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."
blog == article? (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that I can't read the article (must be running on a windows server hehehehe) I'll just chime in that most of the time when someone is talking smack about OSS (not just Linux) it irks me because it's ignorant shite that gets repeated enough until it's true. Like "Linux is hard to install" or "GCC doesn't optimize well" or "Word is more professional" or
Mostly I'd be happy if people who don't embrace OSS [even enough to learn about it] would just shut their gobs so others could make up their minds for themselves.
Tom
Rob Enderle boycott by NYTimes (Score:5, Interesting)
The NY Times has a policy of not using his quotes in stories.
Maybe someone should take away the admin privileges of the "editor" who put up this article
Re:Irony (Score:5, Interesting)
My anecdote (Score:5, Interesting)
So for me, Linux is very "pro-developer".
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:blog == article? (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with two of these... (Score:2, Interesting)
In the old days, when you had to manually compile and launch every service you wanted under Linux, this was partially true. However, people forget the first worms were based on sendmail and other *nix services full of security problems.
These days, with GUI-installed Linux distributions, Linux suffers from the same problem Windows used to be derided for: services are on by default.
I've been developing for about twenty years and Windows is still the most developer-friendly platform to develop for. The main reason for this doesn't have to do with availability of source code or documentation, but rather the ease with a single version of a product with a single installer can quickly get prospects up and running with the software. A lot of this advantage is eroding with web-based applications (that generally require no installation), but if you're writing "server" or "desktop" applications, it's generally less work to target "Windows" than "Linux" (or even Java).
Re:Some of this is just wacky (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. When Linux started to become mainstream, I took some time to step back and evaluate why I liked it so much, to make sure that I wasn't just jumping on a bandwagon. The truth is, I prefer Linux because I preferred Solaris when I was in college. Why did I like Solaris so much, though? It wasn't my first OS - the Commodore 64 "OS" was my first (and it was very gentle with me). I did DOS for years after that before a kindly soul who lived in the university computer lab opened my eyes to that tiny room of Sun terminals hidden behind the huge lab of PCs. Solaris - that is, Unix - just "clicked" with me. Everything was designed to work with everything else in a holistic, hard to characterize way. No longer was I working around deficiencies in the design of the system - the system was working for me. Going back to DOS (and later Windows) was just painful. When I graduated and discovered that the only jobs available to a non-top-ten university CS graduate were programming DOS or Windows, I wept. When I discovered that if I wanted a computer at home, I could choose between DOS or Mac, I gnashed my teeth in frustration. (I graduated college just about the same time Linus started coding kernel 1.0). When I first started hearing of Linux (Debian was my first distribution... and it was not gentle) - by all that is holy and good, it works like Solaris did! I have a C compiler! (The same C compiler I used in college, in fact) It's right there! It's bundled with the distribution! And look - there's vi! Ah - I was home again, at long last.
Re:Some of this is just wacky (Score:3, Interesting)
(I also am a Solaris aficionado, to the point where I'd consider taking a pay cut to work in a Solaris environment over Windows. Thankfully, this doesn't seem to be necessary, if anything the opposite)
great idea! (Score:3, Interesting)
though selling ads for you HR internal website would be a creative way to get more income for your department
Maybe they could sell ad space in the office too. Desks, cubicle walls, bathroom stalls. Businesses owners are sitting on top of a huge captive audience. Ka-ching.
Summary (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Is Linux a Myth?
There is no "Linux", talk about Red Hat or SuSE or whatever, not Linux in general.
2. Is Linux Secure?
Despite what I just said, talking about general Linux is convenient, so I'll now do it myself. Then go into a rant about "spies" with an off-topic swipe at PJ of Groklaw, while not saying anything at all about security in the OS sense.
3. Do Communes Work?
Community efforts never work. Just look at the debate over the GPL3, which by the way is "anti-business" and a threat to intellectual property everywhere.
4. Is Linux Pro-Developer, or Pro-You?
I'm not smart enough to understand open source business models, so I'll imply you can't make money giving away software, then throw out some FUD that Linux equals outsourcing. But I'll close the section by acknowledging that Google is making money using Linux, to pretend to lend some balance to my analysis.
5. Is Linux "Open"?
If you say Linux isn't ready for the desktop, you will be fired, receive death threats, and be sexually harassed.
Wow, what a brilliant article. We should stick this guy in a room with Katz and Dvorak and see who can come up with the most idiotic BS.
Hush, you... (Score:5, Interesting)
Never once has Rob offered any good insight- only name flinging and transparent bullshit. It's so
bad that his pet name in some circles is Pretenderle. His articles and papers aren't really very
good and don't have very many of these things called "facts" behind them.
Re:Just Try (Score:3, Interesting)
If we were to make the comparison exact, then the Linux UI sucks for the end user (wait! dont mod me down yet!), because an end user would not know what to do with skb_queue_empty , kfree_skb, skb_shared, skb_unshare or any of the other functions provided by the Linux interface. Do you see where I am going?
Linux is not something you can compare with other OSes, it is not something for which you can say "installation sucks" (surprise, you have *never* made a barebones Linux installation... excepting LSF fans). What people (linux fans and freaks) should discuss are the specific distributions! That will end a lot of problems...
When you say "Linux is difficult to install", I can say Of course not, in Knoppix I just turn on the computer, insert the CD and it is running! of course you might be referring to Gentoo.
Then someone else says "Linux does not support my XXYY hardware" and someone else will say "Bullshit, I use Linspire and it supports everything out of the box".
That is one of the main problems. When I talk about Linux based operating systems I talk about Ubuntu, Mandrive or Novel. When I tell my father to try a different OS I tell him to try Ubuntu OS. And if he even asks I tell him that it has its background on UNIX.
That is what is good with FreeBSD for example. When you talk about FreeBSD you are talking about one specific bundle.
Saying "Linux does not support my BCM8100 out of the box" is like saying "Windows does not support my BCM8100" out of the box referring to Windows 3.1!
Re:Irony (Score:2, Interesting)
Since Linux is AFAIK the only kernel in town, it makes sense to keep calling it Linux. I personally will continue to do so. But I also support having a choice between kernels and Stallman's right to emphasize the distinction between the kernel and the rest of the system.
Re:Irony (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Irony (Score:1, Interesting)
It seems like GPL3 is going to divide the community in half: GPL2 software that can share code and link against each other, and GPL3 software. It's sort of a problem with the restrictiveness of the GPL in general, but it's not an issue at the moment due to the wide popularity of the GPL.
I'm not saying that GPL3 is necessarily a bad thing, but I don't see how it can close the loopholes it wants to while still retaining GPL2 compatibility. This issue is definitely a Bad Thing (tm) and a solution needs to be hammered out before GPL3 is released.
Re:Just Try (Score:3, Interesting)
> What? the fact that people discuss things like UI, ease of use, installation,
> etc of Linux, and they compare it to any other operating system.
>
>If we were to make the comparison exact, then the Linux UI sucks for the end user
>(wait! dont mod me down yet!), because an end user would not know what to do with
>skb_queue_empty , kfree_skb, skb_shared, skb_unshare or any of the other functions
>provided by the Linux interface. Do you see where I am going?
You will have to enlighten me. I've only been using Linux for a mere 12 years
and I've never seen those "functions".
Although you do expose a good point that for certain work no amount of GUI
shiny happiness will help because some things are inherently technical. The
example of grannies camera is a good one. You won't be able to fully exploit
that camera without understanding something (at least a little bit) about
photos.
If you are a total dolt about the subject even Windows won't help. I've
seen what happens when that sort of user tries to manage their photos
with Windows.
Re:My anecdote (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, you sound as bad as those stereotypical Linux zealots. "Installing foobar is easy, you just gzip -x foobar.tar.gz
Did you read the part of my post where it said "10s of seconds"? That included the searching for it in Synaptic and downloading it part. No compiling necessary. And that was just one anecdote. Fact is, in Linux I don't have to go crawling around the web for free and good compilers, IDE's and other developmental tools.
Re:GPL matters more than Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
If it wasn't for Minix, then the Linux Kernel would not have been possible. What if Minix had chosen to use BSD's tools instead?
I say to you
GPL contributed to a sort of common ground between companies
No, it was BSD's legal troubles that gave Linux the edge. If Linus had chosen a different open licence then Linux still would have been a success. Most people just wanted a working, free (primarily free as in beer) *nix on x86 that didn't have any legal questions hanging over it's head. Maybe a few GNU zealots wouldn't have joined in, but then I seem to recall a lot of GNU zealots at the time saying "wait for the HURD", even with Linux's GPL licence. I really doubt the licence choice had that much to do with Linux's success.
I'm not certain how much the "Communist Manifesto" style crap (like your "dreaming of a better world" bit) hurts Linux and the rest of the FOSS community, but I really, really doubt it helps.
Self prophesying (Score:5, Interesting)
He is right the comparisons are often deeply flawed because they do not compare Ubuntu to Windows or Red Hat to OSX they compare Linux or sometimes even just *nix to the competition. You might as well compare the traits of one person to the best selection of traits from a thousand other people. That one person is going to feel pretty awful after that.
This isnt just a bash on Linux because he is also right that there are distributions that can stand up to some real comparisons, its just more often than not they never get the chance.
Second section. Starts off well his previous point stands and its all too true that if someone doesnt know what they are doing you will always be running things insecurely regardless of which O/S your using. He does go a little astray here but there is still an important point, in an open community where people are expected to get help from the army of other users (This is often touted as a benefit of using Linux, and usually thats very true.) maintaining decent security is going to become a mine field. Its a little paranoid, its probably not a common occurence but there is a risk. Though I think the whole thing can be summed up in saying that net security is only as good as those securing it.
Third section. Again pretty much spot on, the community behind Linux has produced some awesome stuff but it is impossible to ignore the infighting that is going on nearly constantly. The GPL3 being an excellent example of this. He quite clearly isnt saying that the community is wrong and it should be disbanded his last statements want the users of Linux to actually get more involved. Id expect people to be supporting this much. There are some distinctly anti community events going on and that is what this section is pointing too.
Fourth section. The money Linux makes is undoubtedly fairly small. Ive seen a lot of people argue about how open source can make money, thats probably true but its rare. Very rare. Red Hat is one of the largest open source companies ever yet you scale it up, or scale MS down and youll see a huge difference in profits. There is simply no way you can take such a slash in profits without that having a knock on effect to the employees.
Im no financial expert and I dont have enough figures but a lot of even this section appears to make sense.
Fifth section, and here is the prophesy. I know this guy has a sketchy past with these articles, I know that there are flaws even here, but by in large he makes some really good points. You would not know this from the endless insults and put downs streaming out of this thread. Ive no doubt that everything he has said about those who are even more extreme is true as well. Linux has become like some kind of religion to some people and it virges on being genuinly frightening at times.
Hes proven it right here. There must be about a half dozen comments on this thread that have actually attempted to discuss his points, or citisize them properly. Most are more content to just slag him off, or quote obscure parts and strawman him. No one, no matter what there opinion, deserves some of the harrasment these people have to endure.
Ill probably have annoyed some people just posting this, and in case they have been annoyed then try take a moment and remember. Its just an operating system, this is just an opinion, relax.
Ah, the old "commune" myth rears it's ugly head (Score:2, Interesting)
Worthy of discussion. (Score:3, Interesting)
If Linux is to be taken seriously and adopted within large corporations, it does need to address those five points specifically. You can't convince upper management of the merits of your argument by using your Crazy Fist Number Eleven Slashdot Flame technique, so address those concerns rationally and in terms of business concerns, or you'll lose.
Widespread adoption among consumers should be ruled out categoricallly, until you can download a distro in one shot, and have it find your wireless adapter, Bluetooth adapter, and all your laptop goodies, without once have to su-su-sudo a single command line. For any laptop coming out of Dell or Toshiba, sold at Circuit City or Best Buy, and so forth. And there ain't a single distro that can do it today.
-BA
Re:Hush, you... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why link this idiot on Slashdot? (Score:3, Interesting)
This first post was rated "0:Insightful"!
Fucking morons.
Rob Enderle is the biggest fucking joke in so-called "IT journalism", not to mention his piss-ant "research organization."
He's a paid Microsoft shill whose only job is to attack Linux at every opportunity.
The dildo-heads here at
Obviously this crap was posted here just to start a flame-war because it's a slow Friday.
And of course it worked because the Microsoft shills had one article to congregate at.
Pathetic losers. These jerks are on a par with the 30% of morons in this country STILL supporting George Bush and the neocons, no matter how many people die as a result.
Every day I go to client sites running Windows. Every day I have to deal with this POS refusing to shut down, refusing to kill errant processes, refusing to connect across a network, hosing itself for no fucking reason whatsoever, being invaded by every piece of crapware in existence, and costing my clients the fucking earth on top of it all.
Anybody using or advocating the use of Windows is at the very least ignorant, and at worst a moron.
And anybody who thinks anything Rob Enderle has to say on any subject whatsoever is of significance is an UTTER moron.
Re:Some of this is just wacky (Score:4, Interesting)
I found myself resurrecting a 15-year-old project simulating a double-pendulum and exploring chaotic motion. I did this project as a student, and wanted to restore aspects of this now that I'm a professor. But most of my original code was lost (I had some source code and a binary that worked in DOS) and I didn't have much free time to rewrite it from scratch. But with the virtue of open-source libraries like Glut and the GSL, I was able to make the simulation live again! And beyond that, by using public documentation on a FITS image standard and some astronomical image analysis software (SAOImage DS9), I was able to go even beyond the original project with a minimum of programming fuss and create some beautiful fractal images that delineate between chaotic and periodic motion of the double-pendulum system. It's a great teaching tool now.
This was probably the 100th time open source tools and libraries have benefited my work in ways that could not be replaced by anything else. And that's not even counting high-level languages and their open-source interpreters like Tcl, Perl, Python, Ruby, etc.
If you overlook the synergies in open source software, you miss the point of it completely.
Re:ARTICLE TEXT (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with many of the counterpoints presented, but they do get somewhat off topic. Granted, the article itself, apart from some self-congratulatory meta-statements, is not about "5 things you can't talk about in Linux" so much as "I don't follow the Linux community at all."
1. Not being able to talk about Linux as a product. Linux is used as a generic for the trademarked Linux kernel used with some userland system be that busybox, BSD utilities, GNU applications, or whatever. At work we say 'Windows this' and 'Windows that.' Microsoft Windows includes every versions from a DOS menu system from the 1980s, Windows 95, 98, 98se, 2000, CE, XP, Vista and about a 1/2 dozen server systems based on NT. In fact, one of the first things a 'Linux newb' is told by any 'Linux guru' is that Linux, as used generically, is not a single application, kernel, distribution or package system. It is more a style and context for an operating system, similar in approach to UNIX. The only difference is that many companies and people package and sell and distribute Linux. Only Microsoft distributes Microsoft Windows.
2. Mostly harping on physical security and worms is a little off topic. Every security class, seminar and training session will harp on how security is not some Hollywood GUI with flashy pass codes. Making veiled attacks on Groklaw doesn't help. Tangential slander at community members for using handles (a long tradition in UNIX, not just Linux) is a hollow ad-homian attack. In corporate security, like F/OSS security, it takes a few dedicated and skilled individuals to do the hard work.
3. The community is supported by a few? No surprise. The community is full of the legends of super-coders. People talk about it a LOT. In a corporation you have a few people that do a lot of work and a few dead weights. When the dead weight gets to be too much, the company fails. The people working in F/OSS donated their time or (per the recent who paid for Linux articles) were paid just like everyone else. What about BSD which tried this before? Because the GPL encourages feedback enrichment and freeloaders have margial cost, F/OSS scales much better. It's like the difference between an FTP server and Bittorent.
4. One word: telecommuting. You ask 'is Linux pro-developer?' I ask you: what kind of development? I'm typing this on SuSE, the name in German originally meant 'System for Software Development.' I have over 30 complete development tool chains installed. Documentation for how to learn over a dozen programing languages. And, like OS 10, I have a UNIX CLI that has 30 years of refinement in supporting development. And thanks to the GPL, I can develop how I want and what I want. I may not have Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop, but you weren't talking about that kind of developer or were you?
The argument that I will get paid less because my tools are cheaper makes no sense. Any manager that would pay me more because my tools cost more is an idiot. Me and my skills have to rest on our own qualifications. If I do a better job in a perfect world, I should get paid more. In reality I compete with other people who only have to do the job 'adequately.'
Outsourcing isn't a fad, it's businesses realizing that high-priced Ferrari mechanic could wash their car as well as the kids down the street. Eventually the jobs go where they need to. The F/OSS community is already distributed widely and used to coordinating people from remote locations. Linux isn't made at one campus in Redmond, Washington but all over the world. I have an advantage if I know that I can do my job for 1/10 the price in India just as easily as in th