What's Wrong with the Open Source Community?

An anonymous reader writes "We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us says a Pogo-quoting James Turner, in trying to pinpoint "What's Wrong with the Open Source Community?" for LinuxWorld this morning. But he doesn't *just* say that it's we developers ourselves, he also has five hard-to-deny reasons, including 'Open source developers often scratch the same itch' and 'Open Source developers love a good feud.' He also suggests we often approach the whole issue of encouraging migration to Linux from Windows entirely wrongly." There's also a decent rebuttal with this story as well - worth reading.

just a guess....

[carpe_noctem]

showering, maybe?

What's Wrong with the Open Source Community?

[Pingular]

They're not being paid.

Using the words 'entirely wrongly' together

[Anonymous Coward]

is entirely wrong.

The worst thing about the open source community

[dereklam]

We slashdot each other's sites!

Re:just a guess....

[frodo from middle ea]

or the lack of , maybe ?

Open Source == Communism

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is high time for the community to get over its self-delusion of being "libertarian" and realize that it is, actually, authoritarian communist. Every successful open source project is run in a top-down authoritarian structure. There is no room for dissent (just watch this post get attacked) and alternative (and profitable) business models are attacked ceaselessly and characterized as "evil". You guys are re-living the soviet revolution, only entirely within the confines of the internet. I predict that the open source movement will be just as unsuccessful. Deal with it.

Re:Name-calling doesn't help

[no reason to be here]

They are a natural human reaction to perceived attacks on X, where X is something into which a great deal of time/work/hope has been invested.

It's not just X, either, but also emacs, KDE, Gnome...

Re:Much to learn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Under Kai-Shek everyone had purpose. It was a worker's utopia. Is it any wonder that Open Source has such large followings in left-leaning countries such as Canada, France, Germany and China?

Millions of identical coders typing all day. Without purpose we have stagnation.

941f78ac6c401ca3b2735ec9f992eb2a

I totally agree

[SimianOverlord]

These are exactly the reasons why I upgraded to Windows XP from my Debian distro. Wow! Look at these neat cerulean blue taskbars! I've never looked back.

Re:whats wrong with the open source community?

[praedor]

Isn't "fat" and "overweight" redundant? Also, I think you forgot "pasty skinned". So, dump either "fat" or "overweight" and replace it with "pasty skinned" and you have yourself a winner (or loser, depending on your point of view).

Re:Read the article - he has some points

[Issue9mm]

Offtopic as hell, but if it is my opinion that the sky is filled with invisible Skittle monsters that feed on Ozone and exhale oxygen, is that not wrong?

-9mm-

you say you want a revolution

[overbom]

But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow

Re:Don't bother with this article.

[jdkincad]

from the article IGnatius linked:

The front DVD-wise was even worse. The distribution I was playing with, like most, took the safe route and supplied a version of the Xine DVD player that doesn't include the DMCA-violating dvdcss libraries. This means that all it's good for is playing unencrypted DVDs, like the Bar Mitzvah video your uncle Charlie gave you, but definitely not "Charlie's Angels II."

Sign of a Troll #1,203: Critizing people for obeying the law.

Mao==RMS

[Anonymous Coward]

but Mao did shower more often.

Re:Name-calling doesn't help

[Per Abrahamsen]

It is quite possible for the open source community to be quite immature, yet still more mature than Ballmer, Jobs or Darl.

Re:Open Source == Communism

[An Onerous Coward]

Well, Anonymous Coward has spoken. The Revolution is over, Comrades. We have failed. Now it is time for us to move to Argentina, pirate some copies of Windows XP Professional, fire up Microsoft Word, and start writing our memoirs.

I for one am planning on taking my own life in shame. I fear that

You appear to be writing a suicide note. Would you like to:

• Search MSN.com for psychiatric help in your area?
• Use a suicide note template?
• Browse quotes by Emily Dickenson?
• Find great deals on sleeping pills and handguns?

Gaaah! No! It's too horrible! We must never give up! Never surrender! Viva la Revolucion! Viva la Tux!

What's Wrong with the Closed Source Community?

[sys49152]

1. Too many companies "scratch the same itch."

We hear that commercial software companies come up with new ideas because they "wanted to make some money." In other words, there was some need they had for a new application, and they "scratched" it by coming up with a tool. The problem is, it's not uncommon to end up with two or three (or more!) different packages doing the same thing. For a specific example, look at what's happened with the relational databases, where there are now several competing packages that have to be supported by each distribution.

2. Commercial software companies love a good feud.

Oracle vs Microsoft. Java vs .Net. HP-UX vs AIX. For every interesting commercial technology, there are two bitterly feuding camps that spend as much time taking potshots at each other as in improving their own products.

3. Commercial software companies often scratch the wrong itch.

The problem with commercial development is that the developers often aren't the consumers of their products, and thus don't feel the pain of their mistakes. The other problem with commercial software development is that they often don't fix problems or develop new features that aren't going to make them money.

4. In the commercial software community, you're either "with us or against us"

Attempts to point out flaws or places where there's room for improvement in an application usually lead directly to legal action. Attempts to contact the company directly lead to either unqulaified indivduals, fees, or, again, legal action. Direct comment from the companies if laded with fear, uncertainty, and doubt: "The GPL is a cancer." "Linux is stealing my IP." "Hey! No benchmarking."

5. The commercial software community has a huge chip on its shoulder...called Microsoft

Although Linux is also a popular a target lately too, the merest mention of MS is like a bull having a red cape waved before his eyes. All reason and sense of decorum flies out the window. And while I'm first in line to throw rotten tomatoes at Bill Gates, it's harmful to the community. The reality is that Microsoft owns the lion's share of the non-server OS market. If the first thing you tell all these people who own Windows is that they are idiots, you're not starting out on very good ground to convert them.

Re:Mao==RMS

[Anonymous Coward]

He even took his people for a swim.

Re:What's Wrong with the Open Source Community?

[griffjon]

s/p/l/

In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

George W. Bush declares the United States a 'one-party nation' after coming to the conclusion that the multi-party system just wasn't allowing the nation to reach its full potential.

Guess who?

[Dogtanian]

showering, maybe?

Yeah, here's a description of one particularly fanatical 'open-source supporter' (from PBS [pbs.org]).

"If he was busy he didn't bathe, he didn't change clothes. We were in New York and the demo that we had crashed the evening before the announcement, and Bill worked all night with some other engineers to fix it. Well it didn't occur to him to take ten minutes for a shower after that, it just didn't occur to him that that was important, and he badly needed a shower that day."

Please step forward, Mr.Gates. But not too close.

Re:What's Wrong with the Open Source Community?

[Dr. Photo]

s/p/l/

I'm sure your studly regexp skills are a hit with the ladies. You have no idea how embarrassing it is to accidentally grep for the wrong pattern on a first date...