I can help you though…I can set you straight. Not that I’m an ALL WISE & KNOWING person, just that I have the ability to do research, ingest said research, digest the research and learn from the research. You stop at ‘do research’. Let us examine where your train derailed (not the physical place…because this obviously is at the beginning…but rather, where in your subject you go wrong).

Open Document does not equal Open Source

Any conclusions you try to draw between adoption or non-adoption of ODF in any state or local government amounts to NOTHING. Whether ODF succeeds in being adopted or not does not mean Open Source will succeed or not. They are not inversely proportional and they are not directly proportional. If ODF get’s thrown out for MS Formats, Open Source will still be there and still be developed. This is like saying that

Disagreeing with Yourself doesn’t Validate your Message

Disagreeing with the title of your article saying “Is Open Source dying? Of course not” does not bring instantaneous credibility or make the reader sigh a collective sight of relief. Instead, it makes you look ridiculous for even writing the article in the first place. Afterall, we know you’re comparing elephants to chickens with the ODF = Open Source thing…and now you’re trying to make up for it. Try is the key word there. You fail because of your closing paragraph (see below)

Sabre Rattling and Finger Shaking Makes you Look Even More Silly

[quote]But the open-source community needs to get over its overweening sense of superiority and messianic inevitability; the alternative is just good enough that if it doesn’t get its act together, open source may find itself the subject of retrospectives like “Remember Unix?[/quote]

Um..ok? The open source community doesn’t need to get over any overweening sense of superiority or that other made up phrase you used. Why? Because the GPL makes it that way. It cannot be snuffed out, bought up, or killed…it will never die…it will never fade away…because the moment someone decides to try, it will replicate itself due to the openness and sharing within that same community you chastise (or did you mean ODF Community? I forget, since they’re so synonymous right?). So, I guess that makes people angry…it’s a smudge that won’t go away. A blemish right? A light that won’t go out. Well, keep trying. Keep giving resistance…please Open Source will win without a fight

“To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;
supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without
fighting.” Sun-Tzu

On Open Source Dying… originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on June 24, 2007.

1. “We don’t need to keep reinventing Linux, creating distributions that
put critical bits in interesting and inventive if unusual places.”

This couldn’t be more wrong. We DO need to keep reinventing Linux and creating distributions that put critical bits in interesting and inventive if unusual places. Without these multiple distributions and their drive to do what isn’t “normal” or “business as usual” innovation would be left up to a small number of distros and developers. Innovation thrives in the current environment…we have seen how desktop Linux has lept & bounded during the past 3-4 years. This statement is not only false, but it shows how much people (even industry consultants/analysts/journalists with over 25 years in the business) totally miss the mark when it comes to Linux and Open Source Software.

I assume you’d prefer a ‘unified distro’ or at least fewer to choose from…one where everyone can stop spinning their wheels developing for that small time distro and all join hands and work on that larger distro and make it 1000% better right? That’s something that won’t happen and shouldn’t happen.

Perhaps you think new users will be scared of all of these choices? I bet these same new users walk around in circles when picking out a new shirt or shopping for a pair of pants…there is just too many of them isn’t there? Using this as a reason for justification of having fewer distros is silly and stupid.

2. “An application written for Linux should be relatively simple to install on any Linux distribution. It ain’t so.”

Perhaps the author is referring to source based installs here. Well, I’d have to slightly agree…there a bit daunting for new users. But think of this also…someone for that program you installed on your Windows PC packaged up that .exe or .msi for you to install on your computer. So when you go to install something in Linux…don’t compare source based installs where you’re compiling the program to double click exe or msi installs…because it is logically unsound. Instead, compare the compiling of the code into an exe/msi for install on Windows. Apples v. Apples and Oranges v. Oranges. Comparing a .exe to a .deb or .rpm would be closer to being logically sound in this instance and when doing this installing software is the same as in Windows.

3. “Do we really need hundreds of general purpose distributions, all with diffferent tools, different filesystem layouts, variations on three major software package management schemes and a host of oddball ones, and so on? Do we need yet more to crop up?”

Yes…we do need them. Without them, your XFS filesystem wouldn’t have been tested and tried true. Your various hardware configurations wouldn’t have been run as many times agaisnt different kernel modules because Linux would appeal LESS to people. With more choice, you can find a Linux that is right for you. Without them, new ways of doing things wouldn’t be adopted and integrated by others. Think about if rpm was still the same because .deb’s never came around? We’d probably still have rpm dependency resolution hell in many distros. Deb packages made rpm packagers and devs rethink how they did business and they adopted many practices in spec files because of it. Without this variety and innovation, it wouldn’t have happened.

They say that variety is the spice of life and I have to agree. Imagine if everyone in the United States had a limited choice of vehicle…only the most popular car could be driven and subsequently everyone would have a Toyota Camry. Think of all the manufacturers of truck parts that would fold up shop and leave. Think of how less and less people would think ‘outside of the box’ (box being a Camry in this instance). Think of all the farmers and ranchers who would be livid about having to drive a Camry on their farm/ranchstead. Choice is simple. Choice is innovative. Choice is needed.

Remember that choice for end users also means choice for developers. Devs can come in and look at where they fit in for communities and for programming languages, for community projects inside of each Linux community and for that feeling they get when they’ve arrived at the distro they should be developing for. Less distros means more developers with less territory to fit in on. If we had 12 distros and all the developers of the other 500 distros had to find new places to fit in…do you think everyone would get along? It would be mass chaos and many developers probably would just stop developing all together…and their contribution to free software and Linux would be lost.

4. “Linux has reached somewhere between 30% and 40% of the server market (depending on whose figures you believe) because the major distributions just plain work on most server hardware from major manufacturers like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell. We need to convince enterprise customers who buy servers to demand hardware that can use Open Source drivers.”

No business in their right mind is going to demand that a piece of hardware that works currently needs to have it’s proprietary driver replaced by one that is open source. That’s an unrealistic want/desire that will never be fulfilled.

Many people mistakenly think that the Server is the only place that Linux can make progress into people’s lives. I’d say they’re short sighted. Saying things like this is often a mistake that people make…and it gives implication of a ‘no confidence’ vote for Linux on the desktop whether the person saying it wants to or not. The server is not the last frontier for Linux…it was the first frontier.

5. “Until that day arrives proprietary drivers remain a necessary evil in a Linux distribution.”

For thousands, they aren’t a necessary evil. Having them or not having them makes no difference to these users. When something is a neccessity, it means you can’t live without it. Proprietary drivers are not food, water, and shelter for Linux. They’re a performance enhancer that people can and do live without. Making statements like this tries to portray Linux as being at the mercy of proprietary software and totally inept to tackle the problem…so inept that we need to DEMAND that open source drivers be made. Sure, it would be nice…but Linux is as Linux does…and for many, Linux does just fine. As for if it does fine in the server room…you have less support there than you do for Linux on the desktop I’m afraid.

6. “That’s just as true on the desktop as it is in the server room. Nobody will migrate from Windows to an OS that doesn’t work for them on the hardware they have.”

Let’s revisit what you were talking about earlier and then we’ll move on to adress this line. According to points #1 through #3…we don’t need more than a few Linux distros out there right? Having more is just plain stupid for sh!7sake right? If some piece of hardware doesn’t fully work in Linux…then having fewer distributions around won’t help us out at all…it will stifle the number of drivers being developed and the amount of software being written to configure these devices. So what is it that you want? You want to get rid of most of the distros and increase the amount of hardware supported…all without being detrimental to Linux. In fact, you think it would be better right? It won’t. It isn’t. It never will be.

7. “The laptop I’m writing this on doesn’t need any proprietary software to work as it should.”

Wait a second…didn’t you just say in the previous paragraph that proprietary drivers were a necessary evil? Oh for crying out loud, will you make up your mind? Are you TRYING to be appealing to both sides of the fence as to not step on toes?

I honestly don’t know what the author of this blog post was thinking when they wrote it. It doesn’t flow, it draws conclusions it shouldn’t, and it assumes everyone is of the same mind as the writer. Sure, it’s opinion. But when you offer opinions you open yourself up to good criticism and bad. In this case, I’m disagreeing with the sentiment portrayed in this blog. Perhaps next time the author might think about what they’re saying…because limiting the number of distros out there is absolutely NOT the way to go to accomplish anything other than limiting innovation.

Why Having 500+ Distros is a Good Thing originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on February 7, 2007.

So, I’ll be retitling and editing the article accordingly to provide seamless redirection. I apologize to Computerworld if in any way, shape, or form for my mistake did any character damage or incurred the rath senior editors and/or caused anyone to lose face or get made fun of (unless they’re dressed in horrible attire or didn’t brush their teeth this morning, in which case, they should apologize to everyone else). The original Computerworld syndication of Mr. McAllister’s article is located here. A copy of the original article I penned is available upon request via the comments section of this article. Thanks!

Articles like this one are so misguided. Giving you a brief overview what the article from InfoWorld says: Open Source supporters build fortresses around them that make them unapproachable and have infinite animosity toward Microsoft. Yep, that about sums it up. I’ll show you below how this article was written by an ignorant journalist…one that probably is too prideful to ask for help when writing his garbage. Next time you go to write something, why don’t you ask someone? Heck, ask me…I’d help you not to make a fool of yourself and stay accurate with the facts. Instead, InfoWorld shows mud on its face while pretending they’re subject matter experts.

I’d expect it from say…a standard blog discussing technology or perhaps a publication site that only has a technology section with a writer or two that pens just enough to wet the appetite of the computer savvy portion of its demographic. But InfoWorld? Come on! These guys should do a bit more research…afterall, they’re part of IDG which is the leading distributor of computer and technology based magazines and newspapers on the entire planet…you’d think that they might hire someone with a bit more knowledge in the arena of open source. They lead off the entire article with the following:

“If you support open source, one of the initial things you learn is that you must bash Microsoft.”

Well, I missed that memo. Last I checked on Sourceforge, there were around 6,000 pieces of open source software available for Windows and the Microsoft platform. Perhaps the author is confusing the term Open Source with Linux as many people do. They sit there and think that Linux and Open Source are synonymous. That just isn’t so. Linux is just one of many Open Source programs available…and one of many that can be said contain a philosophy biased against Microsoft Software. I always take note that some of the best programs out there that have a GPL License make my job eaiser on the Microsoft Platform at work. When you generalize things like this, you should at least get the generalization correct. In this instance, he didn’t.

Now…perhaps the author just opened up with the wrong sentence right? Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and take a look at the second sentence:

“It’s understandable; of all the
proprietary software companies in the world the one in Redmond takes
the cake for ill-will towards the open-source community. Just look at
the famed “Halloween documents” to see the extent of the bad blood”

Uh…last I checked the Halloween Documents were penned by Microsoft which was why they were so damning. So, the benefit of the doubt was given but shouldn’t have been. The author is implying that the Halloween Documents were somehow written by Open Source supporters in an attempt to bring ‘ill-will’ toward Microsoft. Funny isn’t it? This means that the author didn’t even read the Halloween Documents enough to know this simple fact. The author probably didn’t even read the Halloween Documents FAQ. Does it get any better later in the article?

Nope. Read on for the full digression.

“Through the years, this atmosphere of mutual animosity has inspired a number of people to try to get their shots in. Case in point: recently blogger Jason Cowan submitted the text of Microsoft’s community shared source software licence to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) for consideration as an approved open-source licence. He did it without Microsoft’s knowledge. When OSI representatives inquired whether Microsoft would like OSI to go ahead with the evaluation, the software giant politely declined.”

So a publicly available license was given to the OSI to see how ‘open’ the license really was. If Microsoft didn’t want the license to be duplicated, they should have copyrighted it like they do so well with all other documents and software. This is rather silly…how do you go about saying that this action holds ‘animosity’ toward Microsoft? Submitting a publicly available license to the OSI means you’ve got it out for Microsoft? This is horrible, sloppy journalism. Just a few paragraphs later the author drops even lower:

“Even as Cowan was busy with his stunt, Microsoft was reaching out in the other direction. Recently Sam Ramji, the director of Microsoft’s Open Source Software Lab, extended a unique invitation to coders from the Mozilla group. For four days in December, Firefox and Thunderbird developers will have the chance to work side by side with Microsoft employees to ensure that their code runs its best on the upcoming Windows Vista OS.”

So, now its a stunt eh? Last time I checked, stunts were when you lit a hoop on fire and jumped through it or perhaps ramped a vehicle over a bunch of barrels. And another thing, 4 days in December hardly amount to a drop in the water if you look at it logically…21 years of guarded and closed ideals on one side and then 4 days of openness.

The author digresses even further a few more paragraphs later:

“I, for one, am glad the Mozilla team didn’t reject Microsoft’s offer. That would be just one more example of the fortress mentality of many in the open-source community towards a company that, quite frankly, is a fact of life in the IT industry.”

So, rejecting the further proliferation of Open Source software is something Open Source projects are in the habit of doing? That sounds counterproductive doesn’t it? Is this guy for real? Who is he trying to fool? He’s making himself look much like an idiot. Now there’s a ‘fortress of mentality’ that is prevalent in open source. This is a real piece of work…to be filed in the fiction section.

The icing on the cake comes in the final paragraphs:

“From here on out, companies will use open-source software to power their businesses.”

Gee and I thought they’d been using it to power their business for the last 20 years. It’s a good thing you assume they haven’t by saying ‘From here on out’. This just goes to show you that even someone who works for a huge media conglomerate can make mistakes…huge ones…and can come off looking totally ignorant. Too bad too. The author could have consulted with someone on the article and nailed down the facts to give him more credibility.

“It’s time for open-source advocates to set aside their pride, recognise their place in the larger software market and start working to build bridges, rather than fortresses. The pranks and the name-calling might be good for a chuckle, but they’re not really helpful.“

I can’t believe he had the audacity to print this. Pride? Let’s put things into perspective…it’s pride that keeps businesses from admitting when they’re wrong and it’s pride that kept the author from seeking a subject matter expert on Open Source instead of relying on his own faulty logic. It’s pride that makes HP not admit their mistakes in privacy violations and point the finger at the sub-sub-contractor they hired to do the investigation. It’s pride that keeps Microsoft from admitting when they’ve installed a ‘phone home’ piece of spyware on all their users’ computers without their knowledge. Sure, they eventually admit it…but only after their caught. That defeats the purpose. Too bad this author couldn’t realize how contradictive he sounds and how far he’s missed the mark.

In closing, I just thought the article wasn’t even worth the pixels used to display it…but I’m sure its been seen by a wide variety of people. So, instead of giving them one side of the story, perhaps my little rant will give them the other side of things. Sure we can all get along…as long as we speak the truth to one another. And that’s something both journalists and Microsoft have historically [1] [2] had trouble doing.

InfoWorld Employs Ignorant Journalists originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on September 11, 2006.

I always hate it when a Linux “news” website publishes things that aren’t news. It would be like having a hosting website that doesn’t do hosting…what’s the point really? IF you can call a news article the gathering together of various other news sources, threading them together in one incoherent and blabbering “news” article and then ending the entire article on a point that the headline doesn’t even address…nor the first paragraph for that matter…then I guess LinuxInsider has got a dollop of fecal inspired “journalism” for you right on their front page. A retarded baboon could thread a bunch of stories together and draw a conclusion that doesn’t have anything to do with any other part by smacking a brick on a typewriter. I suggest LinuxInsider employ a retarded baboon as opposed to the author of this horrible piece.

What’s going on with many Linux news websites today? It used to be about the proliferation of Linux and Linux IN THE NEWS. Nowadays it’s about who can be the most creative with their Linux aphorisms and who can draw the most conclusions about nothing all while ensuring that as many advertisements as possible barrage their readers. This is why I only go to 2 websites for general Linux NEWS…Lxer.com and LWN.net. Newsforge is a good place to go as well…but the rest seem to do nothing but dance around the idea that they can widen out and cover all business news, report a little bit on Linux, and become a ‘catch all’ for savvy “geeks” while being sure to saturate themselves with ads. Sites should understand more about their target audience…and that just isn’t happening now.

I think it comes down to a faulty business model. Target audiences are changing faster than the technology that is released daily. Larger news websites whether Linux based or not are counting on “clickthroughs” and ad “impressions” to tell them what their readers want. They’re counting on their names to carry them and they’re wrong in accepting this matter. In the past, Linux has been somewhat geeks only…or at least rumored to be. That has changed. Most news sites haven’t.

Look at things like distributed journalism over at digg.com. Blogs, digg, and Lxer are the waves of future journalism. Users determine through voting what they want to hear more about or what is displayed on the front page. Blogs are so numerous that anyone with the ability to type can have one. These models are the future of news and journalism…whether people want to admit it or not.

Still, everyone is going gaga over ad supported applications and websites. Heck, Microsoft even fought Google for a stake in buying 5% in AOL for buying advertisements. Google founded their business on this model with adsense. The interesting part is though that Google is adapting to different business models and other companies aren’t. Perhaps they’re too beauraucratic. Perhaps they’re too large to move quickly. Whatever the case may be, Google’s employees turn out new technologies and “it” ideas while other companies flounder to keep up. The change has been to get in touch with your target audience and make things FOR them. Allow that audience to check it out…see what they can do to make it better. Open source your ideas. Develop a community around it. Then when it releases, it will be received with open arms instead of skepticism. The thing I like about Google is that their search page hasn’t changed to contain ads since they started…it’s separate from their function…adsense does not inundate their function. Many Linux websites should take note of this model.

Linux news websites aren’t doing this. They’re sitting back and counting on business to exist as usual. They’re losing their touch with the Linux community and in doing so they’re losing readers and subsequently, support. In the meantime, they pass poorly written articles off as news and throw them on their front page. To me, this is an insult. They should know their audience enough to see that we see straight through junk they try to pass off as “Linux News” and that with each passing bowel-wrenching article they alienate us further and further.

So I wanted to see if my theories checked out. I wanted to see if some Linux “news” sites were going downhill in the last year with the influx of interest in Linux. According to Alexa.com a web page ranking website, LinuxInsider posted a 2 year all time low numerous times from September 2005 through November 2005. Compare that directly to Lxer.com which started at the beginning of 2004, and you can see for yourself that LinuxInsider truly is on the Outside of things.

But what about other sites? What about sites that do the similar things as LinuxInsider…changing toward ad impressions and clickthroughs? One that comes to mind is LinuxWorld.com. I used to visit LinuxWorld quite a bit a few years ago. Loved the old look as opposed to the new look…and just look at how the content has changed…you can see the difference…ad supported models have been geared toward what they think their target audience is by comparing the old and new look. Have they fared better? Hardly. Look at the comparison of Lxer.com and Linuxworld.com at Alexa…they’ve dropped out as one of the top websites in their rankings. They used to be there…something changed. Hrm…what could it be?

It seems that Linux “News” websites that become less concerned with Linux NEWS are on their way out while models such as Lxer are on their way up. Newsforge gets it, why can’t any other major Linux news site out there get it to? Someday, Linux “News” sites will stop trying to shove a plate of horrible journalism in our laps, stop trusting ‘business as usual’, and they’ll start to realize that while the restaurant across the tracks isn’t the nicest place in town…they do have the best food.

Digg this Article

Opinion: Why Some Linux News Sites Aren’t Succeeding originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on December 17, 2005.

The article is entitled, “The Linux Kernel’s Fuzzy Future” and they are oh so careful not to directly bash anyone or anything. However, it is obvious that they are trying to show that the kernel “ain’t no Microsoft” (thank God for that…we’d all be broke). These types of articles are normally known as FUD when directly attacking different parties. They are spread across the internet through syndication and other means to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt (Hence, FUD). In this case…the FUD is only a thin coating and you barely notice it…but it’s there.

Here’s the problem with ebusiness sites and corporate news portals critiquing Linux and open source in general…Linux is not Micro$oft, and Micro$oft isn’t Linux. End of story. So should Linux be viable for business? Who cares? Linux is free and designed for the community…not for the business.

My reasoning comes from this notion…how can you compare something designed to be free for all developing at the leisure and pace of thousands of developers worldwide…to something designed to be closed source developing on the backs of some choice employees…it really is apples and oranges. Micro$oft needs deadlines and roadmaps to live…because without it…we’re left wondering when the next patch for this or next security pack for that will be out.

With Open Source…there is no NEED for roadmaps. The next patch to a security flaw…the next update…will be out within a few hours in most cases. Why? Because worldwide there are hundreds of thousands of developers communicating simultaneously toward a common goal. I don’t think there is a single company that can actively compete against that. I also highly doubt if any major business has seen the speed at which a project can develop when it is open sourced.

So this article strikes a nerve, albeit very craftily and indirectly, with me. Take it or leave it, my two cents on the matter.

Sources

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=54800186

Information Week Slams the Kernel…Finger Lickin Good. originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on December 6, 2004.