Linux Foundation Makes Open Source Boring 87
superapecommando noted an essay by Glyn Moody where he writes "In the early days of free software, the struggle was just to get companies to try this new and rather unconventional approach, without worrying too much about how that happened. That typically meant programs entering by the back door, surreptitiously installed by in-house engineers who understood the virtues of the stuff — and that it was easier to ask for forgiveness after the event than for permission before.
[The Linux Foundation tries] to take all the fun out of free software. They are about removing the quirkiness and the riskiness that has characterized free software in business for the last decade and a half, and seek to replace it with nice, safe systems that senior management will instantly fall in love with. In a word, they seek to make open source boring for the enterprise. That's not only good news for companies, it's a really important step for the Linux Foundation."
So? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the story?
If Zero down time is boring... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bad headline and summary (Score:5, Insightful)
So, basically, this is the same story that everyone else is running about the Linux Foundation releasing a set of tools to help companies check GPL compliance, but with a confrontational headline and summary?
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not just that, managers want something even a monkey can configure and maintain. Ease of use, or as TFA puts it 'boring' is good in my opinion. It's not coincidence that Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro, it's easy to use and lot of times, it just works.
Re:If Zero down time is boring... (Score:2, Insightful)
Reminds me of the old joke:
"There's an ancient BSD curse - 'May your computer run an interesting operating system.'"
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If Zero down time is boring... (Score:4, Insightful)
However a really good one is busy improving their systems to make them run faster/better and more efficient as well implementing new features to help the company grow, and not wasting their time fixing problems that really don't need to happen.
Working as an admin myself, I can tell this is just a manager's dream. The way IT runs, we are plumbers... nobody expects you mucking around in their production sinks unless something is leaking. Matter of fact, we are staffed in ratios such that you never have much time to improve efficiency. If you have any time at all, management will either promote you to train others AND do admin stuff, or they will stick more of their own projects under your belt.
When you give your all as a great admin, you're shunned for unduly raising standards for lazy admins. Managers and coworkers remind you to "keep problems buried to stay employed re-fixing them," and even clients say that "IT at this company is useless and already too slow, so why do you need to waste 3 hours countering the next meltdown when you said one lesser fix can have our system patched up to run in 1?"
So we all, or most, want to do good and clean things up, like any "great" doctor would. But there are doctors that love it when they can avoid operating and instead enslave you under certain medicines you for life, as approved by them while their bills get paid.
Re:Now it is dangerous (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not true, only the code directly utilizing the GPL'd library needs to be open-sourced.
So as long as your 1TB project keeps the portions that need the GPL'd code sanctioned off (in another binary, or a compiled library similar to Windows DLLs) from the rest of your code, you don't need to open source the whole shebang.
Now, if you include code that includes GPL code, you're absolutely right. But you'd have to be an idiot not to be able to find a way around that, and if the GPL code is so critical that it must be included, and you cannot re-write it yourself, then perhaps you shouldn't be complaining about GPL'ing the whole thing, given the amount if time/effort the GPL library is obviously saving you.
GPL only acts as a virus if you're stupid. If it's a 1kb GPL library, you should be able to include it in a way that does not violate the GPL nor force you to GPL the rest of your code. If you can't, then re-write the damn library on your own. If you can't, I can't imagine how you ever managed to get 1TB of code in the first place.
OP "linux geeks" type give OSS a bad name (Score:4, Insightful)
People like you - the idiots who like pushing shit through the back door and apparently like "quirkiness and the riskiness" of immature, poorly maintained, undocumented projects. Seriously: fuck you.
You are the reason that Open Source has taken such a long time to adapt. I know of several IT contracting firms which will not touch Linux or Open Source in general because they have seen entirely too many instances of people like you and their work: technologically headstrong geek installs an Open Source product/project in an esoteric, convoluted fashion and didn't document the process (potentially only so he could fix it). He does his best to put as much customization and inter-dependence into the system(s) as possible. Then he moves on to do something else, and the customer is left holding the bag.
I suspect you and my predecessor would get along just fine. He enjoyed fucking people over, too.
Guess what? Most people would much rather be "bored" at work than have to fuck with something that broke because it was poorly conceived, and face the wrath of managers and users. THat's what the Linux Foundation (and those PFYs that fall in love with their recommendations/solid products) does for us: lets us sleep at night.
There is a time and a place for "tinkering" and non-turnkey solutions - and it's called a lab. If you don't have one, you need one. It will save you time and money in the long run - it's the first step towards standardization and reduction of costs. It is very unprofessional (and foolish) to roll an untested product out to production without thorough initial testing - anyone who calls themselves an IT administrator or engineer and does otherwise is a fool.
Any administrator worth his salt hates sketchy nonsense. This is why we don't run early release software and other such nonsense.
It's different if you're in an "IT company" making something new, but yeah, as a general rule, sketch is bad.