Analyst Rob Enderle has written what is sure to be a controversial article explining his conversion from an open source proponent to a disillusioned opponent. His reasons don’t focus on technical merits, but on side issues such as the fanatical intolerance for dissent and ignorance in Linux forums (making it hard to get help sometimes) and the fact that when your boss expects everything to be free it makes it harder to exceed expectations. Food for thought, but he might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Though I like the concept of Open Source, the success stories are rare. A programmer can usually make it work, but for the average user, Open Source products are not worth the effort. The best examples of open source are those that are the least open. Apple’s OS X is a success because of the “Closed” wrapper around the Open Source core.
This is not to say that no open source tool is easy to use state, only that the majority are to complicated for the average user.
Which part of MACOS is the wrapper? The only wrapper I know of is Webcore or whatever Apple calls it.
Well, blaming open source for offshore outsorcing is utterly preposterous. I would advise the author to check some of Michael Moore’s books for examples that predate open source. It has happened so far in car industry, consumer electronics, you name it. Offshore outsourcing is the results of big companies’ preference for making profit over the well-being of USA job market, period. Just live with it, or vote for a socialist goverment on your next election day.
Microsoft is outsourcing, too.
Aqua is the wrapper. The Core is Darwin (FreeBSD). The Apple GUI make Unix usable
That article is so full of it it’s not worth commenting on it.
Move on. Nothing to see here!
I mistyped: The GUI makes unix usable to the average user (Unix is wonderfuly usable). X-Windows attempts to do this, but has not gotten easy enough for the average user. That is where Open Source has fallen short, the polish to make non-technical people be able to use the system.
The author says that if the enterprise knows what it’s doing, it can successfully deploy linux.
The clear implication is that those who don’t know what they’re doing should deploy Windows.
One would think that a person about to start a consulting company would take the position that an enterprise should develop the capability to know how to acquire, deploy and manage its IT infrastructure.
I have explained on this site before how the IT dept. at the company where I work (I am a research chemist not an IT worker)deployed not only its first Linux server, but one which at the same time was for a mission critical application. I am repeating this as an example of how wrong this article is.
1. Our IT shop is a Windows shop with little or no Unix experience.
2. Our company is the Canadian subsidiary of a moderately sized global corporation based outside North America. Our IT dept. reports to the North American CIO based in the US.
We were to introduce a new Oracle based mission critical system (database backend to a LIMS that has to follow regulatory guidelines and cope with the workflow of a busy QC dept). Our IT dept wanted to deploy Oracle on a Windows server. IT at NAHQ would not let them – they would only support Oracle on Unix like systems. They recommended Linux (RHAS). Our IT director didn’t have much choice he had to go with Linux, he was forced into it.
The manager put in charge of the project had no Unix/Linux experience (he had once planned to install Linux on his home machine a couple of years ago – but gave up because he didn’t have the time). His experience was totally Novell/Windows.
They had a few problems on installation but with the help of RH, Oracle and our IT guys in the US they soon had it sorted out. Now they have a working cluster of two 2-cpu machines running Oracle and working well. it is a success story.
The lesson is that even a Windows shop can easily adapt to running mission critical apps on Linux in the enterprise if they have to. The other lesson is that there is support out there for such corporate deployments The final lesson is that this deployment was a loss to Windows not proprietary Unix.
All of the article is just FUD by a known MS shill.
If Ms. Laura Didio dug the grave for the respectability of IT analysts this guy is surely doing a hell of a good job filling it up. And these people actually get paid to advise people?
Ow no, another brave man trying to brake the ‘don’t critizise OSS’ taboo.
There should be more of these guys.
You call this criticism?
Yeah, for OSS standards, it is. Normally it’s halleluja OSS this and halleluja OSS that.
Anyway…
Please correct me if I am wrong but Aqua is not a wrapper. It is a layer. It may shield the user from the complexity of the underlying OS, but unless I am horribly mistaken that is not a wrapper.
I really think the writers gripe with Open Source was that his bosses thought that they should be completely free of cost.
The Core is Darwin (FreeBSD)
Darwin is *not* FreeBSD. Some of the userland components are derived from FreeBSD but many are still straight from Mach/NeXT. XNU, the kernel, is a Mach kernel with the FreeBSD UBC, VFS, and network stack, and a few additional FreeBSD components have been added in Panther (e.g. kqueues)
The major portions of the kernel, including process management and the VMM, come from Mach. The system ABI is Mach-O.
Darwin is a Mach/BSD hybrid, with the majority of the code coming from Mach, not from BSD.
minkwe: if you think it’s so full of it, please enlighten the rest of us – support your argument
(I agree with the outsourcing btw. That’s a silly argument)
Guess what, neither approach is 100% perfect. Also, each is a process, yes commercial software has a TENDENCY to produce a more polished result than its opensource counterparts. However, this is not a guaranteed case. I know of several VERY polished open source software packages. The BSDs and Apache spring to mind, as do all of the major OSS programming languages, perl, python, tcl, php, etc.
With that said, there is still no good open source alternative for a lot of crucial software. I avoid Windows like the plague, but I still reboot, because I have to. Plain and simple I HAVE TO.
There are also several circumstances where the OSS version is good, but not quuiiiiite there yet. OpenOffice is great, but there are a lot of times where I really do need MS Office.
On the server front, if you need a quick and dirty file server for Windows clients that SOMEONE ELSE can maintain, Windows really is your only option. (Imagine an accountant calling you up when there’s a problem on your RedHat/Samba server and you trying to tell him how to open up VI and edit /etc/samba.conf)
Use the best tool for the job, stop the march of ideology.
I emailed him, here is what I said…
So many rabid Linux users emailed and flamed you and
suddenly you change your mind. *shrugs* I too am a
Linux enthusiast but I’m not a rabid quasi-religious
freak about it either (ignore the fact that I have Tux
tattooed on my leg…), it isn’t (yet) suitable for
everything nor is it perfect.
Yes, Linux is free – but there are two types of free
here. Price? It can be, many distros of Linux are
free – but few corporations would risk going it alone
with Debian or Gentoo, most will buy Red Hat AS or
Suse Enterprise. Are those free? No, but their much
more sanely priced then MS anything. Or even SCO
Unix. But there is another sort of free thats highly
important – freedom. Freedom to do what you want with
your own software, freedom to tailor your software
around your business instead of vice-versa. Freedom
to customize everything, right down to the kernel, if
you so wish. Most businesses who deploy Linux won’t
do this, but those who have – like Burlington Coat
Factory – have seen huge rewards.
The SCO lawsuit has *no merit* – they themselves no
only shipped Linux, thus invalidating their entire
argument, but continue to have it availible on their
own ftp servers. Beyond that it was Caldera (now “SCO
Group”) that started the Linux SMP project back in
1993 (before any SCO Unix had SMP, mind you) by
donating a SMP motherboard to Alan Cox, a key kernel
developer. Beyond that all the technologies SCO is
whining about aren’t theres to begin with, does any
SCP Unix have NUMA support? Thats IBM’s, their own
patents – they can do with it what they want. SCO’s
only making noise, they have no case. German law
doesn’t allow law suits to be filled and brought to
court without evidence, and when the German courts
asked SCO to put up or shut up – show the evidence
before they go further – SCO *withdrew.* Yup, strong
case eh?
Now behavior…sigh…Linux users are often like Mac
users, if not worse. I myself am a huge fan, hell I
mentioned the tattoo – but not all of us behave like
we’re 12. I do hope you come back, and ignore the
majority of those flaming emails – we’re not all like
that. Though I’m deadly certain your latest piece
will bring em masse.
Take care,
~Christopher
It’s been said earlier, but linking OSS to off shoring is just stupid. If anything using OSS and reducing unnecessary licensing fees means there should be MORE money available to pay domestic workers. It’s just CEOs trying to make their bottom line look better to the markets. I’d like to put all management types who think off shoring is a good idea on notice. There are PLENTY of people with MBAs in India too and you don’t have any ability to produce something tangible like a software engineer. You have been WARNED!
He declares open source is not ready for the enterprise based on . . . what? He never provides any technical r?easons. Instead, it’s a bunch of bullshit about “job risk,” fake SCO-style litigation risk and “people are rude in the open-source forums”? What? What the fu** does this have to do with whether open source is ready for the enterprise? What does whether his clients’ jobs are at risk (and thus his own income stream) have to do with whether open source is ready for the enterprise?
He also keeps dancing around one problem with his argument that he readily admits – open source is already being used in the enterprise (which he says mainly is as a cheaper replacement for proprietary unix). OK, but proprietary unix was obviously ready for the enterprise, right? So why is a cheaper replacement for what was ready for the enterprise (proprietary unix) somehow itself not ready for the enterprise?
Obviously there are things stopping open source from displacing windows or evern proprietary unix. There are reasons to keep choosing those, for many enterprise users. But where’s the support for Enderle’s sweeping conclusion that open source is “not ready”?
what can I say except he’s an ass, a fool and as ass. This piece is just a publicity piece at best.
Standards? The Open Source community encourages and uses standards.
Its MS that breaks already established standards. Proprietary file formats, Broken browsers, and other things that make people have to break the current standards for the MS one.
People saying “there are so many linux distros, there should be more standards” knows nothing. I have tried a countless number of distributions, and have had NO compatability problems. I never hear “This will only work in Redhat”. Yeah, some companies only support redhat, but because 99% of the software in a distribution is IDENTICAL, you run into no problems.
No one is more critical of open source than the open source comunity. Look at how active open source development is. Things are constantly getting better. Hell, most users could submit patches to the kernel if they wanted to. Id say thats “taking criticism”
Open Source advocates get upset when people complain about how they dont like the product. Its FREE (in both meanings), so if you dont like it dont use it, its not our fault.
I just don’t understand how someone could hate something because its free. If its not as good as something else, don’t use it. Use whatever is more comfortable for you. I just seems that there are an awful lot of people out there who think that free software == bad…
1: Litigation risk…
Come on, I know SCO have shaken a few people, but until they win in court (extremely unlikely), the situation is totally unchanged with regard to copyright, despite the amount of law-suits flying around.
“but I also received reports of many lawsuits brought by employers against their own employees for overzealous inclusion of the employers’ proprietary code in open-source distributions.”
Please, now this is pure FUD. A single concrete example of a case would be far more convincing than ‘received reports’.
How many employers search through open source code to find infringing code? How many then bring a lawsuit against their employees?
And could the author claim that propriatory software companies never see the inside of a courtroom?
2: Job Risk….
Now this is silly. If you are not worth the amount you charge, people will look elsewhere. This is nothing to do with open source software.
3: Behavior….
Take a look at comp.os.windows-xp. Case closed. It’s a big scarey world out there, deal with it.
4: Free…..
Uh. Now you are *really* losing the plot. Free software is bad because it’s free? Remember also, that ‘open source’ does not have to mean ‘free’.
And now the real meat of the argument…
“Linux has lousy user interfaces; no roadmap or clear escalation path; incompatibilities between distributions; IBM, HP and others are all usurping the process.”
You may be surprised, but I’d kinda agree here. It’s getting better though, and I don’t understand why anyone would think “IBM, HP and others are all usurping the process.”.
“The open-source community can either step up and address its faults, or continue to work furiously to cover them up and go the way of OS/2.”
Yes, the open source community have only one mind. Every single person who uses or creates open source software thinks exactly the same way, and concentrates not on fixing bugs, but only on covering them up. *Sigh*
Be serious. The community is millions stong, writing software is just very hard to do. Windows 2000 was the largest software product ever undertaken in the history mankind by the worlds most richest and popular operating systems company…. And it’s still proven insecure and unreliable, and does not even come with a decent graphics app.
People want quality free software, and are well aware of the faults in what’s currently available. Post an error message or problem you have with a free app on the relevent mailing list, and you will find people not only willing to talk about what’s wrong, but also discuss how to improve or fix it. Only blanket statements like “Linux has lousy user interfaces”, are a waste of time, because they don’t tell you which app the user did not like, and what they were comparing too.
“Rob Enderle heads the Enderle Group, a company that will formally launch in September of 2003.”
Well isn’t this a convincing piece of information. I hope that Mr Enderle and his “Group” will do just fine. His opinions did sound as if he had never really done any real IT work in his life, so it’s good to hear that he finally gets a chance.
Linux is not ready for the enterprise? When did this suddenly become some goal for linux? When did linux morph from an OS that was for the people coding to a sweatshop for corporate giants to exploit? I think it would be GREAT if all those cheap-ass corps all dumped linux en mass and went back to sucking microsoft’s limp offerings. That’s what they deserve.
Behavior: Too many people think it is OK to use inappropriate language and behavior when arguing their point. Worse, when people go to open source forums with legitimate questions, they are often pilloried or subjected to some kind of hazing process. Many open-source developers respond as if new participants on a site are interlopers.
I’ve blasted Microsoft and Dell for behavior that is trivial in comparison, so I don’t see any point in treating open source differently. To my mind, there is no excuse for bad behavior.
How exactly is one supposed to prevent mental/physical juveniles from spouting off at every newbie who goes looking for help on irc/usenet? Holding open source to the same standard? What standard? Dell and MS are corporations with money to burn on tech support. I’ve seen people looking for help with simple windows problems getting torn apart by some loser on many occasions. This is just as unacceptable, but you don’t blame MS for it? So why blame all of open source? Yeah some devs are jerks… but how can “Open Source” curtail their behaviour? The sad fact is, if you want help of any kind on the net, you’re better off going someplace with some sort of moderator. That’s really the only way your not going to have put up with some overbearing buffoon.
I’ve followed Rob Enderle and his writing for some years. In my opinion he is a certified Micro-Softie in sheeps clothing. He once did a point-counter-point article (several years back in Info world I believe) where he gloated that “Windows would dance over the grave of many a competitor”. So I would consider his warning to be sure so that Linux doesn’t end up like OS/2 (which I remember him slamming too); but I would also consider the source. Rob Enderle is a former IBM’er (self proclaimed — he said it in the same counter-point article) that seemed like he was always extolling the virtues of M$. I read what he says with the consideration that he is a M$ proponant and has always been that way in any of the articles I read with his name on them. The fact that he is “dropping” open-source just because he got some feedback he didn’t like is telling.
So all the Linux and open-source fans should be encouraged not discouraged by his comments. Just remember OS/2 and don’t let the Micro-Softies of the world have their way. Maybe they will go the way of OS/2 this time.
The best examples of open source are those that are the least open.
The three most successful open source projects, (Apache, Samba, Linux), are very open.
I mistyped: The GUI makes unix usable to the average user (Unix is wonderfuly usable). X-Windows attempts to do this, but has not gotten easy enough for the average user.
X-Windows is not a Window Manager, and therefore not a usable GUI in itself. KDE and Gnome are Window Managers (well, really they’re Desktop Environments). The latest incarnations of these are both are very usable, with KDE being more featurefule and customizable and Gnome being more streamlined. (In my experience, Windows users like KDE better, while Mac users tend to prefer Gnome…)
An adjustment period is necessary, just like when going from Windows to Mac, but as far as usability goes, the Linux desktop has virtually caught up with WinXP and Mac OS X.
I’ve tried to respond to the issues raised by Enderle.
Too Much Litigation Risk:
Most opensource developers who have spoken about the SCO lawsuit have asked the same thing : “Show us the infringing code and it will be removed”. This simple request hasn’t been honored by the plaintiff, unless people sign an NDA, which is silly since linux source is open.
If employers sued their employees for inclusion of proprietary code in open source distributions, why don’t they speak in public ? Is it the users fault ? I don’t think so.
According to Enderle, Microsoft has language that provides for indemnification. If that’s true, which part of the EULA says that ? How come they put their SQL Server customers at risk when they were sued for breach of contract ? Isn’t it Microsoft that was recently found guilty for including somebody’s work into Internet Explorer and consequently fined ?
Job Risk:
Does Enderle really believe that when Intel or AMD build plants abroad, it’s because of open source ? Or maybe the corporations that get their data processed in India are all linux vendors ? A friend of mine used to work for Siemens (developing software on a Windows platform). Now they’re told their job will be transfered to India. How is it open source fault ? Let me guess : Giga Information Group conducted their research with funds from Redmond.
Behavior:
If Enderle has a sensitive skin, why doesn’t he stick to books, articles, man pages, faqs and how-to ? That’s a better way to learn how to use any sort of software, instead of complaining about flames.
Free:
Those who love throwing away money for proprietary software don’t get it. Jane Doe has the explicit permission from the developers to use linux or the BSDs as she sees fit. Why does Enderle insists on paying for it ? This has nothing to do with knowing the laws of economics or not.
Cover-up of issues :
How can open source users cover-up the problems they face when all that is needed to get the software is an internet connection and a CD burner ? Most computer users who meet these two conditions can see for themselves what it’s all about.
What does Enderle mean by exceeding expectations ? Isn’t it the administrator’s job to tell their boss what options are available freely and which one must be bought ?
Linux has lousy user interfaces :
This is great, coming from people who think that the Blue Screen Of Death is an Act of God.
There is no roadmap or clear escalation path :
Funny, Enderle should read the expectations Linus have concerning the 2.6 kernel. And what about the list of changes that was recently published by the OpenBSD team ?
It would have been quite informative to know in detail which escalation path Microsoft took from Windows NT to Windows 2000, for instance. Then again, Enderle may be one of the lucky few who get this trade secret information from Redmond. Or is it Sun that will send him a complete account of what they are going to change in the next version of Solaris ?
Stepping up and addressing faults :
That is called “preparing the next release”, my dear Rob. The comparison to OS/2 is, to say the least, unwarranted and lousy. There is no joint project between linux (or the BSD) and Microsoft, unless I’m wrong. Therefore, no matter what Microsoft does to it’s operating system, the open source developers will keep hacking theirs.
Now the last word : I truly hope that next time Enderle will vent his frustration in better terms.
Yeah, for OSS standards, it is. Normally it’s halleluja OSS this and halleluja OSS that.
Actually, there’s been a lot of criticism of OSS on this site and in others. Rob Enderle is a known anti-OSS advocate who most likely gets little brown envelopes from MS.
I have nothing against criticism when it is honest and constructive. This is just FUD, pure and simple.
>Behavior: Too many people think it is OK to use
>inappropriate language and behavior when arguing their point.
What’s “appropriate” for you isn’t what’s “appropriate” for others. The fact that some people use words that you don’t like doesn’t necessarily invalidate or diminish their point. And the fact that NOT using some words seems to be a virtue to you, perhaps you could extrapolate your theory and achieve nirvana by not using any words at all. Leave thinking to others, it’s obviously not for you.
And speaking of “pseudo anonymity of the net brings out the worse[sic]” in people… I can think of nothing worse than your uptight stupid ass trying to impose your censorship on others. Don’t like having other express themselves? Move to N.Korea, China or just about any muslim country. When you see what it’s like to be on the receiving side maybe you’ll grow to appreciate that “inappropriate” language a little bit more.
He is right.
Liux will go the way OS2 did.
Down the drain.
Where OS2 was a nice try,
Liux is a joke done by cloners.
What’s your problem? Did I say that the whole net must be censored?
OS/2 was proprietary. It was killed by a MS dirty trick. (Even though it is still in use in some financial companies.)
Linux cannot be killed by the same trick, and will actually come out stronger once the SCO non-case falters and Darl McBride is indicted for stock manipulation, barratry, slander, etc.
Linux is a professional-grade OS, whose momentum is now unstoppable – despite the wishes of trolls like you.
Well, the tone and purpose of the article were made very clear in the first few paragraphs. The author played the devil’s advocate in a different article to make some point, and when a bunch of people responded negatively towards his article, he took offense and basically is pouting about it in this article.
To appropriate a David Letterman invention, I would call this article “The Rob Enderle Point That Really Isn’t a Point” article, and highlight it on a late night television show, if I had one.
Here are his points:
Linux isn’t ready for the Enterprise.
Rob offers no examples to back this statement up. Instead, he blames open source software for the incompetence of some IT individuals and off-shore outsourcing. Both are ludicrous. So, is Windows not ready for the desktop because my grandmother can’t install it?
Also, the fact that overseas outsourcing has been a prevalent and lucrative business practice in many industries for a very long time doesn’t seem to dissuade the author as he makes his illogical assumptions.
A funny thing to note is that in spite of the author’s claims that Linux is not ready for the enterprise, the only concrete example he gives regarding Linux in the enterprise is one of Linux’s success (bottom part of the first page).
Too much litigation risk.
Of course he brings up the SCO debacle, but everybody knows this is a 3 ring circus geek act. I prefer to wait until the courts find in favor of SCO (which I don’t believe they will) before I take anything they say seriously.
More important is the example of companies suing their own employees for sticking company proprietary code into open source projects. How is this a negative of using open source software? In my opinion, this is no different that a company prosecuting an employee for giving source code away, or selling a competing product, whether it has the companies proprietary code in it or not. These behaviors go against the policies of the company and the employment agreements made between the company and the employee. If broken, they are the fault of the employee; not the OS. An employee’s infraction is just that; the employee’s infraction. It is not the fault of Linux or any other open source project.
Now we get to what I consider the crux of the article. Rob’s hurt feelings.
Behavior: Too many people think it is OK to use inappropriate language and behavior when arguing their point.
However, inaccurate arguments and illogical and defenseless accusations are okay – sigh.
To the point, people are people and they act the way they act. Linux is not (at least not yet) in control of people’s personalities and behaviors (at least I haven’t seen a stable release of KPersonality yet). Getting pissed off and “abandoning” open source because a Linux user told you to screw yourself is like selling your car and walking everywhere because somebody flipped you off on the freeway. It is a childish response and really doesn’t deserve a link on OSNews in my opinion (I guess it’s been a slow news day).
Linux is free.
I’ve never thought of free as a negative thing, whether it be free as in freedom, or free as in “free of charge”.
The whole “Linux is free so it sucks and you can’t make money with it” argument is plain stupid in my opinion. Most of the people in the world who’s income is related to Windows in some way do not make that money on Windows itself. Only Microsoft gets to do that. Instead, all of these other people make money by selling hardware that will run windows, or selling programs written for Windows, or by charging people to install and maintain Windows.
The author is in no more control of Windows than he is of Linux, so if we exclude market share, which is indeed a factor in making money, but is not the point the author was making, I fail to see how either one offers any advantage to him in his service-based business over the other one (other than his overhead is lower should he use Linux).
In my opinion, if you are in the consulting business and can’t make money using Linux, you are either inept at Linux, or you are so myopic in your understanding of making money, that you probably won’t make much anyway. Again, I understand that market share plays a big part in this, but if that’s the case, say that. Don’t say that the open source development model ties your hands as a service provider and does not allow you to make any money. For example, IBM and HP, and soon Oracle, are making a lot using Linux. If you can’t, that’s your fault.
I have one final thought that I’d like to express; which is largely off-topic. This is not directed at the author, per se, but is just my commentary on society in general these days; although this article is a catalyst for my making this statement.
A common trend that I see in many people’s thought process lately is any bad decisions they make, or any goals they fail to achieve, are immediately ascribed to “somebody else’s fault”.
This article is riddled with that attitude, and quite frankly it sickens me.
If someone is such a spineless coward as to be completely incapable of accepting responsibility for their own choices and actions, or to accept and try to conquer their own limitations, then how can they ever hope to aspire to anything great or achieve anything worth while?
I enjoy using open source products. I have a couple of systems with debian linux that I use for various tasks on my home network. My workplace is linux-free, and uses strictly microsoft servers.
I’ve had some reservations about open source lately. I’ve been wondering how many jobs it is really costing the US. IBM is making money from linux. Novell may also, but it is too early to tell. Does IBM send kernel contributers a check for their hard work? I doubt it. That’s money they get to put in the bank. Is that money going to create more jobs for americans? No. Why the hell should it anyway? Why pay programmers when they will work free?
I do some development on open source projects, but none of them are commercially viable. They’re just fun things to do.
But if my work is going to save your company money, make your company more efficient, or bring more revenue to your company then damn it, where’s my check?
Well, you may appreciate the (sometimes unfounded, that’s true) critizism going towards the OSS world, but I’ve experienced a whole different order of people (I’m the author of the two “Hell & Bliss” articles). They reacted in pure anger when I said some things about Linux not being ready for the desktop and all. Those were the people I ment.
I assume the first section is referring to the author of the article. As for this…
And speaking of “pseudo anonymity of the net brings out the worse[sic]” in people… I can think of nothing worse than your uptight stupid ass trying to impose your censorship on others. Don’t like having other express themselves? Move to N.Korea, China or just about any muslim country. When you see what it’s like to be on the receiving side maybe you’ll grow to appreciate that “inappropriate” language a little bit more.
What are you going on about? All I was trying to say with the subject was… if you don’t want to or can’t tolerate dealing with overbearing buffoons then most of usenet or irc is not for you. How you went from that to people should be censored is beyond me. The fact is that what “some” people say on net they’d never have the balls to say face to face.
I agree that many OSS are too quick to anger when Open Source Software (and Linux) are criticized. This is mainly so for two reasons:
a) there is a lot of Redmond-generated (or subsidized) FUD on the Web these days, and Linux advocate compensate for the fact that they lack millions of dollars to spread counterFUD by being very vocal in their response. In other words, if the Linux community had the money to buy false testimonies, fake studies and their own personal analysts (like Didio and Enderle), then the zealots might be less vocal.
b) the criticism is rarely constructive. It’s usually “Linux isn’t ready (subtext: will never be ready) for the desktop because…”, while it should be “The Linux desktop has come a long way, but here’s how we can make it better…”
That said, there are trolls on both side of the fence, like our dear TopSpeed (who’s disappeared from this site, it seems, along with his alter ego Coral Snake) who has been incredibly offensive towards OSS users, calling them pirates and hackers, while decrying the very existence of Free Software.
I think we can all agree that trolls are annoying, whatever their persuasion.
Now, in the present case, one is completely justified in criticizing Enderle’s own FUD, because that’s what it is. His criticism is off-target when not blatantly false, and his pro-MS bias is so obvious that I wouldn’t be surprise if his soon-to-be born company hasn’t been founded by Redmond directly…
We need these people to stand up and speak up….
…so we can know who to shoot.
If Open Source is good for one thing, it would be to show who’s competent and who’s the idiot that got into “IT” for the money.
Rob’s article strikes me as a big troll designed to get him publicity and “fame” which he can then parley into fat “consulting” gigs. Why feed the troll, when he does this at the cost of open source?
That said, I don’t worry about the source of criticism – whether it’s friend or foe, I’d rather make sure that whatever faults are there should be removed. What good is it to keep silent? Most of Rob’s points are simply idiotic and without merit. The only point he has partially is the poor state of free source wares interfaces, but that is a big subject… linux is still evolving, and will get better interfaces as time goes by. I do admit though that I’m somewhat worried about the possibility that linux folks will keep playing catchup with MSFT – I’d much rather see true innovation. Here’s my latest and biggest worry: I think that Longhorn will potentially be a huge leap forward for MSFT – from what I read, if it works as they plan, it will be a pretty awsome OS… and I don’t see anything to indicate linux is thinking in as radical terms. I fear linux will look old and obsolete compared to Longhorn. Seems to me, by 2005 linux will still play catchup to XP, and then be blown out of the water by Longhorn. It takes years to plan something as revolutionary as Longhorn – and I don’t see any such work in linux today – so how will linux stack up in 2005? Granted, some areas are developing nicely (reiser fs), but otherwise… I like and use KDE, but it is soooo 1990’s still playing catchup with XP. All IMHO. YMMV.
— “I’ve had some reservations about open source lately. I’ve been wondering how many jobs it is really costing the US. IBM is making money from linux. Novell may also, but it is too early to tell. Does IBM send kernel contributers a check for their hard work? I doubt it. That’s money they get to put in the bank. Is that money going to create more jobs for americans? No. Why the hell should it anyway? Why pay programmers when they will work free?”
One thing to consider is that most of those OSS programers ARE paid, just not for the OSS code. They ususally have other jobs and do the OSS for fun. If programmers really did start loosing their jobs, they’d start contributing less code to OSS projects as well due to job searching and plain old not being able to afford to keep computer equipment and internet connections, so both comercial and OSS software would be loosing. This would force people to use more comercial software because it meets their needs better, and more programmers would be hired, and therefore have the financial security to spend their free time on their hobbies, like OSS. Frankly, OSS does not threaten programmers jobs at all. Would you keep coding for free even as you went bankrupt? I doubt it.
Of course, one possiblity is that all the programmers will eventually get reagular jobs doing somthing else, such as webmasters and network administrators, or even somthing else entirely like law or banking… or taxedermy. In that case, the programmers are still employed, but software is still free. This is unlikly, but its the only way I can see to upset the balance successfully.
Linux is not a religion. Freedom of proprietary and closed system is. But be religious is not the same as being fanatic.
Linux is ready for anyone that have technical competence of implementing things.
Commercial Unix is more difficult to use and administrate than Linux and I never heard a journalist saying that Unix is not ready for enterprises… It is only a question of staff training.
Windows is not in human DNA and even M$ has training courses for its products.
My point is that if my efforts are making you rich, then I feel I am entitled to a piece of the pie. Also, perhaps jobs aren’t being destroyed by open source. Does this mean that that job market isn’t being reduced due to it? Consider the numbers of staff that IBM doesn’t have to hire because people are out there doing the jobs for free. I’m not arguing one’s right to participate in open source development. As I said, I both participate in open source development, and use it’s products. I didn’t say that I was against it. All I said was that I have some concerns. Hopefully, they will be laid to rest and everything will work out just as you said. Maybe the saturation of the job market will cause people to choose other professions, eliminating the harm done by the reduction of jobs by open source. No significant reduction in the job share has happened thus far, as I’m aware at least, but that’s not to say the the widespread adoption of open source products would not have an effect.
I’m working in an e-business environment. We offer products to a broad consumer market and has placed a huge amount of time in development.
Obviously our development cycles are very long and we invest equipment and technology based on looking 5 years ahead.
We’ve been in contact with IBM several times and for some reason their consultancy services are very expensive. especially since calculations using a Linux systems consist of a huge amount of consultancy time. With Sun this has never been an issue.
We asked IBM about a roadmap of Linux development for the upcoming years and it just went dead. They talked a lot for sure that Linux will be the more or less the only server OS and support everything. But for some reason I don’t believe that until I’ve seen a written roadmap for Linux!
How can someone invest in a technology without a roadmap? I can’t believe enterprises riscing what they got to Linux where future is terribly unclear!
I can admit though that BSD’s have a clear roadmap so does Apache and mozilla so this doesn’t concern all OSS products. But seriously, who would invest in Linux now knowing at all what lies ahead. That would take a wreckless person to do something like that….
Rob Enderle heads the Enderle Group, a company that will formally launch in September of 2003. He has been an external IT analyst since 1993. He is contemplating building an open source-free saferoom in his solar-powered home.
Occam’s Razor tells us that this guy obviously got some Microsoft Paper to get his new company going. It would most clearly explain the sudden hate trip on Linux, FREEdom, and open source.
Poor Enderle decided he could take a payoff and finance his solar home somewhere off the grid where FREEdom will never be able to track him down. And even if it does, he’ll be able to hide in his safe room, and hopefully it will go away. A modern day Gollum that only knows how to live as a slave. Poor thing.
Linux for the masses.
Linux for the enterprise.
Linux for the illiterate.
Linux for the moron.
Linux to replace windows.
Linux to replace MAC
Linux to takeove UNIX.
Linux to rule the world.
When will all these misconceptions stop? GNU/Linux is in competition with no one, but itself. Developers of free software have just one goal. And that is making their software applications and projects better. Propreitary and Commercial software developers have just one goal. And that is keeping the register ringing.
The choice is yours.
Regards,
Mystilleef
First and foremost I must admit that I find the article author having a point about “hostility” in many Free–Software related newsgroups. I personnaly ceased reading linux related newsgroups since around 1999 because of the permatent flame wars (Debian/RH, OpenSource/FreeSoftware, GPL/anything), and an agressivity against trivial questions that I did not felt when I began reading them in the mid 90s.
Second the author seem to blame OpenSource for outsourcing and probably for some loss of american jobs. May be a should consider that a big part of OpenSource developpement is done by non-american developpers and that americans, like indians users are benefiting from world scale developpement. By the way, closed source developement are massively outsourced. I can’t see why Open-Source would drive this movement.
Third, roadmap….. what a manificient word it is ! I can remember Digital Alpha processors roadmap with its bright future, even Windows NT on MIPS processor roadmap…did not IBM had a nice roadmap for OS2 ?
Roadmaps are only road that project keepers (whether they are companies or opensource developers seems irelevant) expect to go through. Roadmap are as strong as their backers position on a particular product (MS was weak outside Intel world). Companies get canned, priorities change and if your closed source software is dropped, to bad for you. Betting on the roadmap of some small opensource project is probably a bet. But some projects like Linux, Samba, Apache HTTPD …. are so big and so used that even if main maintainer d dropped them they would be forked/extended by some other.
Fourth, incompatibility between distribs, funny one, I’ve been playing around with Linux distribs and some other distrib for some time and I never encountered an incompatibility that could not be solved either by 1) linking the files required from their actual location to their expected, 2) copying some missing libs 3) recompiling the software (if opensource, if not back to solution 1 or 2). Actually I had an Oracle 8 supposed to expect a RedHat that runned pretty well on a Slackware(my personal favorite).
Fith, Linux versus BSD: I’m a big fan of Net-BSd and Open-BSd that I run at home. But when it come to my clients, they find much more documentation, expertise and drivers for Linux that other BSDs.
I won’t go in the litigation road because 1) I’m living in Europa with some slightly different laws 2) much of is to happen and legal environment seems simply chaotic to me 3) in the past, even projects that were forbiden to export continued outside USA and survived through times of trouble.
And finaly, I’m earning my life selling developpement and network design/installation/rescue. I could not do that without Open-Source because I could not have paid for commercial software equivalent at the beginning and gained the same expertise without illegal copying.
Many of my clients are just becoming aware that using unpaid software is a risk (and illegal), some had much expertise with MS-DOS configuration and cope quite easily with a command line. But what most of them are paying me for is to replace some station to station networking with a small PC server serving as internal web/smb/db server that they can just forget after having it installed.
They are interested as much by “free as beer” than by “easy to cope with”.
Until now I did not have any of them unhappy with Linux doing that. Ok, they are not large companies, but I’ve been working with some that just had some Linux seating between other Unix and Windows machines. They did not report more problem with it than other environments commercial or not.
My 2x10E-9 euros from France.
PS: I’ve using, administrating and programming for Windows environnement (mostly NT), so even if not expert, I know how I could use Windows/Exchange/SQLServer/IIS/MSAS for doing the same things but the cost is higher and I find them much more difficult to remotely monitor and control.
Sorry about the mistyping, grammatical errors and missing verbs.
I’ll blame the hot weather, the late hour and the Guiness excess for this poor example of English wording.
I hope you’ll get the idea through.
Sounds like this guy got frustrated because he couldn’t figure a few things out and just wants to be a dick.
<quote>In fact, of contracts reviewed by the Yankee Group, only Microsoft has language that provides for this indemnification.</quote>
When was this added to ms licences ? About a month ago. He did not consider this point 2 years ago.
sounds to me like a good article but then again, I am not open source zealot =)
the fanatical intolerance for dissent and ignorance in Linux forums…
Exactly correct. Watch how many scream “TROLL!” before they even read my comments. Troll, what a silly word, haven’t really even heard that since about 4th grade till I went to Linux boards.
hard to get help sometimes…
Impossible. Unless all your friends are geeks.
the fact that when your boss expects everything to be free…
Yeah, this could be a real problem, when he drops you a pink slip but says he’ll listen to your offers to keep coding from your house for free.
Not even mentioning the problems with the kernel contribution process, where niether code nor coders is vetted whatsoever, making a ripe environment for future lawsuits.
And 80 different versions being “the standard”
And without any protection from end user liability, being forced to accept the software “as is” without warranty.
And every person on earth having access to the source that protects your secrets.
And worst of all having to donate money to defend them from lawsuits.
Actually, there’s a lot of reasons in addition to the ones so well articulated by the author. Some I won’t even post cause you would really flip out.
…
There’s a report on the internet that the FTP site for the Free Software Foundation were hacked back in March but they just figured it out a few days ago? They now say ALL the downloads they provided since then are now suspect? W0AH, that is quite a story developing!
No article in the world would be able to stop me using linux!
I use it as an IBM/Lotus Domino server -> And I am happy! No way I will ever use any other system for that, except if I would need something special, wich only runs with the Windows version of Domino.
I use it as an fileserver -> And I am happy with it! I don’t see any limitation in using Linux as a fileserver.
I use it as an DNS/DHCP/FTP/HTTP/MAIL/FAX/… server -> No comment!
And about 50% of our company desktops run on Linux -> Well… It works! And we can run native Linux applications, as well Windows applications (wine works, but CodeWeavers CrossOver Office and Plugin are better).
I could continue the list…
However… Linux works well for serval things – so does Windows – and so does Mac OS X – and all the other diffrend OS. But the author of the article is just making one statement: Linux is not ready!
And THIS is wrong! Because it is not an black and white world! Linux is okay for manny manny people and manny manny tasks. Why are there pople wich are trying to tell me that something is not read? I am old enought do deside my self! I don’t need religios peple on the computer. No Linux fanatics, no Windows fanatics, etc…
//
And without any protection from end user liability, being forced to accept the software “as is” without warranty.
//
You just QUOTED the Microsoft EULA. That is standard text in any license.
If MS did give you a warranty, I would be the first to sue them for all my lost data.
>The fact is that what “some” people say on net
>they’d never have the balls to say face to face.
post your home address, i’ll be right over. blowhard.
Enough said.
When I first intercourse with Linux i.e. during the early boom of dot.com, the philosophy that I understand is that the software was written by the developer to satisfy himself/themselves and if the user want something to suit himself, he/she/they have to contribute, in term of contributing code or maybe just proposing to the developers. And I nearly gave up during that time but after another try, here I am, doing everything for my job at office although agree Linux is still not suitable for the mass desktop usage.
Well, Linux may have changed a lot, in term of the developers view or the users view. But it seem now the voice of new users that have the opinion as listed by Mystilleef above is a lot louder.
1. Apparently Rob Enderle is in the employ of Microsoft. No proof is offered of course, other than the fact that he has had negative things to say about OSS. And to the person who invoked Occam’s Razor, the simplest solution is that Enderle is exactly what he says he is.
2. Pro OSS posters to this thread (with a few exceptions)have done nothing to alter the perception that OSS advocates are unfriendly, unhelpful, offensive and hostile.
3. If you happen to post a message that contradicts the accepted OSS orthodoxy, you too can expect to be subjected to similar accusations of Microsoft bias/largesse. At the very least you will be treated aggressively.
4. Apparently you can no longer determine for yourself what sort of language is offensive to you. Only the person who is addressing you is able to determine that. Therefore, people can be as rude, offensive and antisocial to you as they like for only they can determine what effect their behaviour should have on you.
5. Corporations should, against their very nature, concern themselves with nebulous, uncommoditized ideas such as “freedom” when it comes to software. Exactly how a corporation can acheive this is unclear, but that’s their problem.
6. If you tend to see things in black and white (OSS good, proprietary bad) then you tend to expect everybody else see things in black and white too, whether they agree with you or not. Therefore, you miss the gray areas of people’s arguments.
7. There seems to be a fine line between advocacy and outright deranged behaviour when it comes to discussing this issue. And lest you think I’m pointing a finger at one side or another, both sides are guilty of this. Too many people are ready to jump over that line. Many don’t even know where it is. It’s starting to look like /. around here.
“When I first intercourse with Linux…”
It’s okay to love your OS, just don’t love your OS okay.
post your home address, i’ll be right over. blowhard.
LOL, Should I be scared? Why not simply admit that you completely misunderstood my post and stop behaving like a fool? In fact why respond at all? You think that I was talking about you? Just because you called me a tight ass or some such nonsense? How pathetic, that barely rates a 0.00001 on a Richter scale. I was more concerned with your complete lack of comprehension regarding my post, not that mouse fart of an insult. We both know just how much guts it takes to pick a fight on the net.
Watch how many scream “TROLL!” before they even read my comments.
Actually, I brand you as a troll because I’ve read your comments. You deliberately say provocative things, more often than not relying on fabrication or exaggeration, in order to get a response. That is the definition of a troll.
Troll, what a silly word, haven’t really even heard that since about 4th grade till I went to Linux boards.
Actually, the term trolling as it refers to message boards antedates Linux by quite a few years, IIRC. Go to http://www.fark.com, hardly a Linux or even a technology site, and you’ll see that the word troll is used quite a lot. “Troll” has entered the vocabulary of the Internet age, just like “post,” “spam,” “download” and the @ sign.
“hard to get help sometimes…”
Impossible. Unless all your friends are geeks.
See, this is the perfect example of you using false claims and provoke a response. Only one of my friends can remotely count as a computer geek. When I started using Linux, a year and a half ago, he wasn’t into it at the time. I knew squat about UNIX or Linux – and yet I’ve managed to work up a (relatively) extensive working knowledge of the system, how it works and how to configure/troubleshoot it – and I didn’t buy a single book!
How did I achieve that? Easy: with the help of the online community, through newsgroups and websites and answer databases. No ever told me to RTFM, never was anyone rude to me – probably because I was not rude to them. Of course, as an anti-Linux troll you elect strong response – heck, that’s what you seek through your behavior – so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if you were to step out of your aggressive and arrogant mindset, you’d see that the Linux community is rich and diverse.
Yes, it has its share of immature adolescent, just like the Windows community. But most of all it’s just people, and many are eager to help newbies find their way around the system.
And without any protection from end user liability, being forced to accept the software “as is” without warranty.
You mean, exactly like Windows software?
Hey, guess what! MS has been found guilty of patent infringement – the browser you use is probably illegal. I guess, following your false logic, you should be liable for using an IP-infringing application!
And every person on earth having access to the source that protects your secrets.
And yet end up with products that are as secure (if not more) than those using hidden code: just look at Apache vs. IIS… Oh, and perhaps you didn’t hear about the NSA’s utlra-secure version of Linux? Yeah, the NSA doesn’t know anything about security!!
And worst of all having to donate money to defend them from lawsuits.
And a blatantly false declaration to top it off! Where those it say anyone has to make a donation? Nowhere. That’s why it’s called a donation, it’s entirely voluntary. It is a gesture of complete free will, a matter of showing your support as a user.
Unlike Microsoft License v6, which requires compulsory donations in exchange for software updates that still leave the systems vulnerable…
Ah, I’ve missed you, troll! You’re just so easy to prove wrong.
From the FSF website: “After substantial investigation, we don’t believe that any GNU source has been compromised.[…]Given the nature of the compromise and the length of time the machine was compromised, we have spent the last few weeks verifying the integrity of the GNU source code stored on gnuftp. Most of this work is done, and the remaining work is primarily for files that were uploaded since early 2003, as our backups from that period could also theoretically be compromised.”
So, in other words, when the FSF finds out its servers have been compromised, it doesn’t just talk about “trustworthy computing”, but it actually does something about it. Remember, we’re talking about a group of volunteers, here. Meanwhile, a year after MS’s own security initiative, what do we have? Blaster, and now already another variant. Oh yeah!
Pro OSS posters to this thread (with a few exceptions)have done nothing to alter the perception that OSS advocates are unfriendly, unhelpful, offensive and hostile.
How about the open hostility of anti-Linux trolls, such as TopSpeed and XBe? I mean, I could go around and come up with dozens of examples where pro-MS advocates are as vocally rude – and sometimes much more so – than the most rabid Linux fans. How does this somehow not reflect badly on Windows users in general?
Don’t try to pass as unbiased when you use two different yardsticks for anti- and pro-Linux advocates, please.
With all your talk about Top Speed Mr. By Great Cthulhu you have seemed to have forgotten all about Mr. Black, Yellow and Red here. I’ve been buisy on a REAL flame war that’s been going on for days and is STILL going on in another forum.
As for the topic I could have written this article MYSELF.
Thanks for a crashed hard drive and five years of getting no work done from having to read Licenses for libraries in order to keep from having to give my commercial code away TUX and Linux.
And his site and although he does make some valid points, he is a delusional idiot who can’t see reality for what it is. Consumers demanding cheaper products and the net result is the company looking for ways to cut costs.
Just look at the idiots comments regarding “HP Big Bang #2” in regards to them entering the “consumer products” market place.
HPs products from the ground up are crap. Pure and unadulterated crap. How do they survive? of course, it the HP factor. “If its HP, it has to be good!” crap you year CIO’s spew on a regular basis.
Printers, crap. PC’s, more proprietary components than a SUN and SGI workstation put together.
Services, thats if you can get a person who can actually speak English.
Servers, biggest Microsoft syocophant ever to grace the earth. The servers have no benefits over their competition, yet, funny enough people keep sucking down the HP factor.
High end servers: No effort into improving OpenVMS or HP-UX, and like Compaq, simply ROLL OVER and let MS have its way. Atleast with SUN you can say one thing, they are COMMITTED to Solaris. They’re not one of the companies who simply roll over and sell out because it is easier to be a sycophant/chairleader than a industry innovator.
What is the HP factor? like the lucent factor, the *ONLY* market that still buys their over priced crap is the US, the rest have moved to Alcatel, Erricson or Nokia.
HP’s market are the same people who have no idea about IT but are promoted to CIO because their best mate is in charge.
We have the author talk about the so-called “Opensource religion”, how about managers put aside the [company] factor and dogma and look at what their requirements are. How about these managers look long term. How about these managers actually be proactive rather than reactive.
Why did it take SO long for industry to finally realise that they have to cut costs. Shouldn’t this be an on going compaign to reduce costs by regularly analysing departments for any slack?
Back the bus up there. Where does it say that I had a pro-MS bias? The article in question specifically mentioned that OSS advocates tended towards unpleasant behaviour, and I merely pointed out that the behaviour of folks on this site lately reinforces that impression. Had the article mentioned the behaviour of the anti-OSS crowd, I would have made the same argument about them. Don’t rush to judgement about people when all the facts aren’t in your posession.
As for your ongoing encounters with “anti-linux trolls”, stop, you’re making me cry! I personally don’t give a rat’s who’s right and who’s wrong. On the basis of the behaviour that’s been observed around here, none of you you or your opinions are worth the time you seem to expect me to devote to your petty little flame war.
So the only yardstick I use to measure the value of contributions (and contributors) to this or any other forum is what they bring to the discussion at hand, not how loudly and immaturely they can call each other trolls and liars.
Grow up for God’s sake!
“Rob Enderle is a known anti-OSS advocate who most likely gets little brown envelopes from MS.”
Containing little brown droppings from the perch of … sorry, much too much hard work to resist that!
And all the while I was thinking – Microsoft entered into a cross-licensing agreement with Sybase to develop a realistic relational dbms for the desktop – Sybase had one of the better small-to-medium client-server RDBMSes at that time, period. Microsoft walked away with <a>all the heavy work done for them by Sybase and Sybase was not in any position to retaliate.
Ditto OS/2, which Microsoft redeveloped into WinNT. They wouldn’t’ve had a clue about serious Operating Systems work if IBM had ignored them.
Et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam …
Breaches of trust from the foremost “Capitalist” software developer … and its shills …
I would respect the author’s opinions a whole lot more if he had offered even one concrete example to back up his claims. Out-sourcing to India is due to OSS? WTF? No, that one is due to big CEOs trying to save their multi-million dollar salaries in this shitty economy (on a side note, has anyone seen an economist do anything to help or do they just always write reports on it? not intended as a flame, but an honest question).
Additionally, the UI being behind Windows is growing tireing. You could use themes in kde and gnome before winxp was around. oh and what about being able to use a completely different window manager/desktop environment? If on the other hand you refer to certain apps themselves, I would blame that on the lack of a decent GUI builder (QT exempt of course, haven’t played with glade in a while) than a fault of OSS.
The SCO thing has been shot down so many times, that i see no reasont to repeat it here.
later
Jared
“And without any protection from end user liability, being forced to accept the software “as is” without warranty.”
You really should learn to engage your brain before opeing your mouth. You won’t catch as many flies that way, but hey, that’s the price you have to pay. And we all must make some sacrifices along the way – a more monotonous diet might well be yours.
AT&T Technologies Inc
Software Agreement
http://www.sco.com/ibmlawsuit/exhibitf.pdf
7.03 AT&T warrants that it is empowered to grant the rights granted hereunder. AT&T makes no other representations or warranties, expressedly or impliedly. By way of example but not of limitation, AT&T makes no representations or warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose, of that the use of any SOFTWARE PRODUCT will not infringe any patent, copyright or trademark. AT&T shall not be held to any liability with respect to any claims by LICENSEE, or a third party on account of, or arising from, the use of any SOFTWARE PRODUCT.
Haven’t people learned from burst of the Internet Bubble ?
The Liux bubble is fueled by the same unsubstanciated
hype, published by the same unaccountable press.
As like for the Internet bubble there will be no indemnification for the fools surfing the Liuxs bubble.
“Propreitary and Commercial software developers have just one goal. And that is keeping the register ringing.”
You’re lucky you didn’t run into a certain senator back in the 50’s in the US…
…except of course that, this time, the “Liux” bubble as you call it lets companies save money instead of actually wasting it. Why do you think Linux is so popular in this uncertain economy? Because it makes economic sense, unlike the Internet bubble.
So, really, the two situations are completely different. Linux is here to stay. Get over it.
Okay, so you say you’re objective about this. Good for you! But if you’re not interested in flamewars, as you say yourself, why do you feel it necessary to fan the flames.
And re: the anti-Linux trolls: huh, why did you feel you had to “cry” for me? I can take care of myself, thank you very much! Fact is, none of them have any real arguments, like that Enderle guy, but instead rely on pure FUD.
I mean, you can go to about any message board on the Internet and you’ll see flamewars and rude behavior – that has nothing to do with Linux. I reacted to your post because you only pepetrated the myth that, somehow, Linux advocates are more unpleasant than others. Otherwise you would not have felt the need to say that Enderle was right…
In other words, if the only yardstick you use is the value of contributions someone makes to a forum, then you’ll have to admit that your post was pretty poor, since it only repeated fallacy in the first place, without putting it in context or adding new information.
(Oh, and I don’t think that convincingly making an argument can be construed as “bad behavior”, even if the person making the argument is of an opposite viewpoint.)
//2. Pro OSS posters to this thread (with a few exceptions)have done nothing to alter the perception that OSS advocates are unfriendly, unhelpful, offensive and hostile.//
Why is that? This is not a help thread. The editorial posted was idiotic and people are tearing it apart. It has nothing to do with OSS advocates being unfriendly, unhelpful, offensive, or hostile. In fact not a single person was any such thing until the usual MS trolls stopped by and fanned the flames. The problem here is trolls (please stop respondng to them!) not OSS advocates.
//3. If you happen to post a message that contradicts the accepted OSS orthodoxy, you too can expect to be subjected to similar accusations of Microsoft bias/largesse. At the very least you will be treated aggressively.//
The fact is that Linux FUD is far and wide and it is difficult to combat. The only reason it seems like that to you is because the average person knows jack about Linux and so everything they hear they think is true. OSS advocates are so vocal because they have to constantly defend themselves agaist ignorant comments. The FUD is gettng very old now and very tedious. For example, my brother works for a company that uses MS only. He’s computer literate when it comes to Windows but that’s it. Just the other day we were talking about computers and I mentioned Linux and he told me it was dead and no one used it anymore. He didn’t say that because he is against OSS, I don’t think he even knows anythign about OSS, it is just what he has heard in his MS only world.
This is not to say that there aren’t some OSS advocate idiots out there spreading nonsense. There are always going to be some. Windows has them too. Maybe you should read some of the threads from the past month. Most of the time the ones provoking flamewars are anti-linux trolls.
Very well said.
Undoubtedly, many posters here will pillory Enderle without bothering to think about his arguments, thus proving one of his points about open source.
I’ve had the experience of touting open source in a large organization. The “free” part — cash and source — doesn’t lure anyone. Management doesn’t have a reason to care about source code — open or closed. And free software licenses don’t reduce total IT costs enough to lure management into the unknown.
As for the behavior of some open source advocates, I’m sure it costs more sales than anyone imagines. No one is going to siwtch to open source if they think it is populated with arrogant and obscene adolescents.
Undoubtedly, many posters here will pillory Enderle without bothering to think about his arguments, thus proving one of his points about open source.
I have read Enderle’s piece (and many other before it), so I can knowingly say that he’s full of it.
You’re right about TCO not being high on businesses’ reason to switch to Linux and OSS: it’s actually behind other valid reasons such as reliability, security, and so on.
In any case, your personal experience is not validated by actual statistics: Linux has experienced phenomenal growth in the server market, a sign that businesses are looking seriously at it in order to help their business. The fact that IBM, which has a strong aura of respectability surrounding, is a vocal advocate of Linux has really helped the technology to become more mainstream.
Of course, if you’re “touting” Open Source but clearly don’t believe in it, then you won’t convince many businesses to switch…
As far as the behaviour of some open source advocates is concerned, it is no worse than that of some closed source advocates. So any sales that might possibly be lost due to this (I doubt if there has been any, though, as those who actually pay the bills seldom hang out on Internet message boards) would be naturally balanced by sales lost to proprietary software due to the behavious of some anti-Linux advocates.
I think Mr. Enderle is missing the point. To me Open Source is a big toolbox, in it you can find a lot of tools, if you can use them, great, if not, oh well. If you are not comfortable using the tool, don’t know how to handle the tool…don’t use it. For me, I worked in environment that was mixed with closed and open source projects. When we could use an open source program or project to save money or to fit a specific need we did (DNS, DHCP, Apache and a lot of security/monitoring apps come to mind). And, guess what….It worked and everybody was happy from the top down. We saved gobs of money and when we needed support from the community, we got it. Granted, some open sources communities can be difficult if your thin skinned and take offense from what may be said by some anti-social geeks. But when you need to get the job done, you can wade through these occasions, and you will find the help you need, and I find these occassions the acception rather than the rule.
Listen to me boys, I’m not your mommy okay. But I’m going to tell you a few things that maybe your mommy should tell you.
This isn’t your personal playground. Eugenia and co have devoted a lot of time and bandwidth to provide a forum for technology issues. She’s also devoted a separate forum on this site just so you kiddies could have your little flame wars. This forum is supposed to be reasonably free of that.
Why do I feel it is “necessary to fan the flames”? I’m not fanning any flames…I’m pointing out that bad behaviour exists on this forum, and I for one am sick of it. I’m also sick of the hypersensitivity of people like yourselves who cry “FUD! TROLL! FLAMEBAIT!” every time someone disagrees with you. Apparently quite a few other people feel the same way.
why did you feel you had to “cry” for me? I can take care of myself, thank you very much!
Okay this is my fault for addressing someone who appears not to understand sarcasm. You took my comment and used it to rehash your ongoing fight with others. That appeared to be the sole purpose of your first post to me. If you are big and brave enough to post on a tech forum then you’re big and brave enough to fight your own battles. Just do it somewhere else please.
I mean, you can go to about any message board on the Internet and you’ll see flamewars and rude behavior – that has nothing to do with Linux.
The point I’m making is that it appears to be more prevalent amongst OSS users. Hey, that’s just my opinion (hence it can’t be wrong), but it’s one that I’ve developed from participating in (and modding a few) technology related boards in my time. If you feel that may arguments are myths or fallacious, so be it. I never declared to be in possesion of universal truths on the subject, a tendency which you may need to examine in your own posts.
Otherwise you would not have felt the need to say that Enderle was right…
I never said he was right. I said that the observed behaviour of some pro OSS posters here reinforced that perception. That’s not the same thing you know. Nor is it the same thing as saying all OSS advocates are like that.
In other words, if the only yardstick you use is the value of contributions someone makes to a forum, then you’ll have to admit that your post was pretty poor, since it only repeated fallacy in the first place, without putting it in context or adding new information.
I thought I had amply established the context for the single sentence that you relied on. You should read my whole post before lecturing me on context. And as I said, no fallacy was expressed, and opinion was.
Oh, and I don’t think that convincingly making an argument can be construed as “bad behavior”, even if the person making the argument is of an opposite viewpoint.
No, convincingly arguing your point is not bad behaviour. But repeatedly calling people trolls and liars just because they don’t accept your point is.
abraxas, many of the problems associated with OSS have nothing to do with MS. They are problems of the community’s own making. The sooner some people realise that and stop implying that it’s all Bill Gates fault (or for that matter implying that anyone who disagrees with aspects of OSS are aligned with MS), the better OSS will be. This paranoia about MS has to stop sometime.
And to both of you, I don’t care who started your silly little flamewar, I for one would like it to end so that I can get real information from this board without the waste of my time or bandwidth. For it to end, someone has to be mature.
Will it be you?
Listen to me boys, I’m not your mommy okay. But I’m going to tell you a few things that maybe your mommy should tell you.[…]Eugenia and co have devoted a lot of time and bandwidth to provide a forum for technology issues. She’s also devoted a separate forum on this site just so you kiddies could have your little flame wars.
Please, could you be more condescending? I still think you respect me a little bit.
Seriously, you’ve got some nerves coming here and pretending to be above all of this “flaming” when you begin your post that way, by calling those who disagree with you and challenge your point of view “kiddies”…
The point I’m making is that it appears to be more prevalent amongst OSS users. Hey, that’s just my opinion (hence it can’t be wrong), but it’s one that I’ve developed from participating in (and modding a few) technology related boards in my time.
You are entitled to your opinion. I disagree with it. On this board, at least, there have been a lot of bad behaviour from anti-Linux posters. It is not clear in my view that pro-Linux posters are any worse than them. In my opinion, the anti-Linux crowd is worse.
But repeatedly calling people trolls and liars just because they don’t accept your point is [bad behavior].
My guess is that you’re referring to my exchanges with TopSpeed. Well, he did make blatantly false statements and accusations (the most ridiculous being that I was an IBM employee) and I proved him wrong on numerous occasions, something which he refused to acknowledge. But even if I’ve sometimes been aggressive in my replies to his inflammatory statement, I’ve made a point of not descending to his level. In any case, off-topic posts by he and I were modded down, which is just fine. But as long as he’ll be trolling (i.e. making false and provocative statements), I’ll be calling him a troll.
“Trolling” is not the same as having a different viewpoint. It is the deliberate use of false and/or exaggerated claims to provoke strong reactions. Challenging a troll to back up his FUD isn’t bad behaviour, though I’ll agree that it’s a waste of time…
Okay this is my fault for addressing someone who appears not to understand sarcasm.
Sarcasm can be quite aggressive (like implying that I’m somehow a whiner because I challenge a troll to back up his FUD). I’m certain that Enderle would consider it as rude behavior if it came from an OSS advocate.
This paranoia about MS has to stop sometime.
Well, it would help if MS didn’t act in such a way as to make everyone paranoid! IP infringement, anti-competitive tactics, funding biased studies, etc.
If you feel that may arguments are myths or fallacious, so be it. I never declared to be in possesion of universal truths on the subject, a tendency which you may need to examine in your own posts.
Well, I will gladly admit when I am proven wrong. I usually tend not to make statements about which I’m not confident, though. But perhaps you’d like to indicate where I may have crossed the line, in your opinion?
If you are big and brave enough to post on a tech forum then you’re big and brave enough to fight your own battles. Just do it somewhere else please.
As long as people will post false claims about things I care about, I will reserve the right to challenge these claims. Sorry.
I’m also sick of the hypersensitivity of people like yourselves who cry “FUD! TROLL! FLAMEBAIT!” every time someone disagrees with you.
Hmmm…I do not cry FUD, troll and flamebait whenever someone disagrees with me. That is simply not true. I will call FUD when I see it, as well as challenge trolls to back up their lies. Flamebait speaks for itself. If I may, it seems you’re the one being hypersensitive here.
Apparently quite a few other people feel the same way.
Well, what I know for sure, from reading the forums, is that a lot of people are tired of the trolls. I know I am, and probably I should refrain from challenging their false statements. In the best of worlds, there would be a peer moderation system similar to Slashdot, so that trolls would quickly be modded down.
Now, I’ve been quite mature in this conversation so far. But I still disagree with you that OSS advocates display worse behavior than anti-OSS ones. Am I still allowed to disagree?
BTW, this isn’t a flamewar by any degree. It is a discussion. Often, in conversations, people disagree. Get over it.
Seriously, you’ve got some nerves coming here and pretending to be above all of this “flaming” when you begin your post that way, by calling those who disagree with you and challenge your point of view “kiddies”…
If you act like children you should expect to be treated as such. And you reckon that’s a flame? Yeesh!
It is not clear in my view that pro-Linux posters are any worse than them. In my opinion, the anti-Linux crowd is worse.
And yet you still miss my point! Never, anywhere, did I say that one side is worse than the other. It has been you trying to push that. I simply stated that given the quality of some of the posts in this thread from the pro-OSS crowd, Enderle’s statement about their bad behaviour could be reinforced. Had you bothered to read and understand this in my original post, we would not be having this discussion now.
Now, I’ve been quite mature in this conversation so far. But I still disagree with you that OSS advocates display worse behavior than anti-OSS ones. Am I still allowed to disagree?
Never said you weren’t. But disagreeing with me doesn’t entitle you to tell me I’m wrong, or that my arguments are fallacious, or that I’m trolling or that I have a pro-MS bias. It just entitles you to tell me you disagree with me.
For what it’s worth, I happen to agree with you that anti-OSS behaviour can be just as bad, but given that the article and my original post dealt with the pro-OSS behaviour, I didn’t feel it was relevant to address it. You did, but you can’t use my failure to do so as a launch pad to attack me as being wrong or pro-MS.
I’ll even acknowledge that I behave badly from time to time and use immoderate language, but then I never claimed to be a model of probity. All I want is to be able to read and contribute to relevant discussions without having to wade through the tripe that you and Topspeed et al post (and yes I do understand the irony of that statement in the context of this thread).
Now, are you prepared to admit that you behave badly as well, regardless of whatever slights you feel? If so, maybe we can all get on with relevant and lively discussions.
Do I behave badly? I do not think that I do. Perhaps I have been too quick in my criticism, and if you feel offended then I apologize. But honestly, I’ve re-read my posts in this discussion and I don’t feel that I’ve behaved in a particularly bad way. I certainly have not acted “childish,” despite you continuing to imply that I am. In particular, I did not call you a troll.
Anyway.
You were right that the article didn’t talk about the behavior of anti-OSS advocates. You also didn’t talk about them. But the comparison was implied…by singling out pro-OSS advocates, you implicitly pass a judgement of value.
I was to say that Windows has a lot of serious security problems on a computer Web site, most people will understand it as saying that this is true, compared to other OSes. Right or wrong, it is by definition a statement of value: Mac OS X doesn’t have a lot of severe security problems in relation to Windows. The same goes for Unix/BSD/Linux (the base OSes, not the whole distro!).
Here is what you originally said:
Pro OSS posters to this thread (with a few exceptions)have done nothing to alter the perception that OSS advocates are unfriendly, unhelpful, offensive and hostile.
In other words, almost all pro-OSS posters on this site have behaved in an unfriendly, unhelpful, offensive and hostile way.
I don’t believe that this is true at all. It may be only my opinion, but I do believe that you are wrong about this. And this is not just any opinion you’re stating: this is a broad statement you’re making about a lot of visitors to this site, and I don’t believe it to be true.
So it’s either one or three things: either you also believe that most anti-OSS posters behave in an unfriendly, unhelpful, offensive and hostile way (the Internet does dampen peoples’ inhibitions), or you honestly didn’t expect people being offended by such a broad characterization (and in such case should make amends), or you actually knew that this statement would provoke a response in kind, and therefore are trolling, according to the definition of the term:
“An electronic mail message, Usenet posting or other (electronic) communication which is intentionally incorrect, but not overtly controversial (compare flame bait), or the act of sending such a message. Trolling aims to elicit an emotional reaction from those with a hair-trigger on the reply key. A really subtle troll makes some people lose their minds.”
http://www.hyperdictionary.com/computing/troll
I’ll admit that I was a bit to quick to respond when you’ll admit that your broad characterization of pro-OSS posters being unfriendly, unhelpful, offensive and hostile (and childish) was uncalled for.
Just like Enderle’s, actually.
And I can say this, because ever since I’ve started to learn Linux, a year and a half ago, I’ve been amazed at how helpful and friendly the community has generally been. I’ve met or read messages from some bad apples, but the great majority of contacts I’ve had were very good. This is one of the things that has made me switch completely at home (well, I do have a Win98 box around, but most of the time it serves as an X terminal).
Again, I’m sorry if this offends you. Do not see this as a personal attack. If you say that this is truly what you believe then I will respect it. But I do believe that you are wrong about this, and since this is a community that I care about, I will challenge you about it when you post it on a public Internet site.