Maddog on "The Economics of Linux" 30
MojoT sent us a
link to Jon "Maddog" Hall's bit The Economics of Linux
that appears in Performance Computing. Talks about why
Linux is taking off and much more.
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Maddog on "The Economics of Linux"
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To be is to program.
Good points and commonsense advice (Score:1)
Don't get me wrong, common sense advice is a very good thing to have out there, especially with the current lack of this commodity in corporate circles.
First, I like his quick summary of why linux spread so quickly:
1) Support for 386 -> quick userbase
2) Good OS -- no crashes -> server market
3) Flexible -- source code -> multiple uses
4) Free
5) (mention in preceding paragraphs) curiosity in media and with hackers
6) (turning point; given first) apps including gcc, databases...
He gives the biggest danger at the ability for management to misunderstand the culture attached to Linux. This is a real danger, but not the only one. However, Maddog only addresses this issue, giving the advice that management keep in touch with reality, reading Slashdot and Freshmeat, communicating with engineers.
I think that the biggest point is that the engineers are not the only ones with communication problems. Management likes to live in their own worlds of analysis, numbers, and statistics. They choose to ignore or enforce their ideals onto other groups. This is what Maddog, sensibly, instructs them to avoid. Management needs to work *with* their engineers, not control them.
So what do we call this, the battle for the management?
The only thing lacking from this article is even a mention of the other dangers of corporate intrusion into Linux (eg. YA Licence, distribution favoratism, fragmentation, money, etc.) However, given its focus, this is a good article.
-Ben
That'd be Compaq.. (Score:1)
It doesn't matter (Score:1)
Thank you maddog. (Score:1)
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"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Dead economic model (Score:1)
I think you are right. In today's world if you come up with a really neat idea for software that everyone wants (eg. WWW browser), and then try to sell it one or both of these things will happen:
So the bottom line you might as well GPL your software - at least M$ will not take it.
You could ask why no one has yet OSS-ed MSOffice? Perhaps, it's because no one really wants to use it. They just have too... :-)
Agree with need for auto-tuning (Score:1)
I agree. A friend of mine used to say that Linux wasn't as good a server as proprietary UNIXen because there weren't as many tunable parameters. Well, now with 2.2 there are, and we have the same problem that the proprietary UNIX (and NT for that matter) have, that only gurus know how to tune the system. This goes against the free-for-all ethos of Linux, in my opinion. We need a program or script that collects data on system performance, and tunes accordingly. Then, hopefully, by the open-source styleee, it would absorb all the knowledge of all the gurus, and make it available to the whole userbase.
It won't happen... (Score:1)
Frankly, if MS ported Office to Linux, it would only serve to demonstrate the superiority of existing Linux office suites.
The Rise of the Techies (Score:1)
It's a peculiar war, fought with cries of "Learn or Delegate! [Tech]" and "I am in Control! [PHB]". It's not at all like the management wars that accompanied previous technical revolutions (eg. the PC) because unlike those, the Internet is not a product of industry and it doesn't go in the direction the PHBs want, not even in mega-corps. Instead, it seems to head in the direction in which the techies say it will, which is infuriating of course to PHBs, yet they're loath to ignore managerial advice from technical ranks because their bonuses depend on it. It's great fun.
Linux is free (Score:1)
When network engineering needed a DNS server, and couldn't wait for the usual purchasing delays, up went a Linux box.
I had an extra old PC, and wanted beter network utilities than windows 95 (telnet, whois, nslookup) so now I have Linux on my desktop.
Researchers here have been using Unix for a long time, and Linux is just another tool they can use for statistical analysis, image processing and networking.
I think that many managers will find the same thing. Linux has crept in beetween the cracks into many organizations.
No OSS-ed MSOffice? (Score:1)
You need help (Score:1)
You read a well informed, useful article, and the only response you come up with is: "Katz Sux".
-- Keith Moore
One problem... (Score:1)
Nice article. One problem, though -- I cannot see all the PHBs doing a turn-around and changing the way they think about a market... especially the old, from-the-trenches PHB types. The author is making an excellent suggestion to them -- to approach Linux on its own terms, rather than as just another market -- but those people spent their entire lives approaching everything as just another market, and I don't think they can handle the radical change that viewing Linux as a process and a community requires.
In short -- I hope but remain doubtful. [sigh]
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Or: don't get us fired... (Score:1)
Self-reinforcing until the snowball hits? (Score:1)
The company I work for hosts newsgroups (that are actually fairly successful). The first iteration of this was done using a web-based interface using Lotus Domino; it was, quite literally, a piece of crap, and that was abandoned after several months. It was replaced by a netscrape server --- which had constant problems with load balancing, and would go down erratically.
Attempts to convince IS to replace it with something more stable --- linux, say, running INews --- were shrugged off with "but we can get support from Netscape."
In recent months, this mantra has changed to: "but we don't have anyone here who has the time to learn how to do that, and we can't hire anyone new."
This suggests that, as more people learn, there will be a snowball effect --- at the very least, this particular excuse will go away.
Hey Malda (Score:1)
Hey Crippler (Score:1)
Quux26
(a geek)
Linux is free (Score:1)
experience, I think we can expect to see this "creep" accelerate to a sprint, at least in some places.
I work in a modestly sized Astronomy department and have noticed an increasing Linux buzz around the donut pile. Not that everybody isn't already running Linux on their boxes at home, but it is increasingly seen as an attractive alternative to Sun and HP workstations in the office. I wonder if workstations for scientists will soon disappear in favor of PC's running Linux. The image reduction software packages have all been ported, and everyone is completely comfortable with UNIX, so their really is no barrier to the transition. Particularly when, as one professor told me, you can easily buy 5 completely decked out PC/Linux systems for the cost of a workstation. How hard is that computation?
But WHY the hell NOT? (Score:1)
So, the suits will try to differentiate the Linux that goes into their boxes. How do we convince them to stick with the community and not fork off into writing lock-in code? What happens when Compag writes a closed-source kernel module for a processor based modem (commonly called winmodems, but this term tends to give Micros~1 to much credit)? What will be the long term ramifications for Compaq? Will people turn away from such lock-in, in fear that the MicroDOS thing will happen all over again?
Maddog seems to understand the suits, but he isn't speaking their language completely. The suits don't care for anything but the bottom line. They wouldn't care if only 5 people used Linux, if they could be convinced that a sizable profit could be made. We must convince the suits that the Linux community is a shared commons problem. One company can overuse the commons to their own gain for a short period of time, but eventually it will hurt when everyone else follows suit and the commons is destroyed.
It doesn't matter (Score:1)
Is his company hiring? (Score:1)
Linux Survival (Score:1)
Certainly I agree,
Think of it, lets say for instance, the suits create a commercial office suit which is fair superior to a Freeware one produced by someone like the KDE project. (or even worse MS OFFICE is ported).
This will have two effects, it will prolly increase Linux popularity with industry by providing them with someone to blame if anything goes wrong. However it could possibly kill the FreeWare effort due to waning popularity.
If this happened enough times, you could go from a FreeOS to semi-free Os and evenually on to mostly commercially Os.
I prefered it when I was the only guy I knew who used Linux (C:, glory days of '95
One problem... (Score:1)
I can't see the PHB changing either, but then again who can tell what will happen,
we mustn't forget about all the companies who have endorsed and produced OSS themselves.
I dunno, it will be interesting if nothing else to see how things progress
hehe...good point (Score:1)
You need help (Score:1)
Dead economic model (Score:1)
The entire premise of commercial software developers is to put together a proprietary system where they can control your software support dollars and continuously churn the market for revenues. This is completely opposite of the value derived by the GPL.
How can a PHB reconcile the two? I cannot imagine a valid economic justification for an ISV to invest millions in developing GPL'ed software. You can make some money off of it, but nowhere near what would be possible under a proprietary scheme.
On the other hand, if a piece of software is a good idea and has broad appeal, the hacker community will likely put together an OSS version within a couple of years anyway.
Software vendors will eventually have to support Linux, but they are going to be required to completely change their business strategy. Their won't be very many that find a financially successful one.
Just some random, poorly formatted thoughts.
Stealth Linux (Score:2)
In brief, it seems surprising that nobody in the trade press noticed until six months ago that Linux has more users now than Windows did in 1991 (yet Windows dominated the news pages of PC Week, InfoWorld and so on from 1990 onwards).
Two factors are of interest here. One is that Linux is not really a corporate desktop thing (yet), as Windows was at first (mostly because most home users couldn't afford the hardware in 1990-91; later with the fall in memory, disk and CPU prices, the release of W95 and the takeoff of the Web it zoomed madly in the home market). Linux has been quietly off in departmental corners serving print jobs and Web pages and email.
The second factor is that Linux has been thoroughly international from the get go. Thus its 10 or 20 or more million users have been spread far more widely than the concentrated corporate office visibility of Windows in the early years. In addition the localization that is key to expansion in non-US markets is very advanced under Linux. The market can grow UP, not OUT, from its current status. That is a crucial consideration for the future development trajectory of Linux.
My conclusion is that Linux is in a *stronger* position than many people realize to make further gains in departmental computing. There will be an inevitable backlash against Linux as potential users start to wrestle with its unfamiliar approach. But, mark my words, they will be assimilated. Why? Performance, price, features, reliability. Nuff said.
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EXCELLENT! (Score:2)
My spin on it is this: If the linux install base is equal to the commercial unix install base then the independent software vendors Have to port to linux. No question.
Now desktop applications are a different story. Where one big (solaris|AIX|SCO|HPUX) box exists, there are 50 pc's. Running microsoftware.
We straddle the two worlds: datacentre and desktop. I run a linux desktop and use a linux server, as well as SCO and Solaris servers. What needs to happen is
Fully installed OEM systems.
Full desktop documentation, on said OEM systems
Someone needs to write a scripted Auto tuning tool, that can fix up the open file limit, the ulimits and such for big servers (so that catastrophe at MindCraft won't happen again)
A full "Compatibility Suite" of office productivity software. So that MS Office addicts can double click on a word document in their email and have (wordperfect|applix|staroffice) open it and convert it properly. And double click on a url and have (netscape|opera|lynx|whatever) open it properly. This ALMOST there people.
Its so close I can taste it. Gnome and KDE are very close. I use both. The productivity apps and the drag/drop interactivity is getting close to perfect.
we need someone to put together this type of office system, get it fully installed on an OEM box and ship it to Jesse Berst, the guy at Salon, and any other so-called technology writer.
Some common ideas; some uncommon ideas. (Score:4)
It seems everyone is saying roughly the same thing:
1) The adoption of Linux-based OSes in a wider market is Good, provided it dilutes neither the freedom nor the hacker/geek appeal of the system.
2) Microsoft Office for Linux would cause wider Linux adoption, but this adoption would be too fast and reckless, and would damage both the freedom of the system (due to embrace-and-extend) and the cluefulness of the user base. A MS Linux distribution would be the same, but worse.
3) PHBs generally do not understand that the free-software model and the general attitude of openness and free exchange of information are what make Linux-based systems good, and if given the chance, may take steps that would damage this good.
To these commonly-observed points I would like to add a few, which I think have not been adequately addressed:
1) The Unintentional Hazard of Red Hat Linux
Red Hat may pose an unintentional hazard. While they clearly mean well, it is obvious by now that the mass media pay a great deal more attention to Red Hat than to other distributions, and that Red Hat, for tolerably obvious reasons, has no desire to change this fact. When they do notice other distros, the media tend to notice only other commercial distros, such as Caldera OpenLinux, and to ignore noncommercial ones such as Debian GNU/Linux and Slackware, even though Debian is presently the second-most-popular distribution, and has several arguable superiorities.
Red Hat may prove a hazard in that new programs, especially commercial applications, may be released in forms only suitable for use on Red Hat Linux. Besides being issued in RPM form -- which is not too much of a problem, but is an inconvenience, especially for new users -- they may be tailored to the set of libraries and other features present in the current Red Hat release, and possibly without testing for compatibility with other Linux-based operating systems.
In the case of free software releases this is not likely to pose a problem, because (for instance) the Debian maintainers could easily repackage the software in a Debian-compatible form. However, in the case of proprietary software, it is a serious problem, as proprietary-software houses are not as a rule interested in others repackaging their releases. While heavily political free-software advocates may not care whether proprietary software is available for their favorite noncommercial distro, such differences can clearly have an effect on the supportable user base of each these distributions.
2) Again, the Security Issue
As I have noted before [slashdot.org], one issue critical to the good performance of Linux-based systems is security. As evidenced by the frequency with which newbie Linux users are rooted or otherwise cracked, security is being traded off for ease of use. This Must Stop.
We should expect that Linux-based systems will get easier to use, simply because so many people are now putting effort into that direction -- see the various documentation efforts, as well as the LUIGUI [luigui.org] project. What we must be sure of, however, is that security is not sacrificed in this pursuit. Newbies and end-users need more help, not less, in securing their systems than do advanced users or sysadmins. Distros need to have default configurations that favor network security over network openness -- ftpd and the like being disabled or limited by default; ssh or SSLTelnet being preferred over Telnet; etc.
Another element of this point is that updating is one function which also needs to be made accessible to the end-user and the newbie. Keeping one's system up to date is an essential part of protecting it from attacks. One of our boasting-points is the fact that security patches for Linux systems are available quicker than patches for, say, NT -- but if these patches are not applied, the effort is wasted. In my mind, Debian has done the best job in making updating easy -- apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade is all the user need do, and even this could in theory be automated further. (One possibility would be to have an option which updates only packages whose installation requires no user interaction, and running this update every day in cron.daily.)
In any case, security must not be neglected in favor of wider adoption or ease of use, or the benefits of Linux-based systems will be severely hampered.
3) The Hacker/Geek Arrogance Factor.
Several people here have expressed views in common with Pablo Averbuj's Letter to Debian about Friendliness [debian.org], whose "Executive Summary" read as follows:
1. Stupid Users are Bad.
2. Stupid Users are Bad for Debian.
therefore:
3. Stupid Users should be ignored.
While it's not fair at all to dismiss M. Averbuj's position as one of simple hacker/geek arrogance, there has been no end of arrogant hackers and geeks who have rallied behind a very similar position: namely than Linux is For Geeks Only, and that no effort should be made to popularize it.
The problem I have with this position is that it leads its followers to marginalize themselves, and I suspect that if followed long enough and in the face of mounting popularization, it will lead to the formation of a faction with a bunker mentality: self-identified "hardcore" Linux hackers who want nothing to do with anything like ease of use or popularization, and who decry all such efforts as misuse or misappropriation of the True Hackerly Linux.
Such an exodus, of course, would only reduce the cluefulness of any popularized Linux. It would also lead to more bogus political infighting of the kind we already see too much of. This would be Bad, not only because it would make us all look like flamers, but because it would reduce the amount of productive cooperation in the whole effort.