Free software not so free, Linux future????

yr2alex · #1 18th January 2005, 05:32 PM

free software not so free

HMMMM very interesting.....

taylor65 · #2 18th January 2005, 05:57 PM

Well, the author is a student who's never been in the business world. If he were, he'd realize that servers running some other OSs break daily and that it costs larger companies small fortunes to keep trying to fix/patch systems, to buy additional systems to protect against viruses, adware, spyware. As a business owner, I can tell you that the linked article is way off base.

Ug · #3 18th January 2005, 06:21 PM

I got bored with this stuff a long time ago.

the_profiler · #4 18th January 2005, 07:16 PM

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

james_in_denver · #5 18th January 2005, 07:31 PM

Same old tired argument.....

You need staff to install, run, administer, and upgrade ANY computer system. Doesn't matter whether it's AIX, HP/UX, Linux, OS/390, Vax/VMS. No company ever buys a server, plugs it in, and ignores it.

And from the hardware point of view, sure there are service contracts available regardless of he platform, whether it's a rack of Dell blade-servers, or a rack of IBM blade-servers, or any other chunk of iron sitting around.

kosmosik · #6 18th January 2005, 07:52 PM

this article is stupid, especially this quotes:
Linux (and the community as a whole) provides no guarantee of support and maintenance to its users whatsoever.
yeah right. what guarantee of support does Microsoft or Sun give? they say you that system will be supported in some timeframe - so does Red Hat or Novell - so what is different here? from the other perspective lets say Bill Gates thinks to himself "screw it, I am rich, lets ditch this all Windows business and go to a farm and relax till end of my life" - so what guaranties you have when he does that? the code is closed so what can you do? great example of that is Windows NT now being discontinued so you are forced to upgrade... with Linux you can still run Red Hat 6.2 - it just cost little more effort (than to switch to something newer - at no aditional licence cost) - you get patches as source and you make them yourself. given the stability nature of older software you don't need to do this often. also you can use Debian - which is free in license meaning and due to its popularity it is also supported - you need support contract for Debian? go after some local firm that does that for you - you will get better more personalized support that so called support (I mean here phone support etc.) in some call popular call center in India where nobody gives a fsck about you unless you are very significant client...

Purchasing commercial hardware that runs commercial software is the best choice available.
what choice do I have? where can I get uncommercial hardware for free? this is some nonsence... also when you do buy software it is commercial from definition... maybe he meant dedicated hardware for some platform? well you can f.e. get multi procesor servers designed specifically for Linux and running one of its commercial version - with support program and all this siht he is mentioning - it is the same with Linux - the difference is that you are free and have a choice - don't like RH - go Suse/Novell - don't like it go Debian etc.

A firm choosing to purchase 5 Sun UltraSPARC stations is better off than purchasing 5 workstations powered by the Intel Pentium 4 microprocessor.
mawhahah what for you need SPARC workstation anyway? to run Linux on it? because Solaris as workstation os (despite of some very little and rare niches) is a joke while Linux is viable alternative, but I think it is easier to run Linux on x86 - and if you need powerfull Linux workstation go PPC G5/POWER.

also in fact those workstations with Sun sticker on it are well over priced - well the CPU is nice but with CPU goes nice case and commodity (low standard) other devices like crappy cdroms and memory etc. - if you planning to deploy some workstations (and have staff to do it) think about buing best aviable parts and mount systems yourself - you'll get far better systems... but also more maintainance - but since you got staff (and not everywhere this is so expensive)...

Moreover, regular patches, fixes and upgrades to all software from Sun can be monitored and applied as when required.
you can do the same with Linux - maybe go learn something about Linux before starting writing about it... also I recall this is how Sun reccomends its own Linux flavour (JDS) - that it is opposite to quote.

On the other hand, Linux running on Intel Pentium 4 systems guarantee no support,

does HP (to name few) sell supported desktop systems and notebooks with Linux?

here I stopped reading this because his points are plain stupid. there is not much to discuss with since he states everything as a fact without giving any reasoning f.e. [i]Another region of space where almost all free system-level software including Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and others freak out is upgradeability.[/quote] - but nobody has a clue of what he is talking about...

kosmosik · #7 18th January 2005, 08:02 PM

as for matter of staff cost (and this implies maintainance costs) - the real aspect of this is how much you pay for hardware and software licences vs. how much stuff work costs - in some countries people are much more expensive to hire so software licenses and hardware costs is going smaller (meaning proportions) - so f.e. when you have a sysadmin with $5000 sallary and operating system with $500 license - licence is not significant. if you have sysadmin with $500 salary and $500 license - license gets more significant. the guy should notice this since he lives in Russia/Moscov - it is similar in Poland here and it is visible... also consider developing countries in India and so on - they got plenty of good specialists - so they are cheap to hire - system licenses and hardware is the same price everywhere... but f.e. US and Irleand (AFAIK) have problem with specialized staff sure you can find MSCE guy anywhere (since it is an easy and common exam - not requirin much skill really) but he is just a worker... if you need specialist to do some advanced stuff it is hard to get (thus it is pricely).

Jman · #8 18th January 2005, 08:55 PM

Note that not only is the news site biased for Linux (as is this forum), but the author is

Quote:

currently preparing for Sun SOLARIS Systems Administrator Certification.

Big suprise (not) that he's supporting Solaris.

A couple of times while reading this I went "Huh? That doesn't make sense." I'll refer you to the rebuttal for the opposing view, which makes more sense to me.

dickinsd · #9 18th January 2005, 09:53 PM

What a depressing article.

I liked the end of this paragraph:

Quote:

Linux when first appeared though did manage to make quite a good name for it, however failed to live-up to its reputation in the years to follow. It was to spell the doomsday for commercial UNIXes of the likes of Solaris, AIX, HP-UX and IRIX operating systems. But since its inception in 1991, things have hardly changed in the corporate scenario. Sun Microsystems Inc. is still the UNIX industry leader with around 34% of the UNIX market share (closely followed by IBM in the second-place) with Sun Solaris being the most widely used commercial UNIX. So, what went wrong with Linux? Stable kernels appearing late, innumerable number of useless rewrites of kernel code in a few years, unavailability of proper marketing sources and failure to fulfill the predictions of the community has not only slowed down the number of users in the recent times, but has led to a more serious and deeper thinking about Linux’s future in the recent years to follow.

I actually thought that the number of Linux users had ballooned over the last few years, I thought things had really changed in the Linux world (for the better)

Dave ???

EDIT: I like the reply article also - makes some good points.

james_in_denver · #10 19th January 2005, 05:16 AM

Well put it this way, "free software" (as in beer) runs the majority of the internet, and is an integral portion of many "closed" (for fee) vendors's systems.

Apache???, haven't looked at the statistics recently, but I know the last time I checked it had well over a 50% market share for internet servers.

Oracle????, They use Apache too, and have a very significant investment in the Linux marketplace, as do Sun and IBM.

Linux, at least in the server market, is now a major player.

crackers · #11 19th January 2005, 05:20 AM

I'm with Jman - this was incoherent, incorrect (factually and logically) and flawed in lots of other ways. The rebuttal pretty much tore it to pieces...

yr2alex · #12 21st January 2005, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jman

Note that not only is the news site biased for Linux (as is this forum), but the author is Big suprise (not) that he's supporting Solaris.

A couple of times while reading this I went "Huh? That doesn't make sense." I'll refer you to the rebuttal for the opposing view, which makes more sense to me.

TOUCHE!!!!!

the_profiler · #13 19th February 2005, 11:02 PM

actually.. i don't get it.. so what's the use of publishing/posting that article? is that kinda dumb enough, posting stuffz that one really don't know pretty well about it? Or.. "just for laughs" ?

crackers · #14 20th February 2005, 01:20 AM

It always looks good on a resume to say that you've authored stuff and had it published.

At least as long as the potential employer doesn't read it and see how flawed your thought processes are.

fodde · #15 25th October 2005, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by taylor65

Well, the author is a student who's never been in the business world. If he were, he'd realize that servers running some other OSs break daily and that it costs larger companies small fortunes to keep trying to fix/patch systems, to buy additional systems to protect against viruses, adware, spyware. As a business owner, I can tell you that the linked article is way off base.

I agree. The point is, if we can justify business sense in the Linux world, why do we say M$ is unethical and bad by selling software (and some are saying exactly that!)? Yes, I don't like paying for software in the M$ world myself, but that doesn't make them BAD

, does it?