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OSS and Linux coming through 27

Posted by CmdrTaco from the we're-practically-mainstream dept.
Roxus sent us a nice little article in the Melbourne Age extolling the Virtues of OSS. It's a nice little article. Nothing remarkably insightful or new, but further proof of what we already know.
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OSS and Linux coming through More

OSS and Linux coming through

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  • Enough with the feel-good contentless Linux articles already!

    It's not news, and hasn't been for MONTHS!

    It seems like every day there are at least one or two fluff stories about Linux showing up on Slashdot. I am soooo tired of seeing these articles on Slashdot! WHO CARES if Lancastershire World Weekly News Special Sunday Edition or *whoever* does an article about how great Linux is and how interesting this cool new "open source" stuff is. IT'S NOT NEWS AND IT IS NOT STUFF THAT MATTERS!
  • Yeah, I'm sure that in 1985 *everyone* had their hardware-accelerated 3d stuff working... Besides, DOS is older than 1985, and based on work that was older still.

    Just as DOS (or CP/M) is the basis for what is today Windows, UNIX is the basis for Linux.
    (they weren't *finished* in 1960, you freak...)
  • What's a "Lintel" box? Nobody who actually *uses* Linux names their system after a part of a door.
  • I wonder why Slashdot wastes so much space (and time) informing us of articles about Linux. For one thing, not everyone here uses Linux. Secondly, there are other websites DEVOTED to the task of monitoring the press' coverage of Linux and other OS (like Linux Weekly News) - so this stuff is redundant. Third, it's pointless, because it's not really news at all - why should we care of some magazine in some way-off part of the world writes an article about Linux? That sort of thing happens all the time.

    --
    Timur "too sexy for my code" Tabi, timur@tabi.org, http://www.tabi.org
  • Conventional wisdom suggests you carefully guard your source code

    Why do people always tend to lose sight of what is "conventional"? "Guarding" source is a recent trend, started in the late 70s; computers are here because before that it was "conventional" to share. Copyrights are here since the Renaissance when the press was invented; arts are only here because, before that, it was "conventional" to share. And I fail to see any "wisdom" in not sharing... is there? Why are people's heads so fscked up? Yes, I'm starting to believe in the results of the IQ poll. Perhaps we are here because we think, we are able to see what for us seems obvious but for "them" seems to be a wonder. Go figure.

  • My statistics has gotten rusty, but in cases like this, where there's a natural boundary to growth, you get what looks like exponential growth initially, but at some point the *rate* of growth slows (Example: an epidemic can only go so far before growth slows, 'cuz at some point it's killed almost everyone, so there's a dwindling number of people left to infect). This is not a bad thing at all for Linux! What we'll see is continued amazing growth, then at some point it'll simply slow down a tad. I'll have to brush off the stat textbook, but it's something like after you hit 30% coverage the rate of growth starts to ease up just a bit. So Linux will leap to 30 market share quickly, 50% in good order, and then getting to 80% will take quite a bit longer.
  • I have a long term goal. If I'm still in my
    current job (sysadmin for a university department)
    in 20 years, I'll have moved everyone to free
    software.

    I figure it will take that long.

    Danny.

  • "Lintel"? (Score:1)

    by acb ( 2797 )
    Probably the same people who in days of yore referred to BSD as "Berklix". (See the Jargon File.)
  • As far as I can tell, "OSS" was first used in the Microsoft Halloween documents to refer to Open Source. It happens that "OSS" is trademarked by someone else (see OSS.com). It would be nice if we could just refer to it as Open Source and not abbreviate.

    Bruce Perens

  • It's because people like having their ego stroked. If you're not interested in having yours stroked, here's a relatively simple solution: Don't read the posting or the linked article.

    One would think such a simple solution would be obvious to most any sentient being.
    *shrug* Human stupidity knows no bounds...

    Many people actually *like* the fact that their hard work is starting to get some press coverage. Some of them don't care. Those that whine about links to such coverage apear to be idiots.

    good day.
    scottwimer
  • (One possible twist in this - if networked games like Quake really take off, and Linux really runs these games over the Net faster because of better TCP/IP, then you could see that market really drive Linux. Just a thought...)

    I'm not sure if Linux really does have faster TCP/IP any more. I've heard that Microsoft is incorporating networking code from FreeBSD into Windows, which should make it about as fast as Linux.

    Can anyone confirm or deny this?

  • Given the general MS brainwashing of the public that exists now, is it any surprise that Linux is taking the server market by storm, while the desktop is lagging? It's the people who's jobs depend on maintainability and stability who are not afraid to look for alternatives. They recognize that a system coming down means an angry mob of users banging on your door with tar and feathers.

    Face it, if you're sitting in front of a single user PC, doing email, Web surfing and running games, what do you care if your system crashes once in a while??? Linux will eventually make its way into that market, but not for a while.

    • First come the back room servers.
    • Then the workstations (people sitting all day long at desks doing design, CAD, high powered IT).
    • Last (but not least) Joe Schmoe running games at home.
    (One possible twist in this - if networked games like Quake really take off, and Linux really runs these games over the Net faster because of better TCP/IP, then you could see that market really drive Linux. Just a thought...)

  • Hey, actually, I think most ppl, including me cares if the computer crashes from time to time.

    True enough, but I'm willing to bet you're the exception rather than the rule. Most people get upset when their game crashes (or their letter to Grandma is lost, or their latest checkbook updates get scrogged), but how many get upset enough to abandon their comfortable MS "womb"?

    Don't get me wrong - home users will come in time, but it's going to take a while.

  • nah, Linux is not like everything else, Linux is cool enough that it *will* sustain an exponential rate, until every electron in the universe is running it!
  • Hm, I compiled the sucker and it wouldn't mount any partition off my 1g HD (my root partition). Caveat emptor.
  • This is the not the first story extolling Open Source by the same Australian journalist in the same newspaper that has been cited by Slashdot. I only noticed because I know him, but how many other stories are being regurgitated in this fashion - and more to the point - why is there a continual tide of stories about them in Slashdot?

    Perhaps Slashdot could create a sidebar devoted to keeping an eye out on OSS/Linux/whatever publicity and just list the latest URLs instead of making them stories...

  • Exponential growth is not sustainable. Eventually it will have to plateau out. The article predicts outstripping all Microsoft OSs in about four years. After that point, there will be relatively few people to assimilate, and the curve will start to flatten.

    This gives us one to two years to develop the "killer" desktop, one that beats the Mac (a much better environment than Windoze, all stability issues aside). Linuxconf has come a long way, but needs more polishing, and COAS sounds promising. System configuration is probably still the area where the most improvement can be made. (I'm still getting a good feel for the new linuxconf that comes with RedHat 5.2, as I usually do my system configuration stuff with vi...) Will GNOME 2.0 (or KDE 3.0) be it?

    Linux itself is rock-solid. We just need to make it a little more accessible for the clue-impaired. That, and help out the Wine developers, cut off Microsoft at the knees...
  • Well, they seem to have missed one thing: saying that free software (or open source software; they don't really distinguish) comes under the GPL is a bit blunt. Let's not forget that the GPL puts restrictions on what you can do with the code. GPL is open source for sure, but free...?

    --B
  • The adoptation of new technology follows an S curve, as described by Harry S. Dent, Jr. in "The Roaring 2000s". According to his model, at about the 10% level, the curve really takes off... which by my calculations, should happen this year.

    That being said, I still find it difficult to beleive that millions of people that struggled for years to learn the Windows interface will be willing to learn another new interface -- regardless of how superiour it is! The M$ experience has trained everybody to beleive that new releases are always buggy, documentation is always poor, new software is frustrating and difficult to learn, and support is either non-existant or prohibitively expensive. They will apply these lessons learned to Linux, and will shy away from anything new, prefering the evil they know to the "evil" they are unfamiliar with.

    This seems to be a principle that all us geeks and early adopters have trouble grasping -- not everybody in the world thinks the way we do!
  • One of them is patience, untill it becomes THE business model.

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