Very Computer

All those press stories about Linux. It is Linux everywhere. Isn't it
truly incredible that an OS started by one guy should become the
biggest thing in SW today. The biggest thing in my SW career spanning
over 25 years.

How can this be? Linus was the catalyst. He fired the imagination of
thousands. Not just the kernel. He inspired people to write SW that
is available for all. It used to be like this before MS entered the
scene. People used to share SW. Decus anyone? GNU? There has always
been free quality SW. MS all but killed it.

The Internet was born based on OSS. It is to this day based on OSS.
Bind, sendmail/postifx/..., inn, apache, ...

From the smallest embedded systems to the most powerfull clusters,
Linux is there. IBM are going to develop the most powerful
supercomputer ever. More powerfull than the top 500 supercomputers
combined today. What OS are they going to use? Linux.

The corporate desktop is the big growth area for Linux now. The apps
are there. Some free some commercial. Does that matter? No. What matters
is that the tools are there. We have choice.

Not to forget MS. What a week for them. Slammer showed just how easy
it is to bring the Internet to its knees. It also brought MS's intranet
to its knees for a whole weekend. So much for trustworthy computing.

What I find remarkable about slammer is that an exploit in a DB server
should cause so much havoc. My job is IP security, Internet and
Intranet. We weren't affected by slammer, other than it overloading
the Internet. What slammer showed is that many companies use MSSQL yet
don't protect their DB servers from the Internet. This is typical of
MS's attitude to security, until recently. Why should admins care if
MS don't?

GNU/Linux got famous and popular *because* Microsoft killed all the
competitors.  It probably would have anyway, but in a far longer
timespan.

Quote:> The Internet was born based on OSS. It is to this day based on OSS.
> Bind, sendmail/postifx/..., inn, apache, ...

All software is born free.  If it has the bad luck to be born to
a proprietary software development house, it will shortly be enslaved.
If it has the good luck to be born to a free software writer, it will
get a real chance to realize it full potential and live as long as it
is of value to its users.

Quote:> Not to forget MS. What a week for them. Slammer showed just how easy
> it is to bring the Internet to its knees. It also brought MS's intranet
> to its knees for a whole weekend. So much for trustworthy computing.

I'd like to paraphrase Gates at this point: All Microsoft is done in
the field of trustworthy computing is attaching a label "Trustworthy"
to its products.

--

Q:      How many Zen masters does it take to*in a light bulb?
A:      None.  The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out
        of the way.

Quote:> All software is born free.  If it has the bad luck to be born to
> a proprietary software development house, it will shortly be enslaved.
> If it has the good luck to be born to a free software writer, it will
> get a real chance to realize it full potential and live as long as it
> is of value to its users.

Because of course, making money from writing software is EVIL.

But hey, you're living in an ivory tower of academia. What would you
know of the real world?

Simon

That's a strawman.

--

"The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as
we could with both of them."
                -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"

You sure can point us to the section in the GPL where such nonsense is
stated, right?
--
No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be
someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe
it happened according to his own pet theory.

Not even the most rabid Free Software guerilla(me) says such things,
Simon.  You and I are both software developers.  I assume that's your
preferred form of wage earning, as it is mine.  If a company doesn't
have to spend money on software licenses, they have more money to give
to you and me.

--
Billy O'Connor
Editor, Beyond Linux From Scratch   http://beyond.linuxfromscratch.org
"Free software never simply picks up its marbles and goes home."
      - Jonathan Corbet, LWN

Are you certain?

I always thought it was "if a company doesn't have to spend money on
software licenses, they have more money to give to their investors".

Simon

You're the one describing proprietary software as that which is
"enslaved". If you don't like people using emotionally loaded terms
regarding software development, then don't do it yourself.

Simon

Emotionally loaded terms is one thing.
Misrepresenting another's position is wholly another.

The part I object is not "EVIL".  It's "making money from writing
software" in that sentence.

--

A bachelor is an unaltared male.

I don't think there's anything wrong with writing free software and
charging for it - or, for that matter, getting paid to write in-house
software which is subsequently released as free software.

The gotcha is that "free software" can also mean "free of encumbering
licenses" rather than simply "zero cost".  What prevents me writing, say,
a killer news client, charging $20 a pop, but licensing it under the GPL?