Posted on 06/19/2005 6:41:20 AM PDT by Willie Green
NEW YORK - Theo de Raadt is a pioneer of the open source software movement and a huge proponent of free software. But he is no fan of the open source Linux operating system.
"It's terrible," De Raadt says. "Everyone is using it, and they don't realize how bad it is. And the Linux people will just stick with it and add to it rather than stepping back and saying, 'This is garbage and we should fix it.'"
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Linux is still a technical tool. With all the command line apps, config files, research on the web that is necessary, patches and hacks, there is no way Grandma or the average person is going to easily use Linux.
Windows XP, on the other hand, has proven itself as a user-friendly system. Millions of people have it and use it daily. NO command line apps and parameters to remember. No config files to configure exactly right. No internet research on how to do all that is necessary. Patches are a few simple clicks away, and with Automatic Updates, no clicks at all.
DU's are, in the words of Peggy Noonan, overeducated to the point they have lost all common sense. The other RATS are either too dumb to think on their own or living off those people are the only way they know how to make a living (includes DU's)
Operating System discussions are much like that. Either the arguments are so precise as to be irrelavent or they use a dumb operating system because they do not know better.
Use Common Sense and be practical in all we do and say.
De Raadt makes a rival open source operating system called OpenBSD. Unlike Linux, which is a clone of Unix, OpenBSD is based on an actual Unix variant called Berkeley Software Distribution. BSD powers two of the best operating systems in the world--Solaris from Sun Microsystems (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people ) and OS X from Apple Computer (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ).
Actually, SunOS through 4.1.x and Solaris 1.x are BSD based. Solaris 2.x and onwards are AT&T Unix System V based.
That's what I want to see - a BSD vs. Linux flame war. I'm seek of these MS vs. Linux flame wars
seek == sick
"seek == sick"
Been around Indians too long, eh? (haha)
Yea, i used to hate seeing those ms vs linux flame wars. I remember when i visited colleges and went to see their cs departments the people there would go ranting and raving against microsoft moreso than they were propping up linux. Kind of reminds me of the Anybody But Bush campaign, they ranted and raved about how much they hated bush but didnt really prop up kerry.
Theo de Raadt has been a notorious prima donna with an attitude problem in the Unix world for many years. He not only engages in petty intra-Unix quarrels, but "his" OpenBSD stemmed from when he split it from FreeBSD because he most certainly didn't play nice with others. He likes to cause problems and strife.
probably on a mac with OSX - oh wait that **Linux** (free BSD at it's core)
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BSD is most decidedly *not* Linux. At the end of the day, they accomplish the same things. They get there in totally different ways, though.
At the kernel level, MacOSX shares nothing in common with either one of them. It comes from a totally different school of thought.
I'm seek of these MS vs. Linux flame wars
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And we don't need no steeeenking badges either! ;)
As for the kissing girls comment in the article, I think dateless weekends are common in both camps.
The Forbes writer, much like this writer from Business Week, is concerned about the Linux GPL license written by rabid anti-American Richard Stallman (stallman.org). The BSD license is much more business friendly, and allows others to use that code without lawyers swooping down and attempting to confiscate your work.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2004/tc20040813_1107_tc120.htm
A Big Fly in the Open-Source Soup
Linux is burdened with too much intellectual-property uncertainty for many companies to embrace and develop it further
The open-source movement has had a remarkable run of success that has seen software such as the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server emerge as major challenges to Microsoft (MSFT ). However, the movement is now facing a crisis. At its heart is a question that has been around from the very beginning: How does software owned by everyone and by no one survive in a world where copyrights and patents shape the legal landscape? The question is being forced on a number of fronts, and if open source is to play an important role in software's future, the issue will have to be dealt with decisively.
Linux, the most important piece of free, open-source software, began as the effort by a Finnish college student, Linus Torvalds, to create the functional equivalent of the Unix operating system, developed and then owned by AT&T. Intellectual-property questions about Linux came to the forefront after the SCO Group (SCOX ), which acquired the Unix trademarks, launched a series of lawsuits against alleged infringers of its rights.
POTENTIAL INFRINGEMENTS. The central case, a 2003 suit against IBM (IBM ), an important corporate promoter of Linux, has degenerated into a messy contract dispute with no intellectual-property issues left on the table. SCO's threats to sue companies that use Linux have almost entirely evaporated.
But now another problem has surfaced. Open Source Risk Management, a new outfit that indemnifies its customers against infringement claims, found in a review of Linux code that the operating system potentially infringes on 283 patents. Although IBM declared it would make no effort to enforce its 60 patents involved, some are held by Linux foes, including 27 by Microsoft.
The potential patent infringements pose no immediate threat to Linux. Such disputes typically take years to resolve, and courts rarely issue injunctions against alleged infringers. But the uncertainty is taking a toll. In the most significant response to date, the city government in Munich, Germany, has suspended a massive transition of desktop computers from Microsoft Windows to Linux, pending clarification of the patent situation (see BW Online, 8/9/04, "Will Legal Fears Freeze the Penguin?").
"ETHICAL POLLUTION"? Most patent disputes are settled with licensing agreements, but this is a tough course for Linux to follow. With no single owner, the closest thing it has to a central authority is the Open Source Development Lab -- but the organization has no way to pass any licensing fees on to users. Perhaps the best approach would be if major Linux distributors, such as Red Hat (RHAT ) and Novell (NOVL ), and companies for whom Linux is strategically important, such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ), could set up a fund to deal with potential patent issues.
But open-source proponents also have to get their own intellectual-property house in order. The development of open-source software is increasingly dominated by corporate interests that, one way or another, want to use Linux, Apache, and other open-source products to make money.
But a slew of backers see open-source software as part of a social and political movement that's frankly anti-corporate. Richard M. Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and a man who commands enormous respect among software developers, argues in the essay Why Software Should Not Have Owners: "The system of owners of software encourages software owners to produce something -- but not what society really needs. And it causes intangible ethical pollution that affects us all."
MURKY MODEL. That view doesn't get a very sympathetic hearing at, say, IBM headquarters. But Stallman's thinking suffuses the GNU General Public License (GPL), a document that governs the distribution of Linux and many other open-source programs. The GPL not only requires that any programs licensed under it be freely distributed but also that any modifications made to the software, or any other software derived from it, are themselves automatically covered by the GPL.
Unfortunately, the GPL is hardly a model of clarity, and few disputes involving it have gotten to court, so case law has done little to clarify its meaning. This is causing reservations as more and more companies consider using GPL-covered software to develop either commercial programs or software for their own use. Apple (AAPL ), for example, rejected Linux as the basis of Mac OS X in favor of another open-source, Unix-like operating system called FreeBSD, largely because the licensing terms were less restrictive.
What exactly constitutes a "derivative work" automatically covered by the GPL? "The truth is we don't really know, and there are reasonable arguments on both sides," Jay Michaelson, co-founder of software company Wasabi Systems and a lawyer and a programmer, wrote in the May issue of the Association for Computing Machinery's journal Queue. "Some people argue that the GPL as a whole isn't even enforceable.... At the end of the day, the unfortunate reality is that developers should check with the companies' legal departments before proceeding with any GPL-related development because the requirements may vary on a case-by-case basis."
RELIGIOUS FERVOR. Bright as it is, the future of commercial open source might be considerably brighter if Linux and other programs went to a more commerce-friendly license with fewer complexities and ambiguities than the GPL. There's plenty of precedent. The BSD license, the Mozilla Foundation license used for browsers, and the Apache license all provide for free distribution of code and source code with fewer restrictions than the GPL.
That would be tremendously controversial in the open-source community, where the GPL sometimes seems more like an object of religious veneration than a legal document, but it would be good for all concerned.
What do you think of the Suse distro? Was it easy to install, did it detect your hardware?
Suse is the one from Novell isn't it? I've been thinking of trying it, but they don't have the time bombed one that I could find to download like they had a while ago.
If they do, I'd appreciate a link.
Thanks for clarifying that.
I would expect one of my coders to figure out if it really belonged there or not before moving it to production.
That's because Novell is losing more money every quarter on their Linux adventure. According to CEO Jack Messman they may have to reconsider the whole thing.
Mark
What killed Beta was that you couldn't record an entire movie on it. VHS would let you and won out.
bump
Then what, sales of Netware are almost non-existent. Last dog and pony show I was at from Novell said they had enough money on hand to last several years at their current burn rate. This was in 2000 when people were asking if they were even going to be in business much longer. Notice their long term plans never mentioned something like actually selling a product. I ended up laughing in their faces.
I thought you were Mr. buy American? You want Novell to go out of business because they sell Linux?
BTW, they do most of their software development in India. Just try and use the latest version of Zenworks. By some miracle they might have fixed it but I'm not too hopeful.
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