CNBC Reports Open Source Software Has Essentially 'Taken Over the World' (cnbc.com) 103
Slashdot reader DevNull127 writes: CNBC Explores released a 14-minute documentary this month called "The Rise Of Open-Source Software." It's already racked up 558,802 views on YouTube, arguing that open-source software "has essentially taken over the world. Companies in every industry, from Walmart to Exxon Mobile to Verizon, have open-sourced their projects. Microsoft has completely changed its point of view, and is now seen as a leader in the space. And in 2016 the U.S. government even promised to open-source at least 20% of all its new custom-developed code."
The documentary does mention the 1990s, when Microsoft "even went so far as to call Open Source 'Unamerican' and bad for intellectual property rights." But two and a half minutes in, they also tell the famous story of that 1970s printer jam at MIT which led to the purchase of a proprietary printer that inspired Richard Stallman to quit his job to develop the GNU operating system and spearhead the free software movement. And at three and a half minutes in, they also describe how Linus Torvalds "unceremoniously released" Linux in 1991, and report that "By the turn of the century, NASA, Dell, and IBM were all using it." And at 4:18, they mention "other open source projects" gaining popularity, including MySQL, Perl, and Apache.
"But for the layperson at the turn of the century, the rise of these technologies could have gone unnoticed. After all, hardly anyone ran Linux on their personal computers. But then in 2008, Google released Android devices, which ran on a modified version of Linux. Suddenly the operating system blew up the smartphone market..." (Chen Goldberg, Google's Director of Engineering, cites 2.5 billion active Android devices.) The documentary then traces the open source movement up through our current decade, even mentioning Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub, IBM's acquisition of Red Hat, and various monetization models (including GitHub's new "Sponsors" program). And it ends with the narrator calling open source development "the new norm..."
"After all, the success of Open Source reveals that collaboration and knowledge-sharing are more than just feel-good buzzwords. They're an effective business strategy. And if we're going to solve some of the world's biggest problems, many believe that we can't afford to hoard our resources and learnings."
Here's a list (in order of appearance) of the people interviewed:
The documentary does mention the 1990s, when Microsoft "even went so far as to call Open Source 'Unamerican' and bad for intellectual property rights." But two and a half minutes in, they also tell the famous story of that 1970s printer jam at MIT which led to the purchase of a proprietary printer that inspired Richard Stallman to quit his job to develop the GNU operating system and spearhead the free software movement. And at three and a half minutes in, they also describe how Linus Torvalds "unceremoniously released" Linux in 1991, and report that "By the turn of the century, NASA, Dell, and IBM were all using it." And at 4:18, they mention "other open source projects" gaining popularity, including MySQL, Perl, and Apache.
"But for the layperson at the turn of the century, the rise of these technologies could have gone unnoticed. After all, hardly anyone ran Linux on their personal computers. But then in 2008, Google released Android devices, which ran on a modified version of Linux. Suddenly the operating system blew up the smartphone market..." (Chen Goldberg, Google's Director of Engineering, cites 2.5 billion active Android devices.) The documentary then traces the open source movement up through our current decade, even mentioning Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub, IBM's acquisition of Red Hat, and various monetization models (including GitHub's new "Sponsors" program). And it ends with the narrator calling open source development "the new norm..."
"After all, the success of Open Source reveals that collaboration and knowledge-sharing are more than just feel-good buzzwords. They're an effective business strategy. And if we're going to solve some of the world's biggest problems, many believe that we can't afford to hoard our resources and learnings."
Here's a list (in order of appearance) of the people interviewed:
- Nat Friedman, CEO of GitHub
- Devon Zuegel, Open-Source Product Manager, GitHub
- Chris Wright, CTO of Red Hat
- Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation
- Feross Aboukhadijeh, Open-Source Maintainer
- Chen Goldberg, Google's Director of Engineering
Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, even tells CNBC that 10,000 lines of code are added to Linux every day. "It is by far the highest-velocity, the most effective software development process in the history of computing... As the idea of sharing technology and collaborating collectively expands, we're moving into open hardware initiatives, data-sharing initiatives. And that's really going to be the future...
"The complexity of building these technologies isn't going down, it's only going up. We can get that technology out there faster when everybody works together."
Microsoft a "leader in open source"? Bullshit! (Score:5, Insightful)
Or let's talk about newer software from Microsoft: So where is the source code of the "Teams" servers?
(-1, Useless comment of the year) (Score:1)
So... you are complaining and bitching... about somebody complaining. . .
Except you replaced substance... with mentionin "creimer".
How close to suicide are you? Honestly ...
Re:Microsoft a "leader in open source"? Bullshit! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Android, the most popular consumer OS in the world
It's funny that it's so popular and yet essentially almost nobody has heard of it.
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Android, the most popular consumer OS in the world
It's funny that it's so popular and yet essentially almost nobody has heard of it.
Except maybe the reported 2 billion users throughout the world.
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Except maybe the reported 2 billion users throughout the world.
No, that was exactly my point. The very large majority of those people don't know what Android is.
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... Android, the most popular consumer OS in the world...
Android is no more an OS than KDE or Gnome are. Android is a shell on top of Linux, which is the actual operating system.
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Android is an entire user-space (and kernel, but we'll ignore that) specification and implementation.
If you've ever heard the term "GNU/Linux", Android would replace the GNU - the part that isn't the kernel, the part largely considered to represent "the operating system"
KDE and Gnome are DEs.
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Microsoft has absolutely nothing to do with Android
I'm not sure they have *nothing* to do with Android. I think they were partnering with someone... Samsung...? to create a new Microsoft phone. They've been porting their apps to Android so they can provide a Microsoft phone experience in spite of not having a phone OS anymore.
If they really "completely changed their point of view" then why the fuck is Windows still closed source?
I actually have a theory that they may open source Windows in the next 10 years. If they want to open source it, they may want to comb through it looking for anything embarrassing or legally dubious, and then replace those things be
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Microsoft has absolutely nothing to do with Android
Android is a runtime library on top of linux. Microsoft has a launcher/skin on top of Android.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... [microsoft.com]
They also have Edge, a web browser, for Android. And all of their productivity apps: Word, Excel etc are on Android.
They integrate Cortana as an assistant. They offer a calendar and email client (Outlook is probably the best Android email client).
Microsoft even integrates OneDrive pretty deeply so that whenenver you take a photo it uploads to OneDrive.
From a user's perspective y
They misspelled "leeech". (Score:1)
(With three "E"s, as Baalmer [wikipedia.org] intended. As I said, below.)
I understand what a subject field is for just fine (Score:1, Offtopic)
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First, Microsoft just wanted to "own the desktop".
With Office, they now own the whole office.
In the future, Microsoft won't be satisfied to be merely a "leader in open source".
Microsoft will want to "own open source".
Re:Microsoft a "leader in open source"? Bullshit! (Score:5, Interesting)
'OSS' has become something between 'wildly common' and 'the dominant model' for anything where the benefits of sharing the costs of development and maintenance with other people who have the same problem is more valuable than keeping a tight grip on everything but having to do it yourself or hammer out a relatively cumbersome 'consortium' with formal membership requirements and a lot of legal overhead. That much is true. Even in cases where you might expect people to hold back(eg. with 'Teams', Microsoft voluntarily decided to deliver what is basically a Chrome webapp despite both owning Win32, one of the most valuable platforms going; and having a strategic interest in pushing their next gen platform stuff (metro/modern/WinRT/whatever they are calling it today).
Where we haven't seen anything like the same shift is the actually strategic stuff and the components that can be used to control the rest. Teams, and basically every other chat app(with the limited exception of XMPP stuff, most of which remains niche) is actively less cooperative with federation than email which is older than dirt at this point. Heck, SMS, as provided by your local phone company jerks, is probably the most interoperable messaging protocol; with the various newer and technically superior ones deliberately locked into a 'the protocol is also the app' scenario. On the OS and device side, crypto bootloaders mean that even things that would otherwise boot pretty stock *nix kernels will pointedly ignore you if you don't have vendor signing keys.
It's true that vendors have gotten over their visceral, irrational, aversion to the scary 'OSS'; but in giving it a more pragmatic consideration they've also done a lot of careful(and largely effective) thinking about how it can be used in a carefully controlled manner, to provide cost-effective solutions to shared problems in commodity level infrastructure; but to not pose any real threat to the strategically valuable stuff.
Re: Microsoft a "leader in open source"? Bullshit! (Score:1)
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Quote: "not pose any real threat to the strategically valuable stuff"
Valuable as in gold? Or valuable as in air and water?
I don't mind a company that hoards the gold but gives away the really useful stuff. Figuratively speaking, of course. I'm no manufacturing expert, and I don't know how really useful gold is in the manufacturing process, if there are viable substitutes for its non-reactive metallic properties, which even the pre-scientific alchemists noticed and prized.
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While they were so enthusiastic about putting out a comparatively platform agnostic client that the result actually feels pretty awful and out of place on Windows; Microsoft took the opportunity to turn the screws in a couple of notable ways vs. their prior offerings.
Unlike Lync/Skype for Business, Teams audio/video chat is not SIP. Lync/SfB certainly played most nicely if used in an AD/Exchange context; but if you were willing to get
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that first interviewee Nat Friedman of Github actually works for microsoft. You see they (Microsoft) own Github (https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/10/26/microsoft-completes-github-acquisition/)... anyway, to your general point, I don't see Microsoft as a bastion of open source either. Sometimes when a company has a huge amount of cash from former glory years, they use it to try to buy their way back into the game. I have never seen that work out well in the end. Nat has spent his (enviable) career w
Not good enough for Director at Linux Foundation (Score:1)
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"Show me where I can download the source code of Microsofts most profitable sofware-monopoly-walled-garden, "
Exactly! I almost thought the CNBC was a typo and they meant MSNBC.
Re:Microsoft a "leader in open source"? Bullshit! (Score:5, Informative)
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When Microsoft and Google make positive contributions, I think that's good and should be recognized, but I'm not going to ignore the abuse they've done either. I don't think I need to call either of them an "open source leader." They're profit
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Existing in many places over the world is not the same as "taken over the world".
Leader in the space... (Score:2)
Just, ... no.
Unless you misspelled "leeech". With three "E"s.
Re: changed its point of view (Score:5, Interesting)
You could correctly say that, with it's Github purchase, its domesticated kernel developers and various other measures, Microsoft is now a "player" in open source. Not a leader, just a follower at the moment. It was simply a matter of survival in the hosting space.
One day Microsoft could conceivably become a leader in open source. Not there as of yet. The toxic Office Uber Alles culture still remains strong. Microsoft has expressed no contrition for any of its scurrilous and at times lawless conduct. To me, that means they will do it again, or are still doing it. Maybe if that changes Microsoft could become a leader.
For now, Microsoft still carries huge stigma in the community. Hiring unabashed turncoats Friedman and de Icaza did nothing to dispel that, quite the contrary. As long as those are the kind of people who hold sway within Microsoft, Microsoft will be treated as the outsider and threat it remains.
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That sentence should be taken out and shot.
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That sentence should be taken out and shot.
It is already shot with picaresque abruptness.
And yet people still pay Adobe (Score:5, Insightful)
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That was the old days of computing, the USA inspired version. Now, it is a whole new ball game with countries specifically wanting to end the dominance of US software in their countries, not only end but shrink their market share to virtually non-existent and now that is spreading, as a country alliance in FOSS. Russia, China and India seemed to have cooperatively decided to take a lead in software development with the core software as FOSS and OS and Office suites and obviously to push unreliable US produc
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And yet open source developers continue to ignore Adobe users' concerns about the open source alternatives and miss opportunity to take mindshare (and market share) yet again.
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Well, yes. And I'll happily explain it again.
People who use Photoshop, and Indesign have jobs to do. Those jobs involve the use of these applications and file formats that are well used and standardized upon within the industry.
To utilize GIMP or Krita instead of Photoshop, or Scribus in lieu of Indesgin, is to gamble. It's to gamble the time spent learning and mastering those titles, the existing backlog of templates and past projects, and interoperability issues and format conversions...that these OSS app
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The vast majority of Adobe software users are artist-types. They don't know the first thing about programming, much less which OSS editing tools are worth contributing to. In a way, this gives them a certain clarity of vision which is sorely lacking among the OSS community. They are hyper-focused on usability. The politics, power struggles, and finances behind creating the software are irrelevant to the
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They don't have to. All they need to do is find one or more FOSS packages that do what they need and are comfortable for them to use and contribute to those projects.
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To do what you recommend, the artist-types would have to spend a lot of time in that "find" you mentioned, install and test out each package, compare and contrast, uninstall everything they don't want, then send money to the author of the winner.
All the time they're doing the above, they are not producing their art. They are not making money. They are losing it. The
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No. It is very different in terms of cost.
If you buy a car for $30k,pay $1000 in maintenance each year, and sell it for $15k after 5 years to buy a new car, you've paid a net ($30k - 5*$1000 - $15k) = $20k for it. $20k/5 years = $4k/year = $333/mo.
If you're doing high enough mileage that you're spending $1k pa in maintenance (1 full service a year, so 15k miles per year) then your lease/rental mileage surcharge is going to be around $4k/year.
That also doesn't add in the fact that the first four or so services when purchasing are usually free, so you were over by around $4k anyway.
Buying is always cheaper in the medium to long run. If it wasn't, all those companies renting/leasing you a car would be runnin
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Adobe tools both have features that those programs don't have, and have a better interface. And also crash less. Maybe none of those things are important to you, in which case you'd be a fool to pay for an Adobe membership or whatever they call it now. But there are clear reasons why someone would. The gimp is NOT a substitute for Photoshop, unless you are using less than half its features. Things that are easy in Photoshop are hard or impossible in gimp. Acting like they are interchangeable only saps your
In the distant past, everything was open source (Score:4, Informative)
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z-VM still is largely "open source".
. . . so . . .
1) What language is it written in? Is there any open documentation, or is it IBM internal stuff only? Can you really compile, boot and run your own z/VM kernel and system?
2) Can anyone make any contributions to it, or is it IBM controlled and approved only?
A while back, when I did some stuff on z/VM, I looked for a book like "The Design of the UNIX/BSD Operating System" for z/VM. The only thing that the IBM folks could recommend was the z "Principles of Operation", which not the same as
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(1) Assembler, of course.
Gee, and here I was thinking REXX ;-)
If I recall there was a 360 emulator "Hercules" that could run both VM and MVS on a PC.
There was only one legal catch with Hercules (emulator) [wikipedia.org]:
Hercules is technically compatible with all IBM mainframe operating systems, even older versions which no longer run on newer mainframes. However, many mainframe operating systems require vendor licenses to run legally. Newer licensed operating systems, such as OS/390, z/OS, VSE/ESA, z/VSE, VM/ESA, z/VM, TPF/ESA, and z/TPF are technically compatible but cannot legally run on the Hercules emulator except in very limited circumstances, and they must always be licensed from IBM.
. . . and further . . .
In 2009, Roger Bowler founded TurboHercules SAS, based in France, to commercialize the Hercules technology. In July 2009, TurboHercules SAS asked IBM to license z/OS to its customers for use on systems sold by TurboHercules. IBM declined the company's request. In March 2010, TurboHercules SAS filed a complaint with European Commission regulators, alleging that IBM infringed EU antitrust rules through its alleged tying of mainframe hardware to its mainframe operating system, and the EC opened a preliminary investigation. In November 2010, TurboHercules announced that it had received an investment from Microsoft Corporation. In September 2011, EC regulators closed their investigation without action.
However, the Big Blue Joke was . . . when IBM started to take legal action against Hercules . . . IBM found that many z/Series developers in Böblingen and Poughkeepsie . . . were in fact using Hercules!
So . . . if I remember correctly . . . IBM banned the use of Hercules internally. However, that may have changed.
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There is a lot of PL/I in the mix as well.
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I know regarding MVS you can download it and run it, source included. Google MVS turnkey tk4. Its open source as far as I am concerned. Also you can fine a large number of IBM mainframe manuals for free.
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Back in the 60's every piece of software IBM created was "open source"
Pffft, I also bet they used the Waterfall methodology to create that software... Uncivilized savages.
yay (Score:2)
This is new how? (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember my first computer job waay back in 1978 for one of the 3M group of companies as a second shift computer operator (aka evening run babysitter). I spent a lot of time "reading" the source code for the proprietary IBM software they were using as well as the internally developed software. "Open Source" software was the standard for as long as I can remember. "Closed Source" is a relatively new thing.
Re:This is new how? (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember my first computer job waay back in 1978 for one of the 3M group of companies as a second shift computer operator (aka evening run babysitter). I spent a lot of time "reading" the source code for the proprietary IBM software they were using as well as the internally developed software. "Open Source" software was the standard for as long as I can remember. "Closed Source" is a relatively new thing.
Very true, but it wasn't open source in the way the term is currently used. Back then the hardware was where the money was; since the software would only run on proprietary hardware. You couldn't just buy an 1170 or 360 clone, install a line printer and run IBM code. Even if you had the source ode it still was proprietary to IBM or Dec or whomever. Once software was no longer tied to hardware the model changed. As with many things, once serious mo ey was involved the entire ethos changed.
Damn commies software! (Score:1)
Hyperbole is unhelpful (Score:4, Insightful)
OSS has become very common. Most software uses components that are open source.
But it terms of 'total logic implemented in software worldwide' OSS is a drop in the ocean. The vast majority of software in existence, if measured by unique code rather than installed copies of binaries, is closed source software internal to corporations.
This doesn't diminish the impact OSS has had - it's lovely that if I write an application, all the boring stuff around HTTP, TCP/IP, RDBMS, and search is built on OSS layers rather than proprietary layers.
But the interesting stuff, specific to what my company does, the stuff that isn't out there either in OSS or commercial form, and needs to be written from scratch by a large team of people - that's not OSS. That's proprietary.
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There's a process that goes on in companies when they decide to open source their proprietary source.
Their is a collective intake of breath when everyone realizes that their code is going to be visible to others.
Then there is a 6 month scrubbing of the code to take out the stupid stuff, robust vernacular and libel.
Then it is released as open source.
Happens every time. I've seen it over and over.
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The vast majority of software in existence, if measured by unique code rather than installed copies of binaries, is closed source software internal to corporations.
Well of course. The point of open source is that one person writes it once, and everyone can use it forever. Whereas with closed source code, it has to be reinvented countless times because the various developers don't share with each other. So of course most *code* is closed source, even if perhaps most *people* are running open source code.
I wish this was true (Score:1)
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Perhaps the EU will pass a directive that Windows & MacOS have to come with LibreOffice pre-installed? And MacOS with a bootloader that can dual boot into Linux? I wonder what kind of resistance Microsoft & Apple would put up to those?
By that we'll see who actually supports FOSS.
BTW, does Apple Inc. contribute anything to FOSS these days? I heard they didn't use to but maybe they've changed?
Yes and no... (Score:3)
OSS is going absolutely nowhere without some combination of developer buy-in (even if there is no commercial interest it can still survive at least at some level if those skilled in the art are motivated to get involved) and commercial interest(when it comes to boring-but-necessary stuff like timely support for new hardware it certainly helps that Intel and AMD effectively treat Linux support as a necessity, a more modern alternative to having a pet UNIX to go with your pet CPU like the old big iron vendors used to do). Both of those are a lot easier to achieve if 'OSS' doesn't mean 'donate yourself out of a job' to software developers.
The huge amounts of internal software and critical but highly specific line-of-business stuff is what helps resolve that particular tension: OSS might really suck for you if you were hoping to kick out a Unixlike or HTTP server and watch the cash roll in; but for the substantial majority of developers 'OSS' means a nicer collection of building blocks to work with; but no threat to their bread-and-butter in building and maintaining whatever specialized systems their day jobs require.
The one place where this has gotten really awkward(as recognized, but not really solved, by the addition of the Affero GPL) is when a company's internal software overlaps with traditional OSS areas of strength; but never triggers the redistribution requirements because it's provided 'as a service'/'cloud'/etc. AWS being the most prominent example, though other 'cloud' vendors are analogous if smaller. If you only rent time on your systems, rather than actually sell software, you can (completely within the letter of the license) take OSS stuff and keep it effectively proprietary, with any disclosures being purely at your discretion and for your purposes, because you never trigger the requirements that kick in when you distribute software to others. This rather chills the usual 'better building blocks for shared problems' arrangement because it becomes practical for your database engine or cool storage abstraction layer or container management system or whatnot to be absorbed and abstracted and end up in direct competition but without any obligation to return software changes and improvements to the community at large.
eh? (Score:3)
Microsoft has completely changed its point of view, and is now seen as a leader in the space.
I certainly wouldn't go that far. Sure, there's a "man bites dog" wonder at some of their changes, but there's still a great deal of very justified suspicion, and in any case their flagship products are still proprietary closed source software.
Open Source vs Free Software (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll note that they talk about "open source" rather than Free Software. That's quite missing Richard Stallman's point about it all.
Yes, everybody and their dog are using FOSS to build their (cloud, or mobile) platforms as it's cheaper for them, but users still get the short end - where RMS wanted the best for the *users*. Meanwhile, Linux distros are being subverted (with few exceptions).
No, FOSS hasn't won, far from it.
Disclaimer: proud GNU/Linux user since the mid-90ies.
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CNBC? Lol another native ad. (Score:1, Insightful)
And after they killed Stallman on tbe altar of social justice.
Pathetic.
Re:CNBC? Lol another native ad. (Score:4, Informative)
I think you've got an ax to grind.
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It wasn't public, and i'm not sure it was nuances of statutory rape, more about the definition of rape.
I think it's okay for a leader to be extremely careful that they're telling the truth. Although Stallman's could be socially daft it doesn't make him a rapist.
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Without the publicity, no outrage, without the outrage, no bad PR for a public organization.
To quibble about the definition of rape is almost by definition to wade into the nuances of statutory rape, which is illegal sex with a minor.
Stallman argued that even if the sex-trafficking victim had slept with Minsky at the age of 17, it wasn't rape because she likely presented herself as willing. That is most definitely disc
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It was public, because it was made public. That it did not start out so isn't relevant.
You said "publicly engage", which he did not in fact do. It's relevant if you're judging Stallman on his social decisions, which is what I thought we were talking about.
He doesn't seem to be a liar or a rapist, so I don't think he's a villain, and I don't understand why he should lose a leadership role.
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You said "publicly engage", which he did not in fact do.
Fair point.
It's relevant if you're judging Stallman on his social decisions, which is what I thought we were talking about.
It's not relevant though. The image of a public organization cares not about the context.
He doesn't seem to be a liar or a rapist, so I don't think he's a villain,
Me neither...
and I don't understand why he should lose a leadership role.
Because that's a bad face to be painted on the front of your organization... I don't see why that's hard to grasp.
If you owned a company, and he was your spokeperson, and he got caught arguing that statutory rape shouldn't really be a thing... Would you still want him in front of the cameras associated with your brand?
I wouldn't fire the guy with prejudice or anything, but I'd definitely let hi
Total World Domination (Score:1)
Fuck you, no they're not (Score:2)
"Microsoft has completely changed its point of view, and is now seen as a leader in the space."
I repeat, "Fuck you, no they're not".
Microsoft will always be a group of greedy, scum-sucking shitbags, and I speak from experience. I've worked there, and although it varies from group to group, I stand firm in my opinion of Microsoft in general: scum-sucking shitbags.
A new SCO? (Score:2)
You can kind of tell as big IP is buying big OS corps to try and fence off pieces.
Look at IBM and its purchase of Red Hat.
If IBM was not planning on screwing with CentOS or its licensing why have thy not come out and saidthey will remain hands off?
Yes, of course they own it and can do what pleases them as much as CopyLeft allows but corps like IBM have something of a bad history and it is doubtful they would miss a chance to monetize CentOS by forcing users to RHEL.
Github (Score:1)
Software is not the half of it (Score:3)
Oh, everything's portable then (Score:3)
If FOSS were really all that dominant, it wouldn't border on unthinkable for most people embedded in either ecosystem to switch from Windows to Mac, or from Android to Mac. I'm trying to think of a single "mac person" I know that didn't go iPhone, picked Android instead.
And as for office suites, I've never seen a single conference, not America, not Europe or UK, use anything but Powerpoint. For a lot of them, it's no longer possible to bring your laptop and plug in, you have to submit a powerpoint file, and only a powerpoint file, to have its name changed from "Water_Pipe_Inspection.PPTX" to "Track3_Session2_Slot4.PPTX" for addition to The System. If you ask about just giving them a directory of JPG files named 01_title.jpg , 02_into.jpg, etc, they react with confusion, even though I got away with that for nearly 20 years to avoid using MS and future-proof my presentations.
Ditto with paper review for inclusion in conference proceedings, or indeed any kind of work whatsoever with any office I know around the world, from Israel to Africa to Europe: It's all MS-Word files being exchanged. And Excel.
Moving along, people mostly used to communicate through FOSS protocols, that is, by email which is deeply FOSS because you can use any program you want to process the standardized communications protocol. For business at least, that's is still FOSS...but it always was. IBM "PROFS" never caught on with the Internet, mercifully, nor did any proprietary communications because at least everybody saw it coming that the whole world would have to use HP or DEC or whatever.
But on the consumer level, people can't seem to ditch email fast enough to use WhatsApp, Twitter, and Facebook communications systems.
We do still have multiple browsers; I'd call that a mighty victory. But I would still call FOSS "beleagured", not "dominant".
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These real time messaging services are more analogous to XMPP or even IRC than email. Email is still largely a separate niche even in the consumer space. At most, usage may have dropped off a bit as people stopped using it for conversations, which it was never really good for to begin with.
I doubt anything's going to replace email because it's basically pervasive and any
Slashdotted already? (Score:2)
The YouTube link says the video's unavailable and attempting to play it on the CNBC site results in an error.
Maybe tomorrow once interest wanes it'll be available.
So why won't Alexa talk to my Nest? (Score:2)
Unamerican is a good thing (Score:3)
> even went so far as to call Open Source 'Unamerican'
OMG, say it ain't so!
TBH, now is the time of seeking out things which are "unamerican" for fear that some American politician would choose to deny access to it. This is one of the chief values in Foss, imo.
GitHub? (Score:2)
Why in the world was an executive at a proprietary closed source company be interviewed?
(GitHub)
This could be the year (Score:3)
Linux finally takes over the world. By being the OS controlling ICBMs.
MS doesn't do anything for free (Score:2)
But it took IBM to show the way. (Score:2)
Interestingly, Open Source software would have stayed a relatively niche product except for one thing, in my opinion: IBM's project to port Red Hat Linux to run on IBM mainframe hardware. The very success of that project showed that Open Source software was viable for mission-critical large-scale applications, and led the way for Linux to be used as the primary operating system at many web server farms.
Gotta love it (Score:2)
Had an old psychopath boss that said open source would never take off and that I was a fool for using it (early on, say in the 1995 time frame when the linux kernel was 1.3 I think? Or maybe 1.6? Memory is fuzzy.
I would love to track him down and give him a big, fat, "I told you so."
How do I feed my family? (Score:2)
I love to code. To write small tight functions and procedures to perform work.
I have some pretty good ideas for lots of things.
I love OSS!
But how can I feed my family?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
"You are clearly", not "Your clearly". What is it with english speakers and not knowing their own language?
Re: (Score:1)
How do you know the level of English fluency of an anonymous internet poster?
And it wasn't on a test - brain farts happen all the time, as well as autocorrects and typos.
Final rebuttal to your completely moronic post - please point us to all those languages where mistakes are never made by native speakers. I won't check back for a response because I know you have none.
Re: (Score:2)
(TrueScore: -5, No One Cares)
Re: I can't do anything online anymore. (Score:1)