Bob Young Blasts Recent Anti-Open Source Article 151
buzzcutbuddha writes "Bob Young from Red Hat issued his rebuttal to John Taschek's Anti-Open Source Article on ZDNet. Well written and articulate, and to the point ... He shoots, he scores!" Check out the original article blasting the open-source idea. Good rebuttal, Bob.
Why? (Score:2)
Good job, Bob.
Just because MS doesn't release source ... (Score:3)
Though I would strongly suggest against using Windows if that source code was ever released. The problems with MS are bad enough ... just imagine the exploits that would come if the source was released.
I think commercial vendors are afraid of being embarassed more-so than having their software copied illegally.
Rig a poll, win a prize! (Score:5)
A side effect is that it gives them a little more ad revenue, but that's not that big of a deal. Right? They're still losing money anyway, aren't they?
Bob's Article (Score:5)
Wrong focus ?? (Score:3)
How to make a sig
without having an idea
Open-Source (Score:5)
Companies need to realize that the dominant business model for the future will be geared towards the need and wants of the consumer. We see this already in small things such as increased availability of *designer* styles for home products. Even the most basic of items can be had in any style, shape, or color based on an individual's preference. The individual can make the choice of what they want.
In the same way the Internet and the Web does this for information. Almost anything you could possibly want to know is available and free.
Open-source does the same. It allows us to choose what functionality we want, how we want it, what it looks like, and so on. It lets us do what we want, which ultimately is where the appeal lies. As soon as mainstream media, and companies realize and begin to capitalize on it, the computing world will become a better place for all.
Ants in your pants. (Score:2)
Perhaps he just wrote the article as he knew how the community would respond. We've seen it before, flame Linux people a little and your site surely receives an abundance of hits in the week that follows.
Heh (Score:1)
--
why so much attention? (Score:2)
After reading the Slashdot comments, I dedided not to run the story on GeekPress [geekpress.com] because I didn't want to give such silliness any more readers.
Nevertheless, the rebuttal was good, a worthwhile article in its own right.
-- Diana Hsieh
***ZDNet doubling its slashdot effect!*** (Score:1)
money coming from your precious banner-ads. Quite
a money making formula, eh?
Argument/Rebuttal, Argument/Rebuttal (Score:5)
It seems to me that sometimes, it's probably just better to let the FUD bury itself, and not even give it the honor of being discussed. Now, there are some times when this is NOT the case, but other times, you have to just let the FUD go, because there's already tons of it out there, and there's going to be more.
remember the "Linux Myths" thingy that MS put up? I can't remember if it was mandrake or somebody else who wrote some multipage rebuttal to MS' "Linux Myths". Guess what? You're preaching to the choir. The only case in which a rebuttal like that would be effective is if it was posted next to the linux myths column on microsoft.com, and if you think that's going to happen, think again.
Well, Bob young's article on ZDNet is a little bit better, since it stands to be seen by people other than those who already know that the article was full of untruths to begin with, but at the same time, I don't understand the motivation to write rebuttals like this. Sure, the original column that he's talking about was bullshit, but everybody knew that.
I'm trying not to be cynical, but all I can come up with in terms of the motivations for writing these rebuttals would be to demonstrate to the community that you are "pure of heart", or just to promote the popularity of linux.
IMHO, linux doesn't need either.
Course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Whats a VC? (Score:1)
Call me Cynical... (Score:1)
First, an article gets linked to from Slashdot that is so controversial (to us), that it's bound to get everyone reading it, generating lots of hits on the ads.
Now, the same site posts what is sure to be an equally-popular rebuttal, and (naturally) gets it linked to from Slashdot.
That's an awful lot of free hits and ad revenue we've just earned them, all because of an insignificant journalist who doesn't seem to be living on the same planet as the rest of us...
Cheers,
Tim
Re:Whats a VC? (Score:1)
Re:Why? (Score:1)
I wouldn't feel very good right now if I owned Microsoft Stock [yahoo.com] that I bought at $110.
-
Young's right, of course, but....... (Score:2)
the paranoid part of my mind conjects that perhaps the author is deeply invested in MS or something, a subcionsciously-controlled FUD factory, but at the end of the day i suspect that it's nothing so interesting. Young's response, true as it was, is neccessary in larger quantity, and in more high-profile spaces, because most people just don't get it. they don't see the parallel between welding your hood shut and entrusting a software company to do the right thing, even if they won't let you or anyone else look inside.
for my part, i'm going down to the corner of broadway and vesey with a bullhorn. gonna stand in the sun and scream about open source to passers-by. aw, yeah.
Definately a good job. (Score:1)
It is good to see someone wrote a good answer to that joke of an article. The real question is, how many people will people outside the open source, programmer, and admin environments understand and believe what Mr. Young said?
software "mechanics" (Score:4)
This is a great analogy...
I can see it now, soon there will be thousands upon thousands of software "mechanic" shops, where software owners who do not know much about what they own can take their stuff to have bugs fixed.
I just hope that such establishments do not treat their clients in a similar manner of many auto shops, with the attitude "they don't know anything about this, so let's take them to the cleaners."
Another ZDNet Columnist Speaks Out Against Taschek (Score:2)
Matthew Rothenberg, also from ZDNet has a co lumn basically highlighting the same key points of the argument against Taschek's article except from posters to the article.
Here's a poll for ya: (Score:3)
Rob, kids, I'd like to propose that nothing presented on ZDNET or C|Net ever get posted to slashdot again. (C|Net for very different reasons from ZD, of course)
ZD is trolling us, and we're feeding them. As any longtime usenet dork will tell you -
Don't feed the troll!
--
blue
What about ZDnet? (Score:1)
Especially given the treatment they got from Slashdotters when John Taschek's article was linked here.
--
"You take a distribution! Rename! Stamp CD's! IPO!"
- CmdrTaco, Geeks in Space, Episode 2 from 6:18 to 6:23.
A question (Score:2)
This isn't meant as flamebait, but is it my imagination or are a lot of people here on /. more fanatical about pushing Linux than the actual people who write it and/or make money from it? The tone of Bob Young's article is extremely reasonable, and that in itself makes a good statement about the open source "community", but there are a lot of very extreme viewpoints pushed in this forum which do give rise to the opinion that all Linux users are zealots.
Personally I think that as Linux enters a new phase in which it becomes more widely known and used and is seen less as a hobbyist's OS it will require more people who are seen to be sensible and open-minded than those who already know the "truth". And on /. I see a lot of zealots doing this, which makes it harder for those posters trying to make a good point (and there are a lot) to be heard.
Re:***ZDNet doubling its slashdot effect!*** (Score:2)
The fact that you do not have a junkbuster properly configured is YOUR PROBLEM. So if you are giving ZD Net money it is once again YOUR PROBLEM.
I do not give them money. Most other slashdotters do not give it either ;-)
on zdnet???? (Score:2)
didn't we dismiss this as advertising hype for zdnet when the inflammatory article was first posted here? And now when Bob Young responds ON ZDNET, the story gets posted again??? Does Bob's article state anything we didn't already know?? Most of his points could have been lifted directly from this forum for God's sake (I wonder if Bob Young reads slashdot).
This might provide a reasonable counter argument for the original article, but it would only be worthwhile reading for non-geeks who might not know this already. Hardly worth a posting on Slashdot.
I'm sure Zdnet are lapping this up. Slashdot effect twice in as many days. I don't know what advertising on Zd costs but I'm sure they'll be making a killing off this. Don't do them the favour.
There goes my theory that timothy and emmett are the source of all the crap stories on here lately too.
hummer
Open Source versus or with? (Score:1)
If you'd care to throw money at me for ranting at the triple initial squad, I'd gladly do it. However, I don't have very many of those offers kicking about so:
Do you truly think it's OSS against closed source? I think it is in the server market, because that's where key developments happen, and happen fast. That's where patches need to be made on the fly. That's the key security and integrity issue coming up.
However, there are some programs that, while they may benefit from being open source, are just fine and dandy as closed source. I could care less if they were free or not. Example: Opera Software's Opera browser. I love that thing, and it's closed source (but being ported to several OSes, so they probably had decent coding techniques when they first started it
Open Source has it's places, but as a reason to pay some guy 60K US a year just to rant about it? I don't think so. Do you?
Re:Why? (Score:1)
Official response to official flamebait - blah! (Score:3)
Anyhow....
Its an issue cuz copyright is auth's life + 100yrs (Score:1)
oss impact on programmers (Score:2)
Will open-source turn programming into a blue collar job?
Re:Call me Cynical... (Score:2)
Jesus christ people, grow up. If you are so concerned about it, use the time you spend here bitching about it to go get some adblocking software. I'm sick of seeing 30% of the posts in any ZDNet story titled "WE JUST GAVE THEM #@*)&!#@)(*!@ BANNER VIEWS OH NO THE SKY IS FALLING."
*sigh*
Re:Heh (Score:1)
No revenue from me.
Re:Argument/Rebuttal, Argument/Rebuttal (Score:1)
This issue has been gone over so many times, why can't we just let the results speak for themselves?
"It's a dot-com" (Score:1)
Everyone knows that "It's a dot-org or a dot-net."
I rarely look for info about linux an a
He was just throwing around a buzz-word (dot-com) without researching his topic.
By the way, is "buzz-word" becoming a buzz-word?
--
Good! (Score:1)
But people who don't know anything about Linux and open source, have probably read John Tasheki article and they don't know what its true(whats is truth anyway
Its good to have someone like Bob to raise his voice!(although its of Bob and RH interest...)
Drivers versus mechanics -- new analogy? (Score:1)
I've read the "car with the hood welded shut" mantra before, but this is the first I saw about the follow-up question about how much the typical driver knows about internal combustion engines. Did he just come up with that analogy for this article or have I just not been paying attention?
--
Re:Argument/Rebuttal, Argument/Rebuttal (Score:2)
OTOH, an effort should be made to counter some of the more high-profile FUD. Of course, if it gets mentioned on slashdot, it instantly becomes high-profile, so we may be part of the problem... my point is, that when my (hypothetical) boss -- the one that I've been trying to convince to replace that crappy Exchange server, with a more reliable Linux solution -- comes to me after having read the "Linux Myths" page or the Taschek article and says that Linux is a fad, I can either try to counter all of the bullshit myself, or I can say, "Hey Bob Young is more articulate than I am, why don't you check out this [zdnet.com] article. See? It's on ZDNET, your ever so reliable news source!"
This person could be a boss, a friend or family member that you're trying to convince to give Linux (or *BSD, or whatever) a shot.
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
Faulty talkback (Score:1)
Re:Argument/Rebuttal, Argument/Rebuttal (Score:2)
IBM thought that OS/2 would weather MS FUD and that technical superiority would eventually win. For the most part, they left most of the MS arguments unanswered. IBM's upper management now has the dubious task of trying to convince some large customers to move off of a technically superior platform onto a hacked toy so that they no longer have to single handedly support an infrastructure for a platform they wish had never been (NOTE: No flame wars about IBM loving OS/2. I worked at IBM for 2 years, and had to actively fight to continue using OS/2 there. The corporate word was that NT was the only official workstation platform. Damn support desk got confused if I even called with an OS/2 question.)
This FUD, like a kudzu, must be destroyed as soon as it pokes its ugly head out of the ground. Else it will quickly grow to completely cover everything in sight.
Two different arguments (Score:3)
John says: "Open source sucks because it's not making any money."
Bob says: "Open source is successful because it has produced so many highly useful and popular applications."
They really aren't talking about the same thing at all. Both are mostly correct. There are not very many financially successful "open source only" companies. Maybe ten to twenty at most. Compare that to thousands of successful traditional closed source companies. On the other hand there are countless successful(not in money but in user share or useability or function) open source projects and applications. Bob's list is just the tip of the iceberg. It is just a matter of time before a large open source company becomes truly profitable. Open source really is changing the world, but slowly. It is just a matter of time before we see many more successful open source companies. In the mean time this sort of "not the same point" argument tends to needlessly fan the flames.
Re:Its an issue cuz copyright is auth's life + 100 (Score:1)
Dodgy Figures? (Score:4)
'Since then Red Hat has become a global company, with a very strong balance sheet and $42 million of revenue, and continues to grow rapidly.' However, from their financial statements :
'For the nine months ended 11/30/99, revenues rose 77% to $12.6 million. Net loss applicable to Common totaled $8.9 million vs. an income of $184 thousand. Results reflect an increase in training revenue, offset by increased advertising costs.' Also :
'Recent Earnings Announcement For the 3months ended 02/29/2000, revenues were 13,108; after tax earnings were -24,609. (Preliminary; reported in thousands of dollars.)'
I should also point out that the $184,000 in training income is nothing compared to Bob Youngs 228K Salary.
I would also point out that the only sucessful OS products he mentioned were apache, and sendmail. How long ago were they written?
I think one point missed by all this is that Mozilla is the most widely known project. Regardless of whether Open Source was sucessful in this case, I think one thing should be considered.
Would the Mozilla case study encourage companies to open their otherwise closed source?
I realize there are a number of sucessful projects, but from the point of Mozilla, I'm just playing Devils Advocate
Sonny's party affiliation (Score:1)
Sorry, CT, but Sonny was a Republican. The Democrats aren't the only asses in Congress.
Best Example/Analogy of why Non-Techs Needs Source (Score:2)
Ever been asked "Why should I care if I can get the source code to [insert OSS program here]? I'm not capable of hacking it!" ?
Bob has a great answer in his rebuttal.
People would not buy a car with the hood (bonnet for the Brits) locked shut, even though most people haven't a clue about how the motor works.
Why? They're not going to fix the motor themselves.
But by being able to open the hood, people can take to the car to _whoever they want_ to get it fixed. They have choice. They're not locked-in to a single provider of mechanical services.
Wow! Simple, concise, and easy to understand!
Perhaps ol' Bob should get a job as a journalist.
Re:Why? (Score:1)
People fear things that are new. (Okay, okay, I know Open Source isn't exactly new, but it's new to the general public.)
Re:Bob's Article (Score:1)
It's FANatical, FUNdamental, and backed by FACTs.
Burning karma for FUN, FANS, and FACTS!
--
Not understanding one of the biggest shifts in the industry since the PC in the early '80s is a career-limiting mistake for a journalist who specializes in covering technology.
That's gonna be my new sig.
--
Re:Official response to official flamebait - blah! (Score:3)
Did you happen to notice the banner at the top of this page?
Re:Bob's Article (Score:3)
This morning before she came in someone had printed out Young's rebuttal and made about 500 copies which were used to wallpaper her entire cubicle (wish I had my camera today!)
This is the silver lining in the whole debacle of yesterday's article. Instead of only an angry hornet's nest of slashdot 'zealots' giving them fuel for the 'see, these open source types are just a bunch of foul-mouthed kids' slant, we have a well-written, fact-filled response from a very credible source that sets the record straight and makes that PC Week columnist look like the bafoon he is. Great.
Re:Bob's Article (Score:2)
His response? None of that's been proven by anyone.
Being even tempered, rational, and polite doesn't mean that you can't be a fundamentalist.
It's the difference between
1. "I'm not going to vote for cantidate X because of the way he feels about issue Y."
and
2. "That c*cksucking motherf*cker should f*cking die! I'm going to blow his f*cking house up, rape his wife and burn his kids alive!"
Person 1 and person 2 both may be fanatics or fundamentalists, but sounding like a lunatic will only get you ignored at best and persecuted at worst.
LK
Re:Why? (Score:5)
I really enjoyed a recent interview of Andy Grove I saw on The Charlie Rose Show [pbs.org], largely because Charlie kept trying to get Andy to say something really powerful, and Andy was seemed very careful. Andy Grove is known as a survivor of prostate cancer, and did a lot of research into the latest treatments and medical knowledge on the disease. So Charlie asked him what Mayor Giuliani should do (because Giuliani recently announced that his doctors detected he has early stages of prostate cancer). Andy said something like, "I can't say what he should do. I will only say what I have experienced. He may find that my experiences are pertinent to his situation..." This is just an example, but throughout the interview Andy consistently spoke equivocally, or qualified his opinions. I think this is really refreshing, since we all know that on the subjects he was talking about he could certainly be considered an authority. I think it's an academic influence that leads people to speak carefully like that.
So I guess I'm really rambling off topic here, but I just wanted to share this because I agree that too many people (especially ACs) speak in absolutes and make claims that they can't support because they don't have the knowledge to defend their opinions.
"What I cannot create, I do not understand."
Re:Call me Cynical... (Score:2)
You answer your own question later...
I'm sick of seeing 30% of the posts
so at least 30% of us care enough to post about it, and who knows how many others who don't because they know someone else will/already has?
If you are so concerned about it, use the time you spend here bitching about it to go get some adblocking software.
What makes you think that I haven't? I run junkbuster both at home and at work. I'm not moaning about banner ads per se, I'm accusing someone at ZDNet of orchestrating the entire thing to drive up their hits and ad revenue.
Cheers,
Tim
The best rebuttal... (Score:2)
... and if proprietary software is the only viable solution to your needs, go with that instead.
If I can do my work using only (or even mostly) Free Software, then as far as I personally am concerned, Free Software has succeeded. "I got mine; don't worry 'bout his".
--
Re:Official response to official flamebait - blah! (Score:2)
The difference, though, is that many of us would read Slashdot every day anyway, so Slashdot's artificial hit ratio is probably lower.
Re:oss impact on programmers (Score:1)
I don't necessarily agree with everything in the book nor do I think my synopsis is entirely accurate, but it is a different perspective from blue collar/white collar on classifying workers.
LetterJ
He might have mentioned GNU (Score:2)
And no, I could not get a reply on ZDNet either.
Re:Just because MS doesn't release source ... (Score:1)
Actually, its sort of the opposite of that.
Think about it, just for, say, 10 seconds. (clue: count the number of viruses, worms etc that are out for Linux.)
Ok, times up.
Re:Whats a VC? (Score:1)
Re:Marc Ewing and I Would Still Be ... (Score:1)
Re:Call me Cynical... (Score:2)
And so what if they drive up hits and revenue? Is this directly harming you? Why does this bother you so much to the point where you waste time posting about it on Slashdot?
I just don't see why people get in such a fit when they realize companies exist to make money. You know full-well they are going to do things to drive up hits and ad revenue. This should not be such a shock to people here.
I don't see it really as an issue of right or wrong. They are entitled to post whatever they want, and whether it's right or wrong will be determined by how many eyeballs they get on their banners. And you know what? So far, they're right.
Source doesn't always need opening. (Score:1)
If a program does what I need without being clunky, slow, or buggy I really don't care whether the source is open or not. Some closed source programs are even good enough I'll pay for them. Most are not. Maybe they do have something to hide.
If a program, open or closed source, is bloated, slow and buggy I avoid it if I can. Microsoft, for example, has a bad reputation as the software is just good enough to get accepted by managers and purchasing types but not good enough that it doesn't thoroughly irk the people who must use it. Nevermind monopoly, if the software was as great as the advertising lead some to believe, there'd be less antagonism toward its producer.
Open source may swing my opinion some, but it isn't a 'go - no go' criterion. Does the software do the job I want without causing frustration? That is the number one criterion. The rest is details.
Re:Why? (Score:1)
-
For a good laugh... (Score:1)
Re:Wrong focus ?? (Score:1)
All the examples mentioned by Bob (sendmail, Apache) are more or less 'background' applications, outside the realm of lusers.
True... but saying something like, "Do you enjoy being able to view web sites? Thank the open source BIND and Apache. Do you like receiving e-mail? Thank Sendmail. Do you like interactive web sites and polls? Thank Perl and PHP and Python."
Really, 'normal end users' just don't know how much they depend on free software already. If it's good enough to run the Internet, maybe it's good enough to run your business.
--
Re:Why? (Score:2)
For one, yes, it's highly doubtful that Linux, Apache, Sendmail, gcc, or any other opensource product will ever go way. Actually, it's just one step from impossible. But that doesn't mean that they will necessarily continue to prosper. What happens when developers decide to start working on other projects? What happens when Linus decides he's through with being the center of Linux development? No on really knows what will happen.
I also think that while open source is great for individuals and businesses looking to use low-cost software. But I fail to see how software companies can stand to generate anything but neglible revenues by opensourcing their products. How would Apple continue to differentiate themselves if their GUI was integrated into every other operating system? They couldn't really. They have nifty hardware designs, but those are just complementary to the software inside them.
Another argument that gets brought up is that of buying a car with a sealed hood. Personally, I WISH that there were cars that were manufactured with completely sealed hhoods, that ran fo 50,000 miles, and were recycleable. I hate the idea of car maintenance. But the opensource idealogy is that if you're using an open source product, then even if the original developer ceases to work on it, one can just bring in a programmer of their own to continue developement. What if one was using an opensource video edittor that almost had all the features of Adobe Premiere, and therefore had all their media assets tied up in it's file formats, had numerous plug ins and extensions written specifically for it, and then they found that the developer had been hired to do something else full time and couldn't dedicate the time to continue work on his or her project? Yes, the company could hire a full-time programmer for $60,000+ per year to continue work, but in hindsite if they'ed just bought 10 licenses for Premiere for $400 a piece, plus $200/year for upgrades, they'ed save money in the long term.
Another advantage to closed source/proprietary companies is that they are indeed competing with one another. Without a profit motive, there really is no long term guarentees that open source projects will continue with their advancement. It's assumed right now, but since the developers are working out of their own good will, rather than ultimately trying to make a buck, again, it's not guarenteed that a project will continue at any given instance, regardless of the number of users. Proprietary software houses, will on the other hand, in all likely hood continue producing a package and support for it if they see that there is demand for it, and money behind that.
Let me just state that i'm not against opensource or free software as a development model. It has created some neat projects. But I don't really think that there's really all that much of a future for it as a business model. How can you sell something that's free? I'm continually baffled at Redhat's position in the market. But companies (VA Linux and Cobalt spring to mind as two) that use opensource projects to add value to their products stand a great likely hood for success, in my eyes.
Okay... I've typed enough for now.
Re:oss impact on programmers (Score:1)
here are my views on open-source: it's good to get software for free("beer" or "speech"), but money will always be an issue. To many programmers now, knowledge isn't a good enough incentive, but money is. It has always been that way.
here is the problem with open source: it shows results, but doesn't stay with the times. Look at every popular piece of OSS software available: sendmail,apache, to name a few, and even the OS that basically started the movement, linux. There's an incentive to add onto, but never revolutionize. So, we will see utilities and applications, but they will still be behind commercial products (example: photoshop and the gimp). Photoshop had features years ago, that the gimp is just implementing now. Another example is X-windows. It's a good windowing system, if eveyone was a programmer and it was the 1970's. It needs to be re-written, not just added onto.
now for some real world examples: china, where everyone is "equal" (basically the same goals for the free software movement: Everyone has the same advantage with the availability of source code), is JUST getting up into space now, while the U.S. did the same thing at least 50 years ago. From the outside, Open-source looks like Freedom, but it is a form of Communism. Now don't get me wrong, OSS isn't bad, but money isn't going away any time soon. With Open source programming, either 1) you work for a company, and slave your life away programming, or 2) you work elsewhere, only programming as a hobby. It's up to you. I think the one happiness many people would like to have is to make enough money to be "comfortable" off of what they enjoy doing, but OSS doesn't offer these rewards.
-----(OSS != Freedom)
Re:software "mechanics" (Score:1)
Er, used to. Nowadays we seem to be quite happy, in most cases, to buy something where, when you lift the bonnet, all you can see is a sealed black (usually) box with a manufacturer's logo on it. And when you take the cowling off, yes there's still an IC engine under there, but so much of what it does is controlled by the closed-source, binary-only proprietary engine management software that you don't stand much of a chance.
And funnily enough, neither does any non-franchised mechanic. It's just like the old 'Special crimping tool' scam again.
Once upon a time there was some real fun to be had tweaking engines. Nowadays about all you can do is rechip and hope the new chip wasn't put together by cowboys so it'll burn out your valves after 1000 km
Almost a nice analogy, unfortunately what it demonstrates is that, yet again, 'the man' is still way ahead of us 'valued customers'
TomV
Re:on zdnet???? (Score:1)
We're not the target audience--his story was on ZDNet.
Most of his points could have been lifted directly from this forum for God's sake
Most ZDNet readers don't come here.
(I wonder if Bob Young reads slashdot).
Probably.
This might provide a reasonable counter argument for the original article, but it would only be worthwhile reading for non-geeks who might not know this already.
You mean like the readership of ZDNet?
Hardly worth a posting on Slashdot.
It was on ZDNet. The Slashdot article is merely meant to keep us up to date on the current status of the ZD invective; no one claimed that this rebuttal would contain innovative and fresh information. In fact, I don't generally follow off-site links from Slashdot--I just read the comments.
I don't know what advertising on Zd costs but I'm sure they'll be making a killing off this. Don't do them the favour.
Does it really matter? I mean, they are in business to make money.
A response to the article (Score:1)
Re:Heh (Score:1)
IPchains. IPfwadm. Not necessarily the right hammer to use, but it is effective.
Way the hell off topic (Score:1)
Vintage racing. Drag racing, circle track, AutoX, etc. Pick your era, pick your machine and go. Or, build older cars (Camaros, Mustangs, Escorts (GB version), BMWs, etc.) and hit the street.
Motorcycles. Still only a handful are injected. Either buy a new one (and bet that you can't tweak even a new carburetted bike) or buy an older one (Honda V45, Harley of any sort, Kawi Z1) and get to work.
I've suggested that in the past (Score:3)
Anyway, they've never been anything but prolific Microsoft whores. I'm assuming that their recent Slashdot trolling is nothing more than a series of experiments geared toward boosting ad revenue in the event that MS should be broken up and become a little less free with the purse strings.
Re:A question (Score:1)
Nothing succeeds like success. Results speak volumes. But, like Apple before it, screaming ninnies don't help. It's not bad to be a worshipper at the temple of Jobs/Gates/Torvolds/Gassee, but far more success is achieved with either well thought out commentary (Young's article was magnificent, and better written than that of the 'professional journalist') and plain simple results.
What would help the cause would be if IT people would let the PHB's know that those machines in the basement or server closet aren't all NT boxes.
Re:A question (Score:2)
As far as needing more people like Young... one thing to remember is that Young and many of the others (Augustin at VA springs to mind), despite being able to don the corporate mantle very well, really do grok Free Software (not just Open Source.) We need more people like them, not just the run of the mill talking heads. Given a choice, in fact, between the average talking head (smooth, but no understanding) I'd take the average flamer around here any day.
My two cents...
~luge
fUD (Score:1)
I try to think in terms of the basics. Uncertainty and Doubt frequently disappear when the light is turned on. If a simple rebuttal sheds some light on the issue, the damage from their FUD is minimized.
Re:Faulty talkback (Score:1)
Re:Open-Source (Score:1)
Re:Argument/Rebuttal, Argument/Rebuttal (Score:1)
Re:Best Example/Analogy of why Non-Techs Needs Sou (Score:1)
What does this mean? ASE certified, RHCE, MCSE, are all nice, but let's not tell the general public that it might be tough to find a good software 'mechanic', despite their fancy certifications; let's get the code opened first (burn one bridge at a time as an old friend of mine used to put it)
Re:Drivers versus mechanics -- new analogy? (Score:1)
Re:The best rebuttal... (Score:2)
THAT is when OSS will get noticed.
URL please? (Score:1)
Re:software "mechanics" (Score:2)
Consumers are already being taken to the cleaners. Part of the reason that Open Source software has done so well is that you would be hard pressed to find software of any kind that is as well done as Apache, Bind, Sendmail (flexibility wise, anyway), Perl, Python, Linux, etc. Honestly, what commercial software would you stack up against this list in terms of sheer value. There is a whole raft of Open Source software that is a deal at any price, much less free.
Besides, there already are thousands of software mechanic shops. How many small software houses are there that are building some vertical application. The company I work for recently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to a group of consultants and we didn't even receive one single line of code in return.
Open Source software is simply a way of making sure that the consumer has a way of fixing the software that they use. If they buy a lemon from a disreputable software house they can still go to someone else, with a better reputation hopefully, to get it fixed.
Software consumers know when software works in much the same way that I know that my mechanic actually fixed my car. It's quite simple, if the software (or the car) gets you where you are going, then your mechanic did a good job.
Besides, everyone knows that the easiest way to stay clear of disreputable mechanics is to simply seek a second opinion. Mechanics are readily available and will happily bid out prices for fixing your car. If one mechanics prices are way out of line, then you probably won't hire him. Software could easily work the same way if you owned the source code to your applications. If you didn't like the work your programmers were doing you simply get a second opinion.
While our present day automotive mechanic situation isn't perfect it is a lot better than it would be if only the manufacturer could work on your car.
Re:Call me Cynical... (Score:1)
-russ
My favorite TALKBACK :) (Score:1)
LINUX - musical horns for the
The reason is that each and every one of these claims is bogus at best ( unless you walk everywhere ).
Mechanics go wherever they need to inside an engine. Sometimes that means "tampering" with a seal unit and other time it means replacing that unit with a compatible one. Clueless drivers just don't know how the car was fixed.
Next time you get on a bus talk to the driver. Most of the bus drivers I know are second rate mechanics. They fix little things themselves and some other person in the office fixes big things. Maybe it's different in your side of the world but Bus companies around here NEVER buy support from the dealer.
uhm... You do know that a Commercial Pilot is required to know a little about how a plane works right ? In an emergency the pilot may be required to make repairs. I.e. What do you do when the landing gear on a 747 is jammed ?
Re:Call me Cynical... (Score:2)
I thought this was a discussion forum, a place for people to air their views. That's all I'm doing; if you decide I'm a moron with nothing to say that's worth reading, feel free to ignore me, I always post logged in as Tim C
Cheers,
Tim
Re:Wrong focus ?? (Score:3)
Maybe these journalists have no idea what the "normal end user" is anymore. I would think it is someone who wants to set up a web presence for their business or family. Cheaply, efficiently, and with a minimal amount of blue screens. This is bit of forward thinking on what "normal" people want, but it's just so easy and fun, everyone is doing it. And the smart people are doing it with Free Software.
--
STOP READING ZDNET!!! (Score:2)
They only post stories and articles/opinions to stir up the controversy. They want people pissed off and incensed to read and write back to them...all the while getting thousands and thousands of hits to their web pages.
Besides, there is NOTHING on that site or any of their sister-sites that has any info that I can't get from somewhere else (like here at Slashdot).
Stop feeding the troll and stop making money for the troll!
Re:Wrong focus ?? (Score:2)
Right, but we're definitely getting there.
Take a look at things like KOffice, AbiWord or the project the initial article was condemning, Mozilla.
All of them are already usable, and will definitely be great products with some more time.
Re:Why? (Score:3)
(And while Adobe might be an extreme example, I'm sure there are plenty of proprietary software vendors who have gone toes-up and left their customers in the lurch.)
Stock losses (Score:1)
More likely they bought at $200 and sold at $190 and then that person sold at $185, etc...
Re:Why? (Score:1)
For more specialized vertical market applications, I can definetly understand the desire for source code (if you hired a consultant to build an accounting application on Oracle8, these days it wouldn't be too unreasonable to demand on having the source code to their databases and procedures once they're done. You might have to pay more for it, but at least you're assured that if the consultant ever goes away, you're not completely screwed. With Oracle however, you can be farely certain that they're going to be around for the long haul and therefore having the souce as a sort insurance isn't nearly as valuable to you. And even less so to them, because if they give you full rights to the source, what's to stop you from redistributing it and cutting them out of revenues they would have earned otherwise.
So I guess it's kind of a tricky call as to when source code availabilty is really all that it seems. It's probably something that should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, as to whether it really will be as valuable as one would hope it should be, rather than just saying it's better because the source is available. If you're reasonably certain that your vendors are going to stay in business and the products you're using are popular and generating revenues as opposed to losses for them, in general you can feel relatively certain that the prodcut will continue in advancement and support.
Re:Another ZDNet Columnist Speaks Out Against Tasc (Score:2)
[zdnet.com]
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,585
Re:Why? (Score:3)
Reality check: the majority of contibutors to open source projects are not rellying on these efforts to provide their means of livelihood. Whether the GIMP or GNUCash ever make one-tenth of one percent of the profit generated by sales of similar products from Adobe or Intuit will have no effect on whether they continue to be developed, refined and improved. At some point a cuasual user will be faced with the option: pay a high fee for a proprietary application or get the same functionality for little or no cost...
For the business user/IT manager the cost factor becomes more complex... the basic economics of an expensive site-license versus a cheap, reproducible Distro is a strong argument in favour of open source apps, but IT managers will calculate a Total Cost of Ownership based on support, upgrade fees, training costs and support fees. This is where the commercial Open Source Distrubutors hope to make money...
This business model is not competitve with the tradional models, but to say this means it will fail may be like predicting that mammals would not make it out of the Jurassic because they just couldn't compete with dinosaurs as carnivores or herbivores... The changes underway may be larger than you are imagining.
Take your example of an open source video editor that had all the features of Adobe Premiere... You make many false assumptions that betray a lack of understanding of the real value of the open source model:
First you misconstrue the opensource paradigm as "..even if the original developer ceases to work on it, one can just bring in a programmer of their own to continue developement." -- A video editor like Premiere is NOT the work of an individual. In a firm like Adobe, it has a the number of programmers that are assigned to it by management (this is ususally large--check out the credits in Premiere some time!). In an open source project, the pool of programmers is limited to the number of people on the internet with the appropriate skills and the inclination and time to contribute -- almost always a larger number.
Second, you state that the media assets would be tied up in it's file formats... but the open source movement is characterized by a reliance on and the promotion of standard formats... The file format problem is far more likely to occur in proprietary products (do you remember Persuasion? How supported is the user with an archive of media assets in that format?).
Finally, you suggest that the hypothetical open source video user is left with the option of paying a single programmer's salary or abandoning the application and their assets. This goes back to the erroneous assumption that such a project is the work of an individual. You can be sure that such a package would be the result of the collaboration of many programmers in many countries. The editor you are describing would be a hot project, and if one or more of the original developers dropped out, you can be sure that the project would be maintained.
Your argument about the value of competition is belied by the real history of proprietary software development. Good packages with large narkets are frequently dropped because managers see greater profitability in other efforts. Despite the large number of Mac users, many proprietary packages are available only to Wintel users because the software developers see a larger Return On Investment in that market... These are not concerns for open source hackers.Within the framework of your argument, you are right... but the framework is wrong.
Open Source successes are hard to see (Score:2)
Bob Young mentions Debian?!? (Score:2)
Hey, how about that? Not only did he mention
the fact that Linux is only a kernel and not
the OS, but he actually mentioned a competing
distro. Given, it wasn't a *commercial* distro but
still pretty cool, IMHO.
Open source projects are always so late ... (Score:2)
... that's why they work so well. They aren't released until they really are ready. When you don't have media advertising for your product in the works, with everything set to a schedule months ahead of time, then what you do have is an opportunity to get it right, even if it does take a few months longer than expected. You might be steamed that Linux 2.4 or Debian 2.2 or whatever is next isn't really out yet. But you can appreciate it working well when it does come out, or go grab the beta copy to see if you can even make it crash.
Technical inclination first, journalism 2nd. (Score:2)
Taschek is probably a decent enough writer, but he couldn't fake the knowledge he didn't have. Nothing basic research -- taught in journalism class -- wouldn't have fixed.
Re:Open source projects are always so late ... (Score:2)
"Linux-based OSes" vs "the Linux OS" (Score:2)
Read it! (Score:2)
--
Re:oss impact on programmers (Score:2)
Sure, OSS is playing catch-up. And succeeding at a remarkable rate. Once it reaches parity, the traditional software producers will be the ones playing catch-up.
[mccarthy-era trolling ignored]
> I think the one happiness many people would like to have is to make enough money to be "comfortable" off of what they enjoy doing, but OSS doesn't offer these rewards.
Yeah, I was dragging main last night and I saw a whole row of kernel hackers lined up on the sidewalk with tin cups in their hands.
Someone sounds threatened.
--