Why Use Free/Open Source Software? 261
An Anonymous Coward writes "I came across Why Use Open Source / Free Software? at Linux Today. As the author says in his intro:
"This paper provides quantitative data that, in many cases, using Open Source / Free Source software is a reasonable or even superior approach to using their proprietary competition according to various measures."
Good to see stuff we've known / suspected for some time backed up by real data...."
other benefits to open source?? (Score:1, Troll)
2 Its slanted towards nerds: we actually GET the cool interfaces and technology
3 It is, of course, in direct disagreement with the EVIL EMPIRE, Microsoft
Re:other benefits to open source?? (Score:1)
What we need is an authoritative paper, written by a professional institution, regarding the business benefits and comparisons in the almighty $DOLLAR$.
Management doesn't care if their nerds say "something is better". The business as an entity does not care. They need to know WHY, in finacial terms. We as techies too often forget that management, and the business as a whole, exists for one purpose - making money fast and in quantity. Quick time to market, and total cost of ownership is the language these other individuals speak. Show management the business implications of using closed sourced software vs. OpenSource software, and make them recognize the finacial benefits and savings.
Give me this, written in technically illiterate but business savy finacial speak, and I will be a happy engineer.
:-)
Why I use open source software (Score:1)
Yes among webservers (Score:2)
Re:Yes among webservers (Score:2, Insightful)
It matters that the concept has been adopted by people who know what they are doing. The ellusive 'desktop market' may or may not follow suit, but that doesn't really have to be an issue. A community composed primarily of competent members can survive without the masses. (Do i sound like a linux elitist? Bah. I appreciate efforts like Lycoris to bring FS to the general public, but I realize that their success or failure won't affect me or my computing future.)
Re:Yes among webservers (Score:1)
Re:Yes among webservers (Score:2)
But for home & workplace use, it isn't. While open source alternatives do exist, they aren't of the quality of features that home and workplace users have come to expect. A website admin doesn't need to deal with anyone except for web browsers--while a home user needs to deal with games & whatnot, and business users have the even bigger problem of not wanting to lose time and money figuring out software that doesn't quite work the way they expect it to.
I just tried OpenOffice, and I'll try it again in a few versions--once it stops marking my grammatical choices as spelling mistakes, and maybe when it tracks changes & deals with outlines.
(I use both in writing at home, and my boss uses the track changes feature at work.)
Re:Yes among webservers (Score:1)
As for servers in the workplace, from the experience I have had - at least of small organisations - is that linux is quite a common and popular choice, even for just a print and filesharing server.
Could be though that I live in Australia - Australian's were the quickest to move from black and white to color tv, the most number of mobile phones per person, and one of the most online countries in the world. We love new technology.
Re:Yes among webservers (Score:1)
Because it's better (Score:3, Interesting)
Looking at a bunch of graphs deoesn't explain why I use Free Software solutions. Apache's market share might be impressive, but that's not the reason I use Apache on my server and linux on every box. I use Free Software because I like what Free Software has to offer. Even the article's "Non-Quantitative Issues" doesn't adress user preference. Gnome just Feels Good to use and would likely be my choice regardlesss of any superiority of licensing or cold hard technical superiority.
square pegs vs. round hole. (Score:1)
"Open Source is better"
"Propietary is better"
whatever. just use what works.
blah blah. I don't feel like finishing what I was going to say.
don't mod me up.
Free as in pirated? (Score:5, Interesting)
We've all heard how software pirating hurts the commercial software industry, but how about the cheap bastards that would otherwise be using free/open source applications?
Re:Free as in pirated? (Score:3, Insightful)
MS et al actually gain from someone pirating their software rather than using OSS. Many people I know of priated MS Word, and if they didn't learn it this way and get used to it this way, they'd probably be using OpenOffice or whatever was cheapest for the jobs.
The fact is, software piracy only "hurts" the comercial software industry in the way that me walking into a store and not buying anything "hurts" the store. Counting non-certain purchasers as "lost sales" is a logical fallicy that's propagated to grant powers of asinine enforcement, and outrageous legal fees.
Re:Free as in pirated? (Score:2, Insightful)
When people pirate software they help that product establish a monopoly. More people install it, the firmer entrenched it becomes. Imagine the next version of windows being impossible to pirate through some subscription service. How many people around the world would there be who would:
a) continue to use the older versions indefinately
b) convert to an open source alternative because they can't afford the new product
If people always paid for new versions of Microsoft products (or any other company) I think the product would eventually fail, or certainly never hold a monopoly - or make computers available to the elite few.
Open Source with cream and sugar, please. (Score:1)
Microsoft's primary innovation. (Score:1)
Hogwash. After the LoveBug wreaked havoc on Cyberspace and many articles pointed out that Microsofts monopoly of the operating system makes it as vulnerable to viruses as the entire state of Kansas when planted with a single breed of corn would be vulnerable to diseases, Microsoft, in the person of Bill Gates himself, wrote a rebuttal. The rebuttal was printed in in a newsweekly, I forgot whether it was Time or Newsweek.
Essentially, Mr. Gates defended his company's monopoly by pointing out that it enables Microsoft to create innovation and provide value to its customers. The very same premise you expounded in your post, by the way. Naturally, Professor Gates needs to provide an example to his wide-eyed students in order to drive the point home. Now, guess what MS innovation did Professor Gates provide by way of example? The spreadsheet?, nope, Visicalc invented the spreadsheet. Wysiwyg word processing?, no way!, Wordstar was doing wysiwyg back in the days when Billg still counts himself among the hackers of Basic. The graphical user interface?, no, XEROX PARC invented that one.
Give up? Bill Gates provided the toolbar as primary evidence of the innovation that a Microsoft monopoly benefits the world. I laughed myself silly after reading that one.
The article is missinformed. (Score:1, Insightful)
Microsoft has been publically opposing the GPL exclusively (nor particularly), and supporting (through action) Open Source via the BSD and "Shared Source" licenses. This is very similar to Apple's approach as well (although Apple has obviously taken it to a much farther level with Darwin).
Indeed, recent court cases give strong evidence that the only reason the proprietary Internet Explorer was the #1 web browser was due to years of illegal use of monopoly power by Microsoft.
Any objective person will see that IE was the better browser then "Netscape Communicator" and it was gaining incredible popularity well before IE was "integrated" into the OS. If there where better alternatives then maybe everyone wouldn't have flocked to IE. Now that Opera is up to par it's gained incredible marketshare (especially considering the fact that it's a commercial browser). And, the 3MB download is not inconvenient on most any modern connection.
Indeed, when examining the most important software innovations, it's quickly discovered that Microsoft invented no key innovations
I thought this was about the benefits of Open Source software, not some poorly documented anti-MS troll fest. Too bad this article won't be taken to heart by many. The blatent bias in some areas discredit the author.
It's amazing how religious "computer scientists" can be about technology.
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:1)
What are you talking about? People didn't flock to IE; they had it preinstalled on their machines.
If Netscape was preinstalled... oh nevermind.
Take your "objective" opinion and take it somewhere else.
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:2)
A blatant lie!. Netscape 3.0 was much better then IE 3.0. Nesscape 4.0 was better then IE 4.0. IE became usable by version 5 and it was integrated into the OS before that. By that time Netscape's air supply had been cut off and they could not afford to put too much money into further developing it.
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:1)
Netscape 3 was okay, as was IE3. Netscape 4.x was a horrid piece of SHIT. IE4 was decent. IE5 was quite good, while NS 4.7 and pals were just as bad as they were when IE4 came out. Now we have IE6 versus Netscape 6... and Netscape 6 is just a horrible rip of Mozilla. Netscape 6 is worthless - I'm sticking to mozilla.
BTW, before you label me a troll - I don't even use IE. I'm just trying to make a point here.
I've been using netscape since v2.0 - hell, I owned a copy of Netscape 2 Gold. But even 2 sucked - I got GPF's in it all the time on my old win 3.x machine. I tried netscape 3, and it was okay... then I tried IE3 on that same 3.x machine. It was an amazing difference - IE3 was faster, more stable, and worked with all of my pages. After that, I moved onto IE4 and Netscape 4 with win9x... and which do you think I chose? Yep, IE4. Why? Because netscape 4 sucked. The most glaring problem was the resizing - resizing a Netscape 4.x browser window is horribly slow compared to resizing an IE or Mozilla window.
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:2)
Yea, I'm sticking with Mozilla too. But come, come. Netscape 6 is a rip of Mozilla? If it wasn't for the actions and funding from Netscape, Mozilla would not exist. Netscape using Mozilla for their next browser offering is how the system is supposed to work.
Granted - they began harvesting from the Mozilla orchard a bit early. The fruits are still a tad green for the public pallet. But that's their decission.
Meanwhile, Mozilla marches on. It gets better. And I gladly use it. And I thank Netscape for making it possible.
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:1)
I'm one of those people that browses by opening everything up in its own window. My problem with Netscape was that if it had to do a DNS lookup in one window then all the windows would freeze and I wouldn't even be able to scroll in another window. IE didn't do this and I've been able to read in peace when dealing with a website that wants to take its time being found.
Re: (Score:2)
Why I dumped Netscape, and why I like Mozilla (Score:2)
I remember way back when I decided to get IE and Outlook Express, etc. This was shortly after the 4.0 browsers came out for both IE and Netscape. The big reason I dumped Netscape was because if I tried to use it for mail and browsing, if the browser crashed, my mail would crash, and I had a POP3 account, and occasionally lost mail because of that.
Now, you could argue monopoly in that perhaps if Netscape knew how the OS worked better they might have been able to build a better browser that was more stable. But then again, I doubt it. The 4.0 branch was bloatware and was focused on having opposing standards to Microsoft, who was also building tools, unlike Netscape.
Now, Mozilla, on the other hand, makes me happy. I have standards support and I can count on a browser that runs on multiple platforms. I'm waiting for a full release for Windows so I can dump a slick fast version on my work machine, which (unfortunately) is bound to use Windows (for now).
As a person who loves Linux and the open source community, I have to say, that I chose IE as a chose between two CLOSED SOURCE applications (IE and NC), but now I prefer an open source browser (Mozilla).
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:2)
I agree. Netscape Communicator was Netscape 4.0. I was a die hard Netscape user until Communicator came out.
Nesscape 4.0 was better then IE 4.0.
Netscape was objectively slower. IE 4.0 was a bit buggy but a couple of point releases later it was easily as stable, if not more stable then Netscape. Netscape supported proprietary crap like the infamous LAYER tag, while IE supported the logical and W3C accepted "DHTML" standards. IE also had far better CSS support.
By that time Netscape's air supply had been cut off and they could not afford to put too much money into further developing it.
Yet, Opera, who's "air supply" is theoretically also cut off by MS's integration of the browser, is doing very well. It's faster then IE, it renders almost as well as IE, and is way more customizeable (pop-up stopper, more privacy settings, etc.). Sounds like they're innovating just fine.
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:2)
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:2)
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:2)
The things people say on slashdot really amaze me sometimes. Nestcape got bought by the one of the biggest media companies in the world for a gob of money. Their shareholders made a lot of money, their employees are now working for AOL/TW and you think opera did better then them? What criterea are you using to make such a statement?
As for NS the product there was no point in making it better. As soon as MS bundled it with windows the game was over. The folks at NS realized this and started marketing server side stuff and then MS started bundling IIS. Anytime netscape started marketing a product MS made sure they offered a competing one for free and forced all windows users to install it. In the end all they had left was the portal and AOL bought that. They did the best they could under the circumstances. Nobody can survive when a monopoly started giving away competing products. The people at opera had nothing to lose the people at netscape were beholden to their shareholders to spend all their efforts trying to find something to sell that MS wasn't. It's a completely different scenario. It would have been criminal for the CEO of netscape to continue to spend money developing netscape. In the end their revenues would have dropped to where opera is today (pretty damned close to zero) and netscape stock would have been worthless. The shareholders deserved better and as it turned out they got better.
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:1)
Pure Crap. The first usable IE was 3.02 - bundled with Win95. It had poor performance and problems with frequent crashes. At that time, I also used Netscap 3.x which was far more stable and performed better as well.
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Has Microsoft supported BSD by contributing any code or resources? I've heard they incorporate the BSD TCP/IP stack but to the best of my knowledge, that's the extent of their 'support.' 'Support' might not be the right word. 'Use' maybe.
'Shared source' is perhaps better termed 'viewed source' because the word 'shared' implies that the sharee gets the same benefits (but perhaps only a smaller proportion) as the sharer. Viewers get the right to view but they do not get any benefits beyond this in the sense that a BSD or GPL'd licence allots to them. Certainly they do not get to profit directly from this code, just from the knowlege derived from viewing it.
From these two points Microsoft appears to oppose licences like the GPL only because they do not receive any direct benefit themselves.
I have no problem with them using or even making money off of BSD code, for that is what it is intended to do. For them to ridicule other licences under the guise of the caring about the economic well-being of society is deceptive, and overly selfish.
Btw, please tell me if they do contribute code or resources to a BSD project that's code they use (in which case one cannot fairly say the above.)
-B
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, IE is technically not a browser at all. To call something a "web browser" it must at least adhere to RFC 2616 [faqs.org]. Well, MSIE does not. To quote the RFC:
Thus, a browser MUST adhere the Content-Type if it's given.
OK, now load IE and try to visit this site [wox.org], or this site (warning: browser will crash) [wox.org]. Note that the content type of these sites is text/plain and thus the text should simply be displayed on screen.
Therefore, IE6 is not a "web browser" and thus cannot be the "better" browser.
The Content-Type HTTP header (Score:2)
Even if the msie-crash.txt [wox.org] file was named msie-crash.html but there was "Content-Type: text/plain" in HTTP response headers it should be displayed as plain text, and in fact I was sure that this IE bug is only present in exactly such a situations. I'm really surprised that if MIME type and file suffix (the main data type indicator in MS software) tell the IE that it's a plain text, it still tries to render it as HTML.
It's a very serious problem if you want to make an HTML tutorial website, having links such as: http://tutorial.host/example/foo.html and http://tutorial.host/source/foo.html where both foo.html are just symlinks to the same file but you set up your web server to send "Content-Type: text/html" under /example
to show how it looks like
and
"Content-Type: text/plain" under /source
to show the source.
Not to mention problems with sending different MIME type to force the download and saving of file instead of displaying it (try downloading a 100MB flat text database when your browser wants to display it first). It's a serious problem and making all of the workarounds can be often a real pain in the ass (like when you have to display HTML source, as HTML page including HTML source with s/</</g etc.) because 90% of "web browsers" out there can't even understand a damned Content-Type header, the most important HTTP response header, present in six years old HTTP 1.0 specification (and with the Web, six years are the whole ages), and I'm sure it was used in pre-RFC, pre-1.0 HTTP much earlier (if anyone knows, I'll be glad to hear about the real age of Content-Type header - thanks).
OK, I'm glad you touched this subject. For those who don't know about it, let me quote HTTP 1.0 from May 1996: "HTTP uses Internet Media Types in the Content-Type header field in order to provide open and extensible data typing." and HTTP 1.1 from June 1999: "HTTP uses Internet Media Types in the Content-Type and Accept header fields in order to provide open and extensible data typing and type negotiation." It's not used without an important reason.
See also:
Very serious bug, I wonder when are they planning to fix it.
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:2)
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:4, Informative)
Any objective person will see that IE was the better browser then "Netscape Communicator" and it was gaining incredible popularity well before IE was "integrated" into the OS.
You are both wrong... There are a number of issues here.
First off... there is no single reason why IE won the browser wars. It was a combination of numerous issues.
1. Netscape was having Engineering problems by the time IE was released. Microsoft had an advantage because they started with a fresh code base right when everyone was learning from Netscape's mistakes.
Netscape had plans for Netscape 5.0 but obviously this didn't happen (hint: keep reading)
2. Netscape had near 100% market share of the browser space when IE 3.0 came on the scene (IE 2.0 sucked). Obviously the choice of an alternative made some people switch.
3. Microsoft shipped IE 3.0 with Windows 95b (OSR2). This was making it into the OS on OEM machines VERY early on. At this point MS was gaining a lot of market share.
4. Netscape 4.x sucked... face it. It did...
5. Because MS was giving IE away for free (which has now been ruled illegal) this destroyed Netscape's revenue stream which essentially prohibited their future development.
6. Microsoft started basing all their products on libraries provided by IE. For example IIS, Office, etc, all required IE 3.0, 4.0, etc. Even though they might not have had modern IE versions on base 95a and NT machines; this situation quickly changed.
So anyway... yes... Netscape screwed up. They aren't perfect.
The important thing here is that Microsoft really played hardball!
Yes... Netscape sucked... but this was only a small part of the reason they lost!
It's amazing how religious "computer scientists" can be about technology.
It's not religion, it's politics! Quite frankly we need more people paying attention to this stuff!
Peace!
Kevin
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:1)
Ruling that giving away anything for free, is illegal, is pretty fucked up. Proves how retarded our legal system is.
Sure, MS leveraged a monopoly... but it being illegal for them to give away IE is retarded. The day it's illegal for me to give away my property or creations, is the day I move to another country. I don't care if it's improving my market share, or creating a monopoly - prosecute me for the actual crime, not for giving something away!
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:2)
Could you clarify this point? Unless you've forgoten version numbers, I believe you're off. IE was built with code licensed from Spyglass (Mosaic). And, true to Microsoft form, it wasn't until IE3.x that they began to get it right and start gaining serious market share. And it was IE4 (and their introduction of the integrated browser) vs. Netscape4 (ie: Communicator - one had to go out of one's way to get just the browser) when it became clear Microsoft had gained the traction they needed and Netscape had began to stumble.
Perhapse it is IE4 that you're referring to?
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:2)
5. Because MS was giving IE away for free (which has now been ruled illegal) this destroyed Netscape's revenue stream which essentially prohibited their future development.
Netscape (which I used since 2.x) was free for educational and non commercial use. I personally did not know any (small) bussiness that paid for Netscape either. It came on most everyone's machines and/or you could just download it for free off of ftp.netscape.com. You might call this piracy, but I don't think people honestly understood that it wasn't a free browser. If this was their major revenue stream, they had a very poor business model and/or execution of said model. Finally, why isn't Opera dead? Netscape had 90%+ of the marketshare, Opera had zero, so Opera has an uphill battle, yet they are doing better then Netscape. Maybe because it's a better browser?
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:2)
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:2)
Perhaps you would understand this better if you contemplated the fact that open source software follows the philosophies of science, while closed source software follows the philosophies of industry. Science is about gaining understand, improving humanity, and making things much better. Industry is about increasing profit. So why would it be a surprise that "computer scientists" show a great preference toward "science"?
What's most surprising is that we've managed to construct a society where there are a notable collection of people for whom individual profit is more important than improving humanity and making things better.
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:2)
you are misinformed (Score:2)
You got your history wrong. IE only started becoming a better browser around the time Microsoft had basically managed to destroy Netscape's business model through bundling and dirty tricks. Of course, a completely demoralized Netscape couldn't do what was necessary and compete with Microsoft.
It has taken open sourcing Netscape to counter Microsoft's dirty tricks. But the open source strategy has been successful. IE development has largely stalled, and Mozilla today is a better browser than IE.
Re:The article is missinformed. (Score:2)
I believe it would be appropriate to compare this article with the myriad whitepapers offered by vendors in support of their own products. There's nothing wrong or bad about this, unless blatent lies are told. I don't believe Mr. Wheeler made any blatent lies in this document. It seems that Mr. Wheeler believes he can support every statement he wrote. If you believe he is lying and care enough to write a public comment denouncing his work, it would be appropriate and polite to challenge him directly. His email address is at the top of the article.
-Paul Komarek
Oh this is something to show PHBs (Score:2, Interesting)
Why Use Free/Open Source Software? (Score:3, Funny)
Um, I don't know, maybe because it dosn't cost anything?
The Funny Thing About Statistics and Anecdotes (Score:5, Insightful)
One could easily write an article on the poor quality of Open Source software compared to proprietary software if the comparison was Oracle vs. mySQL, Apple's OS X GUI vs. GNOME/KDE, Photoshop vs. GIMP, MSFT Office vs. OpenOffice, etc.
Basically statistics and anecdotes can be used to prop up either side of the argument if one so chose.
However, the article does do one thing well for dispelling anti-OSS FUD by providing a clear, high visibility example of where Open Source Software competes very well with proprietary software. Thus FUD like, "OSS can never be of high enough quality to compete with proprietary software" ready for primetime although dying can now be completely killed by pointing such FUDsters and their victims to that article.
Selective statistics (Score:2)
I was about to say exactly the same thing before realising you've already said it, so instead I'll just support your comment.
The "real data" in this article is nothing more than statistics that are being presented from a biased source whose primary intention is to prove a point rather than fairly weigh out two options. It wouldn't be difficult to find alternative "real data" that supported Microsoft and other closed source alternatives in the same way. In effect it doesn't say much useful about whether OSS is better than closed source.
Any given business really needs to evaluate the options for itself before it can know what the most appropriate option is. Maybe they'll decide open source is a good choice, it it might not be, but at least they would have done a proper evaluation instead of living off the lobbying that's now coming from both sides.
If this article is useful for anything, it might be to convince someone that OSS shouldn't be thought of as a write-off that's not worth considering.
Re:Selective statistics (Score:2)
Yes I have, although I haven't crawled through it several times in meticulous detail. All I'm really trying to say is that whatever overall point you're trying to prove, there will normally be a truckload of statistics that will support it if used and presented selectively and in the right way. All that needs to be done is to adjust the argument to fit the statistics that are available.
I won't argue against that as it's completely true. On the other hand, I wouldn't trust this article for a reasonable evaluation of open source verses closed source any more than I'd trust the Microsoft marketing department to provide a reasonable evaluation.
It's disappointing that the marketing and selling points dominate when managers make decisions. Unfortunately that's what the two opposing viewpoints idea results in -- the loss of lots of actually useful information through commercial lobbying. But for better or worse that's exactly what this article contributes to, imho.
Re:The Funny Thing About Statistics and Anecdotes (Score:5, Insightful)
I use Apache because I prefer it IIS. I especially like the proxying support.
I would much rather use PHP then ASP. I trie dusing ASP and it made me want to stick needles in my eye with it's horrible error messages and inability to return values from functions. PHP is just a pleasure to use and as a bonus I get to benefit from thousands of pre-written applications for free.
I prefer Jedit to any commercial editor I have bought or tried.
I love mozilla and prefer it over IE on my windows machine. It's faster, it has more features.
I love debian. It gives me tingles every time I use it. I know it does not do everything as well as windows but it does many things much better then windows. I find my self cursing windows every day that I use it, I never ever curse debian.
PostgreSQL is the most fun any database geek can have with his pants on. It can do so many things SQL server can't I don't know where to start.
So if anybody wants to write an article start with those. Also touch on Zope, Jabber and the slew of projects residing on the Apache.org web site.
Oh yea one more thing. One fo the things I like most is that there are no restrictions. No weird licenses, no restirctions on the number of CPUs or the number of people who can connect, no forced advertising, nothing at all. The freedom is addicting.
The Budha once said the best thing in life is a clear conscience. Using open source software allows you to live with a clear conscience, it makes you a better human being.
Re:The Funny Thing About Statistics and Anecdotes (Score:2)
I thought that you could return a value from a function using VB or similar? Or am I missing something here?
Michael
Re:The Funny Thing About Statistics and Anecdotes (Score:3, Informative)
I trie dusing ASP and it made me want to stick needles in my eye with it's horrible error messages and inability to return values from functions.
I'm not vbscript's biggest fan (I assume you are talking about vbscript, since asp is language independent, and so doesn't control things like return values). However, it's trivial to return a value from a function, just assign the value to the function name, i.e.:
function foo(bar)
foo = bar * 2
end function
response.write("10 x 2 = " & foo(10))
OK, so it's not exactly the clearest syntax, but it gets the job done. Error messages, on the other hand, also drive me nuts, since half the time, it reports the line number of the error as being '?', or in a completely different file to where the problem is.
Re:The Funny Thing About Statistics and Anecdotes (Score:2)
Re:The Funny Thing About Statistics and Anecdotes (Score:2)
Mr. Wheeler demonstrates the breadth of interest in GNU/Linux. A simple tabulation of companies and publishers mentioned in his article demonstrates that many, many organizations are investigatiing GNU/Linux. No matter what these organizations conclude, I would assume that this breadth of interest would stick in a corporate decision-maker's mind.
-Paul Komarek
Re:The Funny Thing About Statistics and Anecdotes (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, like you did in your 'Open-Source-is-not-so-secure-after-all' fluff piece? Based on raw data that was disavowed as unusable for analyisis by its own source?
MartAmusing (Score:2, Funny)
Looks like Slashdot has been particularly up to speed in that department today - given stories like this one [slashdot.org].
Hmm... (Score:1)
Finally! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Finally! (Score:1)
Today's the day I can submit "Microsoft might be an evil monopoly" and I'll finally see my nick on the front page!!! Booyah!
Uh, you do know that writing articles that state the bleeding obvious, then piggy-back wild, unsupported assertions off the back of it, all without contributing anything new or insightful and headlining it all "$buzzword might be $evil_thing [in post-$major_event world]" actually falls within JonKatz's duties? I don't think he's gonna just give that up too easily, given that the stuff he writes has failed to shift him yet.
Hearsay? (Score:1)
And just for comparison ... (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/Embedded/sak/eval uation/compare/advantage.asp [microsoft.com]
Re:And just for comparison ... (Score:1)
1. Linux does not support our technologies, like Active Directory, ASP.NET and CIFS (of course, they couldn't resist faulting samba
2. Yeah, linux does that, but not the way we like it. We give you everything from one source, linux gives you too many different implementations.
Of course, there's some actual substance to those statements, especially for people who would rather talk to one person for all their needs. But it all sounds rather too skewed for me, but I ain't surprised anyway.
Re:And just for comparison ... (Score:2)
But wait
Re:And just for comparison ... (Score:1)
Because we can... (Score:1)
Don't you ever think to yourself... we do this because we can. As a community of competent tech heads we create software that's powerful and useful for others like us, who know how to use it proper.
As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter whether big business or the public in general catches on. Do we really want this beautiful stuff dragged down into the sewers? I'd say, don't get overzealous about encouraging industry or home users to get into the game.
Isn't the fact it's free... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't the fact it's free... (Score:1)
but when you have the money for a commercial product, and it's better than the free one, it's downright silly to stick with the free one.
In some cases, free software is better. In other cases, you can make much better use of your time and money by buying quality commercial software. From any company - small or big.
Somewhat off-topic - People often recommend Opera as a browser to people. I then tell them to use Mozilla instead. Why? Because most of the people who get Opera, are just going to download the demo (with ads), and then crack it to remove the ads. What's the point? Mozilla is an easily equal browser, available for free. Why pirate a shareware app when you can get a better free one?
Re:Isn't the fact it's free... (Score:1)
As in case pirating software. It's harder and harder to get it pirated. More and more people refuses to do that. I would sell proprietary software, give "now no way, in the old days yes". I've learned most of my friends how not to give proprietary software.
In fact, if you're too cheap to buy MSOffice, get your self OpenOffice, I personally bought StarOffice (just to support the project), but I use OpenOffice, because of more regular updates.
If you're too cheap to buy your self Photoshop, use Gimp like I do, PS just isn't usefull in my field of work, don't need CMYK, for drawing, well Gimp is just better and more suitable.
Games, transgaming's giving pretty good support.
So I think I made my self clear about my opinion.
Why switch if windows is better or supperior (Score:2)
Notice that I use the word MS alot. That is the problem and the reason why linux will always remain a niche. As long as Microsoft continues to control its not one but rather several monopolies the situation will not change. It doesn't matter if you can't setup a secure web server or do any real hacking with it. Joe six pack wants to process his Excell sheets at all costs! To him its the whole reason is machine even exists. What about Crashes? What crashes? XP is pretty stable for non server use.
To Joe, he just reboots or shuts down his machine Why for example should my mother switch? I can't give her a reason. She knows I use Linux and knows its more powerfull but Windows serves her purpose of checking her email and browsing the web alot better. The problem is that all the pc's come loaded with every ms package under the sun including office. To the average user MS-Office is part of Windows as IE is. Star Office can not touch it. TO Joe the best spreadsheet is Excell and the best word processor is Word, so Windows is the best platform. At least for %90 of the population. TO remove it would be to dumb the machine down to just an internet terminal.
I am not saying windows is better. If you all read my posts you all know that I do not like Windows. It just happens to be made by idiots for idiots and will always talor to this market. But believe it or not apps can make or break an os and really is part of the platform. I like to keep linux and freebsd around for their killer app. Namely Apache.
open-source model (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Corporations code to the mass-market bottom line. Their software is worse by design, not by method.
2. Releasing source code is a good idea. It promotes confidence in the product, as well as an ability to trace bugs quickly.
In other words, the heyday of OSS is not a result of OSS hitting upon a better "model" for software development. Rather, it is a result of corporations shooting for a lower mark, and the inherent benefits of freedom coming home to roost for those who promote it.
Anyone who has read The Mythical Man Month knows that software is best written by a tight management team with a clearly-identified lead programmer. Not by a "bazaar." Corporations still have the best model for software development, they are simply too greedy and too mass-market oriented to take advantage of the inherent strength of organization.
Re:open-source model (Score:2)
Anyone who has read The Mythical Man Month knows that software is best written by a tight management team with a clearly-identified lead programmer.
Uh, I've read it, and I don't know that. I know that dude said as much, and I believe that he makes a compelling argument. I further believe that his experience in industry gives weight to his arguments. I do not, however, know that any of his opinions are true.
The difference between fact and opinion aside, I tend to agree with you.
Re:open-source model (Score:2)
sarcasm
Correctness aside, that was FAR TOO PRECISE and LOGICAL to be on Slashdot. Please stop using logic and reason and follow the herd, mmmmmk?
/sarcasm
Re:open-source model (Score:3, Insightful)
These factors you cite are inseparable from the OSS development model.
Let me address them one at a time:
This seems like a good point, but you have to remember why it is that corporations release products the way they do. It's because they have to make definite design/test/release cycles in line with their business goals. They cannot benefit from the advantages of the OSS methodology of releasing early and often and the subsequent hordes of people who are able to test and fix problems in environments that couldn't possibly be anticipated in testing labs.
I agree that this is wrapped up in their business goals, but that affects their methodology and of course, their methodology affects their business goals.
This seems like a methodological difference to me. The OSS method of distribution is to release code, the typical corporation does not. Tracing bugs quickly is part of the methodological advantage of OSS. Sure, the reason corporations don't typically release source is dictated by business reasons, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a basic methodological difference between OSS and the modes that corporations usually work under. In OSS, releasing code is part of the development methodology in the corporate world it usually isn't.
I think you're misrepresenting Brooks here. He gave Harlan Mills' proposed Surgical Team model as a model of development. It was a proposal without real solid evidence to back it's efficacy, although it seemed to address many of the problems that large software projects were dealing with at the time. Those observations are also more than 30 years old now. Surely, in the intervening time, you'd expect other models to surface that may offer improvements.
Brooks also went on to point out how this Surgical Team model had to be extended somehow for really large projects and he made some recommendations in subsequent chapters.
That being said, the typical OSS model is actually not that far from the Surgical team model. In most successful OSS projects there is typically a small, intense core of developers, like Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox or the Apache Team who are responsible for the result with a large group of supporting teams who provide information (testing, patches, ideas) for their use. These people, like the Chief Surgeon in Mills' model, are responsible for design integrity and overall system cohesion. Perhaps the OSS model is just one way to extend the Surgical Team model.
The possibility in OSS of forking does not invalidate this Surgical Team analogy, it just extends it by pointing out that two "Surgical Teams" can, at any point in a software product's lifecycle, could go off in different directions to deliver two different products. This is something that usually doesn't happen in the corporate world due to the corporate fear of "competing with ourselves". This may be another advantage to the OSS methodology that typical corporate models can't take advantage of. With OSS, there can be healthy competition between two groups that have the same advantage of working with the same code base. In the corporate world, you typically have to completely reimplement a product to compete.
Re:open-source model (Score:2)
Very old rule of thumb. "If one programmer can do it in one year, two programmers can do it in two years."
Lousy statisticis do not a good article make (Score:2)
Businesses plan to increase their use of GNU/Linux. A Zona Research study found that more than half of the large enterprise respondents expected increases of up to 25% in the number of GNU/Linux users in their firm, while nearly 20% expected increases of more than 50%
This figure is absolutely meaningless on its own. The figure has only any meaning in the context of how much they expected other platforms/ the size of their business to grow. For example, if a user is not exclusively using a single particular platform, then these numbers on their own do not say anything relevant.
Lies, damned lies and statistics.
Re:Lousy statisticis do not a good article make (Score:2)
-Paul Komarek
In other words.... (Score:2)
Is this anything we didn't know before?
Not to mention, this article is old news. I remember reading this a while back. Is Cmd Taco getting amnesia? Because most stories about the superiority of GNU/Linux, I get as references from
Anyways, I love MS' section in their reasons on why to use Win2k that says "MS' license is better, and simpler".
LOL, yea right. The EULA, a more desireable license than the GPL? Laugh out fucking loud. One section from MS' page on why to use MS stuff says, "an Nvidia developer wrote drivers for GNU/Linux using some free code, w/c he didn't know was GPL'ed; then they had to redevelop, incurring extra costs." First, good for Nvidia, doing what's right. If they make something, and it -- either unintentionally or intentionally -- includes GPL'ed code, they have a moral and legal obligation to either not publish that, or re-write without the GPL'ed code. Second, notice how its MS that was whining, not Nvidia. No one forced Nvidia to re-write the drivers. They could've released them under the GPL.
*sigh*...It's called "preaching to the choir" (Score:1)
Anti-virus software cost should be included in TCO (Score:2, Insightful)
> Virus infection has been a major cost to users of Microsoft Windows. The LoveLetter virus alone is
> estimated to have cost $960 million in direct costs and $7.7 billion in lost productivity, and the
> anti-virus software industry sales total nearly $1 billion annually.
1) You don't pay for antivirus software for linux (what viruses ?)
2) You don't pay for your IT people to deploy it.
3) You don't pay support contracts for continuing updates.
4) And of course, you don't lose productivity due to downtime.
I'm not denying that linux *SERVERS* can be cracked, especially WU-ftpd (bleagh). But end users opening email does *NOT* cause the same problems as Outlook. We don't have major worries every time we open an email (Yes, there was a buffer overflow in an old version of Pine). Any distro that enabled backtick expansion and allowed auto-execution of email scripts would be laughed out the door. But Windows Scripting Host continues to exist.
Only up to the cost of the software sale... (Score:2, Interesting)
But how do we protect some dude who simply sent some code out into the open for free from a lawsuit for millions of dollars in damages because of a bug he made? Simple:
Software companies are only liable for the software up to the amount paid for the software. In other words, if I download RedHat v11.2 and a bug within Sendmail 17 gets my machine r00t3d and my data lost it's my fault.
But if I paid $759.95 for the Datacenter version of the same and am supposed to be getting support I'm damn well getting my money back.
This would at the same time promote free software and guarantee the quality of software we all pay for. Of course there have to be limitations, and other such things, such as necessary registration for locating you to publish fixes. If a customer is notified and sent the patch and still they don't apply it, I mean, at least there was a good effort on part of the company. That could be money off the final lawsuit, or something like that.
Just imagine - my company buys one box of RH and pays $70, therefore RH is only liable for RH. My company buys a site license for Windows for a million, and Microsoft is liable for a million. Talk about a nice incentive.
-Jack Ash
why. (Score:1)
i ask why not?
until preloads are discouraged... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:until preloads are discouraged... (Score:2)
-Paul Komarek
Because... (Score:1)
Market share is not a good indicator of quality (Score:2)
Open source = better, more secure (Score:1)
The "best" route for producing reliable, feature rich but unbloated software is to have one man (or a small group) produce it to a clear, well-designed, specification, have it thoroughly tested and have it marketed inline with its design.
The best model for doing that is probably the proprietary one but, in the absence of an altruistic corporation able to act as "benign dictator", open source is as good as it gets.
Demographics (Score:2, Interesting)
The demographics suggest MS will loose out in the long run (yah,yah...Keynes...in the long run we're all dead). World demographics support the development and use of OpenSource/FS and, perhaps sooner than later, OS/FS will hold the same advantage MS now has in file monopolies as per MS Office. Once that critical number of users has been reached the question of why pay for proprietory software will become a killing point. Mr. Gates envisions a world wherein all countries and their peoples will bootstrap into the american dream of a 'perfect' capitalist system, but it ain't gonna happen. I suspect what will happen is that proprietory software will have to sell security bigtime and generate closed communities of users who are willing to pay to know their online data has the best possible security and who knows what other highend goodies. The 'world domination' of OpenSource/FS is not a joke it's a demographic given but by then MS will probably have a lock on the big dollar accounts.
I don't think a lot of people get the article (Score:2, Insightful)
I think that's true, although fud is a strong term. It's OSS marketing, and marketing is ugly. I know most people here are tech types and don't have the stomach for it, but it's a necessary evil. This same type of resource has existed for commercial software vendor interest for years, and all we say is "well that's to be expected".
I was happy to see this page, and I hope more of this papers are written in the future.
Now when I go up against those guys who seem to have a Microsoft default answer to every IT question that comes up, I have some documents to show the boss.
We're not all techs. You can't argue to a suit using the same logic that would make you popular on slashdot. And I bet I'm not saying anything you haven't figured out yourself.
I think the more, well written, scientific papers that the OSS community produces on specific topics, then the better for adoption of OSS.
Microsoft and others have billion dollar marketing budgets, what does OSS have?
http://splint.org - write safer C code.
Duplicate (Score:2)
Re:Duplicate (Score:2)
Good thing for me that you guys don't read Linux Today then. I was able to download Mozilla 1.0RC1 at 150k/s several days ago, when it was announced on LT. I'm sure it'll be slashdotted sometime next week when someone gets around to telling slashdot about it.
Oops.. I just did.
This is the paper I gave to Congressman Boucher (Score:2)
Of course, like any good work of art, it's not done. There are a few things I wish he'd change. The top of my wish list is that he should just start calling it "open source" and be done with it. "OSS/FS" just is too confusing a term, and the abbreviation is almost as bad. Ys, I respect the concept of "Free Software" and the people who prefer that term, but "open source" sells the stuff much better. Next, I wish he'd break it up into separate pages instead of all one page. If the problem is that he wants a single printable page without having two texts to maintain, that could be worked out with a little Perl. David, if you're listening, I'll be happy to help out with that Perl.
This is'nt rocket science. (Score:2)
1. It's free. That's a no brainer
2. It's open, meaning people who are smarter and who have more time then me are improving it.
Great article (Score:2)
And best of all, the author is not even hesitant at recognizing that, in all reality, proprietary software very well may be going extinct, BUT that it doesn't mean the software industry is going to die with it.
Any of you tech industry folks, listen up: your bosses need to read this article ASAP.
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Open Source? More like Openly Racist (Score:1)
We should use free software because it uses JPEG image format.
Re:Open Source? More like Openly Racist (Score:1)
Re:Open Source? More like Openly Racist (Score:1)
Re:Open Source? More like Openly Racist (Score:1)
Congratulations on what may be the first post during the dreaded Slashdot Blackout [slashdot.org].
To answer your question, some of the people who were here a minute ago had no sense of humor, the Blackouters being self-important whiners that they are, but those who are here now generally do.
And, no, I don't think this is a good way to kick off "Quality Week", please moderate accordingly. I just couldn't help getting a jab in at their expense. Especially since they've sworn to not respond for at least a week! Heh!
Open Source? More like Openly Terrorist (Score:1, Informative)
I would like to bring to the attention of my fellow Slashdot readers some troubling news: Linux is being used by Al Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf, and other terrorist organizations with equally cool sounding names as an affordable and powerful tool for purposes of recruitment, passing coded messages regarding planned terrorist operations, and other insidious purposes. I will attempt to show some of the more obvious proofs I have discovered to back up my arguments.
I am sure I have only scratched the surface of this disturbing conspiracy. I strongly urge the Slashdot readership to support American companies such as Microsoft [microsoft.com] who only hire patriotic American citizens and to boycott any company which is involved with Linux (as they are directly supporting terrorists). I sincerely hope the CIA or FBI can look into the actions of open source developers. People like Linus Torvalds should be taken into custody and have all assets seized.
Act now before it is too late!
PLAGIARISM was Re:...Openly Homosexual (Score:2)
It turns out that its just this article [adequacy.org], with "heterosexual" subistituted for "black", and "NAMBLA" substituted for "Ku Klux Klan". This also explains why the acronyms as displayed in this plagiary don't work.
Re:the logic behind it (Score:1)
Holy shizzle, man, do you really think it matters to everyone whether companies are at "the top"? It's not all about profits :-)
Microsoft puts at least millions of dollars into their [web]servers and the plain reality of it is that their server product is technologically inferior (especially security wise) to another piece of software made by a bunch of hackers.
Re:A gripe (Score:2)