Its obvious that this journalist hasn't a clue about the GPL or Linux in general. I've lost a lot of respect for Caldera after reading this article.
Ransom Love is whining that Informix targeted Red Hat for their port. Well guess what Caldera? If you really want to be compatible you could easily take Red Hat's ENTIRE distribution, slap your CLOSED SOURCE Novell crap on top of it and brand it Caldera. Mandrake Linux and others have done exactly this.
If you are incompatible, FIX it. That's what open source is about. Red Hat doesn't have any secret API's that are designed to break competing software.
I've used Red Hat quite a bit and I haven't paid them a single penny, unlike certain Microsoft products I no longer use and pay out the nose for! Furthermore, I heavily use Red Hat's ftp, web services, mailing lists, and take advantage of the fact that they are supporting development in GNOME, KDE, Enlightenment and the kernel itself (Alan Cox). I'm glad to see Red Hat is successful and as long as they continue to support Free software I will support them.
BTW, last I heard Linus used Red Hat. I'd sure like to see how HE customizes that bad boy:)
Anyone else find it somewhat ironic that Be's requirements for a sysadmin are:
Minimum Requirements: 3-5 years experience. Windows 95/98/NT 4, MS Office/Outlook 97/98, Cheyenne Enterprise Backup, HP Laser Jet, Cisco Router Management, Great Plains/FRX or MSSQL a plus
I'm an avid Linux user (both here and at home) and I feel that I'm a part of the slashdot community, but sometimes I have to wonder if the anti-Microsoft sentiment is taken a little to far.
Hey I'm glad you posted here (really!). It takes some guts to admit publicly that you work for Microsoft on/.
I started out my computing life with Microsoft Products. My first Operating System was MS-DOS 2.something. I didn't know any better and it seemed pretty spiffy to me. I remember drooling when MS-DOS 5 and 6 hit the shelves.
I looked up to Microsoft and thought it would be a great thing to be able to work there someday.
But, it was around DOS 6 that I started to question things. I remember seeing stacker on the shelves and then the next thing I know its out of business. DoubleSpace was "integrated" into DOS and Stac went down the toilet.
Things seemed ok, I mean hey MS is saving me money, right? They are innovating for me, right? Windows 3.0 was hitting things big even though anyone who had any knowledge could plainly see how crappy it truly was. It was a MASSIVE hack and didn't run very well.
Well I still looked up to Microsoft and I learned to use it and I learned to love Microsoft Word 2.0. Soon I was happily using all of the Microsoft Office products. I didn't even blink when the once mighty WordPerfect began its death spiral. Hey MS is innovating for me, the customer, right?
More and more Windows/DOS wouldn't do what I needed it to do. So one day I try out IBM OS/2 2.1 and am utterly amazed! Here was something that WAS TRULY innovative compared to Windows. I eventually upgraded to Warp 3 and I began to resent Windows. Microsoft had initially worked with IBM on OS/2, but yet they chose to go with a crap of a hack instead. I couldn't figure out why.
Soon I began to read about this magical new OS from my heroes at MS codenamed Chicago. Eventually the trade rags started hyping up what would become Windows 95. I believed every word of it. I drooled at the thought of Windows 95 (besides my parents were giving me a hard time about not being able to run all their windows apps perfectly under OS/2).
I begged my dad to purchase win95 and we pre-ordered the sucker. I came home that fateful day in August to see it sitting on the front porch. I ran in and wiped Warp and gleefully installed this great new OS. I knew in my heart that my heroes at MS had finally gotten it right and my computer would be running better just like PC Magazine said it would.
Funny thing was after running it about 5 minutes I could tell it couldn't multitask worth beans compared to OS/2. I thought well maybe I just need to tweak it or something. I played with every setting I could get my hands on. I installed Norton Utils, defragged the hard drive, played with RAM, swap space, everything. NO go.
The more programs I installed the more flaky the system got. I began to learn the BSOD dance. I knew that i had been lied to. It felt personal! I had looked up to you guys dammit. I believed the hype. I believed you guys were innovating out there at Redmond. I actually admired you guys and someday wanted to be like you.
It was at that moment I begin to hate Microsoft and everything they stood for. I heard about Linux and found it was hard at first but no harder than mucking with EMM386 and memmaker was in DOS.
IBM had fucked up the marketing of Warp and MS put the final nail in its coffin with Win95. The thing that I liked about Linux was nobody could kill it and it felt good to free myself of Microsoft.
Eventually I graduated HS and now I'm in the third year of a Computer Science degree. Already I have some input at my student job on a major computer purchase. Guess what I'm recommending going with instead of NT? Guess what company I wouldn't consider working for after graduation? Guess what products I'll be recommending to any future employers?
I can't speak for anyone else, but I suspect theres plenty of us out there who feel violated and let down by Microsoft.
There is so much talent at Microsoft and there is so much money you guys could do some truly truly great things for the world, but I guess money also corrupts. Thats why I look up to and admire what Linus did. Its not about the money its about putting something out that does something great and you can be proud of at the end of the day.
As far me I just want to learn enough to start giving back to the OSS community.
If AC's are truly valued on/. (and they have proven to be valuable on times) then Rob should stop insulting anyone posting anonymously by calling them a coward.
I wonder if subliminally this causes some people to act even more immature than they normally would.
I finally got unreal to work with the latest snapshot after many moons of defeat! Kudos to the Wine folks! It runs full speed with 3DFX and sound (albiet staticy at times)... I am absolutely amazed!
Instead of aiming the/. effect at the offending companies each time this happens (and it WILL happen again), lets aim it towards something that will be able to take care of all of them.
I'd like to see someone that has "a clue"(TM) about trademarks and the Internet step up and give those of us that don't have a full grasp on all the issues, a place to aim our Congress Critters and get the law changed to something more reasonable.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for Archie Comics, however maybe some of you have forgotten or weren't around here when the whole Linux trademark debacle took place. Also remember those that advocate nailing linux.org with trademark infringement. We wanted Linus to do exactly the same things that Archie Comics is doing right now.
I think this would be good for Security purposes. It would make it far easier for a user to distinguish between a native program and a borderless javascript window popped open asking them to input their quicken password into a form.
I wish I had the URL handy that I believe i saw on Slashdot a while back that had a nifty demonstration of exactly what i'm talking about in IE4. It would pop open a borderless javascript window that looked and felt like a Win95 PPP wizard that of course asked you to enter your name and password. Having done tech support at an ISP, I know that many people would fall for this trick. It would be slightly less likely to happen if the widgets had a different look for web pages.
I'll just be happy to get away from the ugly Motif look under linux for once:) Since Mozilla is open source I'm sure we'll be able to theme it, so everyone *SHOULD* be happy.
If anyone is listening i'd like to see the little N-Scroller widget (i know it has a name, but i'm drawing a blank) themeable easily as well. I remember back in the days of jeez must have been Netscape 1.0 or 2.0 that the mac people had some animated.gifs you could plug into that, and I really wanted to have a couple of those. I'd like to be able to use some of those from I think it was the GNU Web Browser project contest?
MS pay heed, here are the seeds of our destruction
on
A Bit About Freshmeat
·
· Score: 1
This worries me. A lot. It seems more and more that our so called Open Source community is NOT scaling well at all. What seems to be working so well with small group of people is turning into a mass of screaming crap swarming everywhere without any direction.
This is not the first time this has happened. It wasn't too long ago that Bruce Perens was ranting about some of the same things Scoop is complaining about. I just got done reading all the shit ESR is taking here in a piece he wrote for our enjoyment. It makes me ill.
If this continues on like this as our community grows larger, the core people will slowly fade away and we'll be left with nothing. There are so many people that put so much of their blood, sweat and tears into all of this without any thought of getting anything back. More and more there are a bunch of leaches that only know that Linux is some kind of warez thats legal!
Please read A usenet Rant for some of the best writing i've ever seen on something similar to this. Usenet is dying a slow and painful death and I can't remember the last time i read alt.*. Its all so full of spam its worthless.
If we aren't careful the so called Open Source movement will end up the same way. Maybe its time to go back to the Cathedral, because the masses out in the bazaar are rioting without any control, running amok in the stalls stealing and breaking all the samples.
If any of you are out there listening. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. ESR, RMS, Linus, Alan, CmdrTaco, Scoop, JWZ, Bruce and all the others... You have made something truly great and I hope you are never discouraged. Someday I hope I can repay all of you for your hard work and give back to the community you started.
I find the put downs of ESR distasteful. He wrote something intended to give you a chuckle or two on the first day of 1999.
I use Fetchmail everyday and am greatful to ESR for his excellent software as well as how he has promoted OpenSource, but I also share some skepticism about all the different licenses that are coming out. I agree with the poster that said it makes things confusing for the average programmer.
I'm curious as to why some posters had to bring up ESR's politics in their comments. What that has to do with this piece of writing is baffling.
However, since gun control was brought up i'd like you to consider the following:
Look at all those gun freaks always ranting and raving about their Freedoms. Only criminals need guns anyway, right? Besides, we have a trained professional military and police force with better resources than some scruffy gun freak to protect us.
Sound anything like:
Look at all those open source freaks always ranting and raving about their Freedoms. The only people who need encryption are criminals, right? Those folks are a bunch of ragged hackers, why do they need to build an OS when we have professional programmers with better resources to build us one?
I'm truly curious what people think about this. I am all for Geeks with Guns. Its in the American Bill of Rights for a purpose. Think Free Speech not Free Beer:)
Slashdot Mirror
Its obvious that this journalist hasn't a clue about the GPL or Linux in general. I've lost a lot of respect for Caldera after reading this article.
:)
Ransom Love is whining that Informix targeted Red Hat for their port. Well guess what Caldera? If you really want to be compatible you could easily take Red Hat's ENTIRE distribution, slap your CLOSED SOURCE Novell crap on top of it and brand it Caldera. Mandrake Linux and others have done exactly this.
If you are incompatible, FIX it. That's what open source is about. Red Hat doesn't have any secret API's that are designed to break competing software.
I've used Red Hat quite a bit and I haven't paid them a single penny, unlike certain Microsoft products I no longer use and pay out the nose for! Furthermore, I heavily use Red Hat's ftp, web services, mailing lists, and take advantage of the fact that they are supporting development in GNOME, KDE, Enlightenment and the kernel itself (Alan Cox). I'm glad to see Red Hat is successful and as long as they continue to support Free software I will support them.
BTW, last I heard Linus used Red Hat. I'd sure like to see how HE customizes that bad boy
Did anyone catch the underwater scenes?! Looks pretty good!
"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Gandhi
Well we've been ignored, we've been laughed at and now Microsoft is getting ready to blast both barrels at our community. We've almost won.
Anyone else find it somewhat ironic that Be's requirements for a sysadmin are:
Minimum Requirements: 3-5 years experience.
Windows 95/98/NT 4, MS Office/Outlook 97/98, Cheyenne Enterprise Backup, HP Laser Jet, Cisco Router Management, Great Plains/FRX or MSSQL a plus
Hey I'm glad you posted here (really!). It takes some guts to admit publicly that you work for Microsoft on /.
I started out my computing life with Microsoft Products. My first Operating System was MS-DOS 2.something. I didn't know any better and it seemed pretty spiffy to me. I remember drooling when MS-DOS 5 and 6 hit the shelves.
I looked up to Microsoft and thought it would be a great thing to be able to work there someday.
But, it was around DOS 6 that I started to question things. I remember seeing stacker on the shelves and then the next thing I know its out of business. DoubleSpace was "integrated" into DOS and Stac went down the toilet.
Things seemed ok, I mean hey MS is saving me money, right? They are innovating for me, right? Windows 3.0 was hitting things big even though anyone who had any knowledge could plainly see how crappy it truly was. It was a MASSIVE hack and didn't run very well.
Well I still looked up to Microsoft and I learned to use it and I learned to love Microsoft Word 2.0. Soon I was happily using all of the Microsoft Office products. I didn't even blink when the once mighty WordPerfect began its death spiral. Hey MS is innovating for me, the customer, right?
More and more Windows/DOS wouldn't do what I needed it to do. So one day I try out IBM OS/2 2.1 and am utterly amazed! Here was something that WAS TRULY innovative compared to Windows. I eventually upgraded to Warp 3 and I began to resent Windows. Microsoft had initially worked with IBM on OS/2, but yet they chose to go with a crap of a hack instead. I couldn't figure out why.
Soon I began to read about this magical new OS from my heroes at MS codenamed Chicago. Eventually the trade rags started hyping up what would become Windows 95. I believed every word of it. I drooled at the thought of Windows 95 (besides my parents were giving me a hard time about not being able to run all their windows apps perfectly under OS/2).
I begged my dad to purchase win95 and we pre-ordered the sucker. I came home that fateful day in August to see it sitting on the front porch. I ran in and wiped Warp and gleefully installed this great new OS. I knew in my heart that my heroes at MS had finally gotten it right and my computer would be running better just like PC Magazine said it would.
Funny thing was after running it about 5 minutes I could tell it couldn't multitask worth beans compared to OS/2. I thought well maybe I just need to tweak it or something. I played with every setting I could get my hands on. I installed Norton Utils, defragged the hard drive, played with RAM, swap space, everything. NO go.
The more programs I installed the more flaky the system got. I began to learn the BSOD dance. I knew that i had been lied to. It felt personal! I had looked up to you guys dammit. I believed the hype. I believed you guys were innovating out there at Redmond. I actually admired you guys and someday wanted to be like you.
It was at that moment I begin to hate Microsoft and everything they stood for. I heard about Linux and found it was hard at first but no harder than mucking with EMM386 and memmaker was in DOS.
IBM had fucked up the marketing of Warp and MS put the final nail in its coffin with Win95. The thing that I liked about Linux was nobody could kill it and it felt good to free myself of Microsoft.
Eventually I graduated HS and now I'm in the third year of a Computer Science degree. Already I have some input at my student job on a major computer purchase. Guess what I'm recommending going with instead of NT? Guess what company I wouldn't consider working for after graduation? Guess what products I'll be recommending to any future employers?
I can't speak for anyone else, but I suspect theres plenty of us out there who feel violated and let down by Microsoft.
There is so much talent at Microsoft and there is so much money you guys could do some truly truly great things for the world, but I guess money also corrupts. Thats why I look up to and admire what Linus did. Its not about the money its about putting something out that does something great and you can be proud of at the end of the day.
As far me I just want to learn enough to start giving back to the OSS community.
--Sincerely former Microsoft Worshiper
If AC's are truly valued on /. (and they have proven to be valuable on times) then Rob should stop insulting anyone posting anonymously by calling them a coward.
I wonder if subliminally this causes some people to act even more immature than they normally would.
I finally got unreal to work with the latest snapshot after many moons of defeat! Kudos to the Wine folks! It runs full speed with 3DFX and sound (albiet staticy at times)... I am absolutely amazed!
Instead of aiming the /. effect at the offending companies each time this happens (and it WILL happen again), lets aim it towards something that will be able to take care of all of them.
I'd like to see someone that has "a clue"(TM) about trademarks and the Internet step up and give those of us that don't have a full grasp on all the issues, a place to aim our Congress Critters and get the law changed to something more reasonable.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for Archie Comics, however maybe some of you have forgotten or weren't around here when the whole Linux trademark debacle took place. Also remember those that advocate nailing linux.org with trademark infringement. We wanted Linus to do exactly the same things that Archie Comics is doing right now.
I thought it was even better than Snow Crash.
I think this would be good for Security purposes. It would make it far easier for a user to distinguish between a native program and a borderless javascript window popped open asking them to input their quicken password into a form.
.gifs you could plug into that, and I really wanted to have a couple of those. I'd like to be able to use some of those from I think it was the GNU Web Browser project contest?
I wish I had the URL handy that I believe i saw on Slashdot a while back that had a nifty demonstration of exactly what i'm talking about in IE4. It would pop open a borderless javascript window that looked and felt like a Win95 PPP wizard that of course asked you to enter your name and password. Having done tech support at an ISP, I know that many people would fall for this trick. It would be slightly less likely to happen if the widgets had a different look for web pages.
I'll just be happy to get away from the ugly Motif look under linux for once:) Since Mozilla is open source I'm sure we'll be able to theme it, so everyone *SHOULD* be happy.
If anyone is listening i'd like to see the little N-Scroller widget (i know it has a name, but i'm drawing a blank) themeable easily as well. I remember back in the days of jeez must have been Netscape 1.0 or 2.0 that the mac people had some animated
This is not the first time this has happened. It wasn't too long ago that Bruce Perens was ranting about some of the same things Scoop is complaining about. I just got done reading all the shit ESR is taking here in a piece he wrote for our enjoyment. It makes me ill.
If this continues on like this as our community grows larger, the core people will slowly fade away and we'll be left with nothing. There are so many people that put so much of their blood, sweat and tears into all of this without any thought of getting anything back. More and more there are a bunch of leaches that only know that Linux is some kind of warez thats legal!
Please read A usenet Rant for some of the best writing i've ever seen on something similar to this. Usenet is dying a slow and painful death and I can't remember the last time i read alt.*. Its all so full of spam its worthless.
If we aren't careful the so called Open Source movement will end up the same way. Maybe its time to go back to the Cathedral, because the masses out in the bazaar are rioting without any control, running amok in the stalls stealing and breaking all the samples.
If any of you are out there listening. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. ESR, RMS, Linus, Alan, CmdrTaco, Scoop, JWZ, Bruce and all the others... You have made something truly great and I hope you are never discouraged. Someday I hope I can repay all of you for your hard work and give back to the community you started.
Thanks,
Matthew I. Michie
I find the put downs of ESR distasteful. He wrote something intended to give you a chuckle or two on the first day of 1999.
I use Fetchmail everyday and am greatful to ESR for his excellent software as well as how he has promoted OpenSource, but I also share some skepticism about all the different licenses that are coming out. I agree with the poster that said it makes things confusing for the average programmer.
I'm curious as to why some posters had to bring up ESR's politics in their comments. What that has to do with this piece of writing is baffling.
However, since gun control was brought up i'd like you to consider the following:
Look at all those gun freaks always ranting and raving about their Freedoms. Only criminals need guns anyway, right? Besides, we have a trained professional military and police force with better resources than some scruffy gun freak to protect us.
Sound anything like:
Look at all those open source freaks always ranting and raving about their Freedoms. The only people who need encryption are criminals, right? Those folks are a bunch of ragged hackers, why do they need to build an OS when we have professional programmers with better resources to build us one?
I'm truly curious what people think about this. I am all for Geeks with Guns. Its in the American Bill of Rights for a purpose. Think Free Speech not Free Beer:)
Happy New Year!