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

| -----Original Message-----
| From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
| [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Jay Maynard
| Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 3:23 AM
| To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
| Subject: Re: LINUX is the "one" ? .... Comments???


| > | 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.
| > RMS was just jealous because ESR re-packaged the formula and
| got widespread
| > publicity by doing that.
|
| Not even ESR believes that - and he and I have talked about it
| quite a bit.
| Whatever else you can say about RMS, he has a very strong sense of ethics,
| and very strong beliefs, and (unlike most people) tries very hard
| to live by
| his values. Hie behavior is entirely consistent with his stated beliefs
| about "free software".

Jay, thanks for this very thoughtful response.  I wanna give this post some
VERY close attention before responding, and I don't put any food on the
table by doing this, so...;-)

But I tried to correct a misconception, in the previous post.  I've not had
the honor You've had of talking with ESR (iirc, and?) RMS...  I don't need
to, (although sure wouldn't mind either)..

..because I do NOT intend to imply that either One is unprincipled or
lacking in ethics, a-TALL...!!

I view some-a their principles as illogical, which may sound like a VERY
personal attack (especially to people that base a WHOLE lotta their
self-worth on their ability to BE logical, like most-a Us in computers)...
Again, it is NOT intended to imply, though, that I believe either One is
irrational or ANYTHING CLOSE to "evil".

Ethics being a tough nut to crack..  I'd just soon leave that judgment to
people who believe they are capable of judging.  I wish I'd not just said
"'Open' Source is based on a marketing gimmick, (to me, based on what is in
essence a lie)", but I did...  There's a real GRAY AREA on what is ethical
and what is not, as far as putting marketing spin on things.


I really DO believe that the business community has been "'sold' a bill of
good" by OSI, but assume it was INTENDED to be for the benefit of the biz
community, as much or more than the benefit of the particular individuals
selling this pov...  I don't see that "Open" Source has worked out, on
balance, as being anything close to what was claimed, and view it as, on
balance, not being good a-tall in the specific area of software innovation.

I would like to refer back to the very first post on this thread, where the
claim was made by Ken Grapp's boss that Linux is THE ONLY WAY to go.  And it
COULD end up that there will only be two choices in the computer world,
MicroSloth and Linux...  That's a distinct possibility.




I see absolutely no advantage to this, however.

And it goes back to a point made a long while ago (last Fall, or early
Winter) by Don and John (Carr).  There's a battle going on within IBM, about
what the combined i/p/zSeries is gonna end up looking like.  There are a
lotta people who claim to like the 400, but who don't really fully
understand the 400 programming paradigm, and who REALLY would rather it
looked more like *nix or Windoze, which were the OSs they grew up with...

(And when I say people "who don't really fully understand the 400
programming paradigm", that would be EVERYBODY because NOBODY *FULLY*
understands the 400, right?...!)


| > Most ALL the posts I read in favor of "Open" Source STATE that
| it's primary
| > benefit IS it's being anti-commercial.  Oh, Napsterism isn't theft...!!!
| > Okay, I get it now... <sarcastic>
|
| Nope. The primary benefit of open source is that anyone can improve the
| code, be it by fixing bugs or adding features - whether or not
| the original
| author wants the improvement. No longer must a user wait for the vendor to
| fix a bug.

I did wanna address this one point...  I've attained this benefit, MANY
times over the past couple decades, with exposure to the original Mapics and
JDE and Lawson software packages.

Didn't need any "Open" Source MOVEMENT...

...Just needed the source.


(Would SURE like the source for OS/400 V4R5 for same reasons.  To me anyway,
that would be a good application of Commons Source (as in Creative Commons,
rather than User Group We all like)...)


Mebbe more later (maybe not), and thanks again to You Jay, and all posters.



<Btw, Tom, why not just skip reading this thread if it doesn't hold any
interest to Ya...?>