But first some numbers…

Linux vs Windows (Google Trends)  Observe the steady decline.  Not exactly a pattern that’ll lead to anything significant.

The much touted W3 Schools logs.  These are horribly biased as it is only for w3schools.com itself, is cited so often to prove dubious claims of marketshare that itself probably skews the numbers, not to mention that Linux is obviously going to be skewed on technical sites, yet it has only shown Linux use double in the last 6 years from 2.2% to 4.2%.

I was going to show statcounter as well but apparently Linux’ usage has fallen so low it’s now classified as ‘other’.  I could have sworn it had it’s own heading.  Oh well.

And finally hitslink.  Shows Linux usage at 0.98% at December 2008, a peak of 1.17% before dropping to 0.96% in October 2009.  A net loss.

Obviously if you pull up the logs of Slashdot or some site like that you can get some more ‘convenient’ numbers, but I don’t think I have ever seen a positive trend itself.  Usage is not increasing in any significant fashion.  If it is provide me with the stats (seriously, do it) but until this point I think my assertion stands.

As an anecdotal point, across the board on all the websites that I admin, Linux usage sits at about 0.3%, which includes music festivals, dentists, estate agents and the like.  As soon as you remove people who’s interests are not computers themselves (and view them as a means to an end instead) Linux’ numbers plummet even further.

The Myth of Marketing

Of course the usual answer from Linux advocates at this point is that it is because of Microsoft’s advertising money, and that the only reason people don’t use Linux is because they haven’t heard about it.  Which is now provably false.

1: Linux has one of the largest grassroots movements on the Internet.  In fact I am coining “Kerberos’ Rule #8 – If someone mentions OS’s, someone will mention Linux.” You can’t have a technical discussion anywhere without someone trying to ram Linux down your throat.  I am pretty sure the majority of the technical community knows what it is, yet strangely choose not to use it.  Is this marketing?  Are MS suppressing Linux?  What about the Streisand effect?

2: The real killer is this.  Windows 7 managed to, before it’s official release, pass Linux in terms of usage.  Everyone who had it installed at that point had:

• Known what it was and where to get it, despite the fact it wasn’t ‘marketed’.
• Managed to burn it to a DVD.
• Managed to install it on an existing system.
• Managed to get it working with all their hardware and apps.

Yet these are the very people that, according to the Linux community, should be using Linux instead.  Yet overwhelmingly they all went with Windows, despite the fact that they obviously have the technical ability to obtain it and install it which the proponents of Linux often claim is easier that Windows.

Linux Is Faith Based

Obviously pointing at a bunch of facts as I have done doesn’t lead to a civil discussion, despite all I have done is point at some facts – and not even said anything inflammatory.  Even saying something like “Linux uptake is remaining flat despite claims of superiority, which doesn’t make statistical sense.” will get you lynched on most pro-Linux forums.  Even saying “Linux is not suitable for my needs” is often enough to incite a flamewar, and stating why will generally get you banned.  It’s why I started this blog in the first place.

The reason for this is obvious though, once you replace the idea that you are dealing with Linux advocates on a basis of logic and science and instead realise that it is a faith based initiative, and religious rule #1 is “Free software is superior to commercial software” and rule #2 “Microsoft is the antichrist”.  Any challenge which questions these rules will elicit a fear/hate based response as would telling a religious person God doesn’t exist*.  Such a statement is fundamentally incompatible with their worldview.  This is proven in the fact that there is pretty much zero critical discussion of Linux occurring anywhere outside ‘hate’ blogs, despite the claims of a community created OS.  So in a world where ‘everyone is a developer’ there is almost no debate and critical feedback**.  That can’t be either right or healthy – but it’s the truth.

What the ‘community’ really is is an evangelical mission to spread the word.  It’s not about self reflection and self improvement, it’s about embracing the two rules and then trying to bend the world to fit them – and calling anyone who doesn’t agree a ‘noob’ and ‘stupid’ along the way.

Pragmatism

I like to think of myself as a software pragmatist – I don’t care which faceless corporation that pretends to care about me produces it – I’ll choose whatever is best for the task at hand.  At the moment I have…

• A Windows 7 laptop,
• An iPod,
• An Android based phone,
• A Linux (Smoothwall) based firewall,
• I also develop websites for LAMP on Windows,
• Plus numerous managed Linux, Windows and BSD servers

The point being I’ll get whatever fits my needs the best at the time.  I’ll get all the available information about all the options, compare them to what I need and base my decision upon this information.  If someone asks me for help I use the following process:

1. Ask them what they will be needing it for
2. Find out the skill and experience of the user
3. Make my recommendation based upon the above

Here’s how your typical Linux advocate makes their decision:

1. Use Linux, it’s the best!

You can see the problem here.  It’s faith based, they have ‘belief’ that Linux is good (and correspondingly that Microsoft is evil), thus they have their answer.  Actual user requirements are irrelevant as they know that Linux is superior, and that Windows sucks.  From this point on it’s simply a case of trying to convert the person they foisted Linux onto to their world view – which generally involves telling them they are wrong and bashing MS whenever a problem arises.  The question ‘would this person actually be better off with Linux’ is rarely, if ever, asked.  Someone being happy with what they have is never even considered.

You see it all the time.  ‘Why aren’t you using Linux’, they ask – the assumption of superiority is in the question.  ‘It doesn’t run Photoshop’, I reply.  Then we go through the whole ‘try Gimp’ rigmarole, then the ‘try Gimpshop’, which is the technical equivalent of putting a Humvee bodykit on a Ford Fiesta and sending it to Iraq. Eventually Wine is mentioned – which is fine if you are 3 versions behind and don’t expect everything to work or be stable.  The fact that I’d have to invest large amounts of time and effort to simply be at, best case, a par with what I had before I ‘switched’ means nothing to these people.

Which is the crux of the matter – you cannot expect a Linux advocate to give you honest advice.  Pretty much regardless of requirements they will suggest their favorite distro.  I’ve seen people recommend Gentoo as an easy beginners system. ‘Gaming is fine with Wine’ and other absurd claims.  The importance seems to be getting people to use it, not getting people the best system.  It would be like asking a fundamentalist christian in a bookshop what book you should read, or asking a Vegetarian*** what restaurant you should go to – the answer almost certainly would not be based on your requirements.

Lies, Damn Lies and Linux Advocates

Another side effect of the blind belief effect is the ability to play fast and loose with the truth.  If it makes Linux look good, it’s true.  If it makes Microsoft look bad, it’s true.  Anything else is FUD and lies.  A once run benchmark from some random idiots blog somewhere will be taken as proof of Linux’ success if it is favorable.  A large companies benchmark will be called lies if it is unfavourable.  Facts are not rated based upon their veracity nor citations nor testing methodology.  They are rated based upon how well they fit the agenda.  The words ‘scientific method’ are seen cowering in a corner somewhere.

Take for example this review of Windows 7 – I think someone linked to it on LHB originally.  It’s one of the most unbalanced hatchet jobs I’ve ever seen, yet is put forwards as being ‘fair and balanced’.  Gems include:

In the RAM usage front, Windows 7 when idle takes a good 1-2GB of my 4GB of RAM, while Kubuntu takes between 200MB-500MB

It’s pretty well known that Windows Vista and now Windows 7 use the RAM you have.  Any half decent programmer knows you can sacrifice RAM for performance and vice versa (largely through caching).  If you put Windows 7 on a box with 512mb it’ll idle using about ~250mb.  It’ll run fine too.  It’ll generally take half your RAM for itself to speed things up but that’s fine – it’ll relinquish it if programs need it rather than using as little as possible and thrashing your disks constantly.

Yet this bit of information, despite being infinitely sensible, and which has been common knowledge for years, is somehow not known to an alleged IT pro.  If Linux treated RAM in this way you can be guaranteed we’d see a spiel about Windows inability to take advantage of your system.  Also, nobody runs an idle system.  Even if you did use a RAM-light version of Linux (which would not be the fully-featured Ubuntu this guy is chatting about) you’d be stuffed as soon you open Firefox or try to do anything as that’s where the real RAM usage is.

But everyone always trots out the RAM argument as it’s on the pro Linux talking points list, despite RAM being dirt cheap and plentiful it’s still viewed as somehow better to spend weeks tweaking a low use system than just buying 6gb or something ridiculous.

Then this classic:

This is a common element of debate, and one I happen to agree with. Windows 7 seems to have borrowed a bit from the KDE4 series. Now days, KDE has changed it’s look to the “Air” theme, so it no longer looks as close. However, the Oxygen theme that was used in KDE around the same time as when Windows 7 was in development is mysteriously similar. Even the selection of widgets is similar, with both shipping with an analog clock, news reader, sliding block puzzle, and hardware monitor by default. Take a look at this quickly put together collage, with widgets from both Windows 7 and KDE versions previous to 4.3

The dude doing the review has apparently never so much as seen a screenshot of Vista, yet alone used it. The clock, sliding puzzle, black gloss, RSS reader, and every other thing he mentioned are stolen from Vista.  Unless Microsoft owns a time machine it’s pretty clear that KDE ripped off Windows.  Hell the guy proved it himself – but it makes Linux look good so fact checking isn’t important.  I even linked to a video ages ago showing that Compiz is an early Vista ripoff – wobbly windows and all.

As stated earlier though this reviewer had obviously already got his conclusions before Windows was even installed, it was simply a case of hunting for the facts to fit.  If the aim was impartiality or fairness he would have attempted to find out why Windows uses the RAM it does, and would have tried it on a 512mb machine, and would have at least used Vista to get a feel for the improvements in 7.  I’d also bet he is a ‘Vista Sucks’ cheerleader – despite never even having seen it before.

The rest of the his points are the airy “I prefer Linux” type of conclusions where he just looks for a bunch of things he can criticise and write up.  I mean a ‘fair’ test would be to use it for a week or two for actual work (although a month or more would be preferred) and then report back on the experience.  This review looks like he installed it, played for an hour or so then ‘reviewed’ it.

Yet crap like this never gets called out.  It’s standard practice.

I have a point? Wow!

The whole point of this post is not to stoke some imaginary ‘Linux vs Windows’ war, but instead to try to get the supporters of Linux and FOSS in general to take a look at and to hold themselves to the same standards they accuse Microsoft of breaking.  You can’t claim MS are bad for spreading FUD while making BSOD jokes.

Also instead of getting defensive when someone says something bad about Linux consider that although you think it’s not a problem they certainly do and thus it is important.  There is a reason nobody is using it – find out why and it will rule the world.

P.S. I don’t imagine for a second anyone will actually listen though, so carry on writing that angry comment/email ‘proving’ that I am wrong so we can get back to flaming each other. 

* It’s an example, let’s not go into it.  I also don’t have a problem with the religious, be it FOSS or actual religion, as long as they keep it to themselves.

** If you think I am wrong provide three examples of healthy, critical, debate that isn’t heavily moderated or a flamewar.  I dare you.

*** I am a vegetarian, but I did make a sausage-crust pizza last night, so I am probably not the best person to ask about fancy restaurants anyway. And I am biased.

Anyway that’s not really the point.  I used to be a nearly full-blown freetard a long time ago.  I had the whole ‘hate the man’ thing down (Microsoft) and bought into the whole ‘by developers, for developers, lets cut out the corporate middle man’ movement.  This was before I had even really used Linux – but the concept seemed sound.  And how can a developer not fall for that idea – software utopia, plus never having to deal with anti-user crap like artificial limits and activation again!  But then I actually used it for an extended duration and moved into my ‘the idea is sound, but it just needs more work’ phase.  I believed with the concerted effort of like-minded people and by including designers, UI experts and artists it was only a matter of time.  The third phase was that it was a shame that a great idea was being ruined by a defensive community of non-developer, non-contributing idiots intent on scaring away anyone who didn’t believe it was already perfect.  At least I was partially right that time.

And finally, I am where I am now: It’s a bad idea to the point of being dangerous and it just won’t work anyhow.

Here’s the thing.  Nobody owns GPL’d code.  The code is free.  You are not.  For example you, as a user, have more freedoms when it comes to BSD licensed code – effectively you can do what you want with it, provided you provide credit.  GPL’d code on the other hand has a slew of limitations on what you can and cannot do and attaches a larger burden on you in terms of distribution of changes and source.  The code is more ‘free’ under the GPL.  By GPL’ing code you effectively say ‘nobody owns this, it belongs to itself’.  I can sell BSD code and deny you your ‘fundamental right’ to freely distribute it further.  I can also grant you the same right as the GPL.  The GPL simply ensures you cannot stop anyone from modifying and distributing.

The problem with the above is that it entirely negates ownership.  You cannot ‘own’ free software.  It doesn’t matter if you wrote it – it’s not yours.  As soon as you release software under the GPL you have no more right to it than any of the other 6 billion people on the planet.  It’s why FOSS advocates call closed source (distastefully) ‘slavery’, as closed source software is owned and controlled by someone.

The ramifications of this are obvious – you can’t make money selling free software.  You can sell it, but so can everyone.  If you’ll need to sell 10,000 copies at £100 each to reclaim your investment and the kid in the local computer store will sell them for £5 to anyone that wants one then you’re simply never going to break even.  The whole ‘you can sell free software’ excuse is intellectually dishonest as you have to compete with people with no sunk or running costs.  The best you can do is put up an online tip-jar and rely on effectively begging – and I’ve yet to hear of that working well.

Effectively, what the GPL and the Free Software movement says, is that developers do not deserve to be compensated for their effort.  Unless they can manage to sell the first copy for £1,000,000 then there is no way to ever get paid for the time spent.  It simply can’t be done.  If you want to man a phone line, do email support, work as a call out technician, then you can (according to ‘software freedom’) demand a fair hourly wage, but if you are a developer you can’t.  It’s ‘immoral’.  Simply on the basis that you cannot own code, thus can’t charge money for it.

The argument often made about the above is that businesses still need programmers.  Which is true.  But this is where the whole thing unravels fully.  I am a programmer – say I have an idea for a great new CMS tool*.  I now have two options:

1. Quit my job, rely on my family to put up with me for a few months while I spend 12hrs+ a day working on it.
2. Take my idea to a large company such as IBM, Oracle, Microsoft or someone else like that.

As above, according to the ‘software freedom’ camp if I picked option 1. as soon as I released it it would be mine no more.  The second I tried to charge money for it it would just be forked and given away.  Instead of relying on the future income I could have gained from selling it at launch to pay back the debts I would have no doubt incurred, and to fund new development, I would be forced to ‘get a job’.  Any development work would have to be done in evenings and weekends – and I would effectively be forced to decide between programming what I want, or my marriage.  Plus the software would progress more slowly as I would not have much time to devote to it.

Now with option 2. there is pretty much zero chance of getting taken up on my idea.  You don’t tell a business that you want to hire you what you are going to work on.  Unless you are really, really famous.  Chances are unless your surname is something like ‘Carmack’ you’re going to be writing the mundane stuff that they want you to do – not your own exciting ideas.

There are companies that are based around and heavily involved in free software.  Names include companies such as Red Hat, Mozilla, IBM, Canonical, Google, Novell etc and the one thing about these companies is that they are not in the software sales business.  Red Hat is in providing support and SLA’s for businesses and servers. IBM is similar to Red Hat – they sell ‘solutions’.  Mozilla makes money from advertising for Google, Canonical is a billionaire’s plaything, Google sells advertising and Novell is just a slightly more pragmatic Red Hat.  You’ll never see a company such as Adobe adopt a FOSS business model as they are in the business of selling software.  I don’t imagine anyone can make the argument that Adobe can go FOSS and remain profitable with a straight face.

It’s the following realisation that made me realise what a disaster FOSS really is.  Free Software only benefits large companies and the rich.  It is almost impossible to be a developer and not work for ‘the man’ under the GPL.  Sure there are exceptions to every rule but the simple fact is you can’t be a developer unless you can get an alternate revenue stream.  Support is good, but not a lot of apps will require support and you don’t spend months programming to be forced to make money manning a phone line.  There are also the dual license options, but this is effectively shareware, and you are still making money selling closed source software.

If adhering to the GPL was a legal requirement then it’s not like software would all suddenly be free and open.  What would actually happen is that people would simply stop making software.  All the games available on Steam would not suddenly be free – they simply wouldn’t have been made in the first place.  I pay money for SmartFTP because it is the best FTP program I have ever used.  By paying money I help fund further development.  I am happy with this.

It’s not even like the mass piracy and commoditization of  music, as it’s not like developers can make money selling tickets at £50 a go to live shows.  The software itself is all you’ve got.

Now I simply don’t see how anyone who thinks pragmatically about a future in which the GPL is accepted as the way to distribute software can possibly support it as in reality the people it hurts the most are the very people that support it – individual developers.

* True story, I do.  I am working on it and plan to launch it in a few months.

Some Further Thoughts and Ugly Truths:

The most overlooked point with regards to software development is that it is generally the result of a few people sinking a large amount of time into it, not as a result of a lot of people doing a small bit.  You simply can’t throw developers at a project and expect it to flourish – it just doesn’t work.  If you want something well written and cohesive it’ll take a small, dedicated, team – not a large bunch of semi-skilled volunteers – not something that really happens in FOSS unless you are being funded by a rich 3rd party.

Capitalism, in a nutshell, is providing people what they want.  If you don’t provide it you don’t succeed.  If enough people don’t want it the provider can either improve and adapt, or die.  In the FOSS world you take what you’re given and have no right to complain.  Gimp is near useless and doesn’t even match the decade old Photoshop 5.0 yet people not using it will not spur on development.  There is simply no motivation to cater for a wide audience – if Gimp was a commercial product the company would have been bankrupt years ago but catering for your users needs is simply not important in the world of free software.  Free software is about developers scratching their own itch, not finding out what itch other people want scratched.

The bulk of FOSS development work is done by one of these people:

• Students, getting paid to learn.
• Unemployed, getting paid by the state.
• The Rich, resting on their laurels.
• Large companies, adding value to their other services.

Free software is categorically not made by these people:

• Software companies.

If it is name one.

Software development is hard.  It’s incredibly time consuming.  If most people truly appreciated the difficulty and time required to create a truly great piece of software I doubt they would have bothered.  It requires people with a true passion for development to make truly great software, and I personally find the fact that such people would be relegated to only doing what they love in their spare time, rather than as an actual job, disgusting.

And finally it is the software that is free, not you.  All this talk of ‘freedoms’ and ‘rights’ is utter crap – it’s not your freedom or your rights so the whole idea that commercial software is taking them is simply untrue.  If a developer wants to release something under a Libre license that is fine – but it should never be considered ‘ethical’ or expected for this to be the case and if you really want to make a case for your own ‘freedoms’ then the BSD license is far more appropriate candidate.

Open Source is simply providing software with the source code so the receiving user can modify it to suit their needs.

Free Software is having the ability to freely modify and (this is the key) distribute software they have received from a 3rd party.

Free Software is being *unable* to restrict what a 3rd party does with your software.

You can very easily have non-free Open Source.  In fact a large amount of software made, mainly custom stuff and most of what I do, is technically ‘Open Source’ – that is I am paid to to do it, and I give the client the source along with any binaries.  It is *not* Free Software though, as the client is unlikely to give it away.

For example a large amount of commercial web apps are Open Source in that you have access to the source code, but are not Free Software as you do not have the right to redistribute the source freely.

This is the main bone of contention between the Commercial and Free Software camps – it has nothing to do with source – which is a red herring – it has to do with control.  The main point of free software is to remove any and all control from the original developers and give it to the users – the software is owned by the community.  Supporters of the commercial model (obviously) have a problem with this as it makes making a business out of developing software impossible – If you sell support you are in the business of support, not software.  Free Software is fundamentally anti developer.

Personally I support Open Source, and plan on releasing my next project as a dual licensed Free Non-Commercial and pay for Commercial offerings.  You can use it for free and give it away if you do not use it commercially, and if you want to use it commercially you will be required to pay a license fee.  Which is perfectly reasonable but it is not ‘Free Software’ and would not be supported by the FSF.

Free Software is an ethical line for it’s supporters.  Non-free (as the example above) is considered immoral by supporters and according to the FSF I am unethical in my request for compensation for commercial usage.  According to the FSF doctrine I must relinquish all ownership over the code and give any user full source and distribution rights.  If I want to make money I should sell ‘support’.

The thing is if (and many people suggest this) I was legally forced to make it ‘Free’ I would not even bother to make it in the first place.  In that world the job of ‘developer’ either would not exist, or would be relegated to a role in a huge corporation where you are told what to work on.  The small, independent software companies would be dead – and the software that they would have produced would not now be free, it just wouldn’t exist in the first place.  So instead of having the choice to pay money for something or not have it, you’d simply not be able to have it at all.  Not a situation I can support.

I think if people stopped thinking Free Software and Open Source are interchangeable terms, and that if more people found out what Free Software really is, and the implications, significantly less people would support it.

Update: I do not think that Free Software is bad, should be banned, or anything like that.  I believe it is up to the developer to choose how to distribute their software and that there is nothing wrong with closed source, commercial software.  It is up to the developer to choose the license, and the user to choose the software.  It’s all about choice.

Find me three examples of constructive criticism of Linux on a public, semi mainstream Linux forum that…

1. Isn’t a flamewar
2. That the answers are not all largely YouDontNeedThat ™ and
3. The developers of the software actually read.

Linux sucks.  All your showcase apps such – Gimp, Cinerella, OpenOffice, etc suck, Your WM’s are bad copies of the commerical offerings, your API’s and interfaces are so slow and convoluted it’s quicker to run Firefox under Wine that it is natively and apart from everything crashing a bit less and hibernate/sleep allegedly working on some peoples computers nothing has changed in over a decade.

Linux has < 1% of the marketshare and is dropping.  In fact it’s marketshare is within the statistical margin of error – the reason companies don’t rush to support you is because it’s simply not economical – not some large conspiracy.  Why is this – it’s certainly not because of the popularly claimed reason ‘poor marketing’, as its pretty much impossible to go anywhere on the net without meeting evangelical freetards.  Yet people, despite knowing about it – and even trying it! – are failing to use it in droves.

It simply isn’t good enough, and has too many problems.  I, as a professional software developer, don’t use it.  And the big problem, the #1 reason Linux sucks is this:

You don’t want to know why I don’t use it.

I could spend hours going into the specific reasons that it doesn’t fill my needs, problems I have, even giving examples and ideas on how to improve things, better approaches etc.  But it would be pointless – I’d just be called a MS shill.

My first real foray into Linux was when I was running an Internet Cafe, and had heard so much about how fantastic it was, years ahead, stable, etc – you all know the talking points.  This was around 2006 iirc.  So I set up a test box to see how it fared.  Not very well was the answer – not only did I hate it, my customers did too.  So since I’d heard so much about community contributions I wrote up a long article on what I felt the limiting factors for both me and my customers were.  I was willing to even learn C at that point and help contribute.

And rather than do what a professional software development team would do and take these suggestions on board – which included classics such as ‘What about a bootsplash, verbose mode is scaring the customers’, I had idiot newbies such as the aforementioned Thomas B ‘debunking’ me.  I was called an idiot for wanting double clickable .deb files (don’t you know apt-get install is easier?).

Linux zealots are on an ideological crusade, and the few that aren’t idiots spend little to no effort reining in the freetards – and it is impossible to argue with idiots, as they drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.  Since they are promoting the concept of free software they don’t really care if it’s better or not – quality is judged by the release license, not the code.  As a result criticism of Linux is seen as criticism of the Ideology – and attacked.  It’d be like advocating grilled steaks on a vegan forum, which is fine – I am vegetarian myself – but they seem to think that everyone else should care about their bizarre concept of ‘software ethics’ as much as them, when most people don’t care – they just want the tastiest food, and the best OS.

So the situation is this:

You’ve got distro’s that release the software, and due to package management, are the intermediary between the users and the developers.  Since the distro’s largely just package up and send on other peoples work they generally don’t even have any form of feedback method outside bugzilla.  Add to this the fact that the community is actively hostile to anyone who happens to disagree with them and you have a real recipe for stagnation.

The reason Linux sucks is because the developers are shielded from any criticism by the fan(boys|base) and by the time that they do hear from someone they regularly have become so pissed off and disappointed with the whole experience that they just declare ‘it sucks’ and are rarely constructive.  Personally I am in that state half the time.

The other problem with the community is that they are largely all of the same opinion (Linux rocks, Micro$oft sucks, viva la Stallman!) not because they are right, but because everyone that disagrees with them has left.  It’s a monoculture which simply isn’t healthy as nobody is willing to accept having their ideas challenged.

After all how on earth can you ever expect to improve anything if you kick out all the people who think it can be improved?

If I am wrong, then surely the above challenge should be a piece of cake, five minutes, just pop over to any large distro’s forum.  So go ahead, what are you waiting for, prove me wrong!

Addendum:

I was just having a look through Wikipedia and found this really interesting article on Groupthink.  Especially this bit:

To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink (1977).

1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
2. Rationalising warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
8. Mindguards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.

Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision making. That is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking^[5]

1. Incomplete survey of alternatives
2. Incomplete survey of objectives
3. Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
4. Failure to reevaluate previously rejected alternatives
5. Poor information search
6. Selection bias in collecting information
7. Failure to work out contingency plans.

Sounds like the Linux community to a tee, doesn’t it?

After it hit the App store, one of the original developers of XPilot told us he feels adamantly that we’re betraying the spirit of the GPL by charging for it.”

Firstly, it’s very hard to ‘betray the spirit’ of a license.  That’s why you have a license in the first place.  If it’s written by anyone even half competent they will check for loopholes and problems.  Hence the GPLv3 in response to TiVo.

What actually happened though is the original developers GPL’d it after listening to the hippy ‘power of the community’ love fest with no real understanding of the implications.  Which is this:

It gives freedom to the software, not the developer.  It is the software that is free.  You develop software, fine.  Release it under the GPL, fine.  But you no longer own it.  You have no more rights than anyone else to it.  By releasing under the GPL you explicitly relinquish all of your control over it.  You have freed it like you would free a bird from a cage – it is yours no longer.

It is amazing how so many people fail to understand this.  The whole ‘you can sell it’ thing is a red herring as piracy is legally enshrined in the license – everyone else can sell it too as proven by this.  There is nothing stopping me recompiling it and putting it on the app store for $0.50, or even for free.

What the XPilot creators actually wanted was one of the Creative Commons licenses (maybe NC-3) as that would appear to be what they think the ‘spirit’ of the GPL is.

The amusing thing in all of this is not only do normal users not bother to read their license agreements (EULA), but apparently neither do the developers of the software either.

The strange thing is reading his blog I can’t see any point that our opinions diverge significantly, such as:

his post on ‘freedom’, my post on ‘freedom’ – I say that the FOSS license excludes small developers, he says he’s a small developer that tried (and failed) at open sourcing.

My main gripe with Linux, which the commenter FBM gets, is that the community is largely a bunch of argumentative newbies who are intent on a almost religious level of promotion and who refuse to hear a bad word about their OS.

Anyway, I’ll go on your show provided you can answer the following:

1. Where do we actually diverge in opinion.  You say you want to debate, but what about?

2. Find me three examples of constructive criticism of Linux on a public, semi mainstream Linux forum that a: isn’t a flamewar and b: that the answers are not all largely YouDontNeedThat ™ and c: the developers of the software actually read.

Since I’ve never yet seen someone complete 2. I reckon I am safe. 

Hello again everybody. First of all, you people are the noobish fanboys who I ranted about on my blog. It is you people who need to get a life!

Now the thing to remember is that he is probably, at most, fifteen.  He was saying in one post how he had to beg his parents for $30 for wifi in a hotel they were staying in.  Not that there is anything wrong with being young, no, but the fact is most of the people he’s calling ‘noobs’ have been using (and programming computers) for longer than he’s been alive.  Computers are not simple and despite his laughable claim that it only takes two weeks for someone to become an expert programmer, it takes years of study to truly come to a point where you can call yourself competent.

I agree with you people that a lot of Linux users can be immature, but this site is the HOME OF IMMATURE NOOBS. We need to get lives eh? At least us “freetards” don’t spend all day attacking an operating system that’s much better than Winblows made by Microshit.

You’ll notice I don’t refer to Linux as Linsux, Shitux, or even the new and improved Shitsux.  You are a fanboy.  You claim you’re not but you drank the kool-aid, took the red pill, or whatever it is you do to become a penguin worshipper.  You keep claiming that Windows sucks, that Linux is years ahead, that Linux is ‘so much better’, but utterly fail to even make one cogent point that backs up this assertion.

You also talked about ‘Solaris Linux’.  That one phrase alone declares you unable to make any comment about operating systems as the spectacular lack of knowlege to think that Solaris runs on the Linux kernel basically says you have no idea of the heritage of Unix.

Also almost every single tech site is overrun be freetards bashing MS and promoting Linux even when it is massively inappropriate for the task.  The whole Linux Hater thing is a response to the non-stop idiocy of the freetard community.  For every one anti-Linux post I can find you 100 anti MS posts, and no doubt I can find them faster.  In fact name me one popular tech site that isn’t infested with freetards and I’ll give you a cookie.

You hypocrites make me so fucking angry!

Us “freetards” aren’t giving our money to companies that don’t give a fuck about their customers, like Microsoft and Adobe and more!

I don’t think you understand how this capitalism thing works.  Here’s a quick reminder:

Someone makes and sells a product that does a task.  If the product does this task well the company will be successful.  If it doesn’t do it well they will be less successful.  The whole basis of this is an exchange of something that you want (a decent OS) for something that they want (Money).  If they ‘didn’t give a fuck about their customers’ then their customers would be less likely to give them money, thus they would do badly.  It is in their, and their shareholders, interests to ‘give a fuck’ as otherwise they will fail as a company.  As they should.

Then you have ‘Open Source’, who truly don’t give a shit about their customers, and who’s main reply to criticism is ‘Fuck off, it’s free’.  The capitalist evolutionary trait of survival of the fittest simply doesn’t apply, the evolutionary force of competing products doesn’t apply.  There is no incentive for anyone to do anything new and innovative as a: all the truly competent people have full time jobs as b: they won’t get anything out of it.  You may dislike what LH and myself say, but i’ve yet to see you actually coherently argue against any point apart from ‘wahh, they are being big meanies’.  And you end up with pieces of shit such as Gimp, Gnome, a massive reliance on CLI’s for everything and a failure to gain any marketshare whatsoever.  Windows 7 beat Linux marketshare months ago – is this because everyone installing a beta MS OS is an idiot, or because it’s simply better than Linux?

Actually, this is getting so fucking annoying, this constant bashing of an OS that is years ahead of Windows! Microsoft is finally making something good, because we all know that every operating since Windows 95 hasn’t had a new feature added.

Again with your failure to know anything about history.  Windows 98 was the ‘end of the line’ in terms of the 9x kernel, Windows 2000 built on top of NT, a true multitasking protected-memory kernel.  It’s be like running Gnome on top of BSD instead of Linux (but moreso) and claiming that this wasn’t anything new.  There have been hundreds of improvements made to Windows since 95, but you’re too much of a deluded newbie fanboy hater to understand.

Plus pretty much everything that makes Linux Linux is nicked from either the Unix world or Windows.  It’s a Unix rip-off system on a Windows rip-off GUI.  It’s so far from original it’s not funny.  And apart from the idiocy that is package management (I’ll get into this in a new post sometime) I can’t think of a single thing that can’t be traced back to someone else’s work.

Microsoft, I used to like, I used to defend. But they have gotten so fucking stupid, I just had to switch. They didn’t care about me, or any of their other customers. At least in the “freetard community,” we’re actually paid attention to.

You’re not paid attention to.  You just feel you’re part of some community, which is fine, but the needs of the tiny freetard section is largely ignored by Microsoft as what you want isn’t in their best interests and isn’t worth the time to implement anyhow.

A challenge:

If you truly feel you are being paid attention to then try this:  Go to a semi-official Linux forum and try giving constructive criticism, that is honest feedback.  Not I love Linux poetry, not anti Microsoft rants, but honest criticism.  If you need any tips just read LH or my blog – try this post, it’s quite inspirational.  If you can do this without creating an angry flamewar then maybe I am wrong, but I seriously doubt it.

The whole reason for this blog existing is that Linux sucks, yet idiots like you* spend you’re whole lives bashing MS and making outlandish claims while failing to actually contribute anything – except acting like a boat anchor to progress – to this great cause.

* I’ve realised that the people who promote Linux the most are the ones that know the least.  They have fervor, but lack understanding.  You get some idiot who only found out that CLI’s existed 6 months ago arguing with veterans of 20+ years about how typing apt-get install foobar** is actually more intuitive that just downloading an installer.  Put down your ‘RMS talking points’ cards and shut up.

** Which moron decided to call a sound app foobar anyway.  It’s like creating a domain name called ‘example.com’ or ‘localhost’.  Retards.

It is unarguable that Apple is having massive success now.  Their unwavering focus on user experience in emerging markets has led to some great products that are, rightly, doing well.  Apple ‘get it’ when it comes to design and the fact that even now large amounts of people and companies think that it is just down to bling and marketing show how far away the competition largely is from understanding this.

That being said the latest action against Palm shows their true colours.  For those not following the story, when Palm released the Pre they made it appear to iTunes as if it was an iPod, thus enabling easy native sync.  Now Apple have disabled this little workaround in the latest release of iTunes, with this cute little note ‘addresses an issue with verification of Apple devices.’ Basically Apple do not allow any non Apple devices to easily sync with iTunes.  It’s funny how Apple does not make iCameras and thus all cameras can sync with their photo software, yet they do make mp3 players so feel the need to block competitors.

Lets look at Apple’s market share for iTunes (from Wikipedia):

• Steve Jobs announced in his “It’s Showtime” keynote that Apple had 88% of the legal U.S. music download market on September 12, 2006.[44]
• Apple announced that the iTunes Store had sold more than two million movies, making it the world’s most popular online movie store on April 11, 2007.[53]
• Apple announced that iTunes Store surpassed Best Buy to become the second biggest music seller in the USA behind Wal-Mart on February 26, 2008 and eventually became number one on April 3, 2008.[1]

So Apple, that biggest music retailer in the world, let alone online, is deliberately breaking and blocking access for 3rd party hardware to leverage sales of it’s iPod and iPhone products.  Isn’t leveraging a dominant market position in one market to assist a product in another market anti-competitive?

Didn’t Microsoft get in trouble with bundling IE with Windows to increase its browser marketshare?  Aren’t the EU still getting all worked up over this issue?  Yet what Apple are doing is not only considered bundling, but actively blocking competitors.

Look at the App Store.  You have to pay money for the privilege of developing software, then you are limited on what apps you can actually write to ones that do not compete with Apple’s own apps (and a bunch of other draconian rules).  Then once you have created your app you can submit it to be approved.  And if Apple do not like it for any reason (or even no reason) it’s tough luck, with no recourse.  So what you spent 6 months writing it – just spend another 6 months writing something else, maybe that’ll be approved.

The question ‘are Apple a monopoly’ and ‘are they breaking laws’ is entirely irrelevant.  Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, but their attitude and behaviour make Microsoft look like a box of kittens.  What if Microsoft decided that Windows Media Player would only sync with the Zune from now on?  What if they decided that Windows CE (or whatever they are calling the mobile phone OS these days) would only run ‘approved’ apps, and that you could only use IE on it?  What if Microsoft stopped iTunes from being installed on Windows?  The community of Microsoft haters would go utterly batshit insane on a previously unseen level before.  There would be an epic bashfest to end all bashfests and you wouldn’t hear the end of it for years.  It would be the new BSOD.

Yet Apple has a level of paranoid control that Microsoft could only dream of, yet everyone still thinks MS is the ‘big bad’ of the software world.  I just don’t get it – answers on a postcard.

The first issue is rip and replace.  It’s not possible to simply remove the current email system and stick something else in its place, the upheaval and requirement of every single email client and server needing to be reprogrammed and reinstalled is immense.  Any replacement would have to be dual-role so that the current system could be eventually retired.

The roll-out plan would be to replace the servers first, initially with dual-use (that is, they ping the target to see if it is also a ‘new’ server before deciding to send new or old style emails).  They would also allow old style clients to connect, even though they would not be able to take advantage of the newer (and more sane) features, as the receiving server would change the format of the message on arrival so the current range of software – from webforms to mobile phones – would still work.

For the server, the basic crux of the idea is for it to send a token, rather than an actual message.  Then (and only then), when you view your inbox and view your message, will it be requested from the source server.  This solves several problems:

1. The burden of storing the spam is on the sender, not the receiver.
2. You can un-send email (but not after it has been read).
3. If the offending server gets turned off, blacklisted or blocked everything it’s sent gets binned.
4. You know that who sent the message is actually who sent the message – spoofing is near on impossible without some complicated MITM attacks.
5. Messages can no longer just disappear (so no using that excuse anymore).

Next, only servers with a valid DNS record should be allowed to send – just an IP address?  Tough luck.  In my opinion if you can’t hold down an IP long enough to point a domain at it you really shouldn’t be running an email server from it.

Blacklists then will be operated automatically (and de-centralized like the current system e.g. Spamhaus), with various methods (bayesian etc) of detecting incoming spam, but also with user based filtering – a ‘report as spam’ button.  Once a server drops below a certain signal-to-noise ratio it’ll go on the list and all its messages will effectively no longer exist.

The automatic part of the blacklist means that any blocks will be lifted after a certain duration (12 hours), with possible increments for repeat offenders.  It should also be possible that, on blocking, the mail server should receive a message (and alert the postmaster) of what happened so he can take steps to deal with it, with the option of re-sending the tokens.

Anyone see any major problems with this?

Any fact or comment that paints Microsoft or any company that is on the designated ‘evil’ list in a bad light is jumped on voraciously, and outright lies and fabrications circle for months and are largely applauded by other members of the community when they are told.  Truth is secondary to a good bashing.

Anything that paints Linux or FOSS in a bad light is automatically seen as being lies, astroturf and anyone who holds an opinion that doesn’t agree with the above is labelled a troll, a shill, and is accused of being paid by MS to spread lies.  In the early days of Ubuntu I was chased out of town by zealots with pitchforks for daring to suggest having a bootsplash. Defend the program at all costs.  Anyone who doesn’t agree with us (that’s 99.5% of the computing world) is obviously an uneducated idiot as the problem is certainly not with Linux – it’s FOSS thus perfect.

I’ve pretty much given up going to Slashdot for this very reason.  It’s pretty much guaranteed that any thread that mentions MS (and a large percentage of those that don’t) will have at least a few ‘chair throwing’ jokes, not to mention the oh-so-humerous  ‘but does it run Vista’ joke, and the bulk of the other comments from people living in a fantasy land where Linux is taking over the desktop, and where all software will soon be open source.  I’ve even seen a start of the ‘But will it run Windows 7*’ jokes.

Here’s some news for you, if you have made the same joke THOUSANDS OF TIMES (seriously that many!) it loses it’s punch.  It is no longer funny.  Sure one joke out of every 200 or so is genuinely amusing, but now it’s just partisan MS bashing disguised as ‘humour’.  Hell, you still see the constant BSOD jokes despite the only time I have ever seen one in the last 5+ years was due to hardware failure.  It’s 2009, and the Linux community are still making jokes about a problem that hasn’t existed for years from a kernel that’s nearly 15 years old.

Basically, if you grasp at any reason to attack your opponent, and will defend your cause no matter the validity of the criticism then your opinion is  no longer worth anything as you have sacrificed the truth, reality and essentially your credibility as you are no longer interested in facts and what is true – only in pushing an agenda.

I don’t use Linux and do you want to know why?  Of course you don’t as I am wrong, or misinformed, or I just do not ‘understand’ and require having things explained to me like I am three years old**.  As is everyone who doesn’t use Linux.

Zero attempt is made to ask the most important question: “Why don’t you use Linux?” as it is automatically assumed any problem is with the user, not the software.  After all 0.5% of the population can’t be wrong.  And nobody in the community has a problem.  It’s not like pretty much everyone with any critical opinions left years ago.  Is it?

* Windows 7 is going to ruin Linux.  It’s everything Vista should have been.  Of course if you live in Linux fantasy la-la land it’s nothing more than a Vista service pack.

* * I am 29 years old, I work as a programmer and yes, I do understand what the command line is as it is all you really had on an 8086.

*** I am not American so I am not really biased.  If I was American I’d be a fiscal Conservative (and a traditional Republican).  That being said the Neocons are a total joke and the complete antithesis of what the party should be about (Hint: It’s not about God, Guns and Gays).  This isn’t about politics though so I won’t get into it!