is just a summary of what I believe is proven by the points made. I understand you may not believe those points prove he's out of touch but I reject the claim that the comment is an ad hominem attack.
S.
The comment was about open source and Java, not about GNU/Linux. IBM's record of starting and maintaining open source projects isn't that great, whereas Sun has a whole lot more history - see SunSource.net for all the details. But I'm sure there are plenty of folk here who will argue with me :-)
By the way, Sun bought the source rights to Unix (and thus became immune to SCO's unethical behaviour, which I believe IBM are rightly resisting) many years ago, long before SCO held them.
S.
Well, keep in mind that reported speech is not necessarily what the speaker said even if there are quote marks...
I did say something like this - not all as one phrase as implied, though. To summarise, ESR criticises McNealy for saying Sun [...] is less threatened by a zero-revenue model for software than just about anybody out there." but these remarks were not politically-correct speech addressed to open source experts, they were summary comments addressed to analysts who do indeed regard open source (wrongly) as a zero-revenue activity. Taken in that context, McNealy is actually challenging their view, yet ESR treats the comment as cluelessness.
So yes, having regard for the intended audience of comments is important, as is regard for the possibility they may not have been quoted correctly or in context.
S. (probably an asshat but preferring to be treated courteously)
I'm on a tacky dial-up connection so rather than trying to take on everyone's comments I'll just point you to a blog posting that calmly and thoroughly addresses ESRs points. S.
The other link in the blog posting is to a better video in MPEG-4...
No it's not. StarOffice is a commercial distribution of OpenOffice.org, just like Red Hat is a commercial distribution of Linux.
I'm interested in the idea "OpenOffice good, StarOffice bad" that is cited here. Surely StarOffice now has the status of a 'distribution' of OpenOffice and hence is no worse (or better) than the idea of Mandrake/Red Hat/etc producing a commercially-priced distribution of Linux?
Maybe it's because IBM makes so much money from selling Windows hardware and software? AS Linux supporters go, they are stunningly pro-Microsoft. I've noticed they insist on making constant distinction between Linux and UNIX when, compared with everything else, Linux and UNIX are blood brothers.