this post is dedicated to our lord Natas, who will the entire slashdot community, including all the unfunny trolls and crapflooders, and his opponent Dog.
Why Linux is Not For You - Refuting the Bazaar
There's an awful lot of publicity about Linux nowadays. Some of it's positive, some of it's negative, and one thing's for sure: nobody's noncommittal about Linux. Microsoft screams at the top of its voice that NT is better, and doesn't have the courtesy or marketing intellect to back its own statements up reasonably. Well, not that I'm necessarily better or smarter than Microsoft, but it's correct. Linux is not satisfactory for many, if not most, of the users now stuck navigating its rocky paths.
The simple fact is that Linux is best for a small core of people, who are quite able to sustain its life, oddly enough. This group is composed of people in two overlapping sets: developers and those who like Linux. The "people who like Linux" is an indeterminate set, of course, but we can identify a few characteristics of this set a little further along. The simplest indication that Linux might not be for you is if you don't know whether Linux is for you already or not.
The main reason Linux isn't for most people is simple: most people don't care about using an operating system. Nobody really gets a thrill (for long) at using BSD-style multithreaded apps; they get a headrush from calculating their spreadsheet in the background, while they're typing. (The mechanism may in fact be the same, but nobody cares; it's just that it's being done, period.) It's not DOS that catapulted the IBM-PC and its descendants onto the desktops of millions; it's Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect (and, later, Windows and its co-dependent applications.) This is a critical point - running a leet OS may be neat and all, but it doesn't exactly necessarily do what you want an OS to do - which is run applications. This includes games, word processors, spreadsheets, accounting, whatever. The mass market is in Windows, not Linux, and the best applications tend to gravitate to the largest market.
So far, some applications exist for Linux that are comparative to their Windows counterparts (GIMP comes to mind) but there's no application on Linux that has no rough equivalent in Windows (which is far more available) for general use. (Yes, I'm ignoring TeX - take a poll of 100 average users who know what TeX is, much less how it's used, and I think you'd be lucky if you find three. Other applications will find similar results.) So there's rarely really an overriding reason to run Linux over Windows from a software standpoint.... until you consider, for example, server applications like mail repositories, web services, and news. "Ah ha!," you say. "I use these things, therefore Linux would rock!"
You're still wrong. Linux is good for these things, and the open-sourced nature of Linux certainly doesn't hurt availability (i.e., Apache, in.popd, and innd all come with Linux free of charge), but in a production environment, other Unixen - even free Unixen - still are preferred. For Linux, because of its whitewater approach to development (as opposed to BSD's still-water approach), documentation is maddeningly behind, and the whitewater approach (also known as the bazaar, from Eric Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" paper) tends to produce more unstable code. In the whitewater or bazaar model, you can release crappy code on the assumption that it seems to work for you, maybe someone else can fix it. Contrast this with BSD's "cathedral" development model, where code that's released is expected to be both stable and as bug-free as possible. FreeBSD largely has the same software availability and capabilities, and it has the advantage of being far less a public playground for developers, which makes it far more stable.
Of course, if you are a developer and you're willing to walk the bleeding edge - Linux might be perfect for you. I use Linux all the time (100% in fact) and I've been able to hit triple-digit uptimes (more than 200 days) with Linux. In addition, my performance is far better than might be expected. Also, if you're used to UNIX, the generally cost-free and free-for-all nature of Linux might also appeal to you.
The caveat, of course, is that statistically speaking the above paragraph applies to a low percentage of users, which means that developers on Linux have a built-in limiting market. That by itself also tends to limit the broad appeal of Linux, which is a self-consuming process.
Even for developers, Linux can have certain drawbacks. For one thing, it tends to track the latest and greatest ideas to a certain degree. That's really nice if you're trying to stay on the bleeding edge... but they don't call it the "bleeding edge" for nothing. It can cut you. Staying on the current technology tends to mean staying on untested technology, and there's always the strong temptation to start relying on some keen new feature... which means you're locked into Linux or you're waiting for other UNIXen to catch up. This runs rather against the UNIX philosophy, in my opinion. If this concerns you as a developer - good. It should, unless you're involved in developing the new technology (and if you are, I really don't think you need this article. Stop reading it.) If it does concern you, and you want to run across the largest number of platforms, consider FreeBSD again. BSD tends to be archaic by Linux's standards, but archaism tends to translate into broad execution capability.
A side issue that seems to be missing a lot of people among all the benchmarks floating about is where Linux falls in the market. In my honest opinion: truthfully, it doesn't. Linux just happens to be really nice for servers, and may be adequate for enterprise server use. It may not. There's no marketing team for Linux itself (although I'm sure Red Hat considers itself a marketing organization) and Linux really hasn't been designed with a specific use in mind. Linux was designed to be more appropriate for Linus Torvalds' use than other operating systems, and it just so happened that it also filled a similar void for many others. Comparing NT against Linux as an enterprise server (and doing it badly, at that) really creates much more heat than light; attacking such comparisons really just serves to make one a radical who isn't really aware of the driving forces behind either operating system or how the differences really affect either one.
The final word is that if you're not reading this article to see just what the heck Epesh, a known advocate of Linux, is talking about - Linux probably isn't for you. If you need applications, like most people, use Windows. If you need a server, use FreeBSD. I suggest Linux be used only by the brave and the aware. If you think you might not be both of these, stay away; you'll be happier.
Responses That Deserve Responses
Get a Grip, which is my response to a fellow insisting that I don't have the right to tell people they don't belong in the Linux world. He's almost right.
Humorous Bits
A short list showed up on Undernet #Linux shortly after some early revisions of this document appeared, termed "Signs You Should Run Screaming From Linux." For your enjoyment, here 'tis:
You wonder if Linux can play Quake/Descent/Baldur's Gate/Starcraft.
You wonder what the password for logging in is.
You master the idea of the password, but now you can't figure out how to get X on the Internet.
You're wondering where the icon for "Make new connection" is located.
You wonder why channels like Undernet #Linux say "don't IRC as root" and you seem to be banned forever
You wonder how to make your user "the same as root."
You keep typing RTFM as advised but nothing seems to be happening.
You don't understand why your friend the linux wizard is laughing hysterically at the previous items on the list.
To clarify:
Yes, it can, generally, via various things like WINE and VMWare. However, if you're really interested in things like this, use the operating system for which they were designed.
Well, when you install Linux, there's a spot where it asks you for a root password. You supply it. The installation suggests you remember the password; maybe, just perhaps, it actually meant for you to remember the password for some reason.
All kinds of issues here; X is a GUI transport layer, not an Internet protocol. See the PPP-Howto for more information.
There isn't one. See the previous item.
We say "don't irc as root" because doing nearly anything as root besides system administration tasks is stupid and can result in your system being exploited. You think you're banned forever because root is banned.
It's really not hard, but don't do it. As a regular user, you have certain limits to what you can screw up; root doesn't. (root can delete the entire system as it's running, for example, which a regular user cannot do.)
This is getting sillier and sillier. Learn to read the documentation. See the/usr/doc directory, and try man [command] where [command] is what you'd like to run.
Mainly because all of these are pretty bleedin' stupid. If you actually have experienced any of them for longer than a second, you really, really should avoid Linux.
I'm sorry, but/. legal opinions don't mean squat. That "li
cense" from the original release is hardly a license, and doesn't directly say t
hat you can call it SSH.
It gets worse. You call your application SSH, which is fine. You can probably u
se the license to argue that right. However, calling your product OpenSSH which
is based on an earlier version of SSH is very confusing. It would NOT be clear t
o people that they are separate and incompatible products.
You are going to lose that fight.
He is enforcing his trademarks. Once it became clear that you were causing conf
usion, he enforced. I think that a court of law would agree with that.
Furthermore, the license and the enforcement is NOT a binary characteristic, it
's a area for legal evaluation. Trademarks are supposed to prevent confusion in
commerce. Given a company built around a technology and trademark, and a Canadia
n based group intent on destroying their revenue stream with a free product, who
do you think the American Court will side with? This isn't corporate control of
the country, this is trademarks needing to prevent confusion in the marketplace
.
Everybody who moderated my post (which is a work of art protected under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act) will be smacked by RMS for violating my holy license.
I would like to seize this opportunity to cordially invite the pedophile open-sores majority of the slashbot
community to go anally molest themselves with a
Fat-O-Meater and a Tetrapak.
I would like to seize this opportunity to cordially invite the racist libertarian majority of the slashbot
community to go molest themselves anally with a
Fat-O-Meater and a Tetrapak.
Linux, and the open source community in general, will never become professional if we don't succeed in getting rid of a number of inflated egos (RMS, ESR, Darren Reed, de Raadt, etc.) ASAP.
OpenBSD team wants to get changes incorporated into IPF. Darren no respond.
Ask again -> No respond. Darren coder supreme.
OpenBSD decide to make changes, but only in OpenBSD source tree. Darren hears, gets angry!
Decides: "LICENSE NO ALLOW!"
Insert Flame War.
OpenBSD team decide to switch to different packet filter under BSD license. Because Project Goal: Every user should be able to make changes to source tree. IPF license bad!!
Darren try get back: says, NetBSD, FreeBSD allowed! MUAHAHAHAH!!!
Theo say: no care, pf much better than ipf!
Darren changes mind: changes license.
But OpenBSD will not change back to ipf. Darren even much more bitter.
Darren so bitterbitter. Decides: I'LL GET BACK BY FORKING OPENBSD AND RELEASING MY OWN VERSION. HEHEHEHEHE.
Slashdot Mirror
yes, it's for all those linux zealots who want to run their l33t0 fux0red OS on over-priced, useless platforms.
that was meant to say, will smite.
this post is dedicated to our lord Natas, who will the entire slashdot community, including all the unfunny trolls and crapflooders, and his opponent Dog.
the title says it all.
Why Linux is Not For You - Refuting the Bazaar There's an awful lot of publicity about Linux nowadays. Some of it's positive, some of it's negative, and one thing's for sure: nobody's noncommittal about Linux. Microsoft screams at the top of its voice that NT is better, and doesn't have the courtesy or marketing intellect to back its own statements up reasonably. Well, not that I'm necessarily better or smarter than Microsoft, but it's correct. Linux is not satisfactory for many, if not most, of the users now stuck navigating its rocky paths. The simple fact is that Linux is best for a small core of people, who are quite able to sustain its life, oddly enough. This group is composed of people in two overlapping sets: developers and those who like Linux. The "people who like Linux" is an indeterminate set, of course, but we can identify a few characteristics of this set a little further along. The simplest indication that Linux might not be for you is if you don't know whether Linux is for you already or not. The main reason Linux isn't for most people is simple: most people don't care about using an operating system. Nobody really gets a thrill (for long) at using BSD-style multithreaded apps; they get a headrush from calculating their spreadsheet in the background, while they're typing. (The mechanism may in fact be the same, but nobody cares; it's just that it's being done, period.) It's not DOS that catapulted the IBM-PC and its descendants onto the desktops of millions; it's Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect (and, later, Windows and its co-dependent applications.) This is a critical point - running a leet OS may be neat and all, but it doesn't exactly necessarily do what you want an OS to do - which is run applications. This includes games, word processors, spreadsheets, accounting, whatever. The mass market is in Windows, not Linux, and the best applications tend to gravitate to the largest market. So far, some applications exist for Linux that are comparative to their Windows counterparts (GIMP comes to mind) but there's no application on Linux that has no rough equivalent in Windows (which is far more available) for general use. (Yes, I'm ignoring TeX - take a poll of 100 average users who know what TeX is, much less how it's used, and I think you'd be lucky if you find three. Other applications will find similar results.) So there's rarely really an overriding reason to run Linux over Windows from a software standpoint. ... until you consider, for example, server applications like mail repositories, web services, and news. "Ah ha!," you say. "I use these things, therefore Linux would rock!"
You're still wrong. Linux is good for these things, and the open-sourced nature of Linux certainly doesn't hurt availability (i.e., Apache, in.popd, and innd all come with Linux free of charge), but in a production environment, other Unixen - even free Unixen - still are preferred. For Linux, because of its whitewater approach to development (as opposed to BSD's still-water approach), documentation is maddeningly behind, and the whitewater approach (also known as the bazaar, from Eric Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" paper) tends to produce more unstable code. In the whitewater or bazaar model, you can release crappy code on the assumption that it seems to work for you, maybe someone else can fix it. Contrast this with BSD's "cathedral" development model, where code that's released is expected to be both stable and as bug-free as possible. FreeBSD largely has the same software availability and capabilities, and it has the advantage of being far less a public playground for developers, which makes it far more stable.
Of course, if you are a developer and you're willing to walk the bleeding edge - Linux might be perfect for you. I use Linux all the time (100% in fact) and I've been able to hit triple-digit uptimes (more than 200 days) with Linux. In addition, my performance is far better than might be expected. Also, if you're used to UNIX, the generally cost-free and free-for-all nature of Linux might also appeal to you.
The caveat, of course, is that statistically speaking the above paragraph applies to a low percentage of users, which means that developers on Linux have a built-in limiting market. That by itself also tends to limit the broad appeal of Linux, which is a self-consuming process.
Even for developers, Linux can have certain drawbacks. For one thing, it tends to track the latest and greatest ideas to a certain degree. That's really nice if you're trying to stay on the bleeding edge... but they don't call it the "bleeding edge" for nothing. It can cut you. Staying on the current technology tends to mean staying on untested technology, and there's always the strong temptation to start relying on some keen new feature... which means you're locked into Linux or you're waiting for other UNIXen to catch up. This runs rather against the UNIX philosophy, in my opinion. If this concerns you as a developer - good. It should, unless you're involved in developing the new technology (and if you are, I really don't think you need this article. Stop reading it.) If it does concern you, and you want to run across the largest number of platforms, consider FreeBSD again. BSD tends to be archaic by Linux's standards, but archaism tends to translate into broad execution capability.
A side issue that seems to be missing a lot of people among all the benchmarks floating about is where Linux falls in the market. In my honest opinion: truthfully, it doesn't. Linux just happens to be really nice for servers, and may be adequate for enterprise server use. It may not. There's no marketing team for Linux itself (although I'm sure Red Hat considers itself a marketing organization) and Linux really hasn't been designed with a specific use in mind. Linux was designed to be more appropriate for Linus Torvalds' use than other operating systems, and it just so happened that it also filled a similar void for many others. Comparing NT against Linux as an enterprise server (and doing it badly, at that) really creates much more heat than light; attacking such comparisons really just serves to make one a radical who isn't really aware of the driving forces behind either operating system or how the differences really affect either one.
The final word is that if you're not reading this article to see just what the heck Epesh, a known advocate of Linux, is talking about - Linux probably isn't for you. If you need applications, like most people, use Windows. If you need a server, use FreeBSD. I suggest Linux be used only by the brave and the aware. If you think you might not be both of these, stay away; you'll be happier.
Responses That Deserve Responses
Get a Grip, which is my response to a fellow insisting that I don't have the right to tell people they don't belong in the Linux world. He's almost right.
Humorous Bits
A short list showed up on Undernet #Linux shortly after some early revisions of this document appeared, termed "Signs You Should Run Screaming From Linux." For your enjoyment, here 'tis:
You wonder if Linux can play Quake/Descent/Baldur's Gate/Starcraft.
You wonder what the password for logging in is.
You master the idea of the password, but now you can't figure out how to get X on the Internet.
You're wondering where the icon for "Make new connection" is located.
You wonder why channels like Undernet #Linux say "don't IRC as root" and you seem to be banned forever
You wonder how to make your user "the same as root."
You keep typing RTFM as advised but nothing seems to be happening.
You don't understand why your friend the linux wizard is laughing hysterically at the previous items on the list.
To clarify:
Yes, it can, generally, via various things like WINE and VMWare. However, if you're really interested in things like this, use the operating system for which they were designed.
Well, when you install Linux, there's a spot where it asks you for a root password. You supply it. The installation suggests you remember the password; maybe, just perhaps, it actually meant for you to remember the password for some reason.
All kinds of issues here; X is a GUI transport layer, not an Internet protocol. See the PPP-Howto for more information.
There isn't one. See the previous item.
We say "don't irc as root" because doing nearly anything as root besides system administration tasks is stupid and can result in your system being exploited. You think you're banned forever because root is banned.
It's really not hard, but don't do it. As a regular user, you have certain limits to what you can screw up; root doesn't. (root can delete the entire system as it's running, for example, which a regular user cannot do.)
This is getting sillier and sillier. Learn to read the documentation. See the /usr/doc directory, and try man [command] where [command] is what you'd like to run.
Mainly because all of these are pretty bleedin' stupid. If you actually have experienced any of them for longer than a second, you really, really should avoid Linux.
the moderators must have been smoking that $3 crack again.
maynard, naked and petrified.
i disagree.
Linux sux0rs big time.
Free software programmers have to make a living by selling coffee mugs and t-shirts, cuz their products suck ass.
Linux sux0rs big time.
Please go through my posting history and mod everything down!
Thank you!!!
Please go through my history of posted comments and mod them all down! Thank you!
You have been trolled. You have lost. Have a nice day.
You're in the wrong.
/. legal opinions don't mean squat. That "li
cense" from the original release is hardly a license, and doesn't directly say t
hat you can call it SSH.
I'm sorry, but
It gets worse. You call your application SSH, which is fine. You can probably u se the license to argue that right. However, calling your product OpenSSH which is based on an earlier version of SSH is very confusing. It would NOT be clear t o people that they are separate and incompatible products.
You are going to lose that fight.
He is enforcing his trademarks. Once it became clear that you were causing conf usion, he enforced. I think that a court of law would agree with that.
Furthermore, the license and the enforcement is NOT a binary characteristic, it 's a area for legal evaluation. Trademarks are supposed to prevent confusion in commerce. Given a company built around a technology and trademark, and a Canadia n based group intent on destroying their revenue stream with a free product, who do you think the American Court will side with? This isn't corporate control of the country, this is trademarks needing to prevent confusion in the marketplace .
Don't be a jerk, leave the guy's business alone.
Everybody who moderated my post (which is a work of art protected under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act) will be smacked by RMS for violating my holy license.
I would like to seize this opportunity to cordially invite the pedophile open-sores majority of the slashbot community to go anally molest themselves with a Fat-O-Meater and a Tetrapak.
I would like to seize this opportunity to cordially invite the racist libertarian majority of the slashbot community to go molest themselves anally with a Fat-O-Meater and a Tetrapak.
Have a nice day.
Slashdot fucks ass.
burp!
Linux, and the open source community in general, will never become professional if we don't succeed in getting rid of a number of inflated egos (RMS, ESR, Darren Reed, de Raadt, etc.) ASAP.
OpenBSD team wants to get changes incorporated into IPF. Darren no respond.
Ask again -> No respond. Darren coder supreme.
OpenBSD decide to make changes, but only in OpenBSD source tree. Darren hears, gets angry! Decides: "LICENSE NO ALLOW!"
Insert Flame War.
OpenBSD team decide to switch to different packet filter under BSD license. Because Project Goal: Every user should be able to make changes to source tree. IPF license bad!!
Darren try get back: says, NetBSD, FreeBSD allowed! MUAHAHAHAH!!!
Theo say: no care, pf much better than ipf!
Darren changes mind: changes license. But OpenBSD will not change back to ipf. Darren even much more bitter.
Darren so bitterbitter. Decides: I'LL GET BACK BY FORKING OPENBSD AND RELEASING MY OWN VERSION. HEHEHEHEHE.
Conclusion: Open source, closed minds.
I find this very amusing.
since Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community two years ago (the book is now out in paperback).
you're trying to tell me you only bought it now coz you couldn't afford the hardcover, right?
Generally, I would agree with you. However ...
...
It's all about vegetables these days, you know?
In a post-hyperofaecetated world, your argument simply does not hold true anymore