True Linux believers need a constant stream of stories to validate their choices in life. The stories don't have to be true, but must sound truthful and confirm what they have already believed in. Slashdot offers such a venue. Although most Linux believers are nerds or geeks, hence belong to the smart people group, they still need stories which portray their opponents as simply evil or stupid, hence can be easily dismissed as below their way of life.
I am afraid your suggestion goes against one of the most important functions of this site.
Now if I could only stop playing video games so often, I could pick up more side work, maybe bring in more then 1-2 k extra a month.
But you are getting married, right? I am afraid you'll have to cut back on your video games and you won't have extra bandwidth for more side work.
The biggest threat to TiVo is cable operators, not Microsoft. For years, TiVo couldn't sign on a single US cable operator to incorporate their technologies into the next generation cable settop boxes. At the same time, the cable operators have been actively adding TiVo like features to their settop boxes. Some develop the technologies in house like Time Warner's MyStroTV, others partnered with third party vendors, like Microsoft and many other companies in that space. Microsoft has lost billions of dollars trying to enter the cable TV industry. TiVo has no success either. That's why many Wall Street's analysts predicted TiVo's death because of competition from cable operator's settop boxes enabled with DVT technologies.
Whether or not Bush has the ability to be a president is not the point. The unfair part of the entire situation is that hundreds of thousands of men and women, could be millions, who are equally or more qualified don't even have a chance. Most of the time, a person cannot get to an important position because he doesn't know what it takes to get there. But a former president knows. He knows the right people, the right and minimum credentials, the right money source, and the right tricks to get someone into the white house. Ordinary people don't have a chance no matter how smart they are. How do you know you can't be the president. With the most talented people writing scripts for you, analyze details for you, tell you what to say and how to say it, I bet you can be an OK president as well. But do you have a remote shot at all?
I have worked in the cable TV industry for many years, so I can say from my experience that Microsoft is actually trying to introduce innovation and competion into a market strangled by local monopolies. If you have worked in the TV industry, you will know that innovation crawls there. For today's widely deployed cable settop boxes, harddrive is a luxury, 8 MB of RAM is a luxury, 16-bit graphics is a luxury, Eithernet NIC is a luxury, 100 MHz processor is a luxury. Although there are high-end cable settop boxes which have some of those advanced features, for one reason or another, they cannot establish a significant market share. For people who are used to the rapid progress in the PC industry, the TV industry still lives in the stone age. Can you go out to BestBuy to buy a cable settop box that works on your cable network? I am afraid not. Do you know why? Because the headend equipment are manufactured by Motorola and Scientific Atlanta, companes who keep the comminucation protocols between the headends and the settop boxes their trade secrets. Although consumers are the actual users of the cable settop boxes, the buying decisions were made by cable operators whose number one pripority is to keep the cost down. I am afraid the only way to break such a stranglehold is to deliver TV services bypassing the cable networks, DSL is a start, fiber to the home is probably the real answer. XBox is one step in that direction. Although you may not like to pay the price for Media Center, it's really a great leap forward and a bargain compared to what you can get today from cable operators.
Or it seems to be the rule that it's only the open-source developers we hear from directly, without being filtered through a bunch of marketroids.
I don't know about you but I have worked for companies where engineers are encouraged to talk to customers directly. By the way, talking to developers doesn't necessarily mean you always get honest answers. Most developers are biased toward their own products. Actually, I noticed that many developers have the illusion that they are indeed the smartest people working on the thing and they honestly believe that their products are the best. This illusion is typcially reenforced by their mostly associating with the people in their own circles. I am afraid OSS developers are no exception.
A question that has been puzzling me is : what if there would pop up virusses in linux ?... so will the percentage of dumbasses who think that they are safe by simply having linux installed.
You answered your own question. The guy will be shouted down as a dimwit, or dumbass in your term, and deemed as unfit for intelligent computer usage and sent over to be exploited by M$ and suffer Windoz forever.
My parents are college professor. And I spent a lot of (too much?!) time laboring through the school system (top student as well). So I do know a thing or two about universities. I understand the importance of research funding for universities. But you can't deny that universities were established first and foremost to educate students. Without the regular and guaranteed tuition income from students year by year, most universities will disappear. If professors only want to do research to begin with, why don't they go to pure research organizations.
I don't understand your logic. When you pay money, you are the customer of someone. What do you mean that students are not customers? They are the customers. They pay dearly for a service - education. Unfortunately, they are not at the top of the priority list for professors, their service provider. Smartest people don't necessarily mean great teachers. There is no direct relationship between a good researcher and a good teacher. You can't learn from the smartest mind if that mind can't communicate very well. Unfortunately for the student customers, they don't have a choice. Some are lucky to have a great advisor, some are lucky to have it figured out themselves, but most simply go through the system, parted with tons of money, in the hope that they may get their investment back sometime in their lives.
You might not be reading the source code, but others will and their interests are probably more closely aligned with yours than a for profit institution that is more concerned about customer lock-in. But hey, do what makes you happy.
Your point is a typical specious argument offered by OSS supporters: an for-profit organization doesn't care about customers as much as people who are just interested in developing software. My experience tells me otherwise. If you give engineers a free hand, they will most likely pursue issues of interest to them, like sophisticated algorithms, intricate coding techniques, and large-scale architectures, which are not directly related to what customers want, a solution to their problem. A paralell in another profession is college professors. Since most universities are not for profit and many professors don't have to worry about losing their jobs, a lot of them spend more time on their research work, something of interest to them, instead of on improving teaching skills, something of utter importance to their customer - students. On the other hand, the lifelihood of a for profit organization completely depends on customers. So they, out of necessity, established a set of mechanisms to focus their engineers' attention on their customers' immediate needs. I am not saying they are always successful at pleasing their customers, but they sure try very hard.
A 'FUD attack against Microsoft'? Please.
There is no need to use Microsoft tactics against Microsoft.
Yes, there is. And it's being used on a regular basis by Microsoft competitors./. is a famous site for daily FUD attack against Microsoft. Although many people here take it as truth and facts instead of FUD.
I would expect a technical site like this would have a more well-informed discussion. This article can be considered another FUD attack against Microsoft. By just listing a bunch of open ports the author thinks as unnecessary, the article declares SP2 unsafe. One of the biggest things in SP2 is to replace all executables serving any ports with code that can handle external malicious attacks robustly, buffer overrun attack etc. To declare SP2 unsafe, the author has to give at least a couple of examples that can crack the new enhanced binaries. But the author didn't have the proper knowledge and didn't do his homework either. He is just too eager to declare SP2 a failure so that other uninformed people can buy his conclusion at face value.
Now that you have brought in more companies. Let's also consider the Linux champions like IBM and Oracle. They have plenty of proprietary stuff and intentionally broad patents as well. And Linus only singled out Windows companies, his business competitors. I wonder whether this is unbiased sound logic or a Linux marketing PR speech.
Just because Linux is a community effort, doesn't mean there is no focused marketing strategy to spread FUD againt its bunsiness competitors. And don't tell me Linux is free hence no need for marketing. IBM made over one billion dollars on Linux products a couple of years ago. So there is a lot of money in the game. And when there is a lot money, there are marketing strategies.
"'In the Windows proprietary world, almost everybody stands behind intentionally vague, overly-broad, software patent claims,' warned Linux Torvalds
And this statement is not FUD against Microsoft, but sound logic to your ears.
At the very least, it is a very broad statement based on some believies instead of facts. Has Linus actually checked all Microsoft patents for their scopes? Has Linus talked to every Microsoft employee for their standing?
When Linux or Mac or Mozilla or whatever becomes the primary player, they will be found out to have just as many liabilities in the security department, I'm sure... They may get fixed quicker because of the relative smallness and open source attributes, but the bugs are there. Just no one is looking/caring too much. Yet.
In order for the Linux community to get there (become a primary player), they need to bash Windows and spread FUD about Microsoft everyday, just like every other player in the business world. So Microsoft will be faulted for everything and ridiculed at every opportunity as long as the Linux dream goes on.
You gave an example of OS/2's 512MB per process limitation and then you claimed OS/2 beats the latest Microsoft OS every way technically. Seems to me you are contradicting yourself.
Obviously the topics, OSS and communism, are too broad to narrow down in a few paragraphs. So I'll just comment on two points.
That's a major tinfoil hat you've got. Do you really believe that an unorganized hodgepodge of software geeks who can't even be prodded to vote are out to seize power? Like most people, what they want is freedom from opression.
Without the organized support of IBM, Red Hat, Oracle, etc., OSS is not going to be a real threat to Microsoft. Many people in the OSS community want to think of themselves as a bunch of hobbists and laugh at Microsoft for being scared. Microsoft is not scared by the geeks in the OSS community, but by IBM and Oracle's taking advantage of those geeks to attain their own, money-making, goals which they cannot do in the traditional business way. If Linux stays a hobby, then Microsoft has nothing to be afraid of. Linux became a real threat when IBM, and other corporations, put their weight behind it, because IBM has resources, customers, marketing clout, etc. OSS people can be proud what they have achieved so far, but don't trick themselves into thinking that their hobby has all the power. Again it's the money and power from IBM and the money and power IBM wants to get in the future which scare Microsoft.
Again, you are insinuating that software is being stolen from someone who owns it and being used by the OSS community.
You think communists steal land from people. If you have studied the communist theory, you will know that they think the land was stolen from the poor people to begin with and they are doing the justice by taking the land and giving it back to the society. For example, without grabbing the land from American Indians two hundreds years, America wouldn't be here to be an example of justice and democracy to the world. So for the communists, there is nothing wrong taking the land back and giving it to the underpriviledged. You can argue communists didn't create land or factories. But most communist party members were farmers and factory workers, they have labored on the land and in the factories and have created values out of the land and the factory.
I applaud you for being a conscientious employee loyal to your company's cause. Just to remind you that the true purpose of any company, including AOL TW, is to make money, whether by selling a product, or by suing another corporation. All the posturing about Netscape and all the testifying against Microsoft are to serve the purpose of exacting money from Microsoft. AOL TW has achieved that goal through the Microsoft settlement. It was easy money compared to the alternative: building and selling a product. Now AOL TW has moved on, but you haven't. You do realize that all the rhetoric about fair competition, innovation, and consumer benefits is just another way of saying: give me the money? In the end, AOL TW wants to be a monopoly too, just not in the software industry. My ex-CEO, who was a key witness for the Justice Department in the antitrust case against Microsoft, told us in the company meeting that we want to be just like Microsoft, only if we can.
Are you aSCOturfing? Since you're drawing a parallel, exactly what software was confiscated from wealthy people and given to the unwashed OSS masses?
You are behaving just like a communist: classifying everyone who happens to have a different view from you as your enemy. Just like any two complicated phenomena, you can always point out tons of differences in details. If you are not willing to see the paralell, then they are not there for you.
You mean the OSS ideas that home computer users had way before Microsoft, or ideas that musicians had about music before the music *Industry*? That kind of communism? Kind of like sharing what you've created? You mean the same idealistic *young* people who have spent several decades watching the small companies and jobs being decimated and common ideas being patented by the self-professed leaders of software capitalism? I doubt it. My idealism is battered and perhaps broken, but I still believe I know right from wrong, and OSS is not wrong or detrimental to any company that is not trying to enforce a lock on the marketplace (and that's against the law).
Communists believe that land belong to all people because that had been the case for tens of thousands years before land became privately owned and had to be purchased for a price. I can see a paralell between communist's view on land ownership and your view on software business. IBM and Oracle are self-professed leaders of software industry as well, how come the OSS people are in love with them? Don't IBM and Oracle want to make money as much as Microsoft does? But IBM is friend because it happens to support OSS's cause, for its own money making purpose. That's exactly what happened to communists. They proclaimed all factory owners who happened to support the communist cause as good, and those who opposed them as evil.
You think OSS is not detrimental to the society? Communists were extremely friendly to the society before they came to power. Do you know that they wanted to be more democratic than the capitalists? But in the end, all the good will amounted to disaster to the society. Only people have to lived through the entire process can appreciate how ironic the outcome is. You think you know right from wrong? I am not so sure. Are you sure you haven't been indoctrinated? How come you take for granted communism is wrong? If you are for free software, why not free land to the society as well? Isn't the latter nobler than just free software?
OSS is communism, period. I came from a communist country, so I know exactly how communism worked in practice.
First, communists promised poor people free land. They confiscated land and businesses from wealthy people and then distributed them among the poor people. The idea was very attractive to idealistic young people. There were a lot of true believers. They sacrificed their wealth, youth, time, and even life to the communist cause.
After the communists have successfully overthrown the old and "evil" government, they became the new masters, of course they called themselves people's servants. By that time they have married and have kids. So they realized that they need money, or more precisely, the things that money can buy, after all and the new leadership positions are really convenient for that purpose...
OSS is still in the early phase of their "communist" experiment. There are still a lot of true believers (many young kids whose entire real life experience was from various schools): they can do things differently this time, they can change the old and evil ways and do the society a lot of good. There are also a lot of speculators who just want to ride the wave to the top if the movement succeeds in the future.
I don't know how this thing will pan out in the end, but it smells and feels like communism. And I know that there is a real life reason for the communism to fail and for the old and "evil" ways to return if communism has succeeded temporarily.
"I can't be bothered to learn anything new"
There is a difference between learning a couple of new things and learning a couple of hundreds of new things. If it takes too much time to learn, sorry, I can't be bothered because I have real-life matters to take care of.
All these arguments make me wonder whether Linux zealots have real lives or not. Obviously they have more than enough time to remeber all those computer commands and tricks.
Redhat most definately does not give their profits to their investors; they are focused, like most tech companies, on growth, so they reinvest it in the company.
Did you mean reinvest it in the growth of company executives' wallets?
Well, it wasn't what _anyone_ other than Microsoft wanted. That is, by default with with no warnings, it was very easy for your Java would become Windows-dependent, undermining the fundamental value of Java.
Don't be so arrogant and assume that your view represents the view of everyone else.
There are plenty of developers out there who don't work for Microsoft but develop only on Windows platform. Many of them prefer only developing their products to one unified platform -- Windows.
If the Malaysian government sees its objectives as being furthered through greater use of open source software then saying "but the cheapest way must be best because well becuase it just has to be, okay?" is stupid.
Crap. In those countries, you make a sale by bribing an official in the key position. Whether or not the choice makes sense is way down the priority list. Maybe saving money is important here, but not for the benefit of the country, but to fatten his own pocket further.
But featureset and usability will beat everything on your list in the market. People buy software because they need tools that can solve their daily problems. It software doesn't do what people want in a easy way, then it doesn't matter whether it is secure, stable, cheap, or based on great philosophy.
BTW, every feature inside those "bloated" Microsoft software came from a user request.
Slashdot Mirror
True Linux believers need a constant stream of stories to validate their choices in life. The stories don't have to be true, but must sound truthful and confirm what they have already believed in. Slashdot offers such a venue. Although most Linux believers are nerds or geeks, hence belong to the smart people group, they still need stories which portray their opponents as simply evil or stupid, hence can be easily dismissed as below their way of life.
I am afraid your suggestion goes against one of the most important functions of this site.
Now if I could only stop playing video games so often, I could pick up more side work, maybe bring in more then 1-2 k extra a month.
But you are getting married, right? I am afraid you'll have to cut back on your video games and you won't have extra bandwidth for more side work.
The biggest threat to TiVo is cable operators, not Microsoft. For years, TiVo couldn't sign on a single US cable operator to incorporate their technologies into the next generation cable settop boxes. At the same time, the cable operators have been actively adding TiVo like features to their settop boxes. Some develop the technologies in house like Time Warner's MyStroTV, others partnered with third party vendors, like Microsoft and many other companies in that space. Microsoft has lost billions of dollars trying to enter the cable TV industry. TiVo has no success either. That's why many Wall Street's analysts predicted TiVo's death because of competition from cable operator's settop boxes enabled with DVT technologies.
Whether or not Bush has the ability to be a president is not the point. The unfair part of the entire situation is that hundreds of thousands of men and women, could be millions, who are equally or more qualified don't even have a chance. Most of the time, a person cannot get to an important position because he doesn't know what it takes to get there. But a former president knows. He knows the right people, the right and minimum credentials, the right money source, and the right tricks to get someone into the white house. Ordinary people don't have a chance no matter how smart they are. How do you know you can't be the president. With the most talented people writing scripts for you, analyze details for you, tell you what to say and how to say it, I bet you can be an OK president as well. But do you have a remote shot at all?
I have worked in the cable TV industry for many years, so I can say from my experience that Microsoft is actually trying to introduce innovation and competion into a market strangled by local monopolies. If you have worked in the TV industry, you will know that innovation crawls there. For today's widely deployed cable settop boxes, harddrive is a luxury, 8 MB of RAM is a luxury, 16-bit graphics is a luxury, Eithernet NIC is a luxury, 100 MHz processor is a luxury. Although there are high-end cable settop boxes which have some of those advanced features, for one reason or another, they cannot establish a significant market share. For people who are used to the rapid progress in the PC industry, the TV industry still lives in the stone age. Can you go out to BestBuy to buy a cable settop box that works on your cable network? I am afraid not. Do you know why? Because the headend equipment are manufactured by Motorola and Scientific Atlanta, companes who keep the comminucation protocols between the headends and the settop boxes their trade secrets. Although consumers are the actual users of the cable settop boxes, the buying decisions were made by cable operators whose number one pripority is to keep the cost down. I am afraid the only way to break such a stranglehold is to deliver TV services bypassing the cable networks, DSL is a start, fiber to the home is probably the real answer. XBox is one step in that direction. Although you may not like to pay the price for Media Center, it's really a great leap forward and a bargain compared to what you can get today from cable operators.
Or it seems to be the rule that it's only the open-source developers we hear from directly, without being filtered through a bunch of marketroids. I don't know about you but I have worked for companies where engineers are encouraged to talk to customers directly. By the way, talking to developers doesn't necessarily mean you always get honest answers. Most developers are biased toward their own products. Actually, I noticed that many developers have the illusion that they are indeed the smartest people working on the thing and they honestly believe that their products are the best. This illusion is typcially reenforced by their mostly associating with the people in their own circles. I am afraid OSS developers are no exception.
It seems to be the rule that the really smart ones tend to work with open source software...
Or it seems to be the rule that those who work with open source software tend to think they are the really smart ones...
A question that has been puzzling me is : what if there would pop up virusses in linux ? ... so will the percentage of dumbasses who think that they are safe by simply having linux installed.
You answered your own question. The guy will be shouted down as a dimwit, or dumbass in your term, and deemed as unfit for intelligent computer usage and sent over to be exploited by M$ and suffer Windoz forever.
My parents are college professor. And I spent a lot of (too much?!) time laboring through the school system (top student as well). So I do know a thing or two about universities. I understand the importance of research funding for universities. But you can't deny that universities were established first and foremost to educate students. Without the regular and guaranteed tuition income from students year by year, most universities will disappear. If professors only want to do research to begin with, why don't they go to pure research organizations.
I don't understand your logic. When you pay money, you are the customer of someone. What do you mean that students are not customers? They are the customers. They pay dearly for a service - education. Unfortunately, they are not at the top of the priority list for professors, their service provider. Smartest people don't necessarily mean great teachers. There is no direct relationship between a good researcher and a good teacher. You can't learn from the smartest mind if that mind can't communicate very well. Unfortunately for the student customers, they don't have a choice. Some are lucky to have a great advisor, some are lucky to have it figured out themselves, but most simply go through the system, parted with tons of money, in the hope that they may get their investment back sometime in their lives.
You might not be reading the source code, but others will and their interests are probably more closely aligned with yours than a for profit institution that is more concerned about customer lock-in. But hey, do what makes you happy.
Your point is a typical specious argument offered by OSS supporters: an for-profit organization doesn't care about customers as much as people who are just interested in developing software. My experience tells me otherwise. If you give engineers a free hand, they will most likely pursue issues of interest to them, like sophisticated algorithms, intricate coding techniques, and large-scale architectures, which are not directly related to what customers want, a solution to their problem. A paralell in another profession is college professors. Since most universities are not for profit and many professors don't have to worry about losing their jobs, a lot of them spend more time on their research work, something of interest to them, instead of on improving teaching skills, something of utter importance to their customer - students. On the other hand, the lifelihood of a for profit organization completely depends on customers. So they, out of necessity, established a set of mechanisms to focus their engineers' attention on their customers' immediate needs. I am not saying they are always successful at pleasing their customers, but they sure try very hard.
A 'FUD attack against Microsoft'? Please. There is no need to use Microsoft tactics against Microsoft.
/. is a famous site for daily FUD attack against Microsoft. Although many people here take it as truth and facts instead of FUD.
Yes, there is. And it's being used on a regular basis by Microsoft competitors.
I would expect a technical site like this would have a more well-informed discussion. This article can be considered another FUD attack against Microsoft. By just listing a bunch of open ports the author thinks as unnecessary, the article declares SP2 unsafe. One of the biggest things in SP2 is to replace all executables serving any ports with code that can handle external malicious attacks robustly, buffer overrun attack etc. To declare SP2 unsafe, the author has to give at least a couple of examples that can crack the new enhanced binaries. But the author didn't have the proper knowledge and didn't do his homework either. He is just too eager to declare SP2 a failure so that other uninformed people can buy his conclusion at face value.
Now that you have brought in more companies. Let's also consider the Linux champions like IBM and Oracle. They have plenty of proprietary stuff and intentionally broad patents as well. And Linus only singled out Windows companies, his business competitors. I wonder whether this is unbiased sound logic or a Linux marketing PR speech.
Just because Linux is a community effort, doesn't mean there is no focused marketing strategy to spread FUD againt its bunsiness competitors. And don't tell me Linux is free hence no need for marketing. IBM made over one billion dollars on Linux products a couple of years ago. So there is a lot of money in the game. And when there is a lot money, there are marketing strategies.
"'In the Windows proprietary world, almost everybody stands behind intentionally vague, overly-broad, software patent claims,' warned Linux Torvalds
And this statement is not FUD against Microsoft, but sound logic to your ears.
At the very least, it is a very broad statement based on some believies instead of facts. Has Linus actually checked all Microsoft patents for their scopes? Has Linus talked to every Microsoft employee for their standing?
When Linux or Mac or Mozilla or whatever becomes the primary player, they will be found out to have just as many liabilities in the security department, I'm sure... They may get fixed quicker because of the relative smallness and open source attributes, but the bugs are there. Just no one is looking/caring too much. Yet.
In order for the Linux community to get there (become a primary player), they need to bash Windows and spread FUD about Microsoft everyday, just like every other player in the business world. So Microsoft will be faulted for everything and ridiculed at every opportunity as long as the Linux dream goes on.
You gave an example of OS/2's 512MB per process limitation and then you claimed OS/2 beats the latest Microsoft OS every way technically. Seems to me you are contradicting yourself.
Obviously the topics, OSS and communism, are too broad to narrow down in a few paragraphs. So I'll just comment on two points.
That's a major tinfoil hat you've got. Do you really believe that an unorganized hodgepodge of software geeks who can't even be prodded to vote are out to seize power? Like most people, what they want is freedom from opression.
Without the organized support of IBM, Red Hat, Oracle, etc., OSS is not going to be a real threat to Microsoft. Many people in the OSS community want to think of themselves as a bunch of hobbists and laugh at Microsoft for being scared. Microsoft is not scared by the geeks in the OSS community, but by IBM and Oracle's taking advantage of those geeks to attain their own, money-making, goals which they cannot do in the traditional business way. If Linux stays a hobby, then Microsoft has nothing to be afraid of. Linux became a real threat when IBM, and other corporations, put their weight behind it, because IBM has resources, customers, marketing clout, etc. OSS people can be proud what they have achieved so far, but don't trick themselves into thinking that their hobby has all the power. Again it's the money and power from IBM and the money and power IBM wants to get in the future which scare Microsoft.
Again, you are insinuating that software is being stolen from someone who owns it and being used by the OSS community.
You think communists steal land from people. If you have studied the communist theory, you will know that they think the land was stolen from the poor people to begin with and they are doing the justice by taking the land and giving it back to the society. For example, without grabbing the land from American Indians two hundreds years, America wouldn't be here to be an example of justice and democracy to the world. So for the communists, there is nothing wrong taking the land back and giving it to the underpriviledged. You can argue communists didn't create land or factories. But most communist party members were farmers and factory workers, they have labored on the land and in the factories and have created values out of the land and the factory.
I applaud you for being a conscientious employee loyal to your company's cause. Just to remind you that the true purpose of any company, including AOL TW, is to make money, whether by selling a product, or by suing another corporation. All the posturing about Netscape and all the testifying against Microsoft are to serve the purpose of exacting money from Microsoft. AOL TW has achieved that goal through the Microsoft settlement. It was easy money compared to the alternative: building and selling a product. Now AOL TW has moved on, but you haven't. You do realize that all the rhetoric about fair competition, innovation, and consumer benefits is just another way of saying: give me the money? In the end, AOL TW wants to be a monopoly too, just not in the software industry. My ex-CEO, who was a key witness for the Justice Department in the antitrust case against Microsoft, told us in the company meeting that we want to be just like Microsoft, only if we can.
Are you aSCOturfing? Since you're drawing a parallel, exactly what software was confiscated from wealthy people and given to the unwashed OSS masses?
You are behaving just like a communist: classifying everyone who happens to have a different view from you as your enemy.
Just like any two complicated phenomena, you can always point out tons of differences in details. If you are not willing to see the paralell, then they are not there for you.
You mean the OSS ideas that home computer users had way before Microsoft, or ideas that musicians had about music before the music *Industry*? That kind of communism? Kind of like sharing what you've created? You mean the same idealistic *young* people who have spent several decades watching the small companies and jobs being decimated and common ideas being patented by the self-professed leaders of software capitalism? I doubt it. My idealism is battered and perhaps broken, but I still believe I know right from wrong, and OSS is not wrong or detrimental to any company that is not trying to enforce a lock on the marketplace (and that's against the law).
Communists believe that land belong to all people because that had been the case for tens of thousands years before land became privately owned and had to be purchased for a price. I can see a paralell between communist's view on land ownership and your view on software business. IBM and Oracle are self-professed leaders of software industry as well, how come the OSS people are in love with them? Don't IBM and Oracle want to make money as much as Microsoft does? But IBM is friend because it happens to support OSS's cause, for its own money making purpose. That's exactly what happened to communists. They proclaimed all factory owners who happened to support the communist cause as good, and those who opposed them as evil.
You think OSS is not detrimental to the society? Communists were extremely friendly to the society before they came to power. Do you know that they wanted to be more democratic than the capitalists? But in the end, all the good will amounted to disaster to the society. Only people have to lived through the entire process can appreciate how ironic the outcome is. You think you know right from wrong? I am not so sure. Are you sure you haven't been indoctrinated? How come you take for granted communism is wrong? If you are for free software, why not free land to the society as well? Isn't the latter nobler than just free software?
OSS is communism, period. I came from a communist country, so I know exactly how communism worked in practice.
First, communists promised poor people free land. They confiscated land and businesses from wealthy people and then distributed them among the poor people. The idea was very attractive to idealistic young people. There were a lot of true believers. They sacrificed their wealth, youth, time, and even life to the communist cause.
After the communists have successfully overthrown the old and "evil" government, they became the new masters, of course they called themselves people's servants. By that time they have married and have kids. So they realized that they need money, or more precisely, the things that money can buy, after all and the new leadership positions are really convenient for that purpose...
OSS is still in the early phase of their "communist" experiment. There are still a lot of true believers (many young kids whose entire real life experience was from various schools): they can do things differently this time, they can change the old and evil ways and do the society a lot of good. There are also a lot of speculators who just want to ride the wave to the top if the movement succeeds in the future.
I don't know how this thing will pan out in the end, but it smells and feels like communism. And I know that there is a real life reason for the communism to fail and for the old and "evil" ways to return if communism has succeeded temporarily.
"I can't be bothered to learn anything new"
There is a difference between learning a couple of new things and learning a couple of hundreds of new things. If it takes too much time to learn, sorry, I can't be bothered because I have real-life matters to take care of.
All these arguments make me wonder whether Linux zealots have real lives or not. Obviously they have more than enough time to remeber all those computer commands and tricks.
Redhat most definately does not give their profits to their investors; they are focused, like most tech companies, on growth, so they reinvest it in the company.
Did you mean reinvest it in the growth of company executives' wallets?
Well, it wasn't what _anyone_ other than Microsoft wanted. That is, by default with with no warnings, it was very easy for your Java would become Windows-dependent, undermining the fundamental value of Java.
Don't be so arrogant and assume that your view represents the view of everyone else.
There are plenty of developers out there who don't work for Microsoft but develop only on Windows platform. Many of them prefer only developing their products to one unified platform -- Windows.
If the Malaysian government sees its objectives as being furthered through greater use of open source software then saying "but the cheapest way must be best because well becuase it just has to be, okay?" is stupid.
Crap. In those countries, you make a sale by bribing an official in the key position. Whether or not the choice makes sense is way down the priority list. Maybe saving money is important here, but not for the benefit of the country, but to fatten his own pocket further.
But featureset and usability will beat everything on your list in the market. People buy software because they need tools that can solve their daily problems. It software doesn't do what people want in a easy way, then it doesn't matter whether it is secure, stable, cheap, or based on great philosophy.
BTW, every feature inside those "bloated" Microsoft software came from a user request.