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Linux Foundation President Used MacOS For Presentation at Open Source Summit (itsfoss.com) 284

Posted by EditorDavid from the think-different dept.
Slashdot reader mschaffer writes:It appears that Jim Zemlin, President of the Linux Foundation, was using MacOS while declaring "2017 is officially the year of the Linux desktop!" at the Open Source Summit 2017. This was observed by several YouTube channels: Switched to Linux and The Lunduke Show. Finally it was reported by It's FOSS.

if, indeed, this is the year of desktop Linux, why oh why cannot people like Zemlin present a simple slide presentation -- let alone actually use a Linux distro for work.
A security developer at Google has now "spotted Jim Zemlin using Apple's macOS twice in last four years," according to the article, which complains the Foundation's admirable efforts on cloud/container technology has them neglecting Linux on the desktop.

Ironically, in March Zemlin told a cloud conference that organizations that "don't harvest the shared innovation" of open source "will fail."
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Linux Foundation President Used MacOS For Presentation at Open Source Summit More

Linux Foundation President Used MacOS For Presentation at Open Source Summit

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  • Presenter laptop (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17, 2017 @05:47PM (#55215677)

    When I present, usually my slides are loaded onto a conference laptop.

    • All that does is change the question to why a conference called the "Open Source Summit 2017" does not use Linux to present. I suspect the reason is that presentations are all about polish and while I love Open Source software the one (and perhaps only) thing that commercial software does seem to do better is polish.

      • Re:Doesn't Help Much (Score:4, Informative)

        by Harlequin80 ( 1671040 ) on Sunday September 17, 2017 @09:36PM (#55216501)

        Because the conference is operated by a 3rd party company. They made sure everything is working and the provide pre-tested equipment and setup. You don't setup your own systems at a conference hall.

        • Re:Doesn't Help Much (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Monday September 18, 2017 @12:38AM (#55216995)

          Because the conference is operated by a 3rd party company. They made sure everything is working and the provide pre-tested equipment and setup. You don't setup your own systems at a conference hall.

          You sure about that? I've gone to meetings with others with the sole intent of making certain that the presentation works. The first priority is that my specific laptop was used. And very often you do not want your slideshow ot be on someone elses computer period. You know - reasons.

          • TRWTF is using Apples presentation software. Sure, it works, but it's got nothing on PowerPoint or compatibles, such as Open/Libre/Whateveritisnow Office.

            It's like trying to crack a nut with a hammer. Sure, it'll get the job done, but you still should use a nutcracker.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            These days they often just provide an HDMI cable and you bring your own laptop. HDMI has video and audio, it can run for 10+ metres no problem. Bring your own laptop and, if required, dongle.

      • Re:Doesn't Help Much (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Monday September 18, 2017 @12:35AM (#55216991)

        All that does is change the question to why a conference called the "Open Source Summit 2017" does not use Linux to present. I suspect the reason is that presentations are all about polish and while I love Open Source software the one (and perhaps only) thing that commercial software does seem to do better is polish.

        I use MacOS, Linux, and Windows computers. I use any of them to present with. Makes no difference to me, and shouldn't make any difference to anyone else. He was using a UNIX computer which is quite similar to a Linux computer. Has it been confirmed that his computer is running the MacOS operating system? I have a nice old 27 inch Core2Duo iMack I have Linux installed on sitting beside me.

        Regardless, this is a really dumb thing to get excited about.

      • If you're running a conference and you want people to present on your computer, then macOS makes the most sense. It can happily be configured to display PowerPoint, Keynote, {Libre,Open}Office, Google Docs, or PDF presentations and can be tested with all of these in advance. Any other platform is going to lose at least one of these options and end up with cranky speakers sulking that they can't use their fancy animations. Of course, PowerPoint doesn't embed fonts by default anymore, so the PowerPoint sli

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stooo ( 2202012 )

      >> When I present, usually my slides are loaded onto a conference laptop.
      1) You shouldn't do that
      2) that Laptop was never an Apple one.

    • Same here. The slides are also uploaded somewhere afterwards for interested parties to look at.

      At the moment, I do the presentation in Libre Office, then export it to PDF. So no fancy effects, but looks OK and is portable to whatever your computer runs.

      Then again, I'm not a Linux evangelist.

  • Obligatory Nelson Muntz quote (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Sunday September 17, 2017 @05:48PM (#55215679)

    Ha ha!

  • ...not as I do. Horrible! As someone who ran a presentation to Intel execs back in 2003 using OO running under Linux on an Itanium, I call Bullshit(TM) on anyone who says "Oh - nothing else measures up to Powerpoint!".

    • Apathy, lack of caring about political posture - not willing to eat his own dog food.

      People in positions like that should be more sensitive to appearances, I'm sure in his mind it's not a big deal, which is why his mind should be in another line of work.

    • ...not as I do. Horrible! As someone who ran a presentation to Intel execs back in 2003 using OO running under Linux on an Itanium, I call Bullshit(TM) on anyone who says "Oh - nothing else measures up to Powerpoint!".

      True. There are many options for making boring presentations full of useless eye candy...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Was that an itanium laptop? I'd love to hear more about your running a presentation off a laptop running a server chip.

    • "Oh - nothing else measures up to Powerpoint!"

      There are many software packages from Microsoft that are irreplaceable. Powerpoint is not one of them. If anything it is pretty damn close to the bottom of the pile in terms of capability.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jeremyp ( 130771 )

      Your assessment of Powerpoint and Open Office is based on one use-case from 14 years ago that didn't involve Powerpoint?

      I say BS to that.

  • Dogfood (Score:4, Insightful)

    by NaCh0 ( 6124 ) on Sunday September 17, 2017 @06:09PM (#55215769) Homepage

    Do you want to know the best way for an executive to give an out of touch presentation?

    Don't use your own product.

    What this guy does isn't a huge deal, but if he had personal trouble with the linux desktop, perhaps he or most likely one of the developers under his influence would scratch that itch for all of us. Leadership is a tough thing when you don't live by example.

    • Back in the late 90s I was working with a bunch of guys who were promoting a new product idea that ran on Palm Pilots - it took a while to convince them that they really should own, carry and use Palm Pilots themselves if they wanted to make the most effective pitches to the VCs. They finally did, and just after they did they hooked up with a VC that gave them actual funding.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jwymanm ( 627857 )
      Awesome post. I'm hoping this guy, if even knows how to use Linux Desktops or if he is just a hired figurehead that has connections, might consider it after this press. "As the Executive Director of The Linux Foundation since its inception, Zemlin has had a hand in every major decision in the history of the foundation and its projects." - wikipedia - This right here alone is even more reason for him to use Linux only (or at least mostly).
  • If true, this story would be disappointing, because of the hypocrisy if for no other reason. I've searched for articles or photographic proof of the claim but not found any yet... There are images of the presentation up and running, but the display shows an all-screen slide and it isn't possible to definitively identify the operating software.

    The only reason I ask [and I don't have an opinion on the claim one way or the other] is because I'm aware of several friends of mine who run both Windows and Linux

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lucm ( 889690 )

      If true, this story would be disappointing, because of the hypocrisy if for no other reason. I've searched for articles or photographic proof of the claim but not found any yet...

      None of the two Youtube links offer proof. They both manage to talk about it for 18 minutes, repeating over and over what is basically already in the title of their videos, and one of them is mentioning the other. But no evidence is offered.

      Not only that, but in both videos they assume the guy doesn't use Linux at all, based on the alleged fact that he did a presentation using an iPad.

      I guess we'll never know if it's true because now the the focus is not on facts anymore, every source will just start quotin

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      The "It's FOSS" link [itsfoss.com] has a tweet claiming he was spotted creating the presentation slides on a MacOS laptop.

  • The same Reason Many of us Greybeards use MACs (Score:3, Interesting)

    by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Sunday September 17, 2017 @06:26PM (#55215855)

    My FOSS days started in 1995 with FreeBSD, and then in 1996 with Linux (Slackware Unleashed, I forget the Version) in the University, then I was a firm proponent on the server side... I've been hearing about the linux desktop for a loooong time...

    But, that was 22 years ago. Nowadays, in a production desktop, I have some requirements, which are quite different from the requirements on a Phone, or a Kiosk, or a retail point, or a computer for Kids/Schools:

    * I want the power of an OpenSource Unix (Darwin) under the Hood, wrapped in a slick GUI (sadly, propiertary) that makes my workflow Easier and does not change all of the sudden (BTW, Ubuntians, how's the Transition from MIR/Unity to Wayland GNOME going?).

    * Also, is nice if the Hardware in which that software resides is well built, and all the drivers play nice (granted, thanks to things like Dell's project MIR, this is easier nowadays with Linux too). I have stuff to do. Playing decetvive with drivers and libraries was entertaining in 2002 (last time I did that). Nowadays, not so much, quite the contrary, very, very frustrating!!!

    * Also, I want commonly used productivity Software available, no matter if it is FOSS or Closed. The dektop/laptop is a TOOL for Production, I want to use the most suitable tools to do my work. For instance, when I was teaching at the university, I did Everything using LibreOffice (for MAC). When I started doing technical training for Telco OpenStack Cloud (Huawei's Flavour) and Hadoop/Spark/Storm (Nokia's CEMoD 16), I pretty much had to use Office. otherwise, the powerpoints would loose all formatting, and it would take ages to fix that (and no one paid me to fix it), Macros in the Excel report sheets would be borked. Also, many iLO/IPIMI/Javascript crap would not work on Linux... You get the drift.

    * But, from time to time I have to unwind. I want the available games in steam for my machine to cont in the Thousands, not in the hundreds...

    * Speaking of telco clouds: What do you think those clouds used? If you guessed KVM, Redhat, CentOS, SuSE, Apache, Puppet, MariaDB, Postgres, yarn, etc, you are right, come collect your prize. The requirements for servers are different than from desktop, which in turn are different from cellphones, which in turn are different from kids/school computers, which in turn are different from ... you get the idea!!!

    Now, these are the reasons why he did it. Having said that, the irony does not escape me that, he being a top dog in a linux company, he should "Eat his own dog food". Even microsoft eats their own dog food.

    But, this being The Linux Foundation, and not The GNU/Linux foundation, or the FOSS foundation: how much of FOSS is "his own dog food". Certainly the linux kernel is. But neither X-free86 nor Wayland seems to be part of his dog food. Nor are KDE/GNOME/Enligthment/all other window environments out there. Is Pulseaudio/ALSA part of his dog food? What about security practices like demanding the root PW for changing the timezone or adding a printer from school? So, If the guy used a MAC with OSX instead of linux, can you blame him? perhaps a little bit, yes. If he also used PowerPoint or Keynote instead of LibreOffice, can you blame him? In my oppinion, no way!!!!

    Do not believe me, well, perhaps this guy who was using a macbook on 2012 (with linux), that does not like GNOME 3 and maybe, just maybe, knows a thing or two about linux (certainly he knows more about linux than me and you), can enlighten you all, even more than I can, on why some people preffer MACs to Linux and WinPCs. Please read his rant on the link...

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/l... [zdnet.com]

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Billly Gates ( 198444 )

      Apple should be the last platform [youtu.be]a tech user should use. It seems the only reason people use it is because people hate Microsoft.

      • Re:The same Reason Many of us Greybeards use MACs (Score:4, Interesting)

        by rcase5 ( 3781471 ) on Sunday September 17, 2017 @08:53PM (#55216375)

        When I started my web development and hosting business 15 years ago, I decided to go with Linux for my servers and MacOS for my business-related desktop. There were a few reasons for this decision, but here are the most important:
        1. MacOS plays well with Linux. MacOS natively speaks the same protocols that Linux does, most importantly ssh.
        2. I needed the ability to run commercial software that was not readily available on Linux, such as Quickbooks.
        3. I can't STAND Windows! Windows had me cussing and swearing up a storm for a while before I started the business, and I saw absolutely no reason to subject myself to that nonsense, especially since MacOS would cover many the holes I needed covered from a commercial software standpoint (see points 1 & 2).

        That was then. Nowadays, I find myself in agreement with Rick Beato. Apple hardware is increasingly becoming more about form over function. At least Apple hardware used to be about both; it looked good, but it also functioned well with at least some degree of serviceability and compatibility down the road (for their computers, anyway). Plus, I'm really finding that I don't need to rely on commercial software as much as I used to, and everything I need I can run on Linux. So I am currently using the last set of Apple computers I will probably ever buy. The next systems I buy for the business will be just like the systems I buy for me personally; the desktop will be something I assemble myself, and the notebook will be something well-built but relatively inexpensive that I will promptly see a Linux distro installed over what will likely be a Windows 10 pre-install.

        But to say that Apple is the last platform a tech user should use is completely wrong, especially if you deal with the Linux world on a regular basis. I would say MacOS is essential if you're a tech user that needs some compatibility with commercial software but also works in the Linux world, and is FAR superior to Windows in that context.

        • Re:The same Reason Many of us Greybeards use MACs (Score:4, Interesting)

          by demonlapin ( 527802 ) on Sunday September 17, 2017 @09:57PM (#55216549) Homepage Journal
          Well, there's also WAF. My last Windows machine was fantastic for the time, and I had a great 27" monitor. But my office is in the formal part of a formal house, and she didn't want a bunch of cables. So I bought an iMac when it was starting to age, and frankly, I'm perfectly happy with it. Unix CLI, decent GUI, and it can even run Windows in a pinch. I bought a Mac for the looks. And it does look a hell of a lot better than most of the other stuff out there, even Dell's all-in-ones, at basically no price premium.

          Performance is more important than aesthetics when you're talking servers, but for a desktop? I'm not crunching numbers. I'm mostly surfing, and the Mac looks better and doesn't really cost much more (if any) than a comparably-capable Windows machine. I do miss my two-monitor setup, but that's a separate issue (the Mac can do it, I just don't; gave my old big monitor to a guy with macular degeneration so he could actually read things).

          • Performance is more important than aesthetics when you're talking servers, but for a desktop?

            What a strange thing to say. I would say in terms of the home you are an absolute edge case. Desktop aesthetics matter for the receptionist at that flashy office where your customer will see the back of the monitor before anything else. It matters if your office is the formal part of the house. .... What kind of house is that by the way, a studio apartment?

            Most computers are not in the formal part of the house, and most towers even if they are can be safely hidden away under a desk leaving only a monitor an

            • It's the kind of house where the real estate agent would call it a "study" or "library" rather than an office, but it's where my computer sits, and there's no room under the desk for a tower, because my desk is an antique built for the pre-typing era. My wife's office is mich more practical.

        • Wake me up when the LS command can show hidden files and folders without crazy hacks that go away after you restart the terminal program. Does Apple have a native package installer? How about init? Inet last I looked had a program called netinfo that rewritten everything in a gui which violates the spirit of Unix.

          All MacOSX is is a dumbed down GUI on top of a Mac kernel. It is not Unix like in spirit more than SystemD is. Infact, Apple was the first to make it fashionable to ban init. Solaris and now Linux

          • I know some people can run mysql under MacOSX but is it easy to install? With Windows I have visual studio community edition for free. Is the XCode free?

            Here's where you went off the rails. Using MAMP, Mysql is trivially easy to install on MacOS -- easier than on any other platform, I'd say. And yes, XCode is free and always has been.

            The fact that those 2 things were your main supporting arguments against using Macs tells us a lot about your MacOS "expertise".

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • You're a FreeBSD guy, not a Linux guy. Of course you are biased to Apple. Doesn't change the fact that Zemlin is completely tone-deaf. Well, silver lining here: it's high time his incompetence became widely known. Time to put this poseur out to pasture.

    • Re:The same Reason Many of us Greybeards use MACs (Score:4, Insightful)

      by loonycyborg ( 1262242 ) on Sunday September 17, 2017 @07:42PM (#55216145)
      Software quality on Macs had sharply declined and you aren't in any better position than a windows or linux user anymore wrt stability and bugginess. So the only remaining reason to use anything Apple now is to show your social status.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Given the content said he was promoting Linux on the desktop, the Linux desktop with all the wonderful features you listed is most definitely his dog food.

  • Sigh. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Sunday September 17, 2017 @06:48PM (#55215955) Homepage

    Eat your own dog food.

    If you can't, then you have no faith in your own products.

    To be honest, Linux Foundation was always just some-off, not-affecting-me group anyway. I never quite get what they do, or where the money comes from or goes to.

    But you can't say "Linux does/doesn't work on the desktop" until you've done it yourself.

    P.S. Yes, I've done it. Exclusively. For 8+ years. While managing Windows networks for a living. It's perfectly viable, and in many ways better.

    Nowadays, though, I virtualise everything so it barely matters what the core-OS is and can work in Linux or Windows depending on what I'm doing.

    For sure, if I was working for something called the Linux Foundation, myself and EVERYONE under me would be using Linux. Unless I literally had used it and had deemed it inadequate myself, in which case there's be bigger problems than what my people were using to get their work done.

  • Saying 2017 is "officially the year of Linux desktop" is pure bullshit anyways, so he could be using a Surface Studio for all I care.
    Linux dominates a whole ton of categories, including servers and supercomputers, but let's cut the bullshit right there.
    Linux doesn't even have the same marketshare Windows 8.1 has, which has the same marketshare of Windows XP.
    Windows 10 has like over double of both put together, and Windows 7 almost double of Windows 10.
    That's how distant Linux is. Mac OS has a bigger market

  • Uh... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Lunix Nutcase ( 1092239 ) on Sunday September 17, 2017 @07:15PM (#55216047)

    Ironically, in March Zemlin told a cloud conference that organizations that "don't harvest the shared innovation" of open source "will fail."

    What's ironic? macOS does "harvest" open source code. Tons of it. [apple.com]

  • Jim Zemlin is a well-known idiot who is more tolerated by the community than respected. He is found of boasting about how he "writes Linus's paycheck". In reality, Jim Zemlin is just a random no-talent enjoying a free ride by being at the right place at the right time.

  • Simple OpenOffice and Libre Officer are just not nearly as good as Microsoft Office. I use Linux every day for work but I also have a Windows PC just for Office and Skype for Business, Google Docs, OpenOffice, and Libre Office are just not as good as Microsoft Office. Until it is it people will use OS/X and Windows.

  • So you've got nice and open Linux, then you've got relatively locked down but still pretty freedom-oriented Windows. Then a million miles away in a different dimension and outside the observable universe you've got Apple as a company and all their garbage products by extension. But you guys know how Apple fanboys are. They're stuck in 2004 when owning Apple products made you better than everyone else and everyone was so jealous of your ability to spend money you don't have.

  • Sounds like the Linux Foundation is in need of a new President.

  • Despite its name the Linux Foundation has no direct relationship to Linux. It's yet another open source foundation, like Apache and Eclipse, and is very business-friendly and business-oriented. Indeed most of its projects have open source licenses other than GPL.

    Which isn't to say that using a Mac in this case isn't ironic. But what's more ironic is the Linux Foundation's name.

  • Strictly speaking a laptop isn't a desktop computer.

    Not having kept in touch, how is linux battery and sleep management these days?

  • Maybe because... (Score:3)

    by ogdenk ( 712300 ) on Monday September 18, 2017 @04:29AM (#55217505)

    Maybe because didn't have time to replace the dumpster fire known as GNOME3 or KDE with a real desktop environment that is usable with less than 32GB of RAM on his recent Linux or BSD install?

    I am only half joking. My recent forays back to using *NIX on the desktop left me wanting to take a drill to my frontal lobe. GNOME and modern KDE are almost utterly unusable. MATE w/Compton wasn't so bad, XFCE was ok but the two flagships that are installed by default in most distressed are utterly disgusting resource hogs that seem less functional than Windows 3.1 out of the box but use 1000x the resources. If those clusterfucks are where desktop Linux/BSD are heading then what's the point? They aren't even efficient to use.

    X-Windows used to be awesome, what the hell happened?! I'm actually thinking of just finding a decent standalone file manager and going back to WindowMaker at this point. The GNOME project has even managed to make their text editor UI suck.... that's pretty hard to do. Stop letting 20-yr-old kids who want their PC to operate like their phone rewrite perfectly good software.

    Rant over.

  • Out of the four computers I use on a regular basis, three of them are on Ubuntu 17.04 Desktop and the other runs BlackArch, it's not the year of the Linux Desktop, Linux is the Desktop OS for everyone.
  • Is it even possible to say "The Year of the Linux Desktop" non-sarcastically any more? It's like saying nuclear fusion is five years away. It's been said for so long nobody could possibly take the phrase seriously anymore. Maybe the title of the presentation was intended to be a joke, with the punch line that it's being presented from a Mac?

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