Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Linux Business Operating Systems Software Linux

If Linux Fails, Blame Jim Zemlin 286

Posted by timothy from the well-that-might-be-a-little-harsh dept.
darthcamaro writes "Everyone asks who runs Linux — to which the normal answer is either Linus Torvalds or 'the community.' But (as Master Yoda once said) — There is another. His name is Jim Zemlin and he is the Executive Director of The Linux Foundation." From the interview linked above: "'I want to be a thousand percent confident that this organization will be around for the next 30 to 50 years because Linux isn't going away,' Zemlin said. 'It's everywhere, and there is no doubt that Linux will be an important platform in the future and we're only at the beginning on the embedded and mobile side. It will be my screwup if we don't have an organization that can help coordinate and grow the development of the Linux platform.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

If Linux Fails, Blame Jim Zemlin More

If Linux Fails, Blame Jim Zemlin

Comments Filter:

  • Strategy? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Elektroschock ( 659467 ) on Saturday August 23, 2008 @02:34PM (#24720165)

    Do they have a strategy against software patents?

    Do they lobby for open standards regulations and vendor neutrality?

    Nuff said. ...ah and where is the Desktop LSB gone?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by fishbowl ( 7759 )

      >Do they have a strategy against software patents?

      This is a natural benefit of "twenty year sustainability."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Yvan256 ( 722131 )

      What's a desktop least significant bit?

  • Wow, he does think rather highly of himself... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Saturday August 23, 2008 @02:36PM (#24720191)
    It is a shame that his ego is getting in the way of his noting the community's contributions to the Linux environment.

  • I want to be a thousand percent confident that this organization will be around for the next 30 to 50 years because Linux isn't going away,'

    That is a bad idea. Think about how much has changed in 30 years with technology. Now accelerate that change with the internet, etc. It is a very bad idea for Linux to still be used in 30 to 50 years. Now, there will be some use for it, to see how much software has changed, etc. But for a system written in 1991 to be useful in 2038 it has to have the fundamental architecture changed.

    Will there be an open source OS that is good to be used in 2038? Yes. Is Linux it? Nope. Not unless you still think t

    • Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:5, Funny)

      by McGiraf ( 196030 ) on Saturday August 23, 2008 @02:45PM (#24720271)

      Well one would hope that Linux would have evolved in 30 years. Maybe not one line of code from now will still be in it, maybe be it will no be written in C anymore, maybe the kernel version is going to be 2.8 (more likely 2.6.5665454871125114-rc89) but it could well be still around.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Darkness404 ( 1287218 )
        Yes but there comes a time that we have to get rid of UNIX and come up with something better. Today isn't the time to do it, and perhaps 20 years down the road isn't time to do it either, but eventually we have to come up with something that addresses some of the flaws of UNIX.

        With Linux being open source, compatibility shouldn't be much of a problem to port applications to the new kernel.

        The problem is, when you rely on ideas made in the '80s and code written in the '90s it doesn't help you solve t

        • Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Skreems ( 598317 ) on Saturday August 23, 2008 @03:52PM (#24720885) Homepage
          Well, right now it's the '00s, and we're still using hardware architecture created in 1978 (8086 processor). Sure, we've added a couple registers and made the existing ones bigger, but it's fundamentally the same system it always was. Why does the HAVE to be a time when we get rid of UNIX? Reinventing the wheel doesn't get you nearly as far as building incrementally on what you've already got, which is the biggest strength of OSS.

          • Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Dragonslicer ( 991472 ) on Saturday August 23, 2008 @05:18PM (#24721649)

            Well, right now it's the '00s, and we're still using hardware architecture created in 1978 (8086 processor).

            You could probably go back farther than that. The basic concepts of Von Neumann's digital computer are what, almost 70 years old now?

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Gather round, car analogy coming in.

            S'pose you're an auto engineer driving along a very, very long highway with a rather nice car--that was made almost 40 years ago, and finally became usable more than 20 years ago. It works, but you've had to rebuild it. Several times. It's had myriad improvements, but there's kinks that just refuse to be ironed out--for example, it's rumored that the whole thing will explode in 2038, for whatever reason.

            You're deeply, deeply attached to this car, even though it can be hot

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Skreems ( 598317 )
              The Core has different stuff under the hood, but the interface to the OS is still remarkably similar to the original 8086, and what differences there are follow a logical progression from the original design. I'm not saying things shouldn't improve, but when you talk about reinventing UNIX, you're presumably claiming that the basic interfaces that tie it to the hardware or the application layer need to be reinvented as well, which is foolish.

        • Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Enderandrew ( 866215 ) <enderandrew@NOsPAM.gmail.com> on Saturday August 23, 2008 @04:03PM (#24720969) Homepage Journal

          Look how resistant people are to changing the file hierarchy in any *nix based system. People claim that once you know the *nix standard, you can administer it well enough, but that doesn't change there are several exceptions to it, and unnecessary redundancy. Not to mention it was designed around a precept that directory names should be three characters or less.

          If Linux isn't Unix, and has no desire to be certified as Unix, then why fight so hard for all the POSIX standards? At some point, shouldn't Linux say "how do we become the best OS we can be, without tethering ourselves to things that aren't helping us?"

          And I'm not suggesting abandoning standards wholesale for no reason, but the file system structure really needs improvement.

          • Additional filesystem views (Score:5, Interesting)

            by CustomDesigned ( 250089 ) <stuart@gathman.org> on Saturday August 23, 2008 @05:10PM (#24721575) Homepage Journal

            While the hierarchical filesystem has been great for programming, it doesn't work so well for end users. I've been coaching customers and my wife on organizing email for decades. Creating folders and filing messages in them is *not* what they want to do. Many are not even capable of it.

            What an end users wants to do is not "file" anything any "where". Let the email pile up in the INBOX, and click on columns to sort, or use a query to find emails. Is the imap server not handling that practice efficiently? "Bad imap server", *not* "bad user". (We switched from uw-imap to dovecot since the latter is efficient for multi-gigabyte inboxes.)

            In the same vein, users want their desktops to work like email. No folders. Just a desktop view with columns pulled from file content like in thunderbird, instant sorting and searching on any column, and a simple query screen to search by logical combinations of columns. The current filename, filetype, modified, size columns are insufficient. For open office documents, the document properties should be searchable.

            So maybe there is not a single set of columns that is useful for all kinds of documents. Maybe the hierarchy should be a class hierarchy. The base class has bare unix file properties (name, modified, size, permissions, etc). Email extends that to add subject, sender, to, etc. Office software extends it to add author, title, subject, lastprinted, revision, template, etc.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward

          1988 - There comes a time that we have to get rid of UNIX and come up with something better. Today isn't the time to do it, and perhaps 20 years down the road isn't time to do it either, but eventually we have to come up with something that addresses some of the flaws of UNIX.

          2008 - There comes a time that we have to get rid of UNIX and come up with something better. Today isn't the time to do it, and perhaps 20 years down the road isn't time to do it either, but eventually we have to come up with something that addresses some of the flaws of UNIX.

          2028 - There comes a time that we have to get rid of UNIX and come up with something better. Today isn't the time to do it, and perhaps 20 years down the road isn't time to do it either, but eventually we have to come up with something that addresses some of the flaws of UNIX.

          2048 - There comes a time that we have to get rid of UNIX and come up with something better. Today isn't the time to do it, and perhaps 20 years down the road isn't time to do it either, but eventually we have to come up with something that addresses some of the flaws of UNIX.

          ...

          2568 - There comes a time that we have to get rid of UNIX and come up with something better. Today isn't the time to do it, and perhaps 20 years down the road isn't time to do it either, but eventually we have to come up with something that addresses some of the flaws of UNIX.

          ...

          If not now, when?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Yvan256 ( 722131 )

            We're currently at a huge crossroad: multiple-core processors, GPUs, etc.

            The days of a single CPU at ever faster speeds is already dead. Right now seems to be an excellent time to plan ahead.

        • And what kind of deep flaws are you talking about that make it necessary to "get rid of UNIX" as a whole?

          Sorry but your whole post reads as if you're talking outta your ass.
          I don't know what kernel version you are running but large parts of *my* kernel were thought up and written long after the '90s...

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by __aaahtg7394 ( 307602 )

        Maybe not one line of code from now will still be in it

        But it will still be SCO's IP!

      • And I bet my wifi card will still not work...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      Why not? Windows is still around, after about 20 years. Of course, Windows 1.0 and Windows Vista share almost nothing in common.

      But Linux 1.0 and Linux 2.6.26 also share very little (none at all?) code.

      • Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:5, Funny)

        by dvh.tosomja ( 1235032 ) on Saturday August 23, 2008 @02:51PM (#24720319)

        Of course, Windows 1.0 and Windows Vista share almost nothing in common.

        It share new font install dialog

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Darkness404 ( 1287218 )
        But Windows still shares some of the same design flaws as previous Windows versions. Heck, even NT still shares some of the flaws in DOS. Linux, being a UNIX-like OS will share some of the same flaws as UNIX. Now, UNIX doesn't seem to have as many flaws as DOS-based systems did, but I imagine that by 2038 we will have found them and will need a totally new system. And yes, Linux 1.0 and Linux 2.6 share little to no code, but they share the same design, and there will come a time that UNIX is a bad design fo

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Cyberax ( 705495 )

          So? Linux systems share a lot of design flaws (like X-Windows). But they are slowly being corrected.

          IMHO, Linux adapts itself to new hardware reality fairly quickly. And there are not many revolutions in hardware, just gradual evolution.

          • So? Linux systems share a lot of design flaws (like X-Windows). But they are slowly being corrected.

            Yes, that is what I have been saying, that there will come a point (and I think it will be before 30 years from now) that UNIX just simply won't cut it. That the only way to fix UNIX is to rewrite it from scratch.

            • Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Apple Acolyte ( 517892 ) on Saturday August 23, 2008 @03:21PM (#24720557)
              How do you know for a fact that Unix (based OSs) won't be able to cut it in 30 years? It seems to me that you're advocating radical theoretical change down the line just for the sake of radical change. There's no proof that Unix will necessarily be outmoded by then. If civilization survives another 50 years, we'll probably still be using a lot of the same types of technology we use now.

            • That the only way to fix UNIX is to rewrite it from scratch.

              And what exactly would this revolutionary achievement be that suddenly obsoletes all the broad concepts of UNIX? Time travel?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by robo_mojo ( 997193 )

      Will there be an open source OS that is good to be used in 2038? Yes. Is Linux it? Nope. Not unless you still think that the MS-DOS system is still useful today, or that Windows 3.1 laptop.

      Linux 2.6 is not Linux 1.0.

      In 30 years there may still be Linux, but it will be Linux 5.2.

      (or maybe Linux 2.6.4159 if Linus never changes his versioning again...)

    • Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dvice_null ( 981029 ) on Saturday August 23, 2008 @02:52PM (#24720335)

      You are forgetting that Linux is an open source project, which is actively developed. It only supported 386 processors at first, but now the list is too long to be posted here:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel_portability_and_supported_architectures#List_of_supported_architectures [wikipedia.org]

      Old versions of Linux won't be usable after 30 years, but recent versions will be.

      • Yes, but by usable I mean more than just being able to run the most recent applications. I mean really relevant to that day's technology. If we get speech recognition down and that's what everyone uses 20 years from now, some of the UNIX filenames need to be renamed or the entire structure changed. And sure, Linux will be usable in the same way that Windows is usable: using a legacy system to deal with today's technology.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by hedwards ( 940851 )

      I disagree, I'd be surprised if there were as much change to computers in 30 years as there has been in the last 20 or so. And BSD and Linux have been around for most of that. Sure they've changed, but most of the changes left to make are based upon what's already been done or to the UI.

      BSD works at least as well now as it did when it was just patches to Unix, and that was decades ago. There've been quite a few significant changes since then, and the OS has kept up fine.

      Linux doesn't have quite the maturity

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Darkness404 ( 1287218 )

        Any OS which is coded in a forward looking fashion can keep up with changes over the years as long as changes and fixes are made when they become necessary. And there's somebody there to make the changes. Expecting to wait 10 years to fix architecture problems does not lead to good results.

        But Linux wasn't coded in a forward looking fashion. It was coded for a specific machine that Linus had. UNIX was coded in a forward looking fashion, but now it is past the machines that it was trying to get in the future. What we need is an OS that improves on UNIX and Linux. For example, Plan 9 tried to do that (http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/FAQ/index.html#INTRODUCTION) because some of the flaws of UNIX were too deep to fix with patches, etc.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      That is a bad idea. Think about how much has changed in 30 years with technology. Now accelerate that change with the internet, etc. It is a very bad idea for Linux to still be used in 30 to 50 years. Now, there will be some use for it, to see how much software has changed, etc. But for a system written in 1991 to be useful in 2038 it has to have the fundamental architecture changed.

      Think about how much that's not changed. Basic subsystems like input, output, networking, storage, processing units, memory and we'll need something to sit in the middle to communicate with them. Also many times it's not the kernel that's the issue, take for example USB devices (which will be around for many many years), the kernel always supports the raw read/write functions - it's the userspace driver that's missing. I think that will only become more common, the kernel doesn't "know" what it's talking to

    • You gotta bring it back to cars for every one to understand. And when you get down to it the model T had an engine, a steering wheel, gas, brake, and four wheels. Not much has changed in cars when you look at it like that. But there has been a lot of incremental changes that have vastly improved cars on a whole. What makes you think that OS development is any different?

  • The desktop years. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 23, 2008 @02:41PM (#24720233)

    Can we blame Jim Zemlin for every year that hasn't been the year of the linux desktop?

    $IsDesktopLinuxYear = false; //this never changes
    while(!$IsDesktopLinuxYear) {

      Slap("Jim Zemlin");
      Sleep(31536000); // omg epic design
    }

  • Linux is dead, long live Liinux (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Unix didn't die because Linux came along.

    Mainframe isn't dead -- far from it. It didn't die because Unix came along.

    Torvalds has about 50 years left on this earth. Something else will undoubtedly come along that will grab mind and market share. Perhaps it'll come during his lifetime. Whether it does or not it probably won't spell the death of Linux.

    It's too early to pick who to blame if Linux fails.

  • It has to be said (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    That thing you usually call Linux is actually GNU/Linux. Hell, GNU alone would be a much better name than Linux alone.

    So the real "leader" is Richard Stallman, not that guy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Fri13 ( 963421 )

      Why GNU/Linux? What operating services does GNU tools offer for applications what Linux doesn't?

      Why not call it like Linux/Gnu/Mozilla/OpenOffice/KDE/? Mayby the *real* "leaders" are Novell's CEO for Opensuse operating system or Mark Shuttleworth because he invented the Ubuntu operating system? Ain't those two totally different operating systems what users say? Isn't the operating system the whole complete software package what you get when you install one from CD/DVD? Or is it just a software what is betwe

    • No, it doesn't have to be said.

  • But will it be on the desktop? (Score:4, Informative)

    by FooBarWidget ( 556006 ) on Saturday August 23, 2008 @02:48PM (#24720299)

    But will it become an important player on the desktop? I'm using Linux on my laptop every day, and I think it's great. But sadly, desktop Linux has a very small market share these days. In fact desktop Linux is something that people make fun of. Every time something positive about Linux adoption is posted, people respond with "Last year desktop Linux failed, but THIS year is the year of Linux on the desktop... really!!111"

    People on Slashdot, OSNews and many other places are always criticizing Linux for not being desktop friendly. But sadly, it seems that the Linux community isn't exactly helping. There are developers who are clearly interested in making Linux a viable desktop platform, for both users and developers. For example, the Autopackage project has tried for quite some time now to convince distributions to support /usr/local. Yes you read that right: to support /usr/local, a very basic prefix that everybody expects to work, but practice doesn't! The problems with /usr/local includes:
    - Menu item files installed to /usr/local are not recognized by GNOME and KDE by default. A lot of distributions refuse to add /usr/local to the default search path for menu items.
    - File associations: ditto.
    - A bunch of other problems that I don't remember from the top of my head, most of them related to not being included in the default search path.

    Working menu items and file associations are among the basic things required for desktop adoption, are they not? Not having them in the default search path prevents third party software installation to work properly. I'm sure nobody wants to install third party applications to /usr just to make menu items work, right?

    Autopackage has been trying to convince distributions to do just pme simple thing - adding /usr/local to the default search path. Distributors and a lot of people from the Linux community either don't know, don't care, or are actively opposing this effort [tinyurl.com].

    What are we, developers who care about Linux on the desktop, to do?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by FooBarWidget ( 556006 )

      Hm something went wrong with TinyURL. Here's the correct URL: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.autopackage.devel/6831 [gmane.org]

    • I'm sure nobody wants to install third party applications to /usr just to make menu items work, right?

      Why are these pathes relevant?

      People want to *run* Desktop applications and don't care how the OS stores them.

      • Are you asking why third party applications shouldn't be installed to /usr?

        Well, write an installer that installs to /usr. Announce it on various Linux forums. People will burn you alive for installing to /usr. They will claim that your installer might overwrite system files and cripple the system, and will try to actively oppose you by telling others not to use your installer.

        If that wasn't your question, then I didn't understand it, and I ask you to explain your question in more detail if that's the case.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nawcom ( 941663 )

      ln -s /usr /usr/local
      waahhhhhhHHHHHHH

    • But will it become an important player on the desktop?

      According to TFS, 2038 will be the year of Linux on the Desktop.

      • Sigh, 7 replies later and I'm still getting this kind of one-liner replies. Maybe you people don't care about Linux on the desktop after all?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Fri13 ( 963421 )

          I like to use Linux on my destkop. And I care about it. But, I dont like that bunch of fanatic Windows users moves from Windows to Ubuntu and starts calling it very special and different OS than Linux. Then they send ideas to Canonical's brainstorm list where they want almost everything what Windows or Mac osx has. Then when someone goes to explain why the idea is not good or there are better way to handle them on Linux world, they starts then bitching about how Ubuntu is so great and it really needs X to r

        • Re:But will it be on the desktop? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by JohnBailey ( 1092697 ) on Saturday August 23, 2008 @10:44PM (#24723577)

          Sigh, 7 replies later and I'm still getting this kind of one-liner replies. Maybe you people don't care about Linux on the desktop after all?

          Nope.. Too busy using it and enjoying myself. And next week I'm going to be installing a Linux distro on an old PC for a friend who wants to connect it up to his TV. So add another Linux user to the tally :-)

          You are getting the one liners because you are taking it far too seriously, and people are making fun of you. I have no idea how long you have been a Linux user, but to be honest, you give the impression of someone who has just discovered it, and now sees it as your vocation in life to convert the world.

          The year of Linux thing is a running joke. Nobody with any sense takes it seriously. Non Linux users make the year of Linux joke, non OSX users wind OSX users up by suggesting that Apple might not be perfect, and watch the rationalisations. And everyone laughs at Vista. This is the way of things.. forums are hotbeds of petty arguments and ill informed arguments. If a requirement for posting on /. was to have a valid point, then there wouldn't be very many posts.

          Linux is not.....

          A universal OS that every person on the planet should use..At gunpoint if required.

          We want people to come and use Linux, so we talk about it. But only if it is right for them. If it isn't they have alternatives to use. And I hope they have a good time using their computers. researching a motherboard for Linux compatibility is not everyone's idea of a fun time.

          The OS that is going to kill Microsoft...

          They are far more likely to do that themselves. They lost me and many others at WGA, and quite a few others with Vista. And no doubt, future actions will make even more Linux users.

          A cure for baldness..

          Although some of the problems that I have had certainly contributed to my lack of follicle count from time to time.

          Relax, enjoy Linux. Do cool stuff, and brag about it. Write a howto if you can, so others can do the same cool stuff. And if a distro doesn't do what you want, try another. If you enjoy Linux, by all means help someone to get up and running with it, but don't try to convert someone to Linux because it is Linux. Do it because it suits the individual person's use of their computer better. It's an operating system, not a religion.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by horza ( 87255 )

      The post started badly as many Linux users don't care if it becomes an important player or not, or what the market share is. It works for *us* and that's what we care about. However you did end up on an important point. Things like menus, desktop settings, bookmarks, etc really should be centralised so I can switch between Gnome, xfce, KDE etc and not have to completely reconfigure each desktop every time. FooBarWidget has a very good point.

      Phillip.

      • "The post started badly as many Linux users don't care if it becomes an important player or not, or what the market share is. It works for *us* and that's what we care about."

        The problem is, not being an important player has negative consequences. For example, a telephone company in my country sells wireless Internet subscriptions for laptops. I want to use this. But they only provide drivers for OS X and Windows, and a Google search revealed no (not *any*) drivers for Linux. I like Linux. I want to use Lin

    • Linux as a desktop isn't going to be a mass item like Windows is because of one thing... lack of games, and commercial game development. Let's face it, that's what drives the decision between Windows and Linux for those that know.

      That, and users don't care about root and userland. They don't want to be hassled with using the command line.

    • What is wrong with GNU/Linux on the desktop? You said yourself you use it daily. So do I, and I have been doing so for 5 years. It's perfectly fine, user-friendly (GNOME at least), stable and offers a plethora of applications. A lot of people I know, even not really tech-savvy users (like my mom), use Ubuntu these days. Only gamers use Windows in dualboot to get access to their latest games, and corporate workers whose company (big companies, mostly) is a Microsoft site (with Exchange, Monitoring tools, etc

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Your post just left me at "Huh? My menu items and file associations from third party sources work fine, WTF are you talking about??" I tried to quickly understand what /usr/local is and why I should care, and from what I understand (based on the two first hits on google) is that it's a special area for the system administrator which will explicitly NOT be updated by system updates. Now, the primary examples I found was software you compiled yourself which would shadow a distro-installed binary. The thing is

      • You are correct. But the thing is this. If an independent software vendor is to create a desktop software package for Linux, then he has the following choices when it comes to distribution:
        1. Create a package for Debian. Create another one for Ubuntu if the Debian one doesn't work on Ubuntu. Create another package for RedHat-based distributions. Create another one for SuSE. Create another one for Mandriva. Create another one for Slackware. Create another one for Gentoo. Etcetera.
        -OR-
        2. Create an installer w

    • But will it become an important player on the desktop?

      Sure it will. It's doing great in the netbook area, and Asus has shown with the EeePC that you can ship a Linux-based system that's easy to use, stable and complete. Acer, MSI, HP and a few others are also shipping Linux netbooks now.

  • What? (Score:5, Informative)

    by bmo ( 77928 ) on Saturday August 23, 2008 @02:48PM (#24720303)

    Wait, isn't the summary contradicting itself?

    Jim isn't saying that if he fails, Linux will fail. He's saying that "The Linux Foundation" will fail. Linux will go on with or without him, and that's what he's saying in the quote.

    And he's right. Many organizations fail because of bad leadership. The fish rots from the head down.

    I thought that editors were supposed to be steeped in English grammar and should be able to diagram a sentence, thus finding the subject, verb, and object, blindfolded, underwater, with sharks with frikkin laser beams swimming all around.

    Gott im himmel.

    --
    BMO

    • You're right. Should be tagged badtitle.

    • I thought that editors were supposed to be steeped in English grammar and should be able to diagram a sentence, thus ...

      They are. In fact, most writers are able to do the same. The consensus, however, appears to be "This is Slashdot and we like it like it that." meaning that editing is non-existent, being able to write (or type, for that matter) is irrelevant, and that anything else wouldn't be in the spirit of things.

      It's a written medium. Go figure.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pcgabe ( 712924 )

      Billy: The fish rots from the head, as they say. So my thinking is, why not cut off the head?
      Penny: Of the human race?
      Billy: It's not a perfect metaphor.

      You know, I had never actually heard this phrase before.

  • Master Yoda... (Score:3, Funny)

    by dubz ( 1006283 ) <yousuf87@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Saturday August 23, 2008 @03:00PM (#24720417)

    But (as Master Yoda once said) â" There is another. His name is Jim Zemlin and he is the Executive Director of The Linux Foundation."

    Another there is. Jim Zemlin his name is ...

  • There was no market for it.

    • There was no market for it.

      Not sure what market you're referring to, but if it's the retail one, I hear that advertising campaigns featuring retired comedians are considered an ideal solution to such problems.

      On a more serious note, I've often wondered why it is that Linux doesn't get advertised given the existence of groups like the Linux Foundation. I'm not suggesting a Super Bowl spot, but if the recent success of Firefox is any example, some form of media coverage could be beneficial. The decision mak

  • Yes but... (Score:3, Funny)

    by nganju ( 821034 ) on Saturday August 23, 2008 @03:22PM (#24720565)
    does he run linux?

    Sorry, had to be said.

  • Linux won't fail, so it's pointless to consider the consequences if you want to think logically...

  • I don't want any credit but feel free to blame me. (Score:5, Informative)

    by jzemlin ( 250672 ) on Saturday August 23, 2008 @06:43PM (#24722261)

    To be clear. I am only responsible for the "Linux Foundation." We all get that credit for Linux success rests with thousands and thousands of people not any single person or organization.

    If the "Linux Foundation" is not helpful then you can blame me for that.

    In addition, feel free to blame me for high gas prices, most of the pot holes in San Francisco, and for the crappy wifi at every single Linux Conference.

    Jim Zemlin

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by GaryOlson ( 737642 )
      From a perusal of the Linux Foundation website, I will address an aspect I believe you have not emphasized adequately: Linux in Education. University faculty do not have time to develop coursework or supplemental materials for a single software platform -- be it Linux, Oracle, Visual C#, etc. Much of the software used in education has been specifically created with the educational market in mind. Googling for relevant Linux material is not the answer either.

      If you are serious about being helpful, the Linux

    • How about this - I won't blame you, but I WILL blame some of the egotistical b* who have happily caused harm to Linux and the free software movement in order to plunder corporations and organizations and destroy genuine attempts at real innovation for the sake of raking in the cash and fluffing up their egos. You've probably encountered some, I certainly have. I won't name names because I happen to know they can afford considerably better lawyers, and some accusations are - by nature - rather hard to prove. But if Linux fails, it is because it has been sabotaged from within, it is because innovators and inventors are being given a raw deal far too often.

      (Yes, I'm extremely angry. Not at just one person, but many who feel that they are far more important than the free software that they ride the coat-tails of. Over the past 12 years, I've seen enough to convince me that Linux' success is by the fortune of competent, ethical developers outnumbering the highway robbers. The Linux Foundation and its members' biggest contribution will be on how well they ensure it stays that way.)

Slashdot Top Deals

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." - Bert Lantz

Close