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Transcript of CNN Linux bit 78

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
jeff sent us a link to the transcripts from the CNN Fortune special that was on wed. evening on Open Source, Linux, Red Hat, Linus, Microsoft, Operating Systems, and more. It was a pretty standard fluff piece, but hey, it was 10 minutes of CNN which never hurts.
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Transcript of CNN Linux bit More

Transcript of CNN Linux bit

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  • I got a call from a guy the other day offering "MS Certification Programs" and I told him like 5 times that I wasn't interested, then he asked me if anyone else in the office would be interested and I said that I didn't think so because we're a UNIX shop... his reply was: "UNIX? what's that? does it run on NT?".... It figures....
  • You guys were watching this CNN report and were expecting them to lists all of its technical facts?? It's financial channel, They are not catoring to the slashdot people.. They are catering to all the finance people.. why do you think they singled out Redhat.. its a company to watch.
  • PHB watches CNN. PHB sees this 'linux' thing and might be disgrutnled about MS already. PHB realizes there might be an alternative to MS, despite was MS marketing drones tell him. PHB might actually listen to MIS people who have already said 'This sucks, give us more power cap
    n'

    PHB may actually consider it now, simply because it's on CNN, a 'reputable' (to the PHB) channel where this PHB get's their info.

    Also, as pointed out by many, this was a BUSINESS piece... if you don't get a clue about that already, please go away and stop telling people about it. You're doing us all a dis-service.

    Bad piece: go into store and say 'there's only four linux titles'. Well. . yo uwere holding LINUX the OS, nto a program for linux and all you have to do is goto a local RPM mirror to find some 34,000 rpms for linux, not to mention all the programs that aren't RPM'd! Tons of software out there, just that nobody is charging for them. That kind of frosted me a little....

    Remember, publicity good. Giving a history lesson on Linux on a business show: bad. Showing how a company (redhat) is making tons of money from a product that's free... gee.. ya think that the PHB's might find that interesting? Product costs 0, sell for $50. That's a key thing for the PHB's to hear! Stop whining about the things that were not mentioned and be thankful for what WAS mentioned. Awareness. Awareness.
  • enough said.
  • Remember it was a story by 'CNN Fortune'. The typical viewer probably got as much information about the free aspect as they wanted to hear (it costs nothing and you can make money from it)

    >In a way, Bob Young hopes to be the guy in the garage. His weapon is a software program called Linux, which many computer developers claim is better and more powerful than Microsoft Windows. And believe it or not,
    it's free.

    >(on camera): How do you make money doing that?

    >YOUNG: That's a $64 question. It's one of the innovations that Red Hat has been credited with.

  • yet another linux piece that points out the fact that Linux is only for the computer-31337, thus ensuring that the world will be in the throws of microsloth for the rest of eternity. The only thing the CNN piece did was attach the OS name 'Linux' to one distribution: Red Hat. No mention of GNU or the GPL, no mention of the billions of software packages for the OS. Eh, but it's exposure. I guess you can't complain.

    Oh, and just on a side note, I hope that micro wins it's antitrust case. I have actual reasons for this, but mostly its becuase I want the to feel the pain when the world discovers that Linux can actually be a user-friendly OS.
    -davek
  • Linux popularity can't be judged by the number of programs sitting on a shelf in Best Buy or the local computer shop as they suggest! Linux users would be unhappy with an "off the shelf" product, because they have grown use to getting the "latest greatest" version of every application they use by downloading it off the internet. Do you want to walk in and buy GIMP version 0.95 when you can just set your system to download a much newer version while you sleep?

    The internet is an integral part of the Linux culture, and it will take time before people get use to the idea that the Internet is also a primary (not secondary) source of software. The linux community knows this, the buisness world doesn't want to acknoledge this.

    If linux is to be analyzed by the buisness world, it should be analized in other contexts, not the traditional one. Possable opertunities are things like a publication buisness. I know more people would be interested in buying a monthly "subscription" (for $5 a month?) to the most recent version of the top 200 GPL titles for Linux on CD insted of buying stuff off the shelf. People like Time/Warner and all the publishing giants are the ones who stand something to gain, with thier publication subscription machienary in place... So, analyzing Linux in the "traditional" buisness context is idotic, because linux and gpl software will never be a "New version every two years" market like Microsoft has made for thier OS and software.

  • I'd LOVE to have one!!
    (Yeah baby yeah!!! :-)

    Nokey (The one and only. Be ware of cheap imitations)
  • Except that they really didn't mention any other distributiions. Or they didn't mention any of the other gui projects or other attempts to make Linux easier to use. One of the big complaints is that fvwmX isn't that easy to configure. Showing how good KDE is would be important to businesses. However I agree interviewing RMS would've just turned way too many people off(I hope you're not offended RMS if you read this). It's just Linus is just a way better person to market.
    Although they didn't give a complete overview of the Linux world with all the distributions and the GNU software, they really hammered away at what has been the main complaint of big corporations, lack of support. I can't honestly think that someone could walk away from the TV and think that there wasn't ANY support for Linux. Then again I'm sure lots of people walked away from the Juanita Broderick interview still thinking Bill Clinton has never lied, sorry had to mention that someplace
  • Man, after reading industry news on /., a CNN transcript is downright PAINFUL. It's amazing how disjoint and messy 8 second soundbytes are in text. Linux needs not such coverage. Reading that piece (of crap) was like playing 52 pickup in a rose garden.

  • GNU? (Score:1)

    by jerodd ( 13818 )
    I wasn't disappointed because I have already accustomed myself to poor journalism from CNN. But the complete lack of mention of things like GNU, the thousands of developers who have written Linux, and the exclusive attention given to Torvalds and Young is disheartening. Is this what world domination is?

    I don't want world domination. I want the world to change.

    Ah, that is not to be. People want one-size-fits-all; they want to look like everyone else. No-one wants to be different (except for a few nerds like those of us on Slashdot here and there).

    Richard Stallman was never even mentioned. HELLO? He wrote the most critical piece of Linux-gcc, and his organisation has written almost everything else (pick any Unix utility).

    Sigh,
    Joshua.

  • You don't have to use Disk Druid. Go right ahead and use fdisk! And just because redhat comes with one program that makes some potentially faulty assumptions, doesn't mean that the whole thing's buggy. It just means that disk druid is buggy. Also, if you bother to *read* the installation manual for redhat, you will notice that it *does* warn you that if you don't do the partitioning by hand, your existing partitions might get messed up.
  • I wonder how the msnopoly justifies raiding Linux shops with sales teams in attempts to get them hooked back on Windows. What kind of dirty tricks they will go to when they know NT is junk. Here was my favorite quote:

    YOUNG: We've been aware that Microsoft sales teams have been going out to our key accounts and actually trying to switch them away from Linux to Microsoft products. Three years ago when we first became aware of this.


  • No matter what they say, we all know CNN, this is an important even. It doesn't matter that they focused only on RH and Linus, the important thing is that on a enterprise-oriented program they gave a pretty good presentation of Linux. The imagery was also good, repeatedly showing the packaging and shipping of thousands of RH boxes, that's an image that says : "we are real and we are shipping to thousands of customers".
    I believe this is a turning point, now, it's up to us to inform the people and CNN about the real story behind Linux.
  • If I've told you once, I've told you a BILLION times, never, ever exagerate! ;)
  • You know I have been using windows for a long time now and am actually a MCSE. I'll tell you all this...I have now been using Red Hat's distribution for 2 months now and it's far less buggy then Windows anything. I'm very impressed with what has happened. I reciently got a consulting job with a company that wants to intall a 40 node network. They want a stable system that doesn't require much administration(once it's set up) and is cost effective. I sold them on linux instead of Windows and guess what....They love it and so do I. Plus I made a good profit on the deal. I'm a convert. Windows is good for certain enviroments but linux is the future!!!

    Bill
  • linux on tv is what it takes to get me to watch it cause tv sux.

    "LINUS TORVALDS, LINUX CREATOR: Because their operating systems (windows) really
    suck."

  • GNU? (Score:1)

    by diakka ( 2281 )
    Why is RMS always left out? I think it's simply because many perceive Linus as being more charasmatic, but I do think not mentioning GNU was a big screw up. Now the GNU Project has contributed more to the overall development of Free software, but It's not so bad having a poster child like Linus is a positive thing. If they show RMS on the screen raving about how it's immoral to use propriotary software, I think it's going to turn alot of people off. Now I know that RMS doesn't get all the credit he deserves, but if giving Linus more credit than he deserves in turn gives the public at large a positive view of Linux, then the net benefit to the free software community will be greater. The more Linux is pushed in to the mainstream, the more people it will bring in to the free software community, and the more cool toys we will have to play with :)
    --
  • You know, in about 1994, a colleague of mine was
    emphatically telling me about how this free little
    operating system he was tinkering with was going
    to pose a big threat to Microsoft. I looked at
    him pretty incredulously as he described what we
    all know as the open source model of development,
    and the fact that linux is free.
    In the intervening time, I became a convert during
    my time as an MIS guy working with relatively
    uncomplicated mix of Windows machines and Sun
    boxes, because it did a lot of things we needed,
    it didn't suck, and, hey, it's free.
    To see linux go from nothing to a primetime slot
    on CNN in less than 5 years is something to be
    applauded--we shouldn't sit here like geeks at
    a star trek convention nitpicking the broadcast,
    because newspeople who view their computer as
    just something to type up reports on won't
    understand that one can just take any cheap
    PC clone and turn it into a machine capable of
    just about any task in hours. CNN's audience
    isn't the slashdot audience (hm, maybe that night
    it was--slashdot effect in Nielson ratings?).
    Maybe next year, we'll see the penguins in the
    background of the CNN newsroom.
  • Squeeze makes a good point; his "failing" is in not being fully inoculated to the fact that the focus was to be on the Linux Business, not the GNU/Linux OS - the program being, of course, a co-branding of CNN & Fortune, neither known for their kewl 3L337 haX0r focus.

    --

  • ..is abacus.
    You moron.
  • That's exactly what happened to a friend and I...we borrowed a RedHat disk and turfed his partition table...But, being the geeks we are, we pushed on and installed the beast anyway...That's what backups are for. =)

    That's the difference between the average consumer and geeks. We're willing to beat on something until it works. If it doesn't work out of the box, the average consumer wants their money back. Hell, making things work is half the fun of Linux and most of the fun of programming.

  • Yes... ZD seems to think so, too :)

    http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_smgraph_d isplay/0,4436,2143338,00.html

    -bill!
  • That's what I want to know. I think maybe they meant Intel.

  • Every little bit helps? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Over on Linuxtoday.com there is a post from an curious Windows user who saw the CNN story. He said he's never heard of Linux before but he wants to learn about it. This proves that, if nothing else, a mention on CNN is going to bring out at a few potential converts. I don't know whether that's a good thing or not at this juncture when Linux is very much less-than-user-friendly. To echo somebody who posted here about two months ago, get ready for the "Lunix DEestroyed My Hard Drvie!" posts. Don't doubt it--I already got that exact phone call after lending a Red Hat disk to a friend of mine.

    Anyway, I wish the Windows user luck but honestly, I don't think he'll have much. I think he'll end up frustrated. But out of 10 guys like him, maybe 1 will.
  • First, I have to disagree. I don't know what the going definition of "fluff" is but I saw three major points:
    1. Bob Young talks about how his company is making money off Linux, and how it keeps on selling over their expectations, filmed in front of hundreds and hundreds of Linux shrinkwraps.
    2. The "Gates hometown switches to Linux" mention. I think this is an invaluable sell. I had this story bookmarked from a long time back, but it's nice to see it get some fresh attention.
    3. The fact that Linux has commercial support from the Big Names (including IBM). If nothing else convinces people that yes, there is commercial support, this should be it.

    For people who think RMS, GNU, etc. etc. were snubbed: GET A FUCKING CLUE. This is CNN Fortune. This is not for computer people. This is not "a history of Linux and the GNU project". This is a TV program for BUSINESS PEOPLE, you know. The PHBs. They don't CARE about RMS or the GNU or the bazaar or any of that. They want to find out what it can do for their business, and that it's not just some hacker toy.

    To that end, I think the CNN piece served its purpose more than adequately.

    Flame on.
  • And more to the point, they got people to pay attention to the Linux phenomemon. CS majors who've never heard of it will learn about the new distributions. Prophets and mystics will discover the gurus RMS and ESR. Businesspeople will hear "big names support Linux" and glaze over. Not every single facet of the Linux experience can be explained in 10 minutes -- the fact that it got CNN coverage will cause people to investigate for themselves, and they WILL uncover the set of facts they're interested in.

    "Do it yourself" is the lesson when working with free software. Maybe it's a lesson that applies to media research as well.
  • "So how do you make money doing that?"
    Blah blah blah money money money. Linus? Who's he? Do you make royalties? Why, are you an idiot? This is a successful "product" you could be making money money money money!
    This is a money money show, and we want to talk about Linux, but we won't talk much to the stupid hippie inventor. We'll talk to the RedHat guy, cause he's in the business of being in business and making money money money!

    money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money


    A pox on CNN.
  • Calm down.. do you think any of these finance people watching the show will give one shit or another about these details only a geek would scoff at? The only thing that matters now is that thousands of people have just learned a new word on wednesday night.. that word is 'Linux'
  • Would you rather have people forewarned that they might have to actually know something about their computer if they plan on using and maintaining Linux, or send them blindly towards Linux, have them learn the hard way, and turn them off of Linux forever?

    Let's face it, Linux is not as easy to set up and use as Windows 9X. Some of that can be fixed, but some can't, because Linux is so much more robust than Windows, and gives a level of control that Windows can't. Think of it as flying a plane vs. driving a car. Lots of people can drive a car and be perfectly happy with that; but if you want to get there faster (and actually safer), then you can fly a plane, which takes alot more skill. In Linux's case, it just so happens that the plane is free and maintained by the community.
    --
    Aaron Gaudio
    "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
  • Linux is a threat to that kind of development that shouldn't commerically exist.

    Don't worry, once free software ousts everyone out of the dekstop and small server mass market, you will still be able to find plenty of work working on large, custom enterprise systems. I don't think that anyone will come out with an open source air traffic control system any time soon,
    or an open source management system for large telecommunication newtorks, and the like.

    On the smaller end of the scale, there will also be work on embedded systems which require custom programming, even if they are based on a freeware operating system.

    Don't forget customization of the freeware itself. Free software doesn't always do the exact job that someone wants. If someone needs a special customizations or extensions, there are opportunities there.

    Then there is business programming. Businesses are always looking for ways to stay ahead of the competition. This includes the use of new kinds of technological solutions. With free software, businesses can find cost effective to take an existing freeware application that they are using and hire programmers to customize it to do what they want. This is the sort of opportunity that doesn't exist with proprietary software, or exists to a limited extent only---through the kind of extensibility that the proprietary software exposes, which often serves the monopolistic aims commercial vendor more than the needs of the customer.

    An easily overlooked fact about free software is that software which is under a free license doesn't have to be released. You can customize, say, a GNU application for some company under the agreement that the changes will not be made available to anyone outside of the company. Of course, if the changes leaked out, nobody could prevent the free copying and distributions in keeping with the license, but the license doesn't require that the changes *must* be published. It only states requirements that must be followed if the act of distribution takes place. By not publshing the changes, the organization can benefit from the use of the unique software, leveraging it go gain some sort of edge over its competitors.
  • They don't get anything until it whallops them upside the head six or seven times. They're only paying attention because IBM is paying attention.

    Expect to see more articles like these.
  • Did anyone manage to grab a copy of this into a mov/avi/mpeg/ram/whatever file?
  • You're not likely to see Linux in the CNN Newsroom anytime soon - for years, the newsroom had only VT100 terminals, and they're still converting over to Windows machines.

    It's certainly possible that Linux may crop up somewhere behind the scenes, just as it has in lots of other large companies. But even that may take a while. I was talking to someone recently about some or another computer that supported the on-air side of the house. This computer runs a version of NT, but it's a special version; the companies that make this kind of gear won't let you touch the insides of these boxes and still certify that they will work in the real-time on-air environment.

    The CNN.com/internet side of things is all Sun Solaris running Netscape Enterprise servers right now. That could change someday, but we're pretty conservative technically; you have to be when your site is subject to the kind of loads CNN.com can get. (Our newest record is over 500k hits/minute across the entire family of web sites - (cnn|cnnfn|cnnsi).com and misc other sites) We take some pride that our site usually stays up when others are crushed under the load, so we have to take care not to screw it up.
  • I'm gainfully employed, married, and haven't lived off Mum & Dad for about 12 years.

    Oh I see. Only the youthful are idealistic, right? If I knew what the "real world" was like, I'd be a crusted humorless capitalist running-dog bastard like all you other sellouts.
  • Tough sh*t! If your a decent programmer, it shouldn't be too hard to find a job (look in any classified). And Gates wasn't talking about the OSS community moron, he was talking about piraters. Completely different! You can't put food on your table coding? Then you must not be very skilled. Ask the guys at RHAD if you can make money writing free code.
    Erik
  • The piece was directed at the business community
    and not at geeks. Of course the didn't mention GNU
    or open source, those are not the kind of things
    the business types watching the show would be overly interested in. They want a quick overview
    and if they like what they see then they'll do
    some digging on their own. If CNN did a 30 or 60
    minute story on Linux then GNU, open source and the entire Linux community should, of course, be
    mentioned.

    I suspect some of you were expecting too much from
    a 15 minute sound byte.
  • MicroSoft is throwing some event called "Update 99" at the University of Davis, California. ( http://events.microsoft.com/isapi/events/event.asp ?s=332209 )

    Well, the new local Linux user group, LU-GoD (the Linux User Group of Davis, http://www.lugod.org/ ) is going to be there passing out pamphlets and flyers pointing out that there ARE alternatives... for example Linux, and the many Office suites and other high-end apps. available for Linux.

    Muhahahahah! >:^)

    -bill!
    "sys" (2nd in command)
    LU-GoD
  • UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's certainly a strong case for people really disliking Microsoft. Most of the is because their operating systems really suck.

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