Five Things You Can't Discuss about Linux 662
gondwannabe writes "Here are Five Things You Aren't Allowed to Discuss About Linux. With considerable chutzpa, an insightful Rob Enderle takes on what he considers five dogmas in the OSS community and explains why they're wrong. Examples: Linux is secure, "communes" actually work in the long haul, and that Linux is "pro-developer."
Site is slow - here's the text (Score:4, Informative)
The Five Things You Arent Allowed to Discuss About Linux
Posted by Rob Enderle on Monday 26 February 2007 at 7:44 pm
I started writing about Linux not because I thought it interesting, fascinating, or even because I liked to code (I dont).
I started writing about Linux because I was told I couldnt and the more people told me I couldnt, and particularly when they said or else, the more the Linux dirty laundry became attractive to me. In short, if anyone bothers to look at the sequence of events, they will see that the Linux community pushed me down this path. Granted I didnt fight much, but I have this thing about cover-ups. I believe they can lead to disasters both within a company and across a nation; here in the U.S. this last point, whether it be Global Warming or Iraq, would seem self evident.
So this time Id like to talk about the five things you cant talk about without being attacked by OSS supporters. Ill take the heat, and as always, Im not suggesting you stop deployment of Linux, Im just suggesting you intelligently cover your backside.
One: Is Linux a Myth?
This strikes me as both the most obvious and the least talked about. We talk about Linux like an operating system when we compare it against Windows, we talk about it as a company when we compare it against Microsoft, and when we describe its attributes it almost seems super-human or god like.
Linux isnt a thing, and it sure isnt a god. When we compare an operating system to another we should be comparing the specific distribution, which is a thing. When we compare it to Microsoft we need a company to do that; Red Hat, Novell and now Oracle provide us with a framework so that we can intelligently compare one to another and assess the differences.
The reason Linux has been abstracted into a concept is so it doesnt have to compete on merit. It can be anything, in concept, it needs to be to win a deal. But we live in the real world where there needs to be a real product and a real support structure behind it. If we are actually doing an evaluation we have to evaluate what we are actually going to end up using and it isnt generic Linux.
This isnt to say Linux cant or doesnt win in real comparisons, only that the majority Ive seen werent real comparisons. As a ex-auditor I care less about who wins than I care about the process that determines the winner. Ive seen too many instances where decisions were made on products, including proprietary products, based on what appears to be graft. One CIO even won a Mercedes Benz for making the right choice well talk about that in a future post.
Presenting the products and companies in abstract was actually rather brilliant, however, I cant find a Steve Jobs-like person I can congratulated for this excellent work. It just seems to have happened that way naturally, but, if you are going to be successful, your justification needs to be solid and for that youll need the specifics.
Linux is a grown up product; it isnt for everything or everyone though. Do your assessment with a real product against real metrics. SuSe and Red Hat are both capable enough to compete without cheating.
Two: Is Linux Secure?
I already said there is no Linux, so how can I now treat it like a thing? The easy path here would be to present the different security models for the different distributions but, for this purpose, Im going to leave Linux in abstract and talk about the unique security problem it represents. Im not saying Windows is more secure either; Im saying the products are so different from each other that comparisons may not actually make much sense, which is why there are reports supporting both sides of this. So, lets start by saying nothing is secure enough if people are involved.
Long before IT stopped being just it, security had three aspects: Physical Safety, Possession Protection, and Intelligence. The way security was breached in all cases was physical; people came in and did harm, s
Re:blog == article? (Score:3, Informative)
What it has to do with an article written by Rob Enderle though, escapes me... He's a shill, a paid propagandist, and not a particularly good one at that. Even the NY Times won't allow his spouting within its once-proud pages. In short, this article wasn't worth the electrons needed to convey it from the screen to your eyes.
ARTICLE TEXT (Score:0, Informative)
I started writing about Linux because I was told I couldn't and the more people told me I couldn't, and particularly when they said "or else," the more the Linux dirty laundry became attractive to me. In short, if anyone bothers to look at the sequence of events, they will see that the Linux community pushed me down this path. Granted I didn't fight much, but I have this thing about cover-ups. I believe they can lead to disasters both within a company and across a nation; here in the U.S. this last point, whether it be Global Warming or Iraq, would seem self evident.
So this time I'd like to talk about the five things you can't talk about without being attacked by OSS supporters. I'll take the heat, and as always, I'm not suggesting you stop deployment of Linux, I'm just suggesting you intelligently cover your backside.
One: Is Linux a Myth?
This strikes me as both the most obvious and the least talked about. We talk about Linux like an operating system when we compare it against Windows, we talk about it as a company when we compare it against Microsoft, and when we describe its attributes it almost seems super-human or god like.
Linux isn't a thing, and it sure isn't a god. When we compare an operating system to another we should be comparing the specific distribution, which is a thing. When we compare it to Microsoft we need a company to do that; Red Hat, Novell and now Oracle provide us with a framework so that we can intelligently compare one to another and assess the differences.
The reason Linux has been abstracted into a concept is so it doesn't have to compete on merit. It can be anything, in concept, it needs to be to win a deal. But we live in the real world where there needs to be a real product and a real support structure behind it. If we are actually doing an evaluation we have to evaluate what we are actually going to end up using and it isn't generic "Linux."
This isn't to say Linux can't or doesn't win in real comparisons, only that the majority I've seen weren't real comparisons. As a ex-auditor I care less about who wins than I care about the process that determines the winner. I've seen too many instances where decisions were made on products, including proprietary products, based on what appears to be graft. One CIO even won a Mercedes Benz for making the "right choice" - we'll talk about that in a future post.
Presenting the products and companies in abstract was actually rather brilliant, however, I can't find a Steve Jobs-like person I can congratulated for this excellent work. It just seems to have happened that way naturally, but, if you are going to be successful, your justification needs to be solid and for that you'll need the specifics.
Linux is a grown up product; it isn't for everything or everyone though. Do your assessment with a real product against real metrics. SuSe and Red Hat are both capable enough to compete without cheating.
Two: Is Linux Secure?
I already said there is no "Linux," so how can I now treat it like a thing? The easy path here would be to present the different security models for the different distributions but, for this purpose, I'm going to leave Linux in abstract and talk about the unique security problem it represents. I'm not saying Windows is more secure either; I'm saying the products are so different from each other that comparisons may not actually make much sense, which is why there are reports supporting both sides of this. So, let's start by saying nothing is secure enough if people are involved.
Long before IT stopped being just "it," security had three aspects: Physical Safety, Possession Protection, and Intelligence. The way security was breached in all cases was physical; people came in and did harm, stole, or deployed "spies." They didn't need viruses or hacks, they just pitted their intellig
Re:fud (Score:4, Informative)
What did you expect from a known SCO shill [google.com]?
good lord (Score:5, Informative)
"an insightful Rob Enderle"??? DOES NOT COMPUTE! (Score:5, Informative)
Remember, Enderle is the guy who's predicted the demise of the Macintosh more than anyone else. [macobserver.com] If there's a topic involving the Mac, Windows, or Linux, there's no question he'll be on the wrong side of it. It's amazing to see a pundit come in at a full 1750 MiliDvorak's on the Idiot Tech Pundit Scale.
But don't take my word for, as Google confirms the objective truth:
Rob Enderle insightful: 9,270 hits, Rob Enderle idiot: 32.200 hits [googlefight.com]
Anytime I read the phrase "Rob Enderle says," I know I can stop reading right there.
Please don't give that idiot any traffic (Score:4, Informative)
Enderle doesn't deserve the attention he gets. He's a failed consultant who took SCO's side and is bitter about his self-inflicted hardship at IBM.
Anyone who listens to his IT advice deserves what they get.
Re:Some of this is just wacky (Score:5, Informative)
This is just misleading. Surely Enderle knows the truth, which is that the major vendors do provide indemnification, just like Microsoft? Red Hat do [redhat.com], as do Novell [novell.com]; heck, even Oracle [PDF warning] [oracle.com].
"Don't you think it should be a hot topic right now, so where is the chatter?" writes Enderle. Yes, this was a hot topic - many months ago. As a result of that chatter, the major vendors started to provide or emphasized that they already provide indemnification. Is Enderle really qualified to write about Linux if he doesn't know that? (I am giving him the benefit of the doubt, that he isn't intentionally misleading readers)
For your mom (Score:3, Informative)
Not sure what's so difficult.
Now, post me a comparison of ALL current linux distros in a nice chart like this.
Re:Rob Enderle boycott by NYTimes (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Site is slow - here's the text (Score:5, Informative)
Posted by Rob Enderle on Monday 26 February 2007 at 7:44 pm
One: Is Linux a Myth?
Once again, proof that there's nothing so irritating as a dumbass who thinks he's smart.
Why is /. giving Pretenderle Ink? (Score:4, Informative)
http://ipw.scofacts.org/ipw-2004-11-4-193122-475.
He thrives on attention and absolutely delights in "proving" Linux users are raving fanatics, though that speech shows just who the raving fanatic is. Please don't give this guy any more web stats or attention.
Re:Linux servers can't be slashdotted? (Score:3, Informative)
Case in point: during Linux Lunacy 2002, I ftp'd up a recording of a round-table talk session (ab't the --then upcoming-- 2.6 kernel, w/ Linus Torvalds). The file was a ~60MB .ogg file (sorry - didn't have the presence-of-mind to compress the audio) to an anonymous server running at the school I taught at. It was an eMachines cast off with a P3 500 and 1GB of RAM, set up as a basic ftp/http file-shovelling machine. It ran RH 7.2, and was latched into a 100mb network, which was in turn hooked up to a nice sized slice of an OC-12 trunk that we were hosting for the Utah state gov't ISP (UEN). According to the IT department, the single-Cat5-linked static IP addy it bore reportedly chugged along at a sustained data transfer rate of something like a GB/hr for nearly two - 1/2 days straight. When I got back, it was running just fine. The only real thing I did to it during setup was to max out the mem cache and the # of processes it could spawn.
That incident alone made me a firm believer in Linux' abilities.
Now I won't discount that a heavily graphics-intensive website with tons of custom code (javascript, PHP, whatever) wouldn't have taken it down, or that if I had done a piss-poor job of setting it up... but if you set it up right and reasonably match the hardware to expected internal loads, I don't see why a Linux server would blow up under enormous loads... at least larger loads than IIS can bear on the same hardware.
Re:blog == article? (Score:2, Informative)
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http:
"""
Windows Server 2003 Microsoft-IIS/6.0
"""
So that's a "Server" OS, is it? Yeah right.
Re:I agree with two of these... (Score:3, Informative)
Ubuntu, like almost all distros, has a policy of no public running services by default.
I can't speak for other distros, but I'm pretty almost all of them they have similar policies.
Re:wacky, stupid, hypocritical .... (Score:3, Informative)
ntoskrnl.exe is a kernel, which is used as part of the Windows operating system. Darwin is a kernel, which is used as part of the MacOSX operating system, and can be used elsewhere as well.
The difference in the operating systems that linux is used in, is that there are many different variants available, from the ones used in picture frames to the ones in supercomputers and everything in between.
OK, when you get past stupid you find wrong. (Score:3, Informative)
The argument that "Linux is the kernel" is very weak in my opinion because how useful is JUST a kernel? ... It is a clever sleight of hand that advocates use when convenient. ... See what I mean? You can't make the argument that "Linux is more secure than Windows"
I see your strawman and call it BS again. What advocate are you talking about? Most are not confused by the issue like M$ would want them to be. Enderle does not make sense because he's confused, debating the specifics of his confusion is a waste of time.
Outside of the present idiotic article few people say things like, "Linux is more or less this than Windoze." When you want to look at security studies, you do what Honeynet did and monitor a big bunch of computers set up on a network. In that case you notice that various versions of Windoze has a half life of four minutes out of the box and Red Hat takes about a month to get nailed. Specific set ups, specific results and personal experience usually matches. From that and code auditing studies and many other specific metrics, you could then argue that free software will always be of higher quality than non free software. By describing a development and distribution model, you can argue that free software inherently protects the user's privacy and rights. Someone like Enderle is so confused they can't get past semantics to see the underlying truth in the world.
Sure, you complain (Score:5, Informative)
No matter how much you want to piss and moan about one thing or another not working correctly in Linux, that fact remains. This is why the MS-OSS double standard at Slashdot really doesn't bother me all that much.
Re:Hush, you... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Actually, the article may be crap... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:wacky, stupid, hypocritical .... (Score:3, Informative)
Sure you can. You compare the system call APIs.
Re:Q.E.D. (Score:3, Informative)
I have never seen anyone argue that Linux or Windows or OS X was perfect or that they did not all have pros and cons. The thing is, the article in question did not bring up really any valid points about the cons of Linux, but instead resorted to attacks on random things, many of which are the same in both Windows and Linux. I didn't see much, if anything, in the way of intelligent, informed criticism or ways Linux could improve. I have a hard time believing the article's author does not know better than at least some of the inflammatory nonsense he spouted. That is why people aren't discussing any criticism he had. They were all bunk.
Re:Some of this is just wacky (Score:3, Informative)
Only because Bill saw everybody abandoning VS for the free stuff?
Just like Bill is offering Office 2007 to Australian students for $75 - when the academic program in the US never offered Office - the Microsoft cash cow - at all? Only the OS's - to get students hooked on Windows early - because otherwise all students would be using Linux?
"Fair" has nothing to do with it.