waterskidoo <water.skidoo@xxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> On 2007-07-29, Mark Kent <mark.kent@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> waterskidoo <water.skidoo@xxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>> On 2007-07-27, Kier <vallon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>
>> It's a reasonably safe position to take, but one thing to consider here
>> is that being "pro-linux" is more of a philosophical position, linux is
>> not a commercial entity, it's an operating system which anyone can
>> freely download and use. Being pro-Windows is the same thing as being
>> pro-Microsoft, as Microsoft own all rights to Windows, and guard those
>> rights jealously indeed, therefore, if you're pro-Windows, you are
>> supporting a particular commercial organisation.
>
> In the case of a person shilling Windows or even a so called Windows
> zealot I agree with you Mark because an onlooker is going to
> make the connection between supporting Windows and Microsoft.
> It's just human nature to connect the dots. I do feel however
> that one has to differentiate between the two types of Windows
> supporters. Those that use the software and associated applications
> to do their job, entertainment etc and those that are joined at
> the hip with Microsoft. The first type rarely gives thought to
> Microsoft and it's predatory tactics. They are just users and while
> they may debate how good their Windows programs are, when in groups
> like this, they have no real horse in the race. To them it's just
> a debate. These people need to be introduced to Linux.
> The second group however is where the danger is because these
> are the people who for whatever reason feel Microsoft is their
> birth mother and they hate with a a passion any and all
> challengers, like Linux and Apple.
> Many times these people *are* shills in the sense that their
> lively-hood is tied to Microsoft either directly or indirectly.
> My POV is that there are less of the second group and that
> as Linux advocates we should tread carefully before making
> accusations because it seems the Linux community already
> has somewhat of a reputation for being a bit overzealous.
> Once proved a shill however, the person should be exposed
> and then ignored other than to point out on occasion the motives
> of said person.
Quite a few of our shills/trolls/anti-charter posters do appear to have
an economic interest in Windows, but probably do not work for Microsoft.
Some seem to have access to relatively hard to find information, which
suggests that either they do work for MS, or they have close contact
with someone who does. In each case, though, they are clearly very
frightened of free software, as they see it threatening their
livelyhood, and have bought 100% into the idea that you have to have
lock-in in order to make money. This logic is fundamentally flawed, but
fear will bring all kinds of irrational responses from people.
>
>
>> Now, there's nothing necessarily wrong with supporting a commercial
>> organisation, *but*, it's not orthogonal to being pro-Linux, since free
>> software is a quite different political positioning to proprietary. For
>> example, being pro-Symbian is essentially the same from a cola point of
>> view as being pro-Windows, or being pro-Mac is equally more or less the
>> same as being pro-Windows, since each of these are proprietary systems,
>> with commercially motivated owners.
>
> My approach is a little more middle of the road. I support open source
> and advocate it's use when appropriate but at the same time I can
> appreciate the commercial offerings when they are appropriate.
> The iPhone is a good example of my opinions. I like the device
> and feel it is a brilliant piece of engineering, especially
> the UI. I wouldn't purchase one because it's far more than I
> need, but I don't shun it or slam it just because it doesn't
> run Linux because I don't see Apple making a point of using
> that device to discredit Linux. They build a nice phone,
> many people like it and that's it. Now if Microsoft were to
> build the same phone and let's say their was a Linux version
> as well, you can bet Microsoft would go far beyond the normal
> advertising to discredit the phone.
The iPhone is an interesting device, and it's worth considering it from
a general and from a Cola viewpoint. From the Cola perspective, it
doesn't run Linux, and is not likely to without some serious hacking, so
it's arguable as to whether it would be worth the effort. From a
secondary cola viewpoint, the question comes up as to whether diaries,
contacts and other materials could be synchronised between the iPhone
and a Linux machine - this is something which will no doubt be explored,
but I do not imagine that Apple will make it necessarily easy to do so,
as they'd prefer everyone to buy a Mac.
The general perspective is the "is it any good"; as it only does 2.5G,
and is very expensive, I personally wouldn't bother, as I've had real
3G phones for several years which therefore offer far better data
connectivity, and are equally proprietary. Could I use it with my
TomTom or N800? Probably, but as it is only 2.5G/Edge, then it would be
much slower than my present rather ancient Nokia phone. Not much use
for me there. On the "is it pretty" front, I'm sure that it is, and
Apple have a long history of getting the user interface right, so I'm
sure it will have afficionados, although at the price, about US$500,
plus the deal, something like US$1500, it's a £1,000 phone. No phone
is, to my mind, worth that.
> The "Get The Facts " campaign is a good example of this.
> The crux of it is if a Linux version existed that worked as
> well or better I would buy that one but at the same time I would
> not try to convince people that the Linux version was better
> just because it runs Linux,if that was not really the case.
> I've noticed this happen occasionally with Linux software.
> Some person will ask about an equivalent to a commercial
> Windows application and even though only very early on in development
> cycle software exists for Linux, it will still be
> suggested as a replacement and without the caveat that
> should go along with it. To me, this is not the correct
> thing to do because depending upon the situation, it
> will take 5 minutes for the person to see the differences.
You need to define "better" here very carefully. For those of us for
whom freedom from lock-in is fundamentally important, as we can see the
long-term total costs of such things, then a free offering is highly
prized, and it's worth putting up with UI problems or feature shortages
in the knowledge that they will be developed in due course. For those
people who do not understand the costs to themselves of lock-in, and
care specifically about whether they have feature X *now*, then clearly
they will be looking the other way. Obviously, there's a lot of ground
between those two positions.
>
>> The question which deserves consideration, therefore, is why would
>> anyone come to cola with a pro-Windows, Symbian or Mac (or AmigaOS, or
>> RiscOS, or AIX, or HPUX, or VMS, or CPM ...) position? This group is
>> simply not the place for pushing proprietary solutions, it's about
>> pushing the free Linux-based solutions.
>
> Good question. Apparently it seems that this group has been
> invaded by some very professional shills. I have no
> problem discussing other operating systems and how they
> compare to Linux, I think it is healthy and informative because
> if the discussion stays civil, Linux advocacy is done and
> the defects and sore points of Windows are brought out
> on the table. In this type of discussion you will often hear
> a person say "I never knew that" when some common fault of
> Windows is explained.
> IOW it's like advocacy without being forceful and turning
> people off to Linux.
>
Comparative discussion is the meat and drink of this group, however, the
overpopulation of Windows and proprietary software zealots means that
such discussions rarely take place. Indeed, it is my suspicion that one
of the purposes of the trolls is to make this group appear to be a den
of iniquity, barbarism, aggression and zealotry in order to put casual
observers off free software altogether. You can see the same tactics
being used even in such august publications as Forbes (the editor really
should know better, but there we go).
Roy S's news postings have been of almost immeasurable value in
improving the sense, quality of posting, signal/noise and informative
content of this group. I first started doing the digest as a slight
tonque-in-cheek effort after one of the Windows zealots (Hadron?) asked
for it, but soon realised that it gets a significant readership, so have
continued to take it very seriously indeed.
I get emails from journalists from time to time asking for
information...
>
>> There are some interesting grey areas, though - for example:
>>
>> Quake 3/4 vs Nexuiz
>> Skype vs Jabber
>> Opera vs Firefox
>>
>> These are all examples of binary-only, proprietary, applications, which
>> have functionally equivalent free alternatives. We often see people
>> here pushing the virtues of Skype on Linux; can it be justified with
>> respect to the charter of the group? In some respects, it can, since it
>> does run on Linux, and this is a linux advocacy group.
>
> My personal feeling is that I run Linux software when I can.
> While I would prefer the software to be full open source,
> I would rather have Linux software that is binary than
> be stuck running Windows software. For example it doesn't
> bother me that Nvidia's drivers are proprietary. I would
> like them to be open but I'll take what I can get at this
> point in anticipation of the day when Nvidia changes
> their mind.
Whilst I appreciate your point, there is a fundamental problem with the
binary-only aspect of nVidia's drivers; just next to me is a
dual-processor Apple PPC machine, which has OSX and Ubuntu installed.
It has an nVidia graphics card. The machine performs well with Quake 3
and similar in its OSX mode, however, in Linux, it cannot render openGL,
why? Because nVidia's binary-only kernel module is not only
binary-only, but it is x86-only. This is the fundamental reason why
binary-only solutions are a bad thing - had this driver been
open-source, it would've been ported across all platforms by now, and
the machine next to me would be fully functional in Linux. At present,
it is not.
I have high hopes for the nouveau driver effort, as that, if successful,
will be ported to all platforms, so PPC machines will be just as openGL
capable as x86 ones.
>
>> Equally, Skype were recently found guilty of GPL violation in Germany
>> with respect to the usage of the Linux kernel in one of their Skype
>> phones (again, the GPL has been validated in court).
>
> And each one of these cases should be publizied because a
> common misconception of the GPL is that there is no protection.
If you read Erik Funkenbusch's postings, you'll see that he's been
maintaining for ever that the GPL has never been validated, and yet, it
has been validated in German courts several times over. Again, I
believe Roy S has the information. Microsoft have also been found
guilty several times of copying software, again, this is carefully
hidden. The best example of this was an incident in France.
You need to consider just /why/ this information is hidden so well, and
why so many people keep saying that "it's never been validated". There
is a very very powerful machine behind this.
>
>> Looking at things the other way around, why don't we see more:
>>
>> pro-freeBSD
>> pro-OpenBSD
>> pro-NetBSD
>> pro-ReactOS
>> pro-Freedos
>>
>> ... people here? Well, I suspect that this is for the same reason we
>> don't see much in the way of pro-Linux people polluting proprietary
>> advocacy groups, because they are all philosophically similar. They are
>> all about free software as an approach, as much as any particular
>> implementation.
>
> I think it's a matter of respect for the other guy.
> BSD people tend to be quite emotional about their software, generally
> speaking.
Perhaps you're right, but my point was that the cola charter is about
comparisons of Linux with other operating systems, the above are all
other operating systems, and yet we virtually never see trolls with
agendas related to the above set. We regularly see Mac and Windows
trolls. One has to wonder why.
>
>> Where the line gets crossed, however, is in such as the Tivo box, where
>> the intent of the GPL is subverted through the use of binary-only kernel
>> extensions. This is worthy of discussion here, of course.
>
> A binary kernel seems to be crossing the line to me?
> Does the GPL allow that?
> What about the custom changes Tivo has made to the kernel?
> Don't they have to be open sourced?
>
Sorry, perhaps it wasn't clear, I specifically meant that the extensions
were binary-only, I believe using modules, but I've never had a Tivo.
This problem, known as tivoisation, is one of the reasons why GPLv3 was
created; another major reason being the software-patent threats from
Microsoft.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
| Cola faq: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/ |
| Cola trolls: http://colatrolls.blogspot.com/ |
| My (new) blog: http://www.thereisnomagic.org |
|
|
