Submitted by Keith Curtis worked at Microsoft for 11 years, coding on Windows, Office, and at Microsoft’s research department, before leaving the Redmond giant. Call it a revelation, call it giving in to the devil’s temptations, but he’s now a complete open source and Linux advocate, and in his new book, “After the Software Wars”, he explains why open source will prevail against Microsoft’s proprietary model.
Curtis never actually used Linux until 2004, when he left Microsoft. Over the years, he turned into a Linux advocate, and now claims that thanks to the proprietary software model, we are living in “the dark ages of computing.” This is what is scientifically known as doing a complete 180 (no, not a 360).
In an interview with CIO, he explains why the open source model will ultimately lead to Microsoft’s demise. First, he argues that the open source model leads to better code. He points to Firefox and the Linux kernel as examples of open source delivering greater quality than the proprietary model. Secondly, he also states that open source undermines Microsoft’s profit margins.
He further argues that while open source may not have made tremendous gains just yet in the desktop market, it is doing very well in other segments of the computing market. “Google has hundreds of thousands of machines running Linux,” he explains, “Free software is well on its way to conquering the small and the large, and the remaining challenge is the desktop in the middle.”
It would be hard for Microsoft to adapt to the open source model. Sure, Microsoft could open source its products, but who would care? For instance, if they were to open source Internet Explorer, no one would care because Webkit and Gecko already exist. “If Microsoft, 20 years ago, built Windows in an open way, Linux wouldn’t exist, and millions of programmers would be improving it rather than competing with it,” he says, “However, I think it is too late for that now.”
So, does he believe that there are other ways for Microsoft to compete with open source? “Other than adopting Linux, there is little Microsoft can do,” he starts, “Even if they did embrace it, not only would it hurt their profit margins, they’d be forced to explain to customers why they should continue to pay for Office if the company believes the free OpenOffice is good enough.”
It sure is an interesting view on the debate, especially coming from someone who worked at Microsoft for so long. Personally, I don’t think of open source destroying proprietary – I see open source and proprietary competing with one another, so that we, consumers, end up with better products. Open source made Microsoft improve both its server and desktop offerings on the operating system front, and even when it comes to Office, Microsoft has made tremendous steps forward that wouldn’t have been made without open source breathing down their necks.
At the same time, the continuous comparisons drawn up between proprietary products and their open source counterparts also serve as a carrot for open source developers to work even harder to improve their code and products.
It’s a win-win situation for us consumers, people. And now I want to wash my mouth with soap for saying “win-win situation”.
Wow! Very clever guy! Just genius…
“Free Software” will kill ANY “software company”, not just “evil” “guilty in all sins” Microsoft. Communism is good only in theory. It was never built and never will.
Ummm, how is it communist given that all those who participate freely do so? there is no compulsion to give, there is no compulsion to use, there is no compulsion that you must be part of that community and thus allow you to create a fork. I think you need to lay off the right wing shock-jocks for a while because opensource is anything but communist.
Actually Open Source is communism , you participate in a community for the greater good of the project , your share and improve the same code as Open Source is a method of development and nothing more. Beside what your describing is dictatorship or Stalinism.
But then Open Source is not the subject here , it’s Free Software , witch is as close as possible to pure democracy as can be. You don’t like how a project is going you can take it in another direction and openly discuss it’s flaws and problems.
Edited 2009-05-22 17:40 UTC
So, the developers are forced to join assigned projects or are they free to choose where they spend there free time? Where the told “this will be GPL or you will be shot.” Can they not choose any of the umpteen other non-viral FOSS licenses like MIT or Apache? Can a project not be freely forked if a developer wants to go a different way with it?
Do various similar projects not compete based on the merits of quality and functionality allowing the end user to choose what the best fit?
On the other side of the coin, you have wage slaves who’s efforts are the proprietary possesion of the employing company. Same as the music industry, the artist does not own there own work; the media company does.
In what world beside dictatorship/proprietary are people forced to do anything in there free time ?
Never seen anybody being shot over GPL ,Don’t take GPL code as your base if you don’t want to make your derivative GPL , suposedly simple but apparently thieves have a problem with that.
1. The GPL is not viral.
2. If you don’t take other people GPL code as your base , you have lots of other choice.
3. If your the *original* author of the code and not making a derivative or improvment on someone else code you can multi license YOUR code as you wish.
But the real problem ( for thieves that is ) is not the forking , as seen by the hundred of thousand of GNU/Linux projects , it’s the illegal re-licensing of others code to another closed license that is not permited if you use someone else Open Source or Free Software licensed code that don’t permit in wirtting to re-license the code to something else.
No …
1. When as such competiton happened for the decision of the default OS on most computer shipped by OEM today ?
2. Where is the choice when only one is offered ? Why not include more ?
The real problem is it’s not a coin , you don’t have only two choice or only two possibility.
GPL code can be bought from the original author , at their price , and be offered under another license. Like they already do in some case of dual and triple licensing with MIT and BSD.
The problem arise when Thieves decide “I can do whatever I like with other people code”.
Edited 2009-05-22 19:02 UTC
“Actually Open Source is communism”
You braught up the original claim that it was comunism.. or you missed putting quotes around it.
From your reply back to me, we seem in almost complete agreement though. Other than something GPL’d will carry that license forward except for in the very specific case you mention.
Compared to MIT, BSD or copy-free (vs copyright or copyleft), GPL seems pretty viral. That’s not to say I don’t like the license as I benefit greatly being and end user and contribute as I’m able.
You’re making a pretty big leap of faith that those who contribute to open source projects are motivated by altruistic visions. The vast majority of programmers are propelled to contribute by something that both Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman both talked about: rational self interest (or to use Objectivist lingo, ‘Selfishness’).
Their rational self interest takes the form in wanting to scratch an itch, fix something up that they want fixed – what ever the case maybe, no one is ever compelled to do something through the goodness of their own heart, they are gaining something out of contributing whether it be objective (a working piece of software) or a subjective (he or she feels good after fixing it up for someone else).
I wouldn’t call it a democracy because democracy is where the minority is subjected to the tyranny of the majority; the closest political parallel would be anarchy; where people create voluntary relationships that are propelled by their rational self interest and when the relationship no longer fulfils what they want they can leave and do as they wish.
You mean, they think it’s “fun”, right?
You’ve got some nerves to mention those two charlatans in this day and age.
I mean, Ayn Rand, the inspiration for Debt Bubble Wizard Greenspan, and Friedman the greatest economic fool to have ever won the Nobel Prize, that’s quite something.
I always find it funny that those who label Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand as charlatans and yet reserve a special place in their heart for the ‘all knowing, all seeing, all perfect government’; ignoring the fact that loose monetary policy (where is the inflation target for the federal reserve? why isn’t the federal reserve fully owned, controlled and accountable to the US government just like any other central bank?) and the idiotic policies pursued by both Democrats in the form of Community Reinvestment act (threats by Janet Reno against banks who failed to meet targets for lending to particular minority groups) and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac whose lending quality was dropped to bring more people in which then forced, through the loss of potential customers, for private banks to lower their lending criteria.
Its amazing how New Zealand and many other countries have LESS regulation in than the United States and yet have not suffered the same financial catastrophe that US institutions have fallen into (but economic problems are due to American policies – but hey, talk to am American and they’ll apparently think that the US economy is an island and doesn’t impact anyone else). Then again, I am not surprised, the US has over 100 years of interventionist policies under their belt – savings and loans crisis, bailing out Boeing (or should I say ‘investments’), bailing out Chrysler (thus making it bailed out twice in the companies life), bailing WorldCom (or in US lingo, “winning a federal government contract”).
All your posting of stupidity and ignorance has shown is that the US has gotten to this point (the financial crisis) through interventionist policies which go against the free market simply for political point scoring. Mark me down to a million – because every point you take off goes to prove that I am right, Milton Friedman, Ayn Ran, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and many more were right.
Edited 2009-05-23 11:39 UTC
You’re wrong about that, I have no such place in my heart.
Why are you drawing conclusions so fast?
Where it was tried (UK, Chile) Friedman-style inflation politics has proven utter disasters.
Because the banks control the government and not the other way round.
(FTR I’m not American.)
In the US, finance/real estate is essentially tax-exempt. Is it in New Zealand?
That’s not what caused this meltdown.
Partly that’s certainly true – all the bad banks should have just gone bankrupt, good riddance. The problem is that you don’t even know what a truly free market really is.
There are people who do know, by the way:
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=listByAuthor&authorFirst…
Read his books and articles, and you’ll see among other things they wipe the floor most painfully with Milton Friedman.
Well, they can’t all be right about the same thing since Friedman and the Austrians vehemently disagreed on certains important topics. By the way, Friedman (and Hayek too) supported exreme right wing fascists like Pinochet whenever he thought one of them could do his economic experiments for him, usually with disastrous results. That’s your idea of freedom?
The only field that the Austrians’ role is interesting in is debt, money creation, etc. and theoretical exercises in “free markets” that are nice but usually useless in the real world. But they get my credit for at least that.
Friedman’s just a quack, though I can’t exclude the possibility that a truth or two slipped in his work here and there (I’m being generous).
Friedman advised Pinochet on economic policies to help average people. He didn’t support or endorse him. Consider his advice economic charity.
Help average people….Pinochet…Friedman…OMFG, seriously kid, you need to go to school and get an education. Otherwise your free to continue on in life ignorant as a doorknob, but just don’t ever expect people to take you seriously with such idiocy.
You are so full of yourself.
Of course, you didn’t respond to the merits of my point — because it is true.
All you can do is make personal attacks? You are a loser. Step away from the computer and get a life.
Friedman’s a quack?
Why do you think you have such a reputation that you can just go around on websites and state your opinion without including any facts to back it up?
Why don’t you go read one his books like Capitalism and Freedom, and then get back to us with the “holes” you’ve found. I wait with baited breath.
You don’t need a reputation for that.
I posted a link to Michael Hudson’s articles.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=listByAuthor&authorFirst…
His website is http://michael-hudson.com/
That should do for the time being. There’s plenty more, have you got a couple of hours?
Or read Debunking Economics, by Steve Keen.
That should give you some kind of idea why Friedman was a quack.
I’m sure he was a nice guy though.
You think you can just link to a website or book and be done with it?
I’m not going to read that stuff, find the flaws, or that it doesn’t say what you think it says, and then post my comments here. I have better things to do than educate you. It isn’t even clear you understand what is at those website or in that book, so I’m not sure whether my analysis of those materials would be above your head.
Who knows, Kevin.
However, Michael Hudson predicted the current economic meltdown deadly accurately, years ago. How many Friedman followers did so? I think none.
Friedman is a fool? And what are your qualifications to say that? I’m guessing you’ve not read him.
I thought the biggest fool to win a Nobel is Paul Krugman, the man who said that Social Security is working well and is an efficient system.
You cannot blame today’s problems on the free market. The US is already 50% controlled by government.
Well, social security in the US is actually making a profit, you know. I agree Krugman is a fool too, btw. But perhaps not for the reasons you think that.
Oh and tell me where I blamed the “free market” for anything. The US has never been a free market. Even Cuba is a freer market.
Social security isn’t making a profit. Profit isn’t even the appropriate word to describe it!
It might be bringing in more money this year than it spends, but it has TRILLIONS in unfunded future liabilities.
Social security is a Ponzi scheme, one of the biggest scams in the history of the US. If you aren’t pissed that you will dump in many thousands of dollars for decades and get very little in return, then you should be.
Exactly what I mean. So the question is, who benefits?
That’s because you seem to think that people will contribute thousand of hours at fixing a problem they personnaly don’t have for “selfishness” … The majority of people who contribute to Open Source and Free Software do it for altruistic reason and to give back because they know the real value of the time and code that as been contributed by those before them. They certainly don’t do it for money , glory , fame or peer recognition.
I am not denying that their is probably one or two that have selfish reason but those people usually fix their thing and are on their way to do something else.
Actually , that’s a lie , where there is tyranny there is no democracy , but then some people will go and call upon extremes as they feel they are always victimized.
Anarchy : where nothing exist , no laws , no protection , no commerce , no creation , no cohesion , where it’s always disorder.
I know some people think anarchy is where people are most free , but in fact freedom don’t exist in anarchy at all , your just in waiting to be the prey of the next one or group of people who want what you have. In anarchy you can’t leave a group as your then considered an enemy of that group.
How come you stay in New Zealand if living in Somalia , Sudan , Zimbabwe , Chad is better ? This is where anarchy really exist and is today.
It would be nice to see some surveys on this subject. Glory, fame and peer recognition — all aspects that I believe are important in FOSS development, just like in academia.
I prefer real life and experience to survey and theory
If your interested to pay for all the code :
http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc/
Free software won’t kill anything. However, it does force change. It’s forced Microsoft to compete again and as a result they have started producing better stuff.
Of course money talks and BS walks. What Microsoft has to do know is prove that buying their software has more benefit that simply using free software. Of course they also heavily target schools and developers so that helps them.
Communism does seem to function better in the open source world better than it did in the government world, but even then it takes people forcing the issue to keep it that way.
Free Software as already killed many commercial entity …
By offering better solution at cheaper price that evolve and meet the need of clients.
Actually Money don’t talk at all , to give a good example Google as been spending far less then Microsoft on it’s search engine and solution , they just offer a better product that people wnat and like to use.
Free software hasn’t killed anything. It created competition and some companies failed because of it. Now if open source code was allowed to proliferate into closed programs with the original creators banking on the idea that they could reap reward from it then I would agree that free software ‘kill’ it’s competition and frankly open source software would be no better than Microsoft in that sense.
As for money. I wasn’t talking about what companies were spending. I was talking about what consumers where spending. Money talks and BS walks. Consumers in general I think prefer not to spend money. It’s now a proprietary software companies job to justified why consumers should buy their product over say a free alternative.
Open Source is a *method of development* that even Microsoft and Apple use …
There are company who’s only comeptition was Free Software who are now defunct.
Where is the justification for Microsoft being in most case the only OS offered by OEM ? Microsoft win by default on other vendor hardware , by being default.
And a lifestyle. And an ideology. And a business model. And so on and so on. Open Source is just a term thrown around like wet towels. Some turn it into a religion and some turn it into a reason to hate.
“There are company who’s only comeptition was Free Software who are now defunct.”
I’m not quite following how that is Free Software’s fault. Did free software steal their source code? Or did they simply offer a program that was as good or better than the paid version. What I’m amazed at is all the non-free software companies that still exist and are doing well. Some probably even showing good profits in the face of free software.
“Where is the justification for Microsoft being in most case the only OS offered by OEM ? Microsoft win by default on other vendor hardware , by being default.”
Without sound like a real dick here… that’s just stupid. Yes, I agree that Windows is the default OS, but the truth is consumers made a choice, ill-informed as it might be, to continue to use Microsoft products. While I would love to see Linux on more desktops the fact is that most consumers would choose Windows over Linux even if they had the choice. Why? Because they know Windows.
I agree with you without actually agreeing with you. Free software can be hard to compete with if price is your only competition. After all, why would you pay for something you can get for free. That’s just life in a capitalist society. (money talks and all)
I also agree that Linux would probably gain a better foothold on the desktop market if it was offered by default on computers along side Windows or in place of Windows, but it still boils down to consumer preference and most of them are going to choose Windows because it’s what they already know. That doesn’t even take into consideration applications.
Linux on the Netbooks is a great place to start the revolution though. Most of the people I know that have them only use them for web and e-mail and basic writing stuff. Nothing Linux can’t handle.
(to the purist. Yes I’m quite aware that Linux is a kernel and ubuntu is a distribution. I was going for really generic.)
Communism functions quite well in a lot of places, like your family. It requires certain enforceable constraints and ultimate trust backing them.
So that’s why they call it Red Hat…
Dang! I wanted to vote you funny not insightful.
Clumsy me. Oh well…
It’s really one of my favorites.
Communism in software:
– The State has absolute and final power
Say, like everyone being at the mercy of a single proprietary software vendor for patches, updates and forced upgrades when the vendor’s profit graph says “time for a new version, start the new makeup work”.
– The State removes challengers to stifle conflicting ideologies or questioning of The Party. The people being allowed to consider faults of the government or new ideas is not acceptable.
Say, like predatory business practices used instead of competition through product quality and innovation. If you can’t buy them, break them or bring them close and introduce incompatability. It’s The State; a political monopoly as it where.
– The People are all of a common political rank. Nothing is owned privately and no one higher ranking than the other without being a member of The Party.
Say, like everyone being forced to use the same OS be it the right choice for the job or not while being told “you don’t own this software, you use it by our leave.”
Wait.. sorry, you where saying something about FOSS being communism; please continue.
The first two have nothing to do with communism, and the third is poorly applied. You are confusing common implementations with the concept.
You just shown how you don’t know what communism is.
Your describing dictatorship …
The “FOSS is communism” or socialism has just come up too many times with the person giving such reasons as “developers work for free”, “developers can’t keep there code” and such in an attempt to try and prove that it is somehow an evil conspiracy about whatever disliked governance model is in fashion that week.
I’m open to correction though as I’m far from a political scientist. I just have issues with FOSS being blidly labelled “terrorism” or whatever fear word is hip at the time when someone has decided they don’t like it but have no real reasons to support the opinion.
Free software isn’t communism. Giving away something for free doesn’t qualify as communism and neither does collaboration. There is no authority by vote or otherwise that can force a free software programmer to code something he doesn’t want to code. In fact it’s probably a lot closer to absolute free market capitalism than proprietary software. Free software springs from an individual need and is distributed by the author under his own free will. Competing solutions will win or lose the market depending on their merit not proprietary lock-in or some other artificial method. The whole free software landscape is like a completely deregulated economy where there is no barrier to entry and no regulations to prevent you from creating whatever you want.
Proprietary software like Microsoft on the other hand is much more like a planned economy. It’s a system that doesn’t depend on merit but the fact that it is the only choice. It doesn’t coexist well with competitors and it never intended to. When Microsoft’s latest operating system flops we cannot purchase another OS with the same API that will allow us to run all of the software we ran before. With vast patent regulation it is virtually impossible to create a competing system.
With that said neither are communist or capitalist. They are not entire economic systems and describing them as such isn’t really helpful.
>Communism is good only in theory. It was never
>built and never will.
So…your saying that when scientists of the world share their work and build upon each others creating, inventing, and discovering by not hording their work to themselves but unstead sharing their results, research, methods, and new ideas they are nothing more than a bunch of damn COMMIES?!!
That’s what open source is. Its people developing technical solutions and each sharing their work so others can take it collaborate on it and build on it further to progress the computer science.
Communism is what Obama wants to do…government control of the means of production.
Open Source is basically scientific endeavor and has nothing to do with communism.
Give up the Microsoft propaganda. Collaboration has nothing to do with Communism.
Edited 2009-05-24 16:12 UTC
Call it short sighted but I really don’t see it happening “soon”tm. It is probably true that open source being completely free will eventually overrun any competing company….but there are many sectors where open source will probably never exist (really up to date games for example).
Seems like this kind of free software revolution will continue to take a hell of a lot longer than people usually suggest. It’s coming, just don’t expect it soon. We’re only just seeing the very start with the whole android & netbook craze.
Call me back when we start getting commercial games on Linux with high quality graphics drivers. Gamers will do anything to optimize performance and a lot of people have family PCs their kids want to play games on…
Edited 2009-05-22 14:24 UTC
Maybe, in 20 or 30 years.
*Never* in your special case … you discard reality in order to win in your mind …
That’s funny because most games use Free Software and Open Source in one way or another …
Free Software is already here as been for decades …
The problem with your nonsense is that in order for Free Software to win it as to offer games , witch it already as in most cases … Butt hat you discard because they are not exactly what you want or use in your nonsense.
Why would we need to call you back or listen to you , you don’t use your real name , contribute nothing and don’t have money to create your own game , you won’t buy it or support it when it exist anyway.
Example?
What is nonsense is this paragraph. I read it several times and have no idea what it is you are trying to say. I realize English isn’t everybody’s first language (it isn’t mine), but seriously, spend some time proofreading before you post.
All the game you use …
1. I am not **trying** to say anything , I said it very clearly , now merriam-webster offer a nice online tool for people like you :
http://www.merriam-webster.com/
Edited 2009-05-22 18:24 UTC
Thats not an answer, thats a cop out. Give a real answer with a real concrete example.
No, you did not. You posted a half a dozen comments for this story, all of them in a language which resembles, but is not quite English. You should follow your own link and look up the word ‘proofreading’.
Yes , it is , in reality …
Yes , but by you , I don’t see you naming your game or any games. So that I can’t look up what their technology is.
Hey , I upgraded to “not quite English” , so as I suspected the problem was on your end.
Edited 2009-05-22 19:21 UTC
No, you see in reality we have this thing called ‘proof’, which accompanies an answer. You have not supplied any, instead spewing a bunch of nonsensical, overly broad, general and unverifiable statements.
What? No seriously, what? Why was I supposed to name a game. I asked YOU to provide an example backing up YOUR claim. Instead all I get is you avoiding giving me a straight answer.
Far from it since out of the two of us I am the one who actually can speak English properly. And of course instead actually attempting to be clearer when you post you continue to prattle near incomprehensible gibberish.
Switched from answer to proof now … so It was an answer , just one kiddies like you don’t like …
If my english is so poor stop replying to me , because by every single one of your reply your showing you where lying about my english.
I am still waiting for your non existing games … You know one 100% built on proprietary technology.
Well, I don’t know the development of games well enough to claim a title which is 100% proprietary. Given that ASCII is an open standard and most games use text, you’ll end up with at least 1% of most games being based on an open standard if not open or free software.
Mind you DirectX pretty much kills off anything running outside of a Windows platform even if it does contain open technologies. That particular closed technology effectively locks the game to a specific platform.
With the number of FOSS hating gamers I run into, I’d be interest to know more about how games contain open standards or open/free code. Pointing them at the Gamer liveDVD doesn’t do much when the only thing they care about is Crysis on there triple sli wet dream.
Despite Moulinneuf being generally insane (s)he’s right about this. There are plenty of open source software used in both the game and film industry. Lua, for example, has been used in many commercial games and it’s Open Source. Of course using open source tools does not imply releasing open source software (nor should it in my opinion).
Despite Moulinneuf being generally right …
There I fixed it for you.
That’s where you and I disagree. But then I am not an anonymous thief.
Proprietary = Proprietary.
Open Source = Open Source.
Free Software = Free Software.
If you pay the original author for it’s code that’s another thing , but in most cases Proprietary steal Open Source and Free Software to make proprietary.
Why do you object to using open source tools to release closed source retail programs?
Isn’t using open source tools to produce the product rather than including open source in the product perfectly acceptable? It seems about the same as using Blender to produce a movie you then sell. Same in the case of film studios using FOSS based clusters to render there own movies or visual effectively layer to go over the camera shot film.
If the product includes FOSS code under a license that requires availability then that’s a different situation. That is truly profiting by building on top of someone else’s FOSS work; assuming a license similar to GPL. As you mentioned earlier, MIT, BSD, Apache or similar don’t include the “pass it forward” clause.
If I met you in a pub and offered you a beer for free and you accepted, would that make you a thief?
If I offer my software to be used in a closed source app and someone accepts it, are they thieves?
Some games use ogg vorbis true but they aren’t open source games at all. Not modern games with fantastic graphics (really Wesnoth is not the final word in all gaming)
Nope, they just have to be usable.
I use Linux daily, and I use Windows(for games) most days too. I would rather just use Linux, but some software I need doesn’t work on it – Ventrilo for example(Hoping to replace when TS3 finally comes out)
You’re right, I don’t want to play a clone of a 20-30 year old game – whatever age tetris is. Linux definitely has some amazing strong points – most of the games aren’t one of them
Half of this you’re just making up. The other half is just wrong. I’ve brought every game I was ever interested in that runs on Linux….but most of them simply don’t. Wine is awesome these days, but it’s hardly flawless.
Edited 2009-05-22 19:03 UTC
1. That’s obviously the only game you know so do some real reasearch.
2. What is the final word in your own view ?
3. Gaming is a large category …
They are usable since people use them … Not to your liking is not a requirement. You would probably dispise solitaire …
How is it GNU/Linux fault that Ventrillo refuse to make a GNU/Linux version ? Your their client pay them to make one …
As Always …
Then don’t …
YOU don’t know most of the game availaible …
Nope and no …
Do you really think I believe YOU there ? answer is no …
Because only wesnut , wine and Tetris exist on GNU/Linux …
If you rejoined reality and started by looking up game that play on GNU/Linux natively , you might end up finding a few to your liking.
Instead of finding a game and blaming GNU/Linux for the game maker not offering a version that work on GNU/Linux …
1) no, you’re completely wrong
2) fyi I like wesnoth, but like most native open source linux games…..it is a “mini game” – a casual game. Which is fine but i want more than that
3) exactly and linux simply doesnt have it well covered – fact.
If you want it to be a good platform you need popular games with most people, so it is a requirement, sorry you dont like this.
now you’re catching on
I never said that, you just did. I just said unfortunately it lacks in some areas – that is called an example.
I dont that’s why i have a windows machine
Actually I do. I own almost all the commercially availabe linux games and ports. I also play nexuiz, tremulous, alien arena and et qw and others. But YOU are too busy being making up rubbish to know otherwise.
You just made up some story about me not knowing the games i play, so yes, stop making up rubbish.
Lol quite amusing considering my copy of sacred gold turned up the other day. Want me to link you some photos of all the game boxes? Or maybe link you to the post i made http://blog.linuxgamepublishing.com/2009/05/07/in-response-to-the-p… – there under the name “hoodlum” saying which games I bought (I later bought X2 and X3 also)
If you were ever part of reality you would know most games dont run on linux.
Edited 2009-05-23 01:27 UTC
Sample: Civilization 4 is using Python as the base language, with all libraries and stuff that goes with it. Sure they use DirectX bindings, but the core is still as F/OSS as it gets.
On the OSS front PlaneShift looks very well.
Why proprietary is bad? Why should everyone share the codes to the world?
Microsoft writes his own product and customers pay for the products, and why should Microsoft open-source the products? Isn’t it a decision should be made by the company? Not just Microsoft, I think whether open-source the software or not and which license to use, is solely the freedom of the programmer/ designer. Freedom should not just be applied to end-users, but programmers, who put effort on making the software, too.
I do use Debian GNU/Linux as my Linux server, and sometimes as my desktop. Sure Linux has its advantages: free, stable (most of the time, with some exceptions). But when I experience troubles, as a home user, I can only ask for help on forums (and I may not even get a reply in months). If I bought commercial products, I can dial the service hotline/ send e-mail to the company and call for help. As a result, I don’t see paying for products is bad, and I don’t see making everything free is good.
Sometimes I just feel the world is beginning to force everyone (programmers) deliver products for free.
That is the day when I stop writing open source software. For the principle. It is already bad enough with the increasing userbase demanding how you should spend your precious free time. The famous two cents….
Why is proprietary bad? It’s not, unless you believe in fairy tale land where money grows on trees. But until we reach that magical plateau, it will just be the fantasy of an extreme.
The whole argument is just so childish it should not even be considered valid, much in the same why that there is a debate on whether the use of illegal torture produces results. In both cases you have people making an argument regardless of truth, facts, and reality. Torture does not work, and proprietary software will never go away. End of story.
As long as the company is supporting the product to a price that you are willing to pay. You can buy the same kind of support for most free software, either from the main company behind it (if it exists) or from any other company offering support. Because support companies have competitors, they have to keep their pricing and quality of support interesting for the consumer.
The question comes down to cost crunch. Look at the amount of duplication Microsoft do when compared to Mac OS X for example who use opensource components instead. I don’t think that Microsoft could or would ever go opensource but a balanced approach needs to be taken rather than the rabid NIH syndrome that seems to be prevalent at Microsofts campus’s.
Microsoft writes his own product and customers pay for the products, and why should Microsoft open-source the products? Isn’t it a decision should be made by the company? Not just Microsoft, I think whether open-source the software or not and which license to use, is solely the freedom of the programmer/ designer. Freedom should not just be applied to end-users, but programmers, who put effort on making the software, too.
What you say is absolutely true, but there is a catch. What if consumers decide they won’t use closed source apps anymore? They could decide that the freedom of FOSS is actually worth paying for more than the as-is closed offerings. Than every developer is free to write closed source software, but they won’t have any takers.
Pure economic theory says that a free market in the long period makes everyone sell for for their marginal cost.
In software that is nearly 0.
Also I think sometime that capitalism just was not made for intellectual work.
Yes it was. Just it does not have anything to cover the cases where replications costs are 0 or damn close to 0. Remember, that at the time when capitalistic theory was forged, IP were basically books and art, and you need quite an amount of $$$ to duplicate them. It would still cost you less to buy a book in the store, then to make a photocopy, granted the book has an average cost of about 10-20 USD and more than 200 pages. And I am not even talking about paintings and sculptures.
So intellectual work, according to you, has no material value?
just think for a moment, without the incentive of financial gain we would not have most of the discoveries we have today. Do you read books? That’s intellectual work, should writers get pay? Or you would be happy reading crappy, lousy free books written by me?
please, tell me what new software has FOSS ever developed (See, I did not say open source). All are copies of proprietary software. Including games!
Did you ever hear of stagnation?
If all software was free, all we would have is cheap, lousy stuff. The smart programmers would drift to other type of endeavor where they will be able to provide for their families. Or you expect the government to pay them so you can have free, good software.
Open Office is the best example of open sourced software (it is not FOSS).
But then remember who pays the programmers and contribute 99.9% for open office development, it’s not the so called community, it’s Sun (now Oracle).
All of you just quit whinning about proprietary, open sourced, etc. Just pay for what you want. What next? Free beer for you people!
He didn’t say that IP doesn’t have any value, he said that in capitalism it doesn’t have any. And it’s true – that’s why the pure capitalism is patched with IP rights.
Proprietary software will never go away completely, but that doesn’t matter. Open Source has the effect of commoditising software and thus drives the price towards zero. Weather that is a good thing is a question I shall leave to the economists, but either way it’s bad for Microsoft with the business model they currently rely upon.
I think the article doesn’t imply that MSFT should open source it’s products – rather, that it’s too late for that to have significance. And I don’t think too many care at this point.
The open source is dominated by Unix geeks, and that’s probably how it’ll stay. Windows has very little geek appeal, even if it gets the job done and runs all your warez.
Actually, it’s pretty good that Windows never went open source – we would be missing out much of the drama and excitement in the rise of Linux.
I wouldn’t say that. Take some time to study Windows’ internals, and the working of the NT kernel, and trust me: your inner geek will love it. There’s some seriously clever stuff in there.
No doubt about it. Besides, most kernel developers would agree that NT had a decent kernel.
Perhaps the problem is more with the UNIX-kind of academic heritage where one is free to study and publish. I haven’t seen for instance USENIX Windows Symposiums for a long time. But seriously, I don’t know — perhaps the geek appeal is like fashion; impossible to rationally explain.
I wouldn’t say that. Take some time to study Windows’ internals, and the working of the NT kernel, and trust me: your inner geek will love it. There’s some seriously clever stuff in there.
I don’t really have anything to say regarding this article, everything meaningful has been said and there’s so much bullsh*it lying around too that all the insightful comments are buried under a pile of poo.
Anyhow, I just thought that you’ve been touting Win7 as a wonderful OS all along and I actually downloaded and tried the RC. It booted up pretty fast, offered me all the whizz and bang, including Aero..but then I found out that none of my soundcards are supported. It requires the drivers to be digitally signed and that requirement apparently can’t be disabled. There are no digitally signed drivers for either of my cards, not for Win7, not Vista, nothing that works :/ I won’t be able to use Win7 then.
Oh, and Win7 wastes insane amounts of screen estate. I’m used to XP and Linux so it was really, really annoying. Felt like I was using 640×480 resolution..
You are a big liar or a big dummy!
Nothing works for me…Microsoft sucks! That’s your response. Please get a life!
Win 7 RC works straight from the ISO and picks up all the right drivers for everyone I know. You must have, what I called, a Microsoft disability!
You are a big liar or a big dummy!
Nothing works for me…Microsoft sucks! That’s your response. Please get a life!
Win 7 RC works straight from the ISO and picks up all the right drivers for everyone I know. You must have, what I called, a Microsoft disability!
You are free to try and find drivers for my two soundcards: SoundMax AD 1888 and Sound Blaster Live!. Neither have drivers provided in Win7 and there are no digitally signed drivers available in the net. Do tell me too if you find those drivers!
Oh, and next time don’t be so hasty in calling people liars. You failed quite bad, “mate”
Because the proprietary you refer to is *stealing* …
Because the prorpietary you refer to block improvement and new solution …
Microsoft don’t write it’s own product , if it did it would win all it’s court cases … They loose everytime the owner come proving it’s point in court.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleB…
Very good question , because it is/was Open Source in the first place …
Actualy they are the biggest thieves of them all …
That’s why it’s applied to code this days , because programmer/designer stole Open Source code …
If they make something 100% from scratch , using their own 100% made from scratch tool in a new language they invented 100% from scratch sure … Otherwise they steal other people creation by creating derivative that they added minimaly to.
Funny the GNU/Linux commercial have numbers , emails , conference sservice , on site support … There is even Debian specialist …
[/q] I don’t see paying for products is bad, and I don’t see making everything free is good. [/q]
Actually in your lies made anonymously you used a free product to compare aginst a paid product and lied about the non existence of paid product and paid services …
Programmers are not everyone , nobody is forcing anyone to deliver something for free. The problem is actually in reverse , liar and coward and incompetent programmer are seing there once profitable racket being destroyed by better offer from competitor who use *liberty of modification* against their illegal dictatorship for profit.
How do you prove Microsoft stealing others’ work?
Come on, this is not a fanboy thread.
You said so much “Microsoft stealing…” but you can’t prove them.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleB…
See above I don’t need to prove anything …
No , it’s OsNews …
No , you can’t accept **reality**. Beside everyone knows that innocent and real people people ( you know those who like me use there real life name ) say “I never steal anything” Not “you can’t proove them”.
Edited 2009-05-22 18:41 UTC
Very funny. What about this:
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=apple+infringement&go=&form=Q…
So Apple is stealing from others.
Accept the reality: Apple took codes from FreeBSD, add an ugly shell (Aqua) and sell it. Also Apple denies that security does matter:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Apple-Fails-to-Patch-Java-Vulnerabil…
Accept the reality.
You can already purchase commercial support for Linux (Red Hat, Canonical, Novell, et al.), and the presence of these and third-party services will continue to grow as the user base grows.
I’d actually argue that in addition to paid support, Linux/BSD have a huge advantage over Windows in their free, often very knowledgeable community forums.
If I bought commercial products, I can dial the service hotline/ send e-mail to the company and call for help. Do you also get a satisfactory answer ? When you call Microsoft with problems of their software it doesn’t mean they actually solve your problems. Everytime at work when I’ve called them, they did not solve the problems we had.
I can program and know network- and system administration, so I can actually fix a lot of problems on my own.
For me the situation is much better with Linux then something which is delivered by for example Microsoft or Apple.
Because if you buy a commercial product you’ve paid wether you use the support or not…
If you get open source for free, you have the option to pay for commercial support whenever you need it, or to save money if you don’t need it, so you have a win win.
The title says it all.
I thought OSAlert was a place where you didn’t need to push this kind of zero-value articles just to rally your own troops? (Unlike ever so many other nameless geek-sites.)
Post 2 Windows 7 articles, and we’re pro-Microsoft and anti-Apple/Linux. Post 2 Linux article and we’re pro-Linux.
Seriously guys, I love you. You manage to brighten my day every damn time
.
True enough.
Banal decay into fanboy’ism admitted.
But yet hardly no one can disagree with the zero-value content of the article in question.
Clearly the answer is to post more Syllable and ReactOS articles.
You have to be kidding me. At least this interview is from someone who actually worked at Microsoft which gives it an interesting perspective. Just a few days ago a list (not even an article!) of why Linux isn’t ready for the desktop by some nobody appeared on OSAlert, Slashdot, and all the other geek sites.
No, I am quite serious. If you bothered to read for instance reviews of the new book by Mr. Curtis, you would perhaps come to a conclusion that his credibility on the subject is not much above those nobodies that make the Internet what it is.
Secondly, if you evaluate the discussion that this article provoked here in OSAlert, it is not exactly pleasant for anyone to read. Well, if you post an article about “winning” or “losing”, you are almost guaranteed to only lure the worst kind of fanboys. That was what I meant by rallying your own troops.
Just look at what the other article evoked. You don’t seem to be complaining about that. It’s your dislike of Linux that is really shining through and it makes your complaints of fanboy-ism truly laughable.
I would complain also in that thread if my voice would be visible from those +300 messages.
But here we are, doing exactly what I complained about. Takes one to know one, but at least I admitted it above.
Edited 2009-05-23 12:05 UTC
Are you calling me a Linux fanboy? That would be funny because now I can claim to be a Linux fanboy and a Microsoft fanboy, at least according to OSAlert readers.
Accidentally voted someone down.. Just posting to remove that..
There will always be proprietary software, and having worked with the Firefox codebase before I’m not sure I’d put it up as an example of good code. I think webkit (formerly KHTML) is a much better example if you really want a browser, but browsers aren’t exactly models of clean design since the problem is so complex.
Edit: Hmm, it seems that didn’t remove my vote. Sorry strcpy, was a mistake..
Edit2: Also, Thom, editing a comment and then changing the title doesn’t work. The changed title doesn’t get saved.
Edited 2009-05-22 14:52 UTC
Your accidental vote has been fixed.
As for comment titles, they cannot be changed, but that’s on purpose (threading).
Interesting that you should compare firefox to webkit… firefox started life as a commercial product (netscape) which was open sourced as a big mass of very messy code… Webkit on the other hand was originally written as open source.
You can see the same where other commercial products have been opened up, like openoffice… Code that started life as OSS tends to be much cleaner, more manageable and easier to build.
about open source vs closed source to me. I simply want to be able to choose the platform and applications that I like without being left out because my choice wasn’t the static quo.
There’s nothing wrong with proprietary software unless their whole business strategy is to lock you into their system with no hope of escape. Open source can suffer the same problems methinks. Open formats and open standards are what I want to see. My documents shouldn’t be held hostage by a program or operating system. I should be able to surf the web in any browser of my choosing. Ah, my perfect world.
Interesting. I was just reading an article about Wikipedia. Its author argued that Wikipedia has worked well for reasons that were not foreseen: someone who contributes to an article has a vested interest by reason of honesty and amour propre in “patrolling” that article and keeping it clean of errors and troublemaking introduced by others.
Wikipedia’s system is far from perfect, of course, but instead of descending into an argumentative mess come anarchic BS fest, as its critics first claimed it would, Wikipedia has put all other encyclopaedias more or less out of business. The traditional encyclopedia companies simply cannot afford to keep up with a system that works well for free. A pay cheque has turned out to be less of a vested interest than placing your character and integrity on the line, and absolute factual accuracy – a debatable point in many articles involving value judgements anyway – has turned out to be less important than open access to a very wide range of information that is instantly available anywhere.
Apply the same logic to Microsoft and I guess one could say that it isn’t a question of Linux and FOSS material constantly trying to keep up with Microsoft (“The year of the Linux desktop” and all that).
On the contrary, the question is for how long Microsoft can afford to spend billions each year and bust a gut trying to stay abreast of an alternative that costs nothing to use or to contribute to and which has the benefit of drawing in new thinking from folks of every age and background all over the world.
None of this means that Microsoft is “bad” in some moral sense, nor does it preclude Microsoft issuing some very good products (as I believe they have) and being, generally, successful. But in the longer term? All those billions of annual expenditure, just to stay afloat and in the game, will eventually start to drag them down.
This, I would suggest, is the dilemma facing all closed-source software outfits.
This is an interesting point, but viewing it in context shows some significant differences. As you point out, Wikipedia is available everywhere. I can access it from my desktop, from my laptop in a coffee shop, and from my phone if I’m out hiking in the woods. It doesn’t require me to keep a large collection of books in my living room and the amount of content is not limited by physical space. What I’m getting at is that Wikipedia has a great number of material advantages over traditional encyclopedias.
Free Software doesn’t have many material advantages over proprietary software for the common user. The only unarguable advantage is that Free Software is often free as in beer. The four freedoms are nice, and in an ideal world, they would be valuable, but as it is, most people just don’t care. What it comes down to is user experience, familiarity, and the ability to participate in the computing ecosystem. At best, you could argue that Free Software offerings are equal to those of Microsoft (and other proprietary vendors) with regard to these factors.
Another thing to consider is that the encyclopedia companies basically stood alone while Wikipedia eroded their revenue streams. Microsoft has a massive network of third party IHVs and ISVs that support the proprietary ecosystem.
I wouldn’t argue with any of that. No, the comparison isn’t one to one, that’s for sure. But I think the main thing to consider is the huge cost of running a company – any company – with 50,000+ employees and the necessity of a massive R&D budget to ensure one remains at the cutting edge. As the cost of computing gradually comes down and “Which OS?” starts to become background music, because in essence they all do the same kind of stuff, so the sheer cost of keeping the show on the road starts to bite and really limits room for manoeuvre in terms of what one can charge for products.
In fact one could turn the argument on its head and say that a significant reason that Microsoft software costs what it does is the amount they have to spend to stay with or ahead of the increasing number of free alternatives. In the past few years, mobile phones have joined this mix. An oversimplification but maybe not completely baseless either.
But of course these are only ideas. Easy to think of but not much more. The truth is none of us knows how things will really pan out over the next ten or twenty years.
Yes, I would think (and hope) that the days of large monolithic companies will eventually come to an end in every industry. Microsoft has the capital, the market share and the mind share to sustain itself for quite a while longer, but it won’t remain on top forever.
I think we’ll see a growing number of smaller companies fill niches as the base levels of software become commoditized. This will probably be a healthy mix of proprietary software houses that fund their own development and open source companies that receive capital through other means– support contracts, hardware vendors, government grants, etc.
Honestly, my worry is that Free Software proponents may push too hard, too fast, and software developers will end up cannibalizing their own industry.
First off I would like to thank you, moleskin and cb_osn, for actually dragging this conversation out of the gutter. Far too often I read something on OSAlert only to find the discussion drift off into lala land with no end to polemic hogwash.
Although I do not possess a crystal ball which would enable me to foretell the future I do feel there are several factors which will likely lead to a predominance of FOSS software in the future.
Just to hit upon a few factors to clarify: most of what we call propietary software is not the product of larger software corporations. Most of this software is written in-house by firm employees of companies which use software for their business model but which themselves do not sell software. This scenario is starting change in regards to FOSS but I believe there are limits as to how far FOSS will replace proprietary in-house development. Much of what constitutes the business model of many, many, companies is the acquisition, access, and utilization of data. In other words the core of the business is the data and the business in question revolves around how the data is acquired, accessed and utilized-and precisely this “how” constitutes the profitability of the company in question-and ultimately *is* the company, for companies(not all, but some really large number of) are little other than novel ways of acquiring, accessing and utilizing vast sets of data. FOSS can play a significant role in such a scenario-but the identity and raison d’etre of the company lies in it’s “own” (ownership, propietary) particular way of dealing with data.
The major software companies came into existence at a time when “data” was just becoming something which one could base companies on. These companies transformed the market and changed what it means to do business. Prior to the rise of companies like Microsoft there were relatively few companies whose core value was data and each of these companies were wholly dependent on the companies which produced computers and the software needed to put these machines to use. In a certain sense Microsoft is also a child of the fabless semiconductor revolution of the 70’s: Once it became possible to design chips independent of the actual production of the chips the semiconductor market rocketed and as is the case with Microsoft the ability to produce software without having to actually produce the hardware it would run on allowed the nascent propietary software industry to rise to such towering hights.
Whereas “data” was a somewhat novel notion for the fist 50 years of computer history and an entire industry grew to provide hardware and software for acquiring data, data is now ubiquitous and the emphasis has shifted to managing (accessing, utilizing, rendering etc.) data. The vast majority of programming jobs (no statistical data to back this up) in the past 30 years have revolved around freeing data stored in a particular way(primarily determined by what software was used to acquire it and the software (db) used to store it in order to expose new relations and associations-precisely these new methods of managing the data were the “value add”, ie. the profitability.
A large part of the aftermarket proipetary software world consisted of products to translate data from one form into another. This was necessary because of the format of the data( the “how” I spoke of earlier is that which constitutes the format of the data and the value of the data independant of the format approaches 0). The format of the data (ie. how it is acquired, accessed and utilized) is that which renders rather meaningless 0’s and 1’s into something of value, because the “value” of data is determined by tada, the propietary(ie. exclusive) format. FOSS has made tremendous inroads in this area leaving many programmers looking for a new job because with FOSS the value that data represents is no longer embedded in the format, because format no longer means propietary. Data by itself is worthless, it is the combination of data + data format which is the traditional value proposition.
Where FOSS has made inroads is in the decoupling of this value proposition. In FOSS the data format is still particular(ie. there exists a specific way which constitutes the communication and storage of data)(ie. there is still a moment of “ownership”/”authorship”, “propietariness”, in FOSS data format) but due to the availability of the code and code sharing there is no longer a need for a propietary aftermarket software industry catering to the needs of data rendered useless due to incompatible formats and protocols.
Microsoft had such “mindshare” because it gave birth to an entire parasitic industry designed to work around the incompatibilities of all the proprietary formats used by the large proprietary software applications, which themselves had a parasitic relationship to the proprietarty OS(Windows).
FOSS lowers the barrier to entry for participating in directly in the management of data. The world at large is less dependent on proprietary applications and proprietary OS’s. The value proposition of the propietary software world, ie. the combining of data and data format in such a way as to be incompatible not only with other software, but other ways of acquiring, accessing and utilizing data is under a sustained attack from FOSS and in all likelihood will never regain the market it once had.
Ironically there seems to be a significant relationship between “ease of use” and exterior compatibility, ie. the hallmark of many of the great of the proprietary applications and OS’s is there so-called “ease of use”, but issues of incompatibility were equally hallmarks of such software. This need not be so, but historically this has been the case, at least apparently. Of course much of what counts as “ease of use” lied therein that there existed exactly one way, one application, of acquiring, accessing and utilizing data, and this one way, one application for one specific task was itself the hallmark of proprietary applications(if you want this, you need to purchase this). FOSS, by it’s very nature, spells an end to this equation of a particular piece of software for a particular application, which is the *identity* of propietary software, and it’s raison d’etre.
In closing, while it appears that proprietary software firms have a rather bleak future, there appears little to worry about for those who do in-house software development, and even if FOSS is used more and more in in-house development the net result only partially contributes to FOSS because most of the resultant programming remains in-house and effectively proprietary. And this will likely not change unless the business model itself changes to something which is not based on data, and how that data is acquired, accessed and utilized.
I think it’s really difficult to predict the future, and free software will likely not kill Microsoft.
Certainly Open Source and it’s various licences like GPL (more forced sharing) or MIT (strategic sharing) have changed the options out there… but then again so has the Web, cell phones, and cheap good enough hardware (something I might argue makes Open Source more possible)
I suspect that Open Source will flourish in areas where the application is not specifically the product (services, or other hardware is, and commodity software), and Proprietary will continue where the software is the product (leading edge, or high investment in the development of the applications).
Edited 2009-05-22 17:07 UTC
Open source can be very leading edge. Why? Because you are considering only the software product companies as sources. There is a LOT of open source that is leasing edge and it’s sources are in companies that do in house software development and are not software product companies(like banks, telecoms and similar).
Apache.org is a testimony of the variety of sources of open source code. There is quite a lot of leading edge code coming from non software related companies that do in house software development, academic sources that are in the “theory state” and barely get out of incubation and last is source donated by the big software houses.
Mixed up the dates in the summary/story.
It’s funny because when one read the article there is almost 1 or 2 mention of Open Source over 3 pages , but when one read Thom take there is 16 mention of Open Source as if it was what was meant and important , changing completly the sense and meaning of the article and i’ts content.
Microsoft and Apple have zero problem stealing , breaking , making and using and beating Open Source , that’s what they have been doing since their creations.
What they fear is Free Software and Free Software alone. Because they can’t close it , they can’t buy it out , they can’t hire on the cheap their best developers closing one man projects in the process. They can’t break it by including breaking code in there version and accusing the others of not working.
Their is nothing similar or equal between Free Software and Open Source , one is a way to liberate and create Free Code by contribution or paying for it , the other is a development method that as term of acceptance that are so vague that even people who close the code in original and derivative are considered ok.
GNU/Linux is already #1 by usage and profit , the only place that remain that need to be won is the OEM default install.
I don’t think Apple really have a problem, they would be quite content to take commodity oss code, package it up with decent fashionable hardware in a single cohesive package… It’s what they do already for the most part, and people are willing to pay a premium for the fully integrated package.
I think its really simple: in the end, the best solution for the end user will win. And im pretty sure this solution will be FLOSS. Why? Just look at how a person install a proprietary software on his computer:
-search at the web;
-buy online or at a store;
-PAY for it;
-use some weird install process, probably next-next-next;
-register it;
-pray for registration to work ok;
-use it.
And here is how you do it with open source:
-search for it under your repository;
-click install;
-the system will download and install it;
-use it.
The second approuch is better and will win in the end. Period.
FLOSS rlz \o/
That has nothing at all to do with FLOSS vs Proprietary. Take the iPhone for example, it offers a very easy to use central install system, yet is also completely closed
And you’re confusing the issue by mixing in payment. There is plenty of closed source software you don’t have to pay for or register, some of it is even available via the software distribution method of popular FLOSS operating systems.
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/
I guess reality disagree with you … iPhone is *controlled* and proprietary , but their are hundred of other company working on it’s code.
Edited 2009-05-22 19:54 UTC
http://linuxfonts.narod.ru/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.h…
Until most of the problems are met head on by the Linux zealots, FOSS has little to do with desktops.
Oh and Linux netbook wasn’t selling very well, last time I heard.
If GNU/Linux zealot really existed ( they don’t in reality only in the mind of scared and insane people it does ). YOU , personnaly , alive is there only real problem , hunting you down and killing you would be there single priority.
FOSS is the technology behind Mac OS X , Microsoft Windows , BSD , Solaris , GNU/Linux … It’s in all desktops and softwares.
GNU/Linux netbook are not the only Free Software or Open Source offering … If they are doing so bad ( they don’t in reality ) why are the OEM all makinh new version in a recession ( because they sale a lot of copies … )?
“last time I heard.”
They been lying to you those little voices …
Anyone that uses the term “GNU/Linux” is delussional. A stooge for the likes of Stallman. Whom cried and kicked, and still begs for that term.
He could not create his own kernel and OS, so he needed to attached himself( like a virus, a leach) to Torvalds baby.
Where is the Hurd?
To put things in perspective, Linus Torvalds’ famed original Linux announcement (before the word was even used) mentioned that his little OS would “not be big or professional like GNU”.
You can use “Linux” or “GNU/Linux”, or something else, whatever you like, but why call people delusional for using a commonly accepted term like GNU/Linux, which is used by Debian, among others.
Linus’ kernel happened to fit nicely in an existing GNU system, and he was clever enough to use the GPL, so both worlds profited from that at the time.
The GNU kernel never made it in time because as a microkernel it was too ambitious to get done that fast, and Linux was there first. So what.
Debians are the only one calling it GNU/Linux. They are subservient to the FOSS people.
Linux created the kernel and used what was available to complete the OS. He just did not use GNU utilities and libraries. If we were to use Stallman’s own logic, it should be called, “Linux with some GNU utilities, a KDE or Gnome desktop, and individuals and corporations developing third-party non-GNU components. These third-party components comprise a vast body of work and may include both kernel modules and user applications and libraries. Linux vendors and communities combine and distribute the kernel, GNU components, and non-GNU components, with additional package management software in the form of Linux distributions.” This term seems more fair to me than just plain GNU/Linux, even though Stallman would not talk to reporters that do not cal it like he wants it. What a self-serving leach!
The term is Linux, and for it to succeed it must stay plain and simple “Linux”. If Stallman cannot handle it, let him go live on deserted island and be done with it!
What are you so excited about, he doesn’t force you to use anything but the term you like.
What do you mean by Debian being “subservient to the FOSS people”? Debian ARE “the FOSS people”.
FWIW, you seem to be unaware (“only Debian”) but Debian is still the most used Linux operating system and it’s the largest free/open source software project in the world. There’s also Debian with the FreeBSD kernel, by the way. So that Debian has no Linux at all.
Mind you, I don’t care whatever one calls it. This nonsensical discussion started out by someone pouring loathe and contempt over those who use their freedom to call it the way they want.
By what measure is Debian the largest FOSS project? The only one I can think of is number of developers.
If we go by software produced (which is, after all, the last S in FOSS, and the only noun in it), it’s not even in the top 10.
Agreed.
Some people have this crazy idea that writing software and packaging software are the same thing.
I don’t think so.
But if you like to, go ahead and compile all that stuff yourself.
I like open source so I deleted my comment but his statement is hilarious.
Edited 2009-05-22 21:52 UTC
On the open source games side I’d argue that eventually Linux will take over from a gamer perspective. Look at how many mod teams exist on windows. If those mod teams combined with the best open source game engines like XReal, Ogre etc to create new games instead of modding proprietary engines we’d be much closer to market dominance in gaming. As an artist I find the biggest problem on linux to be a lack of tools which I can use. The gimp is a wonderful program and as a game artist it is totally adequate for my needs. Blender however is horrible for me. Not that it is a bad program I’ve seen what it can make and it is really well written. 3d modellers seem to be one field where people have different styles of development.
I like placing coordinates using X/Y/Z input boxes and I need to access those very rapidly Blender has too many steps to get to those tools for me to work efficiently in it. That doesn’t mean that Blender should get a new interface but it does mean that I’d like my existing 3d tools ported or running in wine. Luckily for me my main 3d tool Caligari Truespace (ironically a Microsoft product) does run in wine.
I think over time as more people write clones of their favorite applications and as open engines gain features the proprietary engines can’t implement gaming will take off on linux. Look at the space flight sim genre. It’s been dying a slow death for ages under windows but on linux it’s thriving. It’s got freespace 1/2 native, most games in the genre from windows run in wine. There’s a bunch of flight sims too X-plane, CSP, to name a few. All this in a time when Microsoft is sacking the entire flight simulator team and winding up the product. A product they’ve been selling for 20+ years. I think all the people whining about photoshop are just set in their ways. If people really want photoshop on linux someone should fork gimp, merge gimpshop into the newest gimp code which btw seems to concentrate the menus onto your current work space and just turn gimp into a total photoshop clone. I for one don’t need it and am happy with the gimp for my uses. That said I would like it if creating paths were a bit more sane but that’s not a photoshop issue.
I’d say that apache isn’t a cheap copy of a commercial program. There are other examples out there. Such as bittorrent. Considering you probably use it, I wouldn’t bag open source software since it enables most of your piracy as well as your WoW updates.
Edited 2009-05-23 03:12 UTC
Just read this:
http://lwn.net/Articles/334236/
Yeah, this moron is the Sarah Palin of FOSS.
Why can’t so many in the mainstream take this seriously? Well when your most prominent voices are the likes of nutjob losers like Stallman, racist twats like Eric Raymond, and now they have this fool.
This loser is just another Bernie Goldberg
Bernie Goldberg worked for CBS news for 20 years. If he thinks the media is biased, that should count for something.
Many say Fox is a joke, but not MSNBC, which is even more biased. At least with Fox there are liberals and conservatives debating. If you want to see a nutjob watch Olbermann.
I wonder if many say FOX is a joke…because it is? This being the network who has an audience believing WMDs were found in Iraq several years AFTER it was publicly admited by the administration. But then again, facts are really just inconvenient to people like you.
Saddam had WMDs — he used them on his own people.
Fox has liberals and conservatives on, in nearly equal numbers. That is why their motto is: “We report, you decide.”
And there was a study which showed they had the most balanced coverage of the 2008 election. So take those inconvenient facts.
BTW, you are an extremely obnoxious person. Is it possible for you to have a discussion without immediately resorting to personal attacks? Why are you such a loser?
Ha, Fox “informs”, right?
So its viewers must be quite informed.
Tell me, who installed Saddam as president of Iraq back in the 1950s?
Fox News viewers are most informed.
These people aren’t Fox viewers, I am sure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm1KOBMg1Y8
Saddam didn’t take power till the late 1960s. And he did it via coup, killing political opponents.
Maybe you should watch Fox News.
Yes and who assisted him doing so?
Another interesting question for the Fox viewers.
Who killed democracy in Iran?
This has nothing to do with Fox News — you are just trying to change the subject. Do you have ADD?
Here is a quote from a guy at Time Magazine. Of course, it came out after the election, when fixing it was too late:
“It’s the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war,” Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. “It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage.”
Fox is the most fair and balanced channel. Even Hillary said as much during the 2008 Democrat primary.
Edited 2009-05-23 16:47 UTC
If warmongering is sold as “Fair and Balanced”, I wonder what real bias looks like.
Part of “fair and balanced” information is giving the context. Never in Fox history has the channel ever mentioned that Saddam Hussein was installed by the CIA, and that he killed democracy in Irak. Or has it been mentioned that the US and the UK killed democracy in Iran, by murdering Mosaddeq who was the elected leader of Iran. That kind of context is needed, to “balance” the warmongering.
Fox News is considered the most accurate:
The most trusted national TV news organizations, for accurate reporting, in declining order included: Fox News (27.0%), CNN (14.6%), and NBC News (10.90%). These were followed by ABC News (7.0%), local news (6.9%), CBS News (6.8%) MSNBC (4.0%), PBS News (3.0%), CNBC (0.6%) and CBN (0.5%).
In 2003, CNN led Fox News on ^aEURoetrust most for accurate reporting^aEUR 23.8% to 14.6%.
http://www.sacredheart.edu/pages/20786_americans_slam_news_media_on…
Well, if they say it, it must be true.
Here’s another study for ya:
Who’s Fair and Balanced?: Fox News Channel’s coverage was more balanced toward both parties than the broadcast networks were. On FOX, evaluations of all Democratic candidates combined were split almost evenly – 51% positive vs. 49% negative, as were all evaluations of GOP candidates – 49% positive vs. 51% negative, producing a perfectly balanced 50-50 split for all candidates of both parties.
On the three broadcast networks, opinion on Democratic candidates split 47% positive vs. 53% negative, while evaluations of Republicans were more negative – 40% positive vs. 60% negative. For both parties combined, network evaluations were almost 3 to 2 negative in tone, i.e. 41% positive vs. 59% negative.
Nice source…oh wait, you have no source outside of whatever bullshit you pull out your ass to support your sad argument. Either you lack the honesty or inteligence to be able to distinguish authenticate, reliable and valid sources, or you are so disingenuous that it does not matter. Either way, you can keep spewing the same horse manure every which way you want, but at the end of the day educated and inteligent people simply are not buying it.
The only demographic you twats are winning in is the rural un-educated Appalachian inbreeds, and you are welcome to have them all.
You are like that gasbag Michille Bachman, she of such stupidity that she actually gets on the floor of the House to debate that C02 is NOT toxic, i.e. harmless. Yes my foreign OSAlert readers, we actually have elected officials that are this clueless. How does one even converse with such utter stupidity?
That was a study done by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. If you want a link to the URL, just ask and I will include it.
Why do you say that study was unreliable — because it disagrees with you? I thought you libs were intelligent and open-minded.
What does Michelle Bachmann have anything to do with Fox News? You can’t win the argument so you change the subject? Typical weak-minded lib argument technique.
You think CO2 is toxic? (What does this have to do with Fox News either?) Not only can you not argue, you obviously don’t know any chemistry, either. If you are so worried about CO2 production, then quit breathing. It would have the side benefit of increasing the quality of the comments on this website.
And what is your fair and balanced source of news? Anyone who watches Fox News knows that it has an even mix of Republicans and Democrats. But many “open-minded” libs don’t want that. I’ll bet you never watch any news program that has Republicans on it.
Your stupidity and ignorance shines through. You are either clueless to who CMPA is, or have no morals. They are NOT a un-biased non-partisan entity. Most people with 2 or more brain cells know this. But I guess if we simply just through any label on something then we should believe it right.
Just a nice example of how f–king moronic you people are.
Kudos, thank you for showing just how dumb you people are. It is a sad day when such stupidity is allowed to vote, hence why we have so many clueless politicians. My god, you really don’t have a clue about C02 do you? You know arsenic is also found in nature, but according to your logic it must be safe, so please do go drink some so our gene pool improves.
Anyone who watches FOX news is just as equally ill-informed and ignorant as someone who lives in a closet. Again, surveys found that FOX viewers were more likely to believe that WMDs were found in Iraq more than ANY OTHER network, by a very significant margin. Three times more likely to be ignorant morons. Go educate yourself fool, start with the year 2003 and WMDs, until then you succede only at show just how poorly educated you are, much like the author of this equally idiotic book.
Of course the CMPA is “biased”. Anyone who looks at the topic of media bias gets demonized themselves.
Anyway, I have seen tons more evidence that agrees with CMPA: which proves that CMPA is accurate, and that the mainstream media are biased. Like did you know Time magazine put the Obamas on the cover 17 times in one year? Here is a study by UCLA:
“Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS’ “Evening News,” The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal” The link is here (http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-…)
I can keep throwing evidence at you. Of course I doubt it will actually sink in because as much as you talk about how smart and enlightened you are it is a sham. The typical Obama voter is someone like this: (http://howobamagotelected.com/)
Next, you never explained what Michelle Bachmann had anything to do with Fox News, so we’ll just accept that I was right and you were wrong.
The fact that it is found in nature is not why CO2 is non-toxic. I never argued that. Mercury is found in nature and is toxic. You are making up arguments that I never made.
Oh, Iraq had WMDs. Saddam used them on his own people. And WMDs were found even after the war, but not in large amounts. And there is evidence that some of it was moved to Syria.
By the way, if you were really as smart as you think you are, you’d have better spelling. Go watch Fox News for a few months and see what you think. I’m sure it has a better balance of both sides than your current “source” of news.
Oh this says it all, seriously kid, you really really need to learn. Quick, how many books have you even read over the past 8 years regarding the Bush administration. Answer, don’t worry we know, it is ZERO. You are about as ignorant as Joe the Plumber. I don’t even know where to begin with such stupidity, other than maybe you should STOP watching FAUX news for a while. Sorry kid, there were NO weapons of mass destruction found because there never was any. The nuclear program was ended by Israel in 81, and chemical/biological was ended after 91.
But hey, thank you very much for proving my point at just how freaking dumb someone has to be to watch FOX, and just how poorly misinformed they are for watching that network.
Watch FOX news? Sorry, I prefer to be informed, not ignorant. And as for my “sourced”:
Against All Enemies – Richard Clarke
Fiasco – Thomas E. Ricks
State of Denial – Bob Woodward
Bush at War – Bob Woodward
The War Within – Bob Woodward
Imperial Life in the Emerald City – Rajiv Chandrasekaran
The One Percent Doctrine – Ron Suskind
The Price of Loyalty – Ron Suskind
The Greatest Story Ever Sold – Frank Rich
The Looming Tower – Lawrence Wright
…etc..etc..
Considering you probably have never read a book, why not watch just about any PBS Frontline episode, all available for viewing online. Or watch the recent “America at Crossroads” that aired on PBS.
In the end you can walk away from an argument “feeling” you are right, but that still is never going to make you informed. Obvious you would rather go through life without ever bothering to educate yourself, just as long as your pre-conceived, but ignorant, beliefs are maintained.
Oh, Iraq had WMDs. Saddam used them on his own people. And WMDs were found even after the war, but not in large amounts. And there is evidence that some of it was moved to Syria.
You sure? Atleast I remember it being all over the news when it was found out that the US government had used manipulated pictures to justify certain actions. They had modified satellite pictures of an _old_ nuclear site so that it looked like there was action in there, but the real picture came out not long after where the site had long been completely empty, not even any of the old buildings left for years.
And UN didn’t find any evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq, so I don’t understand how could the US governement find lots of them?
Well to be sure, Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction at one point, he was sold those by the very USA that later bombed him for crossing the line of oil pricing and running his own business.
What you don’t see on Fux News is that Saddam was “Washington’s poster boy”, to use Michael Parenti’s phrase, and that him being a murderous sadist dictator was perfectly fine to the US as long as he did what pleased Washington. But then he started to cash euros for Iraqi oil in stead of dollars, among other things, and he didn’t sell out the country, so that was when they made the decision he had to go.
The US empire is a purely cynical propaganda enterprise and that’s one of those tiny little details that Fux News (and all the other mainstream outlets) cleverly omits. That has to do with the fact that it’s not even the American people that benefit from the empire.
http://globalresearch.ca/ is one of the best websites to inject some antidote to the propaganda.
I hope I did not make any spelling mistakes, please inform me if I did.
Lol, good reply!
By the way, it was a national poll. So “they” is actually “us”.
“First, he argues that the open source model leads to better code. He points to Firefox and the Linux kernel as examples of open source delivering greater quality than the proprietary model.”
Opera and Mac OS X are two examples of proprietary software that I think are better than their open source equivalents.
Just because Microsoft can’t do proprietary software well doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
Well said. I would mod you up, but I’ve trolled enough in this thread ;-).
I think that many so-called “proprietary” development models can be better than the so-called “bazaar” development models. This of course applies also to FOSS: many (most?) projects follow these “proprietary” or “closed” development models more than an occasional observer would realize.
I am firm believer in the idea that small highly skilled and well-managed team of good programmers and engineers can deliver a superior product — be the code closed, open or “free”.
…ever.
“Really, I’m not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect. ” ^aEUR” Linus Torvalds