Re: LINUX is the "one" ? .... Comments??? -- MIDRANGE-L

On Thu, Apr 03, 2003 at 10:42:16PM -0500, jt wrote:
> Oh yeah?  Well I have VERY little doubt that I've OBSOLETED more lines of
> code than RMS and ESR have written combined, so I'm not all that easily
> impressed.  And if I haven't, I know for a fact that Joe Pluta HAS.

Careful. ESR and RMS have fundamental differences of opinion about this
stuff; in particular, RMS has pretty much disowned ESR as a part of his
movement.

> Yeah, that last part is the problem, EXACTLY.  Because the press IS gullible
> and DOES buy into "Open" Source as a "better programming methodology".

There are more than a few advantages of the Open Source methodology. Unlike
RMS, I do not believe it's applicable to every program everywhere, as a
moral stand...but there are lots of places where it makes sense. (Bruce
Perens once told me that he didn't think that Open Source was the best model
for every program, and he's one of the founders of the Open Source
Initiative.)

I can say with no small amount of assurance that the Hercules emulator is
much farther advanced, and much more widely used, and a much, much better
package, because it is Open Source. (I believe I'm qualified to make that
statement, too.) Doing it in an Open Source fashion has truly brought the
power of many eyes looking at bugs, and many minds thinking up new features,
to the table.

That does not mean that I believe that every progfram should be done that
way. There are many holes in the Open Source model. For some programs, such
as Apache, they're not major problems; for others, they are. (Witness the
less-than-great success of OpenOffice.org, for example.)

> It's different in that one programming methodology DOES works and one
> doesn't.  I've seen the successes of OS like Apache, and Linux.. and see the
> drawbacks to these being OS as well.  But overall, RMS has BEEN SUCCESSFUL
> in His goal to destroy the software industry, albeit with the best of
> intentions.

I don't think so. It's not as healthy as it was during the dotcom boom, but
I don't believe that that's the result of the so-called "Free Software"
zealots; rather, I think it was a natural shakeout that was bound to happen.

> The latter is obvious, but paying nothing for software DOES automatically
> make it bad.

Wrong. If I felt so, I wouldn't be involved with Hercules.

> Just because "Open" Source is a MARKETing reality, doesn't make it a valid
> software development strategy.  Works somewhat decently with what I call
> "tinker-toy" projects (like Linux...;-)...

If you think Linux is a tinker-toy, what do you think Windows is?
Linux is a far, far better OS than Windows, and I say that even though
neither are among my favorites.

> Look, anyone can buy into this Open Source line if they wanna, but the
> consequences are still the consequences...  It's a poor method to develop
> and distribute reliable software and produce innovation, no matter how it's
> dressed up.

I strongly disagree. Linux is the best-known counterexample, but it's far
from the only one.