08.02
It’s the freedom that counts, not the free, if you have ever listened to a FOSS advocate. Yet the FOSS movement is still obsessed with taking out Microsoft despite their ‘crimes’ being relatively trivial by today’s standards and largely all in the past anyhow. Outside the arena of your desktop OS and office package that few today actually really need they are almost irrelevant. Switch to Mac or even Linux if you fancy it and you can have nothing more to do with MS. Easy. Mission accomplished surely?
It’s almost cult like. My theory is the tech crowd that dominates the FOSS ecosystem consists largely of people that want to be seen as being knowledgeable, rather than actually knowledgeable. The ‘hate Microsoft lol MS Bob’ routine has been handed down from pretender to pretender with the original person who made up their own mind on the subject long since gone. It’s easy to do, gets you geek cred and you really don’t have to worry about accuracy as nobody is really going to be against you. You end up with all of the vitriol but none of the understanding or context. They completely fail to understand who is being evil now as they simply lack the ability to form an idea for themselves.
Just look at how the GPL has been subverted by the client-server model. You are never technically in possession of the software – only the output – so it is apparently exempt from any distribution clauses your license may have. BSD, GPL, doesn’t matter – you can’t get the code. The only one that apparently solves this issue is the AGPL and nobody ever seems to use it. The valued ‘freedoms’ are almost entirely gone with the client-server approach. Want the code to the modifications I have made on this site? Tough. As an end user you still have no rights to the code nor the modifications made. Yet there seems to be little to no attention made to this fact despite the large focus on ‘freedom’. Surely putting two computers in a box with a VNC setup is enough to defeat the GPL entirely given these circumstances? It’s certainly massively against the spirit of the thing but is this ever even discussed? Or is it just GPL, praise, praise, when the actual license is irrelevant?
Ubisoft are obsessed with always-on DRM for single player games (it requires a constant net connection to play) and everyone who knows about it is rightfully outraged – after all how long will these servers be up? However the same goes for Google Apps and other thin-client software. People, largely FOSS advocates, are cheering from the sidelines as they trade a non-free chunk of binary code that they can store locally and use forever for a web based version which they require net access to use, may be discontinued at any time and keeps all documents on a computer you have zero control over.
Sure webapps/mobile/newtech may kill Microsoft, which seems to be the cause of the cheering, but the replacement is an order of magnitude worse. But how are you meant to try to look clever on Slashdot if you have to actually understand technology, history and context?
If I’m correct the AGPL was originally created to close a perceived application service provider *loophole* in the original GPL.
Quote from Wikipedia’s APGL article:
Each version differs from the version of the GNU GPL on which it is based in having an additional provision addressing use of software over a computer network. The additional provision requires that the complete source code be made available to any network user of the AGPL-licensed work, typically a Web application.
You see, the AGPL asks you to distribute the source code to the users of the program — admins, visitors et cetera.
You’re right that virtually nothing uses the AGPL, and the only software I know of so far that uses it are stet and possibly Co-ment, both of them online commenting packages.
If AGPL will fix the problem in the third article — I am not sure of.
Have a nice day,
-reactosguy
If AGPL will fix the problem in the third article — I am not sure of.
This should be:
If AGPL will fix the problem in the third paragraph — I am not sure of.
testing
threaded comments?
woot!
Yep.
“the FOSS ecosystem consists largely of people that want to be seen as being knowledgeable, rather than actually knowledgeable”
Exactly. “Look everyone, I’m not using a GUI, just a terminal with green text on a black background, and I’m dressed in all black. I’m a hacker just like The Matrix. None of you can touch my skillz.”
Funny thing is the only thing they know how to do on those 1337 terminals is cd + ls + .
They need to have a desktop environment running so they can show the rotating cube with fish inside. Usability™
After the last + there should be “copy paste”
-rm `rf is also possible.
Those “1337″ butthurt kiddies may just do SQL injection.
> The ‘hate Microsoft lol MS Bob’ routine has been handed down from pretender to pretender with the original person who made up their own mind on the subject long since gone.
Better yet it’s not only about Microsoft bashing. It’s about everything. Inherently secure, stable, portable to thousands of different processor architectures, you name it
FiveMonkeysInACage™
I’ve had discussions with FOSS advocates that seem to be stuck in either 1993 (MS Bob) or 1999 (Windows ME). They refuse to acknowledge anything MS has done since, as you say, having the hatred passed down from older FOSS advocates. They bash MS and Apple products they’ve never even run, much less used on a daily basis.
And it’s really sad that these people are the “Face of FOSS” to so many, because there truly are some FOSS applications that are worthwhile and useful. I don’t dislike FOSS, I dislike the posers that support it. They talk of open source as if they have a single clue as to how to read it. It’s just “kewl” and “leet” to hate MS.
I’ve watched linux grow since 2001 and the fundamental causes that the Free Software Foundation was created in the first place no longer need apply.
Windows 8 was forced into recognizing HTML 5 is threat to their existence so they incorporated it into their future so they don’t loose market share from the hundreds of thousands of apps in the Google Android Market & Apple iTunes Market.
The source code for HTML 5 and JavaScript is distributed to the web browser which acts like a run-time, interprets and executes the code.
The only advocation of FOSS in present day is to stop Linux from growing by forcing everyone to give away their hundreds of thousands of hours of labor for free,
100,000 lines of code takes quite a bit of time. FOSS / GPL is like forcing Asian children to give up their investment of time for the day for 15 Cents to buy a bowl of rice for dinner.
Oh dear oh dear, how come you hate FOSS enough to have a blog about it?
I have used Linux for most of my work the last 10-15 years and I am a very happy user. If you are a happy Windows user that’s good for you but I will probably never go back to using Windows. And I will never rely on “The Cloud” as long as there are hard disks available.
And finally, the FOSS advocates I know almost never say anything about Microsoft.
Because it *could* be great. What do you want? “Man, this bit of user-developed software sucks, I am going to stay quiet and go proprietary”?
The reason nobody uses Linux is that it sucks, and when anyone says it sucks people like you appear and entirely fail to differentiate between hate and criticism. The reason it sucks is that the community is largely filled with white knights with the few pragmatists getting kicked out for the insolence of not declaring it perfect.
And before you say it sub-1% with no growth curve for years is the definition of low user base. So make your mind up, either accept it’s niche and that nobody uses it and get your FOSS advocate friends to shut the hell up, or accept it could be better in which case it is your duty to discuss problems you have with it.
Your call.
@Kerberos
Sorry, but the tone here gave me the impression it was about hate.
OK, you think Linux sucks. Fine, no problem, use something else but don’t get upset if some of us like it. I don’t care if you use Mac or Windows or even CP/M.
Of course it’s niche if the user base is so small. The user base of Ferrari or Trabant is also very small so they are obviously also niche products. Sucks? Maybe.
Why do you think I should get my friends to shut up? In my part of the world we think free speech is important for progress in the society. Maybe not in your part of the world?
The term ‘FOSS advocate’, that you used, means they advocate FOSS. The problem is that pretty much all tech forums are full of such advocates who do nothing but promote Linux and insult the competition (and it’s users), yet when someone comes out saying ‘I tried it, I understand it and I find it lacking’ then the old ‘use something else but don’t get upset if some of us like it’ card is played.
“Why do you think I should get my friends to shut up? In my part of the world we think free speech is important for progress in the society. “
Telling someone to shut up is free speech. Until someone tries to actually suppress their speech then your argument is a straw-man. If you indulge in promotion and marketing then you pretty much have to deal with the unhappy customers. It’s that simple and if you don’t like it then stop promoting it.
I used “FOSS advocate” only because Ferd Burfel used it.
Where did I promote FOSS?
I don’t care if you use Mac or Windows or WhatEver. It’s your problem. If you eat at McDonald’s it’s also your problem. If you start using Linux it could become my problem.
Well considering that the Linux advocates outnumber the critics at least 100-1 then why do you have a beef with me? This blog is a response to the massive amount of promotion Linux gets just about everywhere and exists largely for me to vent about being constantly up against it. It’s not even like I am doing what the bulk of the advocates do and litter the internet with pro-FOSS FUD (see any article on any tech blog that uses the words ‘Windows’ or ‘Microsoft’).
I am sure your advocate friends don’t advocate, but they are entirely irrelevant to the discussion.
I don’t have a beef with you, poor boy, outnumbered 100 to 1. Maybe your opinion is a niche-opinion in the same way that my OS is a niche-OS.
Have a nice day, even if you don’t understand the beauty of FOSS
)
YouJustDontUnderstand(tm) & LeaveLinuxAlone(tm)
iDiot (TM)
The anger you feel towards me is largely the result of cognitive dissonance. Ask yourself why you get so upset when someone talks badly of what is simply just lines of code. There is no logical reason for it. Possibly then Google the definition of ‘groupthink’. It’s quite a read.
On the contrary, I’m amused by this conversation. I have followed some links on your site and found a completely new world. I didn’t know there were so many bitter Windows users out there.
Maybe you’re right about the world being full of Linux evangelists, I just haven’t noticed. If you think FOSS is crap, fine, I still like the idea and the result. If you want to live with the restrictions (licenses etc) of proprietary software, fine, some people like US cars, some people believe in God, there are all kind of people.
It always gets turned into an us vs them these discussions. My only contact with Windows these days is a headless home server I have, and an XP machine at work I remote into if I need to do something windowsy. I use a mac as my main work machine and have and manage three CentOS servers (primary, backup and testing/storage). I’ve used Firefox since it was Phoenix. I am the probably the least attached to any particular vendor, license or platform out of anyone I know.
The suckyness of FOSS is entirely unrelated to the license or the movement, it’s not like it inherently sucks. It’s just that the FOSS community takes it personally when anyone says anything critical. To be honest it’s largely the newbies who have never written a line of code in their life (as a developer I love criticism) but they make up the vocal majority of the community so what can you do?
The general reason the ‘Linux hater’ community is so hostile is that we’ve tried (and failed) at being civil, usually while being called morons, shills and trolls. When you get called a moron shill for suggesting a bootsplash (instead of the scrolling debug info) it becomes hard to keep things civil.
Consider that W7 had Linux usage share beaten before RTM. That tells you that there is a significant portion of people who are capable of downloading and installing a pre-release OS yet for some reason don’t use Linux. What are the stats for people who have tried and dismissed Linux vs the people who actually use it now? And does nobody care?
The ultimate anti-freetard site.
http://penguinday.wordpress.com/
My favorite:
http://penguinday.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/the-eternal-five-years/
Apparently Linux was bad 5 years ago, and it’s always been bad 5 years ago, even in 1998.
“But seriously now: What really astounds me, is that the pattern is so consistent in Linuxia. Every prediction that is put forth by Linux advocates today was predicted before, with exactly the same arguments, exactly the same phrases and even with exactly the same time frame! It’s scary. Linux predictions and reviews of distributions are like mathematical axioms.
It’s like all these people are from exactly the same town, and visited all the same school. Reading today’s Ubuntu reviews is an unsettling experience. I’ve read them all years and years ago, everything is exactly the same, except the distro name.”
As I said before, I don’t get upset by people criticising FOSS. I just wonder why some people care about what OS other people use. As long as I am free to use Linux I don’t care if other people want to use something else.
Sometimes I have to use Windows because of some requirement from a customer, and I don’t like it. But that’s me. The woman I used to live with for almost a quarter of a century refused to use anything but Mac. So what, I couldn’t understand why she thought it superior, but that’s maybe because I’m stupid. I don’t know. But I know I never liked OSX.
I think the reason W7 was such a success was that very few people liked Vista, and some even paid to downgrade to XP.
No I still don’t care what OS you use as long as enough people use Linux to ensure continued development.
Finally my “user profile”: I write embedded software. My PC is nothing but a tool. I almost never write programs for it. I don’t care what OS is used, I care about the tools I can run on it. And I really care about the trouble with dongles and licenses. And the GNU tools are among the best in the world. Thank you RMS for the GPL.
Finally finally, I really really love multiple desktops even if you hate them.
I don’t hate multiple desktops – I even use them – I simply do not think they should be a default paradigm in a DE as they add a layer of complexity which is unnecessary for the majority of the population. That was my point.
Essentially Linux wants the mainstream appeal yet continues to target the niche expert with the expectation that users will turn into experts. Besides nobody here has tried to get you to stop using Linux and I don’t think you can even infer that from any of my posts yet I get told ‘Use Gimp, it’s better’ at least once a week.
You can get multiple desktops on windows (there’s an actual free Microsoft download + tons of other apps for it) and it’s available by default on Mac OSX.
We don’t care that if you use Linux either, what we do care about is this:
http://www.sizlopedia.com/2008/03/29/10-reasons-why-linux-ubuntu-is-better-than-windows/
All of which are bullshit:
1. Viruses don’t affect windows much nowadays either, if they mean malware, then there have already been quite a few for linux. Linux uses the same retarded “Executable code in the installer” + “Installation needs root permission” idea from microsoft, the only things keeping it “safe” are the pathetically low desktop marketshare (linux servers are constantly getting hacked) and the repository system.
2. Yeah, because common users love editing code. I heard they really enjoy “make, make install”, specially when they have to do it to have updated software on their system.
3. Yeah, because users love using the terminal, see above. They are gonna learn whether they like it or not if they want their wireless working that’s for sure. Linux also teaches you patience, considering it likes to break every 6 months, or out of nowwhere, or it updates once every ten years only, depending on your distro.
4. Also available on windows, usually the better versions. Firefox on wine runs (or ran) better than the native linux version. Pathetic.
5. I though it was going to teach the user how to use the terminal? Now it’s easy? Which one is it? Those are mutually exclusive. GUIs are explorable while terminals require studying, making them not “easy to use”. Constantly breaking what the user is used to (KDE4, Gnome 3, Unity) isn’t making things easy either. Having to fix shit every time there’s an upgrade isn’t easy either. Much less when stuff gets renamed for no apparent reason and old guides no longer apply.
6. “Ubuntu Community Help”, yeah, you’re gonna need it. With Windows, most people have friends that can help fix their computer when they have a problem, or a quick google search will usually get the job done. No need to register on a fucking forum. Similar forums are available for windows too.
7. Because fish inside a cube and fire following the mouse cursor totally improve usability. Microsoft invented the damn wobbly windows effect but gave up on it because it was useless, usually animation is supposed to convey WHAT THE SYSTEM IS DOING so the user can better understand and learn what is going on.
You can also make your windows desktop look like a freaking First Person Shooter, making points like this meaningless. There’s a reason people don’t.
8. Easy as in everything is going to break, and don’t you dare bring up WorksForMe™. So tired of hearing that shit, if WorksForMe™ didn’t exist I probably would never have come to the “Linux hating” community.
9. People seem to forget that just like in Linux, you can replace the windows shell.
http://www.sharpenviro.com/wp/.
Also http://www.wincustomize.com/, this site has WindowsBlinds themes, which isn’t free. But you can use standard UXThemes too, the “software and registry hacks” part is total bullshit since all you need to run is a simple 1 button tool to get everything working.
10. You can also get Live editions of windows.
Funny how:
1. Free as in doesn’t cost any money
and
2. No need to worry about licenses
Aren’t mentioned which are the only real advantages.
How about 10 reasons why Windows is better than ubuntu?
1. The software you need to work runs on it without a damn compatibility layer that only works 10% the time.
2. The software you used to work with 10 years ago still works.
3. If a company wrote a driver for a piece of hardware you need that’s no longer supported, it might still work, because Microsoft actually believes in StableABINonsense™.
4. In case it doesn’t, it’s easy to get old versions of windows that it’s known to work with. No need to figure out what magical combination of kernel + libc is needed.
5. Unless you jerked around with stuff like sharp enviro, your desktop is probably very similar to any other windows user, meaning another person with windows can help you because they know where shit is. This is different from the Linux ideal of “freedom of choice” where there’s 40 different broken DE’s, all of which are supported by 500 different distros, making that kind of help hard to find. Also add random breaks between small updates.
6. Nearly every software available for linux is available for windows too, and it’s usually the better version.
7. For developers, you get a real development environment that actually helps you get shit done fast, unlike shit like autoconf you’ll no doubt have to deal with in loon land.
8. You don’t to worry about what computer you’re going to buy, windows works on it. It’s probably already installed there! Your wifi will work too.
9. Help usually revolves around “Use this tool to fix your problem” instead of “Run this incomprehensible bash script”. I’ve seen quite a few “sudo rm -rf /” in those scripts. The user can remember the tool, they can’t remember the script. That script will also break after an update. Awesome.
10. It works.
Live and let live?
For every action, there’s a reaction. With all the bullshit about linux being spread around blog’s like this were inevitable.
Just so we’re on the same page, I use linux.
I have a Desktop with Windows 7, a MacBook Pro with Mac OSX 10.6, and I used to have an 8gb pen with Mint I used to carry around. The reason it was in a pen and not a partition was that I used to have ubuntu, and when it upgraded to grub 2 my system no longer booted (thank god I had a windows repair DVD).
The reason I don’t have the pen anymore is that it broke, I will buy a bigger one soon and I’ll likely put linux on it again.
I wouldn’t “hate” linux if I didn’t have to work with it. You think I don’t want a free os that gives me everything I need?
For something to become good criticism must be listened too. That’s something you don’t see in open source projects, or only rarely. That’s a big problem. And when you have people claiming “EverythingsPerfectYouMicrosoftShill™” it pisses me off.
“And the GNU tools are among the best in the world.”
Oh god, please, you can’t be serious.
Why not? Better tools?
@Janne
Have you guys ever seen Visual Studio …. there is a reason why a lot of devs love it.
Yup, I have seen it. I know a lot of people love it. I don’t.
Emacs + make + gcc + gdb = bliss!
Sorry, that’s the way I am…
Well, then you probably don’t used any better tools.
All of which are available on windows
.
Why are your trying to treat this like Proprietary vs FOSS? It’s not. Most people here use FOSS software everyday and has nothing against it.
It’s the community that bugs everyone when you say one bad thing about a FOSS software like Linux or how you wish that Linux did something that Windows could do.
” And the GNU tools are among the best in the world.”
Though that’s your opinion, I like other tools that I use for my job.
“My theory is the tech crowd that dominates the FOSS ecosystem consists largely of people that want to be seen as being knowledgeable, rather than actually knowledgeable.”
Yeah, it’s all about feeling superior. Freetards always try to tell you how Linux is for computer literate people while only the dumb masses use windows.
This is rather ironic given how they always state problems with windows that were either solved a long time ago (like DLL hell) or have problems with windows, that no other users seem to experience (constant BSOD’s). All while being totally unable to troubleshoot these issues. Event viewer? windbg? whats that? Well … JustGoogleIt. They completely fail to understand windows from a technical stand point.
Hell, they even don’t know two shits about their own OS either seeing as they constantly spew around garbage like linux is inherently secure or ext does not fragment. They also constantly blame software and hardware companies for not supporting their OS while totally fail to understand the technical difficulties involved in shipping proprietary software on Linux.
Or further the lie that linux is a developers OS. gcc, gdb, make, autoconf? Yeah, i totally want to develop my software with tools from the 80s on a system with constant regressions and breakage that make it a support nightmare. It’s not a developers OS, it’s a toy.
But yeah, totally advance computer users there. People who use linux are probably users who are generally interested in computer stuff, but that does not really mean they are technically literate. It’s really only about feeling special.
But it must be my imagination because LinuxTeachesYouComputerScience.
I’ll never forget they day an ubuntu update broke those dell laptops that came with ubuntu preinstalled. That was the day any remaining doubt I had in my mind that linux could ever become a success on the desktop went away.
And then there’s stuff like:
“Why would anyone choose Windows over Linux?…In my seriously biased opinion, I think this question is answered with a simple conspiracy theory: Microsoft is doing everything it can to keep the public blind to Linux. Think about it? Remember the whole Wintel conspiracy where MS and Intel played off of each other to continue their strangle-hold monopoly in the PC industry? That era played a huge part in the blinding of consumers. Top that with the business practices MS forces upon big box shops to insure [sic] their operating system is sold on nearly every PC sold and you can see that conspiracy is more of a reality than one might think” – Jack Wallen
It’s scary really. It could never be because linux is a piece of shit…
The whole driver breakage was depressingly inevitable. Seriously, why on earth is a stable ABI shunned and it considered a ‘good idea’ to compile drivers for every bit of hardware under the sun into the kernel? The mind boggles.
ConspiracyTheory(tm)
Indeed, but I can totally understand why a stable ABI is shunned. Linux is Linus’ toy, he doesn’t want to be restricted in any way with it, and he wants it to remain opensource (so drivers, which are part of a monolith kernel, must be opensource too).
This makes the system totally unusable for the desktop, on the server it doesn’t really matter since you won’t have a graphics card or wifi there. The problem is that freetards (and even Linus) can’t see that. They truly believe it can (and will) work out, all they need is to make it prettier, since besides that one issue, it’s perfect.
Alternatives are just as bad though.
PCBSD (which originally understood the importance of a single DE), is now moving to multiple desktops. The PBI system was never properly done. It’s a linux distro with less drivers.
Haiku dev’s are trying to teach users that Spatial Mode (folder’s opening on new windows by default) is better, and refuse to change it.
It’s like they live in another world.
ConspiracyTheory(tm)
“It’s like they live in another world.”
A better world?
I really don’t think a world where we use file managers with spatial mode to be better. Nor do I think a world where a product suddenly throws away one of it’s few key features away is better either.
It’s not like PCBSD didn’t allow you to install other desktops, it did, the difference was that they clearly stated “KDE is the standard”, allowing developers to not have to worry about other environments. Now they give you over 10 choices during the installer. It’s a Linux distro now.
Haiku also lets you switch to browser mode, the problem is that it’s not the default (as it should be), and it doesn’t have a “Open in a new window” option (AFAIK) while using browser mode. This is because they think people that want multiple windows should be using spatial mode. It just leaves a really bad impression on anyone that tries it by working like a 1995 OS.
Haiku dev’s are trying to teach users that Spatial Mode (folder’s opening on new windows by default) is better, and refuse to change it.
Warty had that – I believe I was called an idiot shill troll at the time for saying how annoying it was.
Lol @ this comment on the haiku blog:
“[QUOTE: Maybe we just need to explain how to efficiently use this mode, and why we think it's better.]
Am I really seeing OS developers that are trying to teach users how to use their OS?”
It applies to modern linux DE’s so well…
Yes, it was a royal pain in the ass. But possible to disable. If you could find out how.
I think it was a Gnome idea, available in Red Hat as well.
I love the irony of someone writing a reactionary “You disliked something enough to write about it?” Is this like algebra where complaining about the complainers makes a positive number?
LOL. As an embedded dev, I wouldn’t want to run Linux, nor can I.
It’s basically:
GCC only (Linux) which often sucks or doesn’t support tons of common MCUs (or existing codebases)
vs
GCC + Imagecraft + Keil + IAR and plenty of others (Windows). The best tools, and all of the tools. It all works. Same for all the JTAG/ICE tools and what not. Everything embedded related (including Altium Designer and many CAD apps) works on Windows, whereas on Linux 95% of my work simply can’t be done.
Sorry to hear that you are in such a painful situation.
I agree that when it comes to PCB CAD the situation with Linux is, well, not very good. Fortunately I very seldom do PCB CAD anymore. When I have to do that I run PADS under XP.
One problem with all those proprietary environments are that they are incompatible. And what codebase? Maybe your existing codebase.
If you work with ARM processors you either buy RVDS from ARM or use GCC and friends. If you work with some oddball processor I assume you have to buy IAR.
@ Janne
Linux Users often believe in the fundamental causes of FOSS & the GPL, but those who read it and develop realize the Nazi like restrictions placed on any ownership of the code.
No one own’s the code written, X11 for example is 100k lines, Wayland is simplifying, but as long as companies like Autodesk and Adobe are forced to Open Source their core libraries and lose ownership of them because it’s a GPL built system – they forfeit their existence.
Canonical is trying to experiment with the Ubuntu Software Center to attract commercial interest, but like it’s been explained before users don’t realize that the FOSS & GPL don’t want anyone to be able to sell computer programs.
For those of us dedicating our work lives to Computer Science, it’s very logical why companies refuse to develop Drivers & Apps for Linux.
I saw a post on this site a while ago, and Ubuntu and Canonical really only has a chance on Tablets right now which is dominated by Android (an OS in existence for only several years.)
Moving to Ubuntu from Windows 7 resulted in the near loss of 1.5 TB of work files since 2002. I setup a MDADM RAID 1 Mirror on EXT 4 and nearly lost everything. Even on a commercial OS, this prospect would be considered inacceptable. Could you Imagine a Government Tax office loosing 200 million users data because of a EXT 3/4 instability.
I would like to see the uniting of Linux programs, but the only way that’s possible is the TheEndOfBinary(tm), TheEndOfTheGPL(tm) and RuntimeLanguageTakeover(tm) – All of the freedoms FOSS advocates suchas the modification of source for personal use like you buy a car – SOLVED.
Same guy again. Nah, it’s anything but a painful situation. Linux would be a painful situation. Windows runs all the best software you can wish for, and it all works a million times better than what Linux has to offer. What else could I ask for?
We do work with a bunch of different MCUs, and they’re fairly popular ones — definitely not what you’d call “oddball”. There is more than ARM out there. And yes, incompatible codebases as in “code our company and partner companies have written over the last 10 to 15 years”.
The only place where we use ARM is for custom WinCE devices, so once more GCC is not an option. BTW Keil MDK-ARM another great option for ARM devices.
Fair enough, I use GNU tools whenever I can, you use whatever tools you like.
Have a nice weekend!
And GNU tools have what, again, to do with Linux? As I remember, your original argument was that you use Linux by preference.
It’s beyond me how Linux can help you with a PIC processor. Or indeed with a VxWorks system. Or basically most of the known embedded system universe. Linux really isn’t much cop beyond i86 … although I suppose you can always use it for cross-compilation, possibly even for emulation. (Although the last time I saw PIC, it existed in a Windows emulation environment.)
It isn’t really much of an argument at all, is it? If you’re targeting an embedded system, you use whatever development environment you have available. It hardly matters what it is — you rarely have enough choice to be worth spit.
So, I’m suggesting that an argument from embedded systems is barely relevant on either side of this supposed divide: it’s rarely, if ever, about either personal choice or technical superiority.
There is no argument at all since the GNU tools are available on windows.
Linux is irrelevant in this situation.
But Linux is on supercomputers.
And toasters, and those german industrial controllers…
err, wait a minute…
And on Windows using Cygwin. OK, not really, but the look and feel of real tools…
Look and feel of “real” tools you say? Of command line tools? Or is it emacs? Which looks the same everywhere?
Even if you’re talking about shitty GTK+ apps and stuff, most have native windows versions or you can run both Gnome AND KDE on windows.
What do you mean “real tools” … head up your behind??
I am a web dev … and there is no reason for me to Run Linux … absolutely none … I can use any web framework I like with Windows.
This is why many don’t like the Linux community because you are always telling us why our choices apparently suck … because we don’t like using arcane commands from the 1970s.
@Luke Robbins
So what’s your problem? Use whatever you want.
The problem is the elitist attitude, which you somehow failed to gather from my last comment.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to have an elitist attitude.
Linux also runs on other operating systems.
http://www.colinux.org/
Sorry, but I don’t get it. Why would I want to run Gnome or KDE on Windows?
Why run Linux on Windows?
It sounds just as silly as running Windows or Linux on a Mac. I know people doing both. Why pay more for inferior hardware if you don’t want to run that “great” OS that come with the hardware.
Grow up!
“Why would you want to run Gnome or KDE on Windows?”
Why would you want to run Gnome or KDE in the first place? If you really WANT to you don’t need Linux to do it. That’s the point.
“Why run Linux on Windows?”
Compatibility with the 1 or 2 linux only apps that exist. No need for a separate Linux partition or something useless like that. That’s the point.
“It sounds just as silly as running Windows or Linux on a Mac”
Linux yes, Windows no. It’s amazing how linux fans keep forgetting people just might have that one exclusive app they need to get work done. Or they want games. Putting Windows on a Mac does not take Mac OSX out.
The only thing I don’t get here is what you say about “real” tools. Are you honestly implying that you can’t get GCC or Emacs or most of the GNU bullcrap on Windows? Or that they somehow becomes “unreal” or “surreal” once you have put them on Windows even though they are at the end of the day the same old shoddy little things everywhere? I don’t want to be rude, but, quite frankly, I have never been high enough to see anything turning into some gooey Salvador Dali’s masterpiece in Cygwin.
You honestly need to elaborate on that one for the lot of us.
@Kommenter
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
@JoeMonco
Yes, Emacs is available natively on Windows and work rather well.
A lot of the GNU bullcrap is also available natively.
Cygwin is just a way to easily get the Unix tools some of us have learned to love.
I think it’s a very good idea that you use your tools and I use my tools. No real reason to discuss that.
You’ve still not addressed what exactly you need Linux FOR. An obsession with tiling window managers would be my only guess, or wanting a free (as in $0) OS.
If you want a free as in freedom OS then may the nice people at the hospital help you. Hopefully you’ll stop eating the crap that forms in the middle of your toes by the 2nd week.
Why run Linux on Windows?
That’s easy. You’re forced to work with it, usually on the server, and you want to build a house of cards and roll back the VM when it fails rather than wait around 40 minutes every time you make a mistake and need to reinstall.
Grow up!
So using newer tools to enhance productivity is childish? Interesting.
@Kommenter
What do I need Linux FOR? I don’t need it FOR anything special. I NEED an operating system and happen to prefer Linux for different reasons. The main reason being I think it’s better than Windows. Sorry about that, don’t take it personally.
What’s wrong with free as in freedom? Maybe you should see the nice people at the hospital.
@anonymous
“So using newer tools to enhance productivity is childish? Interesting.”
Yes, sometimes.
“I NEED an operating system and happen to prefer Linux for different reasons. The main reason being I think it’s better than Windows.”
What would those reasons be? You don’t specify. In what way is Linux better than windows?
Security? No. Not anymore.
Performance? Unless you run some crappy window manager then no.
Stability? You’re joking.
Looks? You can make one look like the other.
Applications? They are all on Windows, and windows has more.
Price? I’ll give you that one.
“What’s wrong with free as in freedom?”
The paranoia that comes along with it. How familiar are you with what richard stallman actually preaches?
“What would those reasons be? You don’t specify. In what way is Linux better than windows?”
You are right, I should have been clearer. It’s better for ME, maybe not for YOU. I feel more comfortable using Linux. Maybe I’m just not smart enough to appreciate all the Windows/OSX goodness out there. But you are. Congratulations.
Why do you throw in RMS in the discussion? I know a lot of people think he is crazy. So what?
How about Steve Ballmer? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc)
Or the semigod Steve Jobs?
“So using newer tools to enhance productivity is childish? Interesting.”
Yes, sometimes.
You’re not making any sense. Are you arguing for childishness?
Why do you throw in RMS in the discussion?
Because “freedom” is universally near the top of reasons to use Linux and Stallman is integral to the FOSS concept of “freedom”.
“How about Steve Ballmer? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc)
Or the semigod Steve Jobs?”
99% of the people that use windows have no idea who Steve Ballmer is.
Steve Jobs has shown no signs of insanity, he’s a little eccentric at most. He’s not leading a “FREEDOM!!!!” movement either.
Also thank you for finally admitting your preference in Linux isn’t based on any redeeming quality of the product itself, just you being accustomed to it. Nothing wrong with that, some people like driving hummers. Just don’t try to shove down our throats how superior it is with lies and FUD.
Linux users are worse than Jehovah’s witnesses sometimes.
This IS entertaining!
You’ll enjoy the new TM I have crafted in your honour over at http://www.tmrepository.com/trademarks/poisoningthehardware/, then …
Thank you. I’m honoured. I read it and it made some sense.
Only one thing, maybe I haven’t been clear enough in these postings, but I don’t want you to give up using Windows, OSX or whatever you use. It’s enough for me to not have to use them.
Have a good day!
This blog is in its last death throws. Linux users everywhere are celebrating.
Interesting people here…
I wonder why they sound so desperate. Actually, I think I know, some people can’t accept that the world is changing.
Janne:
You might be interesting. Personally, I think you’re delusional, but that doesn’t stop you being either interesting or capable of a decent argument. (You’re still wrong about that Dell thing, btw, but it’s a thread on a blog and it’s goddamn impossible to be wholly consistent on these things.)
Hang around long enough, however, and you will find that Adam King is far short of being interesting. La Queef is merely a self-indulgent ignorant prat.
Dell thing?
“some people can’t accept that the world is changing.”
That coming from someone using command line tools and emacs is incredibly hilarious.
I’m happy to be able to entertain you.
Sometimes it’s easier/more efficient to use a GUI. Sometimes it’s easier/more efficient to use a CLI. It depends on the task at hand.
It’s never more efficient to use the CLI. The only reason it might be is that no GUI has been made that supports the specific convoluted feature you need. In that case the CLI is definitely more efficient.
Maybe the CLI is never as efficient as a GUI for the “point and click” generation.
Hehehe, this is getting better and better.
Please don’t show your ignorance like that.
So you’re saying typing a string of words is more efficient than pressing a button? Seriously?
And don’t bring up a convoluted bash mess to prove your point either, that’s what I meant by convoluted feature. A GUI that implements such a feature would still be more efficient.
As i wrote, please don’t show your ignorance like that.
A CLI user being condescending? Who’d have thought.
http://vivapinkfloyd.blogspot.com/2008/07/5-reasons-to-use-cli-over-gui.html
A good example of a CLI fan, obviously comes from a linux background and isn’t used to efficient GUIs, but what he writes makes sense, I’ll counter his points because I want to but I really wish more linux users wrote honest stuff like this.
1. The system API gives you complete control over the system, API which can be used on a GUI. He’s obviously coming from the linux world of badly implemented GUIs on top of command line tools, so I can’t blame him.
2. Why would I need to CTRL click files and stuff? I’ve written a GUI tool to do what he’s saying. That tool is more efficient than using the CLI. It’s a feature that modern file browsers should implement.
3. “Which is not implemented in any GUI” is the important part to get from this. A proper scripting language is better than bash scripts.
4. Ok, my 486 would appreciate this.
5. Almost the same as 3.
Real advantage – Writing the tool to do the job would take longer than writing some commands on the CLI, and it’s not something you’re likely to need often. Make no mistake though, after it was finished that tool would be more efficient.
Good example of retarded brain damaged bullshit would be the first comment.
Let the people use CLI, some prefer it, what is the problem? It is sometimes handy, and you should also notice that not everybody is using ugly Bash (like me, when using CLI), but there are ZSH, Python, Ruby etc. used as Shell. Those people are not brain damaged, people using ugly old Windows/Mac GUIs without any new innovation are brain damaged, as there are KDE and Gnome.
Whenever I say CLI, read it as bash, I have no problem with using a proper scripting language to get work done. It’s different. A scripting language does give you much more power, bash is just a poor interface.
But seriously, read the first comment on the blog I linked, that’s the whole issue with CLI users. A condescending attitude based on “facts” with no basis in reality. Specially the whole CLITeachesYouComputerScience™ angle.
@Janne
“Sometimes it’s easier/more efficient to use a GUI. Sometimes it’s easier/more efficient to use a CLI. It depends on the task at hand.”
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824176142
Thanks to Touch Screen technology advancing and becoming affordable and Operating Systems like Windows 7 & Windows 8 planning for the future, I’ll soon get the benefits of a keyboard and touch screen over CLI
Can anyone imagine how hilarious it would be if all of Photoshop’s Image Modification Events were in CLI.
“Select Photoshop::LayerByName(“Layer 0″) -ApplyFiler=Imasto({Blue: 4, Thickness: 7})”
“Merge All Layers (Y – Default / N):”
“Linux Kernel Failure, Reffer to Log file /log/827216321638581721364561″
I wonder why they sound so desperate. Actually, I think I know, some people can’t accept that the world is changing.
Strange. I am actually wondering why you seem so desperate to make a statement here.
Apparently Linux and the GNU userland represent “change” even though they’re mostly static clones of an early 70s operating environment.
Just you wait for the new wave of 8-tracks and the return of analog TV! This digital stuff is just a fad!
I love using the UNIX filesystem also, after all
/media/
/mnt/
/cdrom/
Who doesn’t want to have their CD drive in three different places so they can easily find it?
Windows StartMenu Search? What’s That? It sounds Dumb!!!!!
/bin/
/usr/
/lib/
How many Linux Desktop users actually understand the acronyms for the abbreviated folders. And if they are they can feel like 1337 HaX0rs cause they’re soOOoo Smart accumulating knowledge on a system built wrong to begin with.
/scarcasm
No I’m not desperate to make a statement, I think it’s funny to see what’s going on in your brains.
In my first post i wrote:
“I have used Linux for most of my work the last 10-15 years and I am a very happy user. If you are a happy Windows user that’s good for you but I will probably never go back to using Windows.”
That has been my line in all posts, I use Linux, feel free to use whatever you like.
No in your first post you wrote:
“Oh dear oh dear, how come you hate FOSS enough to have a blog about it?”
You act like a lawyer or a politician.
This is my first post in full:
“Oh dear oh dear, how come you hate FOSS enough to have a blog about it?
I have used Linux for most of my work the last 10-15 years and I am a very happy user. If you are a happy Windows user that’s good for you but I will probably never go back to using Windows. And I will never rely on “The Cloud” as long as there are hard disks available.
And finally, the FOSS advocates I know almost never say anything about Microsoft.”
Janne, I fail to see what point you have made or even why you are posting. The entire point of this blog and the LH community is fairly simple:
Linux does *not* do what we need it to do, and the claims that it does are annoying, repetitive and poorly thought out.
When we state this we get attacked by zealots with even you saying the classic WorksForMe(tm). The thing is it *could* be useful to me and I would even contribute if the deficiencies and problems were identified and addressed, rather than denied and defended.
It works for you. Fantastic. What’s your point?
No point at all.
If Linux is so bad compared to Windows and OSX why do you bother. Just use Windows or OSX and go on with your life.
The reason for my first post was that I was amazed about the hate towards FOSS on this blog. The reasons for my other posts is partly that it’s rather funny to see how easy it is to get you started.
If you want I can go away and stop bothering you.
Can’t speak for Kerberos but I welcome the “advocates”.
MissedTheBoat™ again.
Linux users love doing that.
OK kids, here is some more reading for you:
http://www.perturb.org/display/462_Dilbert___Unix.html
I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. Isn’t it amazing how many iDiots(TM) there are in the world.
Now I have to get some sleep, some of us do nontrivial thinking for a living.
See you tomorrow! And please try to get some sleep. Maybe it will make you see the world in a clearer way.
http://i.imgur.com/hcvpE.png
Maybe this rather funny comic will finally make you understand.
LOL, a link to Questionable Content on a hater blog. Now I’ve seen everything.
It was on linsux :p. I mean, it was on OMGCHEESECAKE.
“Some of us do nontrivial thinking for a living?”
Some of us merely aspire to non-trivial thinking.
Just occasionally, we will recognise this in the comments of other people.
Just occasionally, mind you. We are Bigoted and Senseless and we have No Sense of Shame.
It’s incredible, but despite all of those handicaps, we still manage to make a living. Some of us (me included) even manage to earn money writing embedded software.
Occasionally it even features Linux, or at least the Gnu tool chain.
I love your sneer, however. It is a fine Sneer. Do you stand in front of the mirror every morning and practise the Sneer?
Because I think you should. Without even having met you, I suspect you would look good with pointy little sideburns. Or some sort of Look, anyhow.
After all, you don’t make money out of being an ignorant asshole without a Look.
Play with them. Stand in front of the mirror. Say after me …
“I love your sneer, however. It is a fine Sneer. Do you stand in front of the mirror every morning and practise the Sneer?”
No practice needed. It comes naturally when we communicate with inferiors.
“After all, you don’t make money out of being an ignorant asshole without a Look.”
You should try it, beeing an asshole is enough. No Look needed. I think you’re a natural talent.
@ Janne
R U Mad? You did say:
“communicate with inferiors”
The world is changing? Yes, I can accept that.
The Euro and the Dollar are going to hell.Five years on, people who “bought” property at insane 125% mortgages on balloon rates are confronting the inevitable reality.
Another couple of hundred people in Syria died under tank tracks yesterday. OK, I’m just guessing.
Just about everything you can think of is wrong with the Horn of Africa. Go a little south, and you’ve got massive deforestation in Madagascar, which isn’t really good when you only have skin-thin red earth to begin with.
Far from leading Africa (the continent) from a position of strength which as the president of South Africa (the country) has, Jacob Zuma has decided that Muammar Ghaddafi is not really a naughty little boy at all.
The Chinese PRC are still shooting arbitrary law-breakers in the back of the head in order to harvest their eyeballs. Oh, and there’s the tiny little detail of slave labour in the Guangzong district, funded by Taipei capitalists who the PRC officially don’t recognise and American capitalists who are apparently pissing off the PRC because that $1.2 trillion of bonds that the PRC (oops, sorry, the Chinese people) bought is no longer safe because, hum, well, the Americans can’t actually pay for it by exporting to China ….
The world is, indeed, changing. But the lunatic, and I use the term “lunatic” in a very well considered sense here and not merely as a random insult, theory that Mommy Will Make It All Better with Free!(TM) software is hardly going to help any of these people.
In fact, who the hell is it supposed to help?
Oops. I forgot the extraordinarily dangerous warming of the Siberian permafrost, which is only sort-of very very very nasty indeed, and the acidification of the oceans. Which is fucking deadly.
Can we please pick a cause worth fighting for?
Clue: Operating systems are not it.
I would have liked to edit that incessant italic bit. Oh well, never mind. It still represents what I genuinely believe.
“Can we please pick a cause worth fighting for?
Clue: Operating systems are not it.”
Agree!
So much nonsense, both in the comments and in the article. Some people prefer using the CLI, what is your problem? Many FOSS advocates are using GUI all the time, there are people developing KDE and Gnome, and of course those developments are very innovative, I do not see any such innovation in Mac/Windows worlds. The network problem of the GPL is of course a serious one. But I see more and more projects using AGPL, StatusNet, ownCloud, Diaspora etc. Unfortunately most desktop applications are not using it and may get into trouble.
MissedTheBoat™?
“Some people prefer using the CLI, what is your problem?”
Go read the first comment of the blog I commented about above, that’s the problem.
The blog itself is fine although it’s coming from a linux perspective which doesn’t really apply to other more GUI oriented operating systems.
“there are people developing KDE and Gnome, and of course those developments are very innovative, I do not see any such innovation in Mac/Windows world”
Oh please, name one feature of either of those and i’ll point out who actually did it first. KDE just copy pasted stuff from windows and a bunch of other less known window managers. Gnome used to be a windows 95 clone with 2 taskbars, now it innovated and nobody wants it because it’s terrible.
The windows 7 taskbar, the half maximize, the ribbon, the hardware accelerated rendering of webpages… No innovation what so ever yeah.
“The network problem of the GPL is of course a serious one. But I see more and more projects using AGPL, StatusNet, ownCloud, Diaspora etc. Unfortunately most desktop applications are not using it and may get into trouble.”
Or they could just close the source.
“Some people prefer using the CLI, what is your problem?”
Nothing. But if people start pretending that it’s easy and that using a GUI is somehow ‘cheating’ or ‘proper’ then we have a problem.
“I do not see any such innovation in Mac/Windows worlds.”
Linux is a warts-and-all clone of a 70′s OS. The WM’s are largely all clones of either OSX or Windows. Even the software and games are either clones or based upon closed source.
People constantly bang on about this ‘innovation’ but very few can cite anything and what they do say is largely either copied from somewhere else or pretty terrible or pointless anyway (hello desktop cube!).
Plasma?
-all the flexibility
-theming, scripting, plugins etc.
-recent QML stuff
Akonadi abstraction layer?
Nepomuk and semantic desktop stuff? Where is it in Mac OS X? Where can I do SparQL in OS X?
Or (something old): Where are the desktop effects in Mac OS X (just some default stuff) and Windows (just dirty hacks and the default stuff)?
Plasma?
You mean “widgets”? Or “gadgets”?
-all the flexibility
You mean I can ply out the damned thing and run something more sane? Swell!
-theming, scripting, plugins etc.
I can understand theming, and every OS has it. But scripting? Plug-in? Why on earth do you want this stuff for a DE?
-recent QML stuff
The more crap getting into your way, the better.
Akonadi abstraction layer?
You mean I can have yet another cheap knock-off of Outlook?
Nepomuk and semantic desktop stuff? Where is it in Mac OS X?
You mean yet another imitation of the dock and a load of extra crap deluging my workspace and add to even more semantic confusion to the user?
No wonder even Torvalds now uses XFCE.
Are you serious? Is that your list?
Widgets, theming, extensibility, extensibility again, extensibility a third time, stupid pointless abstractions that only make sense in shit like linux, metadata and useless animations?
Inovation™
Uh, yes, semantic stuff is getting awesome, QML is awesome, Windows 8 will use a lot of JavaScript stuff, too, but Qt/KDE seems to be far ahead. Big interface enhancements and theming in Mac OS X? I do not notice anything… But seriously, this blog is just stupid, such bashing is boring, I will leave…
Javascript in Windows 8 is used in a totally different way from QML, QML is an “improved XAML”, in the sense that it’s also used to describe an interface but it does more than XAML without the stupid XML base. QML is a QT thing, not KDE btw.
Nope, it is completely different than XAML, you do not know what you are talking about, and of course there is a lot of KDE involvement, Plasma, Phonon etc. adapting it.
I’ve worked with QT, I know damn well what QML is, it serves the same purpose. Except they did it a lot better. XAML is crap.
XAML is more like Qt’s uic, although there is some animation support, QML is full declarative programming. You do not use classical event handlers with QML usually.
And you can tell a lot about Nepomuk, but “uninnovative” is certainly not a valid attribute for it.
Nepomuk is a funny project. It’s trying to do something but no one is entirely sure what that something is. And it just looks like an exercise in pointlessness. All I got from it was extensible metadata, which is not innovative at all. Maybe their implementation of it is superior, I don’t know, I’ve never seen nepomuk in action. If it is in fact better, then it can be considered innovative.
I’m a big fan of the AGPL. but there are other licenses out there which do a similar thing. The Common Public Attribution License is a Mozilla-style license with a network use clause, and another clause that prevents authors being removed from credits (about box, etc.).
(I hack on ocPortal, which is CPAL BTW)
[...] The Subverted GPL Just look at how the GPL has been subverted by the client-server model. You are never technically in possession of the software – only the output – so it is apparently exempt from any distribution clauses your license may have. BSD, GPL, doesn’t matter – you can’t get the code. The only one that apparently solves this issue is the AGPL and nobody ever seems to use it. The valued ‘freedoms’ are almost entirely gone with the client-server approach. Want the code to the modifications I have made on this site? Tough. As an end user you still have no rights to the code nor the modifications made. Yet there seems to be little to no attention made to this fact despite the large focus on ‘freedom’. Surely putting two computers in a box with a VNC setup is enough to defeat the GPL entirely given these circumstances? It’s certainly massively against the spirit of the thing but is this ever even discussed? Or is it just GPL, praise, praise, when the actual license is irrelevant? [...]
Wow, featured on techrights.org!
Way to go Kerberos.