Open Minded, Open Sourced
Nov 5th, 2008 | By Abhishek Bhatnagar | Category: FeaturedImagine a world where all knowledge is free. Where absolutely anyone is welcome to learn the greatest or smallest secrets of the state. Where no knowledge is classified or off-limits. Where innovation and creativity are encouraged, and improvements always sought. This is where humanity can reach it’s zenith. This is where scientists, artists, technologists, and sociologists come together to utilize human knowledge to it’s best. There is only one kind that is unwelcome here, and that is the business type. The rule here is: take all the knowledge you want, twist or skewer it as you desire, but don’t profit from it. This utopian place is the open source world. Some of it’s children are Wikipedia, Wordpress, and Linux.
For those who are not very familiar with linux, wikipedia is a good anchoring point. As the wiki philosophy goes, any person of any qualification may contribute to a singular resource as long as they can backup their claims with credible sources. This is essentially the definition of rational thought. This way, no science/art goes stale by being constantly led in a linear direction. A communal effort always keeps a check on where things are headed, and reprimand the field if needed. This is also the birthplace of new ideas. The human mind produces new ideas by performing various logical operations between older ideas. The more data (relevant or not) you look at, the more new ideas you will produce. This is the process of ‘brainstorming’.
If we restrict a science/art to a laboratory or a corporate office, it will start to go to stale. There will be little innovation and subsequently lesser yearning for innovation. On the other hand, you have different fingers!…no I’m joking. On the other hand, if we allow contributions from a wide variety of sources, the subject remains fresh and dynamic. The same philosophy is used by linux.
I’m not asking you to abandon your operating system and switch to Ubuntu right now. But I think it is important to realize what supporting proprietary software means. The end goal of Microsoft and Apple (love them or hate them) is not to improve computer technology, but to make money. I’m not referring to individuals like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Regardless of their personal intentions, the very nature of their corporate beasts prioritizes money over innovation. Look at the iPhone for example: enormously popular, it’s ‘terms and services’ gives the rights to any piece of software developed for it directly to Apple, along with permission to further use and distribution as they wish.
This might seem like something trivial, that someone makes a thermometer app that becomes popular, and Apple attaches a 99 cents price tag to it and makes a few thousand dollars of it. That, though objectionable, is not the central problem. The problem is that such a system hinders development. Apple forces all iPhone software to be downloaded only through the iTunes distribution system. Moreover, it has to be “digitally signed” to be installable. What this commercialization does is put money in the front, and development in the backseat. Since the product is commercial, it now comes with a “life-cycle” and various do-s and don’t do-s. Given the forced profit, it’s developer is now concerned with making money, over actual innovation.
There is another such problem that applies to both Microsoft and Apple. This is of cost. Most people in the first world can (though grudgingly) afford $300 - $600 for Vista, or pay excess of $1500 for a Mac laptop. Those who pirate their copies of OS have the benefit of high speed Internet (also expensive by global standards). The rest of the world - the developing world, cannot afford such prices, let alone the hardware. So in a world without linux, new generations of children in Africa, India and Brazil will have to be introduced to old, painfully bad software. This about insures they will not easily be able to secure a job in the IT industry, or make contributions to it’s growth. This is another reason the proprietary model is unsustainable. It is very unfriendly to a non-capitalistic market. If we imagine that computers are going to revolutionize humanity forever, and for the better, surely all humans have to be given a fairer chance.
If you’ve been using computers for the last 5 - 10+ years, ask yourself this: why do you look forward to every periodic major release of a software to see new features? Aren’t your needs changing in those 2 - 5 years between the releases? Aren’t developers/artists maturing new ideas into features in that time? Is so, why wait long periods to get them all in one go? This way you’ll hardly use all the new features when they do come out, as most will be hidden behind the more prominent ones, and at least some of the work/thought that had been put in by the developers will go to waste. If your thoughts are fluid, so should be research. The very nature of BIG software disallows this.
Linux is growing right now, yes, but it needs more users. With it’s current market-share, it is hardly taken seriously by software producers. If you want software/computers of the future to be capable of serving humanity better, for all the reasons listed above, give linux a try. The more attention it receives, more software will be developed for it. It will evolve faster, more humans will be able to add their input to it, and we will move towards a cheaper and more reliable computing model. This will open new technologies to us, which will help us achieve our long term goals on this planet.
I think this is a good time to introduce Ubuntu (Oo-buntu) to new users. It is a distribution of Debian (a distribution of linux) that was released in 2004. It’s philosophy is everything written in this article and more. More specifically, it says “I am who I am because of those around me…”. Ubuntu itself comes from a Zulu word loosely translated to “humanity”. Ubuntu has been revolutionary because it makes linux easy for average users. All things required for general usage are automated, and more advanced users can customize every aspect of it’s functionality to suit themselves. Even the Wikimedia foundation runs off Ubuntu. Sure, your windows or mac might have a cool feature that Ubuntu does not have yet, but all you have to do is suggest it to the very large users’ community, and if feasible, you will get your wish in the next release (every 6 months).
Ubuntu has also been made ultra-easy to install for clueless users and after having used both Vista and Mac, I can’t imagine what a person would find lacking in it. Yeah, for the software you use at work, you would have to go back to your other OS, but again, no specialized software is going to be exported to linux unless there is a user base for it. So create the demand, and contribute to the society. Linux needs designers, artists, managers, testers, and new ideas as much as it needs programmers. So even if you know nothing about computer, explain your problems or ideas to the community, and you will certainly get some output from it. Even if you end up dislinking linux, at least you’ll have learned something. Wiki Ubuntu to find out more or just check out their website. Also, if you went through this article with no understanding of the words “development” or “innovation”, give linux a shot, you’ll see what I mean.
Last 5 posts by Abhishek Bhatnagar
- Thank you Mr. Bush. No, really! - January 6th, 2009
- Where is the case for optimism? - December 29th, 2008
- Mutiny on a Chromosome - December 20th, 2008
- Conservation-ing - December 1st, 2008
- The life of a language - November 30th, 2008
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> Where innovation and creativity are encouraged, and improvements always sought
Encourgaged how? Hugs?
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Abhishek Bhatnagar Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
lol…like Richard wrote below, they are encouraged by the nature of the work. The people who work on such software do so out of their own interest. They are encouraged by given plenty of new ideas and technology to use as a stepping stone to further technologies.
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While I support things like wikipedia, the open source business model is at best fragile. Wikipedia is always in need of financial donations, and the company that makes ubuntu continues to be a blackhole for investment. This means that it is ‘high risk’ for investors… both in terms of financial investment and user commitment.
And the fact is most people are not even interested in ‘the operating system’. They want a simple way ‘to do their job’. Learning new software is time consuming, therefore not simple, so it doesn’t much matter if open source is ‘just as good’. It has to not only be better…. but significantly better… for people to adopt it. One of the reasons Vista tanked, by the way.
If you want to sell a product you have to convince people they ‘need it’ and that only you can provide it. Like a crackberry or an iphone. You also need a business model that is sustainable, which many open source projects have yet to show. Open source projects rely, in large part, on the good will of investors and users, and when the economy is bad…. good will is harder too find. That means risk. Something people generally don’t like that much.
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All those that contribute to these open things must also eat and have basic shelter. There is profit associated with most successful open source projects. Enough profit that someone somewhere continues to pay the payroll of the contributors. Thousands of “open source” projects from the old days have died on the vine because they are no longer needed, because the market passed them by, because the contributors lost interest and no one else took their place. Some have survived and some have thrived — sometimes through on-going technical innovation and sometimes through business innovation.
Two out of three well known Linux distributions come from profitable companies and the third from a company that has a generous benefactor who still hopes to see at least break-even financial performance at some point.
Your fundamental theory is very, very flawed in a world where living costs money, servers cost money, internet service costs money and innovation is only truly valuable in financial or non-financial terms if it meets an unmet need in the market.
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Abhishek Bhatnagar Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I think you misunderstood my “fundamental theory”. As I wrote below, it is possible to make money is the open source world without hindering growth.
Also note that servers cost money, yes, but servers running on open source platforms cost much lesser money. The same goes for the businesses using any platform as their base. Open Source is sustainable through lower incomes (as opposed to MS) because it has lower costs.
Most open source programmers have day jobs. Security will never open source, and like I wrote in the article, neither will be highly specialized software. This is what they get paid for making.
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@jack: While some of the most fundamental open source components (like the Linux kernel) are developed mostly by paid programmers whose companies have a stake in their success, there are also many thousands of open source programmers who contribute for personal satisfaction. The latter category is full of innovation because they are programming for love of the art of programming itself (much like a sports player who loves the game is likely to play in a more inspired way). No hugs are needed…
@Joe: The great thing about open source is that the projects can live on without their parent companies, so the customer needn’t worry about the strength of the vendor’s business model. If Canonical (the company associated with Ubuntu) were to fail, users of Ubuntu could continue to use the software, and the development community around it would continue to forge ahead. Furthermore, any customer relying on Canonical’s paid support contracts could most likely find a consultant or another vendor willing to provide a similar service *around the same product*. You most likely will not find such a situation surrounding any proprietary product.
Also, you might be interested in some commercially successful open source projects/companies: Mozilla Firefox, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Novell Suse Linux Enterprise Server/Desktop, MySQL (recently purchased by Sun Microsystems for $1 billion), SugarCRM, XenSource (recently purchased by Citrix), Xandros, GoodOS, etc. There are many.
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Joe Reply:
November 5th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
A company can always fail, and other products you rely on can be discontinued for a variety of reasons. There are no guarantees.
But you can objectively assess the health of a company, via their financial statements and you can assess a product via its sales records. Assessing volunteer developer communities and freely available products is much harder. And the fact you could ‘most likely’ find a consultant is not what I would call a confidence builder.
I’m not saying there aren’t any moderately successful products or companies. I use firefox, and prefer webhosting that uses LAMP. But that is quite different from using linux myself. Like I said, you need a better reason to learn a product than: its just as good as the one you have.
I use firefox because it gets updated more often and has the features I like, but functionally there is really not that much difference between it and IE. Switching between them is trivial.
I don’t use linux on my pc because it is quit alot different from windows, I know my way around xp well enough, it has the software I need, changing is way too much of a hassle, and microsoft is a successful company that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
So its not just one reason, like I said before, I don’t care about ‘open source’.
I care about getting my work done.
Wikipedia is great, and the fact it is free is even better, but doing a search is not at the same level as dealing with an operating system. So linux needs more than ‘just as good as windows’
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@Joe You know where everything is on Windows? Me too. I used to, anyway, before they moved everything on me with Vista.
Anyway, we need to redefine what exactly constitutes an operating system, because Windows no longer meets my traditional expectations of what an operating system should do. Windows Media Player doesn’t even allow you to record what you want with your own cable card.
When your computer takes orders from Redmond instead of you, it’s not your computer– it’s an e. When Cupertino decides what you can and cannot install on your phone, it ceases to be your phone.
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Eeep– I didn’t mean to hit submit. Starting the last paragraph over.
When Cupertino decides what you can and cannot install on your phone, it ceases to be your phone. When your computer takes orders from Redmond instead of you, it’s not your computer– it’s an email and homework appliance. MS Office, actually, is a perfect example. When I’m in need of an email client and a document suite, I use Thunderbird and OpenOffice.org, respectively. These solutions are more functional and stable than the Microsoft alternatives and don’t have the ulterior motive of keeping me locked on their platform.
To charge money and frustrate your users’ expectations of how their own computer should work is wrong. In doing so, Microsoft and Apple deny us agency and restrict high level manipulation of technology to the well-off technorati.
To lift Cory Doctorow’s analogy, consider ancient Greek plays. Ancient Greek plays most often ended in a Deus Ex Machina (God in a box) coming down from the sky and resolving the plot with supernatural powers. Now, why was this a satisfying ending to the ancient Greeks, but not to us? Think about it, if you pay $9 for a movie, you’re disappointed if the conflict is resolved by the protagonist realizing that it was all just a dream.
Now why was a satisfying ending to them, but not to us? I believe it’s because the typical Greek on the street had no way of understanding the natural world. Their universe was acausal, and thus, they lacked agency. A god resolving the plot by fiat was just as satisfying as anything else.
We like our technology because it gives us agency. It is in Microsoft’s interest to keep the user’s computer a black box, rather than a tool they understand and can manipulate. In doing so, they disenfranchize them and deny them agency.
I like open source software because it empowers me as its user. I trust it because unbiased third parties, smarter than I, have examined the source and tell the world when they find a flaw. Microsoft’s business model prohibits this. It’s a trend that’s not going away. Next year you’ll see primitive brain-computer interfaces sold as affordable Christmas toys. There is no future in which our technology plays a less intimate role in our lives, and I don’t want a Microsoft Office brain implant.
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Joe Reply:
November 5th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
I don’t use vista for that very reason.
In fact I’m one of those people who turns off all the bells and whistles that xp offers as soon as I install it, because frankly I prefer the simpler windows95 interface. What can I say, I’m old.
I do sympathize with what you’re saying, but the fact is linux is still very much for geeks… why? Because geeks like to tinker and optimize and perfect things, so that they are running at peak efficiency and with the latest compiled kernel. Linux allows that on a level that surpasses Windows.
But I don’t want to do that. Linux is annoying to me, largely because it has too many options. I want simpler. And windows gives that too me…. even if its not optimized to the max. Thing is though, I actually am a geek. I do optimize my windows. But most of the people I know fall in love with macs when they use them, because they are even less work. They have even less options…. which means less complications. Windows is middle ground between them.
I have an ipod for instance, and have found itunes VERY frustrating. I have ended up using winamp to manage my mp3s and just use itunes to synch the ipod. I like my ipod, but I can’t stand the stupid software they impose on you. And you are right, they try and control everything. That said, apple tech support is probably the best I have ever experienced.
And I really enjoy yelling at people on the phone… so that experience was somewhat disappointing and shocking.
In the end, I’m probably going to wait until the next windows comes out… that’s likely when the support for xp will peter out. Then I will have a choice to make, but is linux an option then? Hard to say…. things change so quickly. Operating systems are a big investment in time and money, even open source…. its not an easy decision.
What will make the decision for most people though is much simpler, its all about what they are used to….. that is…. what they are using at work. Learning a new operating system is one thing, having to switch between the one you use at work and the one on your home pc just means extra work and headache.
We still use xp where I work and office 2003.
And you ain’t sticking nothing in my brain…. not even if it comes with a free lap dance…
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C. Alan Zoppa Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 12:54 am
1. A preconfigured Linux desktop is no more or less complicated to use than XP. You can pretend the command line isn’t there unless you want it to be more functional than Windows. Plus, my computer updates and installs new software nicely and automatically, and it doesn’t hang halfway through, well, everything.
2. I’ve seen Windows 7. It’s Vista SP2, except you have to buy a whole new license–. Don’t get too excited. It’s still applianceware that gives Redmond the final authority over what you can and can’t do with your own computer.
3. Yeah, unless you’re already like staring down retirement, they’re putting something in your brain (was that a subtle Palahniuk allusion?). People said the same thing about cell phones. “No electronic leash for me…” “It’s just for work and emergencies!” Ten years later they’re part of the culture and you can’t lead a normal life without one. The same thing’s about to happen with smartphones, and the process is basically over with social networking.
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Joe Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 1:47 am
I’m not saying Linux isn’t usable or useful, but it has a learning curve,
one I don’t need to deal with right now, my xp works fine, does what I need, and is up to date.
There are all kinds of ways around what microsoft wants… hackers are good that way.
Which is why I’m not an early adopter of any operating system, sp2 is the sweet spot.
And I actually have a cell phone I only use for texting (on weekends) and emergencies.
Haha. Its prepaid, no camera, no email and no mp3s.
A computer is a tool.
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r_a_trip Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 11:29 am
A computer is a tool.
It is and that is why I don’t want to spend too much time on it to get it to work the way I want. Which is exactly the one of the reasons I use GNU/Linux as my daily OS at home.
MS-ware always has unwanted side-effects I cannot solve. When it was Windows 9.x, the system was just too unstable to use longer than three months hassle free. When the Windows XP family came, the stabilty was ok, but then there were malware problems and MS treating me like a prisoner in SuperMax with WGA and what not. Vista ups the anti-consumer measures even more.
GNU/Linux was a time and money investment, but I’m glad I started making it back in 1998. I’ve been enjoying full-time freedom since 2000 on my machines. The “Linux is too hard to use” excuse is just a lame subterfuge for staying put and let the “forces of nature” dictate your computing options.
All the skills I gained in 1998 are still applicable in 2008 (and 2009 and 2010 and …) If Canonical folds, I’l just use Debian or another Debian derivative. My Linux skills are almost universally applicable to all GNU/Linux distro’s. So I did gain a lot by going FOSS and GNU/linux IS substantially better than the closed source options.
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Joe Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I’ve worked in a computer security dept, writing manuals.
If everyone adopted linux, the malware problems would increase on linux. MS software is attacked more because its the standard. Mac also has fewer viruses, because its a niche market. I have never had any issues with WGA, I understand it can be annoying if one likes to modify their hardware alot, and reinstall… but I’ve only done the latter on my laptop twice in as many years. Its much less an issue than it was all those years ago with 9x.
And for most people who don’t change their hardware, except to get a new computer, its not an issue. I agree vista is a serious consideration, but for me, that’s a future concern. My xp is still quite usable. And if eventually Vista sp2 gets adopted at work, I will have to learn it anyway. At that point, I may find it useful to make the change to something else at home, but right now, I’m not facing any pressing needs or limitations.
I use what works for me, and follow the path of least resistance, its seems logical not to fight the forces of nature when one doesn’t need to. For most people computers are not an ideology issue. I don’t mind being lame if it allows me to get my work done quickly. I’ve never been LeET.
What are the ’substantially better parts’? What things do you find essential to doing your job. If you are a techy, thats a different set of parameters than what your average user will come up against. What are the benefits for the ‘average user’? Again, right now, vista is not an issue for me.
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C. Alan Zoppa Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
tar -xzvf virus.tar.gz
cd virus
sudo make install virus
******************
virus
Yeah, that’s gonna be a big problem.
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Joe Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
LOL.
And that is why normal people don’t use linux.
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Abhishek Bhatnagar Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
I can understand your concerns about the new learning Joe, though I don’t think the learning curve on Ubuntu is steep at all. But one has to learn something at one point or another. Computers are still very young, and for the past 15 years, we’ve all adjusted to Windows. My point in writing this article was to suggest that we get the next generations started on an OS model that actually “grows” and benefits others. As I wrote in the article, I don’t think Windows and Mac grow appreciably. If we all stick to that attitude of why learn, we’ll all be using slow and poorly designed system for ever! Computers have an enormous power to help us achieve our long term goals as humans - education, environment, etc… and using an outdated model, though convenient, does not posit any growth. Like I suggested, you don’t have to switch over to Ubuntu right away, but you can try it. It’s developers have made it installable along with your windows using the system called WUBI, so that you don’t have to worry about partitions or anything. And moreover, the way it is built, it is also very intuitive in usage. You don’t have to type in that command to untar and compile packages, you can do them using packet managers, which install in a straightforward manner asking you even lesser questions than windows does.
I think you’re still suffering from the “Linux is only for geeks” thing. Ubuntu did change that requirement by being ultra-easy and convenient to use. Unless you try it, in my opinion, you will never find out.
Also I don’t agree that the FOSS model is unsustainable. In case of Ubuntu, Canonical makes most of it’s money by offering support to the businesses that use it.
There is money to be made in the industry along several channels, meaning that the companies that support these models won’t go bankrupt on the onset. Novell Networks is now almost entirely based on linux, and are still doing fine as a company. So are Sun, IBM and many others. Wordpress, Mozilla and other companies are also a good example. Even Google does development in the OpenSource realm, though of course to a much lesser degree. The new Android platform for mobile devices is OS.
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Joe Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Linux does well in the server market because its competition isn’t free, wordpress does well because its free and in a niche market, and mozilla has benefited from Microsoft’s refusal to update IE regularly.
Upfront costs may be lower with Open Source, but you also have to factor in migration, support and training costs. And those add up, fast. Linux for the desktop has improved immensely, but its not the windows-killer it needs to be to gain market share. MS office/windows still has a stranglehold on the business market. Also, linux has a dizzying array of ‘options’, as opposed to rock solid standards, which means uncertainty. People don’t like that, especially business people. Open source is a mystery to business types, proprietary software isn’t.
One of the reasons windows became dominant was because unlike the mac OS, it was easy to pirate. It was free. Windows 3.1 is probably the most pirated software ever made. Linux may be free, but unlike windows at the time, it has stiff competition. So it can’t just be good or even good for you, it has to be something you need, even if it is better than windows. That won’t matter.
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Abhishek Bhatnagar Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
“mozilla has benefited from Microsoft’s refusal to update IE regularly.”
This is exactly my point. It’s not just MS’s refusal to update regularly, it’s that proprietary software does not need to update regularly. Look at how our needs for web surfing have changed in the past few years. Firefox has kept up cause it’s always caught up to changes web standards/features and more. It has been able to do this in two ways: by constant update from open source developers, and otherwise contributing ideas of it’s own. The new features it comes up with go through a kind of natural selection since they are not forced upon the user and only the best remain. The same applies to OSes. Again, I don’t think you can honestly speak about Ubuntu unless you give it a genuine try. It is not the same as Systemi or something complex; it’s simple!
Windows didn’t become popular because it’s pirated, but because MS cut very good deals with early hardware manufacturers that benefited their business very much. It was all marketing. This is the same strategy Apple has been using lately to gain some share in the market. It uses the whole hip, cool and original thing to appeal to a group that insists it is vulnerable to marketing.
As for the costs related migration and all, I repeat, this will never change unless we initiate the process. I’m simply suggesting we initiate it now. There IS a learning curve, and there are associated costs, but given the long-term benefits, they are worth it. I’m not saying this is going to happen, I’m saying that in my opinion this should happen.
C. Alan Zoppa Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Clearly almost everything is installed from the universe repos, or failing that, reports itself to the package manager. My point is that software more or less has to be benign in order to get itself into a legitimate repo. Anything malicious would almost certainly have to be compiled from the source, and who’s going to do that?
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Abhishek Bhatnagar Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
very true…since everything is constantly “peer reviewed”, even a larger market share would leave linux safer than proprietary software
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C. Alan Zoppa Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Precisely. Open source software is MORE secure, because the more widely used and available the source is, the more whitehats sit around trying to exploit it and write a paper about the process. Same goes for crypto– we figured that one out decades ago.
Joe Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Buying software from reputable companies is not the way most people get viruses. Most people get viruses from doing something stupid, careless, or ignorant online, or because of exploits in the software they have. Bugs are part of all operating systems.
Linux is not impervious to any of these. And like I said, if linux had anywhere close to windows market share, it would get targeted a helluva a lot more. Regardless, if you want to promote linux you have to ask people what they need, not tell them, which is essentially what open source people usually do.
Marketing means market research and targetted selling. Just because its important to you, doesn’t mean others will care. You guys are preaching to the choir, which is fine, but you haven’t convinced me I need linux, and I have actually used a live cd once or twice. Again, not impressed. If you are serious you have to try and understand what normal users need and want.
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C. Alan Zoppa Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
@Joe “if you want to promote linux you have to ask people what they need, not tell them, which is essentially what open source people usually do.”
No one who’d had the lightest involvement with the community would say something like that. Firefox is more robust and functional than IE because the community had their voice.
To the point, POSIX-compliant systems are intrinsically less vulnerable to virii because they were designed as network computers. Windows is fundamentally based on a kernel built as short term contract job. It was called QDOS, or (I’m not kidding) ‘Quick and Dirty Operating System.’ It was built to run a single-user computer– the network capabilities of Windows are a functional band-aid.
Linux and BSD (and by heritage, OSX), can install software in a systemic way without putting the system as a whole at risk. Because Windows doesn’t have a concept analogous to sudoers, the average user issues commands as an administrator. By proxy, so do the programs she is running. This is definitively insecure, and unavoidable without a ground-up reimplementation of the NT kernel.
This leaves us with Vista, a rat’s nest of aborted kernels groping for each other in the dark, expending half its system resources just to walk upright. My Ubuntu laptop uses a quarter of the system resources, smoothly animating Compiz effects. This is not a fair comparison.
Joe Reply:
November 7th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Ok, while I always enjoy a good discussion, I think we’re talking past each other now.
I like firefox very much, I prefer it to IE.
Firefox is a good product, open source or not.
I’ve used mosaic/netscape/mozilla/firefox.
We agree on firefox.
Opera is good too.
I dont use vista.
I don’t like vista.
I’m not talking about vista.
Comparing linux to vista means nothing to me.
When they cancel support for xp I’ll be weighing my options.
But that will be windows 7, and linux will likely be different by then too.
Who knows what will happen.
The fact remains, my workplace uses xp.
I like xp and it does all the things I need.
It has the drivers I need, and I have my applications I’m familiar with and
work well with xp.
As to linux, I don’t have any doubt that its a better networking OS.
Which is why its used quite a lot for server computers.
But my network needs are very basic.
I don’t need a server.
I don’t need a software repository.
And I haven’t had a virus in years.
And I don’t have a problem with people charging money for software.
And I know lots of people, who love linux but who still don’t think its ready for the desktop market
Maybe this has changed, maybe it will soon. But if you are going to displace windows,
you need something more than a performace boost.
Katie Kish Reply:
November 7th, 2008 at 10:36 am
…It’s confusing as to see where I actually need to reply to, so I just hit one.
You’re both right and you’re both wrong.
Linux is desktop ready… for people who just want to play Ltris and do wordprocessing. The computers that come with Linux (yes, computers come with Linux now - if it weren’t desktop ready, it wouldn’t come with computers as the default) arn’t for tweaking, for playing high quality games, for adding a bunch of software… they’re for little university girls that just want a cutesy 9″ laptop at their side.
And…
(thats from my brother…. http://www.kishcom.com/?paged=2 )
Linux is hard to learn. I know this because I’ve learned it… and it wasn’t easy. For people who are already used to buggering around with XP, its not worth the time. Because people like Joe already get everything they want for free, and know how to install it without issues. The first time I installed unbuntu i spent 3 hours just getting the sound to work. For geeks, its time well wasted. For adults, like joe, who use xp at their work place, who know how to use windows to their liking and who don’t give a shit that they’re supporting proprietary software… XP is perfect.
Vista is shit for anyone.
Having said that. I think that macs and windows are 100% anti freedom. By buying their products people are actively working against freedom and helping to support a proprietary and scary culture.
But Macs have their place - for the artsy types who have no fucking idea what linux is and for pepole like my boss who breaks computers every three seconds. The mac is perfect for him, its so much harder to break and so hard to get a virus.
C. Alan Zoppa Reply:
November 7th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
@Joe What you’re doing right now is network computing. Linux was designed to be exposed to other computers on a network interface, DOS architecture was not.
Vista is more of a rat’s nest than XP, but it’s still using the NT kernel. So will Windows 7. If you take a look at the beta release of the latter, it’s basically Vista SP2– it’s not a meaningful improvement.
I suspect that you understand what a software repo is– it’s basically a server of automatic installation scripts. If I’m not happy with my default VNC client, I type VNC, double click another one that looks good, and it automatically installs and shows up in the appropriate menu.
@Katie I had trouble getting the sound to work on my first Ubuntu install too. I found the solution after bumbling around Canonical’s forums for about ten minutes. That said, the problems aren’t related to Ubuntu, they’re related to using an operating system that wasn’t configured in the factory. Installing Windows or Mac OS on supported hardware requires a fair amount of configuration too.
woo hoo.
totaly agree with this article.
OpenSource is the way to go.
But, how can people profit then if everything is free????
I mean, I am for opensource, but im just wondering.
[Reply]
Abhishek Bhatnagar Reply:
November 7th, 2008 at 1:50 am
There’s a couple of ways. One is the example I gave earlier, the method Canonical uses and further plans to expand: support. If there are many businesses that use Ubuntu, many of them require technical support. This is a big business in the industry, and if Ubuntu can get a large user base (they already have wikimedia), they can make a lot of money. Support is a big channel regardless of your product: web service, server, os, software, anything.
Another way is licensing. Open Source says to businesses you can may use this software but you must share any changes you make to it. Many companies would rather keep the changes they make and not reveal them. So they don’t buy the standard licenses, put other paid ones. Here’s a quote I found on another site:
“We actually make our money very much similar to a traditional software company; most of our revenue comes from licensing,” Urlocker said. “We have a quid pro quo licensing policy–if we’re free, you’re free. The flip side is that if you don’t want to publish your source code, you can pay for a license that allows that.”
“We’re not a religion, we’re not a cult, were not a charity–we’re a business,” he said. “There’s always going to be grassroots people…who see open source as a free ride, but there are corporate customers who are absolutely willing to pay for reliability, flexibility, support.”
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[...] Open Minded, Open Sourced [...]
I’m glad you wrote this. Well said.
I’m not very good with computers I’m afraid, but I have thought a lot about the ethical arguments you are making and I think they are very important.
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“and that is the business type.”
Incorrect. Proprietary business type maybe but the GPL states clearly that you can charge money for the product, you just have to supply the source in an acceptable manner. The BSD licenses don’t even have that requirement.
Other than that, many people earn their rent through open source precisely because big business sponsors FOSS development such as that some estimates concluded that the Linux kernel is feed through two thirds paid programmers rather than volunteers.
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The question of financing open-source development is a legitimate concern, and some open-source advocates have addressed that concern, even arguing that it sometimes makes good business sense.
Eric S. Raymond is notable among such advocates, identifying several business models that can support open-source development, and conceding that open-sourcing is not univerally applicable. You can read it in his paper “The Magic Cauldron”
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/magic-cauldron/
* Sharing of development effort; open-sourcing simplifies the accounting
* Spreading of risk, like of developers moving on
* Loss leader / market positioner, like Netscape Navigator for Netscape’s web-server software
* “Widget frosting”: drivers and the like for hardware
* “Give Away the Recipe, Open A Restaurant”, sell services associated with open-source software
* Accesorizing: selling merchandise, documentation, etc.
* “Free the future, sell the present”; software that’s initially closed-source and later becomes open-source
* “Free the software, sell the brand”, like selling testing for compatibility criteria. ESR proposed that Sun ought to have done that with Java
* “Free the software, sell the content”, ESR proposed that AOL could open-source its client
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