> I guess there is no point to continue on past this point. On this,
> you are just wrong. The sad fact is, besides stirring up the media,
> ESR has not YET accomplished much of significance. His rhetoric may
> be convincing a netscape type company here and there to try and dabble
> with open source, but it has not ammounted to anything (YET) that
> makes linux better.
yu are 100% right..
> Getting talked about in the press does not make linux better.
> Getting commercial applications does not make linux better. Getting
> software we can use does. It is the products of RMS and the GNU
why can't we use commercial software? I do, all the time.. companies who
sell software to companies and give it away to people are helping the
community. They might not be doing as much as open-source, but they are
steering the computing world at least towards an era where the individual
will not have to pay $500 for an OS and an office suite. The idea behind
much of it is that businesses have large software budgets.. if they buy
commercial linux software, which is generally cheaper than the equivalent
on windows, they are paying for the rest of us to have software as well..
That's awesome.. Free beer ain't as good as freedom, but it beats
expensive water..
> philosophy, not ESR's open source push, that spurs on the heart of the
> Linux community and gives us usable systems. It is freedom that
> drives the movement. Sure, we might disagree about exactly how that
> freedom works and what it looks like. But, at the core is freedom.
I think you underestimate the open-source influence.. free software has
been around forever and was basically shoved off.. open-source brought
more attention to the community. The fact that attention was brough tot
the community has changed it a lot, if you deny that you haven't paid much
attention.. IBM is paying apache developers, Corel is paying wine
developers, Microsoft has a committee on linux, Barnes and Noble has a
section for Linux that is as big, if not bigger than several other
sections like unix, web development, C programming, etc.. Is life as a
linux user not different when you mention the word linux and it actually
sparks interest? If he contributed nothing more than a word, a term, he
contributed a lot because the world lives on buzz words..
> Again - I am not saying that the open source perspective is wrong.
> I think it is a good thing and I hope it revolutionizes the computer
> industry. In the future it may indeed be a great contribution, but as
> of yet it hasn't. To say it that so far it has contributed more (in
> any way) is dishonest.
>
that depends on how you look at it..
>
> BTW, I saw an interesting article linked to on slashdot today:
>
> Linux community vs. Linux Industry
> http://linuxtoday.com/stories/7361.html
>
I saw that article.. there are a couple mistakes in there, btw.. caldera
doesn't give back to the community.. not even their installer is
open-source.. I've spoken w/ several people at caldera and they are nice
folks but they have not taken as much of a community-oriented approach in
the past couple/few years as photodex has in the last couple of months :)
>
> I enjoyed the quote at the end. I'll attach it hear without further
> comment:
>
> * The choice is simple: remember to be who we are, or become the
> * very thing we struggle against.
>
great quote, and it is true.. but how can we win a struggle to replace
something that is nothing like us? You've got to realize that there are
good qualities in traditional software, there are good qualities (though
few) in microsoft software.. we should work on retaining the good
qualities while combining them with our own, and we have.. seen gnome or
kde lately?
howabout compupic :)
ok im done with this dammit.. I just saw the south park movie and i'm in a
good mood.. let's all just get along and be nerds together..
|--------------------------------------------------
| Justin Ryan
| Developer Relations Associate
| TurboLinux - http://www.turboliux.com/
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| WebMaster, PCHelp - http://computers.iwz.com
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