You didn't look carefully enough at the survey. The June numbers show IIS's percentage of the market declining for the third month in a row. And while the graph shows a downtick in Apache's numbers after nearly two years of uninterrupted gains, this is entirely due to Europe's largest Web hosting service reconfiguring their Apache servers to report as "CnG Webspace Server - based on Apache (Linux)" instead of just Apache. Put those machines back into the Apache fold and Apache would have displayed another.42% market share gain.
Didn't Xerox release Ethernet under some Utopian balderdash public-domian license? Dang, that might have cheated Bob Metcalfe out of some Bill Gates-like money. No wonder he's sounding bitter.
I think you are correct about open source development being focused more on the interests of developers than those of end users. The benefits to developers are substantial enough, however, that I am fairly sure an open source approach will prevail in many areas of software development.
I suspect the best of both worlds will be for most polished end-user applications to remain commercial, while developers - commercial and non-commercial alike - increasingly turn to open source software for the tools used to build applications and the platforms to run applications on.
Linux, gcc, GTK+ et. al. are looking better every day as solid foundations for quality commercial apps - they are improving at a much faster rate than their Microsoft counterparts, and no one gets to use ownership of APIs as a weapon.
RPM may be associated with the Red Hat name, but it is GPLed, and there are conversion utilities to other free formats.
* Proprietary file formats?
Are you talking about XFS? Well, SGI has promised some sort of 'open source' license, and anyways at the moment the percentage of Linux systems running XFS is pretty close to zero.
* Proprietary applications?
Sure. There always have been, at least since 1995 or so.
* Proprietary libraries?
In many cases things are moving the opposite direction. In the area of X widget libraries GTK is better and more popular than ever, Qt has adopted a much less proprietary license, and Motif seems almost forgotten.
* Proprietary patents?
Software patents are a problem, no doubt. But is Red Hat part of the problem? I haven't heard ANY evidence of them (or Caldera or SuSe or TurboLinux) gunning for a competitor over patent violations.
On the specific issue of MetroWerks - Red Hat exclusivity, the only thing that I would consider "dirty pool" would be sending lawyers after third parties who post information about how to run Code Warrior under competing distributions. I doubt we'll se Red Hat engaging in such activity anytime soon - I don't know enough about MetroWerks to judge.
Author Jimmy Guterman is "president of The Vineyard Group, an editorial consultancy."
According to their Web page, the Vineyard Group " develop and manage editorially sound, market-savvy interactive products" - whatever.
Clients include at least three record companies, as well as Microsoft Corp.
Interestingly, when not bashing MP3, Guterman has found time to post more than one article mentioning Linux, generally in a rather dismissive manner. Take a look at the Chicago Tribune's online tech section (www.chicago.tribune.com) for a general look at what this "editorially sound" ex-rock-critic has to say.
I didn't think the "research note" was so bad - certainly nothing like that festering plate of dung by Ted Lewis that was dumped on this site a couple of days ago. If nothing else, the note articluates arguments that we're likely to hear from management in future months as Linux springs up in more and more server rooms and LAN closets. The note doesn't say "never use Linux," it just says "be careful of x,y, and z when you do." If we're prepared to put those fears to rest by addressing them, instead of just beating them down as FUD, the bosses will be more likely to get - in PHB lingo - a "warm fuzzy" feeling about Linux.
The 3 big cautions in the note are related to technical expertise requirements, support contracts, and code hacking. Of these requirements, the first two represent real opportunities for anyone with Linux experience, and for entrepreneurs who want to make money while spreading open source software around. As for the 3rd requirement, I think that long-term policies in this area are going to be more complex than "discourage or ban outright," but code hackers need to realize that in enterprise systems, any changes to the code should be thoroughly tested and documented - a very expensive process that most companies would like to engage in as little as possible.
Industry research firms like Gartner are - without any exceptions that I know of - either playing serious catch-up with Linux (and OSS in general) - or still in denial about the whole thing. This note shows Gartner lumbering into catch-up mode, though their hindquarters may still be stuck in the bog of denial.
I'm sorry, have there been any actual exploits reported based on either of the past week's trojan horse episodes? Stolen credit cards or trade secrets? Long downtimes?
What counts is not the number of security vulnerabilites listed on security/hacker sites, but the damage done when those vulnerabilities are exploited.
With open source, vulnerabilities are spotted quickly and publicized widely. This reduces the chances of real damage - if system administrators are paying attention.
Linux system administrators (including me) will have to be especially careful in coming months, as Linux begins chomping up market share. Lots of angry, envious twerps will be out there looking to bring about a widely publicized security 'incident' to cast aspersions on the viability of Linux and OSS in general.
Slashdot Mirror
You didn't look carefully enough at the survey. The June numbers show IIS's percentage of the market declining for the third month in a row. And while the graph shows a downtick in Apache's numbers after nearly two years of uninterrupted gains, this is entirely due to Europe's largest Web hosting service reconfiguring their Apache servers to report as "CnG Webspace Server - based on Apache (Linux)" instead of just Apache. Put those machines back into the Apache fold and Apache would have displayed another .42% market share gain.
Didn't Xerox release Ethernet under some Utopian balderdash public-domian license? Dang, that might have cheated Bob Metcalfe out of some Bill Gates-like money. No wonder he's sounding bitter.
I think you are correct about open source development being focused more on the interests of developers than those of end users. The benefits to developers are substantial enough, however, that I am fairly sure an open source approach will prevail in many areas of software development.
I suspect the best of both worlds will be for most polished end-user applications to remain commercial, while developers - commercial and non-commercial alike - increasingly turn to open source software for the tools used to build applications and the platforms to run applications on.
Linux, gcc, GTK+ et. al. are looking better every day as solid foundations for quality commercial apps - they are improving at a much faster rate than their Microsoft counterparts, and no one gets to use ownership of APIs as a weapon.
* Proprietary package managers?
RPM may be associated with the Red Hat name, but it is GPLed, and there are conversion utilities to other free formats.
* Proprietary file formats?
Are you talking about XFS? Well, SGI has promised some sort of 'open source' license, and anyways at the moment the percentage of Linux systems running XFS is pretty close to zero.
* Proprietary applications?
Sure. There always have been, at least since 1995 or so.
* Proprietary libraries?
In many cases things are moving the opposite direction. In the area of X widget libraries GTK is better and more popular than ever, Qt has adopted a much less proprietary license, and Motif seems almost forgotten.
* Proprietary patents?
Software patents are a problem, no doubt. But is Red Hat part of the problem? I haven't heard ANY evidence of them (or Caldera or SuSe or TurboLinux) gunning for a competitor over patent violations.
On the specific issue of MetroWerks - Red Hat exclusivity, the only thing that I would consider "dirty pool" would be sending lawyers after third parties who post information about how to run Code Warrior under competing distributions. I doubt we'll se Red Hat engaging in such activity anytime soon - I don't know enough about MetroWerks to judge.
Many good programmers use and like IDE's, especially those who develop and maintain commercial apps.
The main reason so many Unix programmers dislike IDE's is that Unix (with X Windows, gcc, gdb and an editor) IS a terrific IDE.
Author Jimmy Guterman is "president of The Vineyard Group, an editorial consultancy."
According to their Web page, the Vineyard Group " develop and manage editorially sound, market-savvy interactive products" - whatever.
Clients include at least three record companies, as well as Microsoft Corp.
Interestingly, when not bashing MP3, Guterman has found time to post more than one article mentioning Linux, generally in a rather dismissive manner. Take a look at the Chicago Tribune's online tech section (www.chicago.tribune.com) for a general look at what this "editorially sound" ex-rock-critic has to say.
I didn't think the "research note" was so bad - certainly nothing like that festering plate of dung by Ted Lewis that was dumped on this site a couple of days ago. If nothing else, the note articluates arguments that we're likely to hear from management in future months as Linux springs up in more and more server rooms and LAN closets. The note doesn't say "never use Linux," it just says "be careful of x,y, and z when you do." If we're prepared to put those fears to rest by addressing them, instead of just beating them down as FUD, the bosses will be more likely to get - in PHB lingo - a "warm fuzzy" feeling about Linux.
The 3 big cautions in the note are related to technical expertise requirements, support contracts, and code hacking. Of these requirements, the first two represent real opportunities for anyone with Linux experience, and for entrepreneurs who want to make money while spreading open source software around. As for the 3rd requirement, I think that long-term policies in this area are going to be more complex than "discourage or ban outright," but code hackers need to realize that in enterprise systems, any changes to the code should be thoroughly tested and documented - a very expensive process that most companies would like to engage in as little as possible.
Industry research firms like Gartner are - without any exceptions that I know of - either playing serious catch-up with Linux (and OSS in general) - or still in denial about the whole thing. This note shows Gartner lumbering into catch-up mode, though their hindquarters may still be stuck in the bog of denial.
I'm sorry, have there been any actual exploits reported based on either of the past week's trojan horse episodes? Stolen credit cards or trade secrets? Long downtimes?
What counts is not the number of security vulnerabilites listed on security/hacker sites, but the damage done when those vulnerabilities are exploited.
With open source, vulnerabilities are spotted quickly and publicized widely. This reduces the chances of real damage - if system administrators are paying attention.
Linux system administrators (including me) will have to be especially careful in coming months, as Linux begins chomping up market share. Lots of angry, envious twerps will be out there looking to bring about a widely publicized security 'incident' to cast aspersions on the viability of Linux and OSS in general.
-Doug