I haven't ever been against Free or Open Source software. In fact, I contribute to the FOSS projects I use. I think that Linux in particular is a marvelous operating system as a project (this is why I run it at home and continue to develop on it). There's a huge marketing campaign, however, that has incorrectly portrayed it as enterprise ready. That was my opinion as a Solaris admin, and that's my opinion today. I also have no problem whatever with making money off free software. There seems to be a lot of resentment about this. However, releasing your source means that somebody might just be successful at selling it. You can't then be sour about it. Listen, people gotta make a living, and it's possible to continue working on F/free software development while working for a company that sells commercial software. It's even possible to be objective and recognize talent or intellect in that company. Objectivity is something that's been lacking in the FOSS community for a long time.

Secondly, I don't think anyone is "pro war". Pro-military, sure. I work with them, have a lot of friends in the service, and their safety is important to me. Certainly what you describe as "pro war" is comparable to the opposite? Surely you don't believe that mankind is capable of some non-warring static state?

And there's nothing wrong with France. I have a problem with individual people who cannot see their own hypocrisy.

Finally, advogato is a community site for free software developers. I do develop free software, I contribute to Free software, and the word "community" implies diverse opinions and political viewpoints. A little tolerance, if you please.

While I find it kind of silly to be responding to somebody at each and every entry, I suppose since I've been called by name to do so, it's not as bad as it seems.

The assertion that I "get big bucks" is without base. There are certainly many out there who make more than I do. And while the bills are indeed paid, I derive a huge amount of satisfaction from my work in the actual doing of the work. More than the check. Which is incidentally why I spend time here, and on the wikipedia, and in the past have spent time on perlmonks. Because the industry itself is what I enjoy. The technology and innovation. And stow the snappy retort about innovation, you're not the first person to think that up.

And as far as hypocrisy is concerned, and what I run on my home webserver. Well, I started running Linux on that webserver when I started working for America Online. It was appropriate for home use, and it allowed me to develop software at home in an environment that was similar to what work ran. I don't do a lot of software development for work anymore, and none for AOL. I run Apache at home because it is easy for me to run. The licensing is quite easy to work out, and it runs on the castoff hardware I have as my perimeter (which was free from AOL, as surplus).

So in LAMP we have "Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP". Some would say that the latter two can be "mod_perl and postgres", although I've found in practice that's much rarer. I've personally always detested php. And my feelings on MySQL are not unclear. Furthermore, my feelings on Linux have been mentioned here before ("Linux can go fuck itself", 10 Mar 2005). I'll elaborate since you did call it into question.

My recent experience installing Fedora Core 4 on my Tecra M3 has been quite representative of my entire career's experience with Linux. Let me give you the laundry list.

• updatedb should run at first boot, possibly in background. without it, locate and friends don't work.
  
• visudo is missing.
  
• screen is dimmer than normal, presumably because i installed without power. this was not corrected when reconnecting power.
  
• having an "applications" and a "desktop" menu is confusing.
  
• Desktop > System Settings > Display won't even run.
  
  
  
  • In fact, nothing from that menu runs.
    
  • Errors to logs:
    

    
    Jul 7 17:41:19 localhost system-config-display(pam_unix)[3492]: auth could not identify password for [root]
    Jul 7 17:41:19 localhost last message repeated 2 times
    Jul 7 17:42:23 localhost system-config-network(pam_unix)[3504]: auth could not identify password for [root]
    Jul 7 17:42:24 localhost last message repeated 2 times
    

    
    
  
  
• laptop gets incredibly hot, presumably due to lack of cpu power stepping control
  
• hostname not set during install, nor picked up from dhcp.
  
• hostname(1) is incorrect in regards to /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1, /etc/hostname, /etc/init.d/boot
  
• gig-e controller not enabled or supported.
  
• wireless controller not enabled, but wireless driver loaded.
  
  
  
  • ipw2200 driver supports this card, but a new driver needs to be downloaded.
    
  • licensing issues prevent firmware from being supported, so i had to go download that.
    
  • old driver needs to be manually removed. new driver needs to be compiled and installed.
    
  • documentation about firmware location was incorrect; symlink required in /etc/firmware to /usr/lib/firmware
    
  
  
• soundcard detected, but not working.
  
• sd card reader not working.
  
• default kernel is built with gcc 4.0.0, are you kidding?
  
  
  
  • released april 20, 2005
    
  
  
• cpu running at 799.7mhz instead of 2129mhz
  
• no option to set shell during install, but zsh present.
  
• install both KDE and GNOME but no way to choose between during install or post-install
  
• SELinux spat out gobs and gobs of:
  
  
  

  
  audit(1120770889.023:461): avc: denied { getattr } for pid=1226 comm="fsck" name=event0 dev=tmpfs ino=3818 scontext=system_u:system_r:fsadm_t tcontext=system_u:object_r:event_device_t tclass=chr_file
  

  
  
  
  
• adding a new hard disk to the second bay caused a hard crash.
  
• MiB/GiB in ifconfig tx/rx numbers is just idiotic. It's fine if youre an academic and you've never actually worked before, but for fuck's sake, decades of use are good enough for me.
  

So I managed to get the machine up and running. And the wireless interface is working fine now (although only in B, not G). Gig doesn't work, and I don't expect it to. I also don't have use of the SD card reader. It still doesn't power off properly. And, I managed to get it to this, what I would call 70%, state after a couple days of fucking around with it, recompiling software, and tricks with sharing files from windows to actually get the bits onto it.

This is why I've said over and over again that Linux is a fine hobbyist OS. Just recently I mentioned that I had given a man on a plane my card (my Microsoft card, mind you), and offered to help him get Linux working on his home machines, and to help him find LUGs in Seattle (many Microsoft employees are also LUG members). However, all the above work, just to get the damn machine running at a three-quarters capacity (or one-third if you look at the CPU performance), is unacceptable. It's not enterprise ready. At least, not for 85%+ of enterprises.

I think what really kills you is that I actually do know Linux. I'm not just some stuffed shirt who barfs up "compete docs" about Linux that don't address valid points. I'm also not regurgitating marketing. I actually know the stuff. And, I've made an informed, intelligent choice that I don't like it. I also don't think it's right for many of our customers.

There's always going to be an exception where Linux fits, and I think Linux has a place in the home, as a hobbyist machine or a development machine. The same are true of MySQL and PHP. Sure, they're great training wheels, for when you're learning to use a real database or a real programming language. But eventually you grow up and realize that you can't run a business on it.

Lastly, you misrepresent what I said. I didn't say that it was heartening that MSFT was going after LAMP. I think it's heartening that MSFT is providing software for the community that they can use. Free copies of Windows? Well, I don't think that's an easy one to arrange. However, Visual Studio (which is available for free) does come with a webserver you can run ASP.NET applications in. SQL Server Express is also available for free. IIS is not necessary for MSFT/SOA development. To deploy on a public site, it might be. I think that's fair for a company like MSFT to ask for. They have to make money somewhere. I find it very telling that you don't think it is worthwhile that MSFT is sponsoring open source development. This leads me to believe that you have a bias against anything they as a company do. You and I are both fond of the previously mentioned Lowtax's Law. Would you like to just end the discussion and tell me that one of us is a dimwitted wuckfit?

Nobody told me that I was drinking the Linux kool-aid when I started at AOL. People grumbled a little about my being very happy with Solaris (and still do). But somehow, the MSFT pill is very hard for people to swallow, even though I have been very open from the beginning. I still introduce myself at MSFT as "The Unix Guy," and I still complain to people when I think Windows or a MSFT product does something stupid. And yet, with all this objectivity and willingness to see something different, people seem to think that it's okay to throw insults and personal attacks at me. What reason would I have to join MSFT and lie about their products? To be perfectly honest, when I came aboard, I told my boss I wanted a "three month waiting period" to determine whether I would be right for the role, and whether I could sell their products. I've been very happy with them. MSFT hasn't changed my opinion on Linux, I've felt this way about Linux since the late 90's. What MSFT has done is changed my opinion of the company. I've actually met the people, and seen what they're trying to do.

And good grief. haruspex, did you actually intend to use "pro-capitalist" as an insult?

Sad to hear that Westmoreland died.

Would like to go to LinuxWorld SF, but it looks like scheduling requirements back at home will prevent it. It's really too bad, they've got some great tracks.

Recent trip to Atlanta was pretty neat. Got to see Acrylic demoed. Also Windows Vista, which was really impressive.

What I think I found most interesting was the session on how LAMP is faring in the market against .NET. I realize that some people will just call me a shill, but I found the existence of DotNetNuke to be very heartening. It's Open Source, and it runs on software that you can get for free from Microsoft (or if you bump into me at a conference, I'll have a couple CD's I can give you). I think it is terrific that MSFT is reaching out to the community. They seem to understand that you need to embrace software developers (especially people of my generation, and those a bit younger, say people who are in college right now), or you risk losing them forever. To produce free and low-cost solutions, as well as to foster open source development on their platforms, is rather astute.

I've been continuing to write what code I can in the time that I have. My biggest frustration lately has been slogging through the MSDN documentation. I think that all the documentation is there, but it's almost as if they deliberately hard to get to. I heard at the briefing last week that there's a planned update to the MSDN site to help us get to the documentation better, but nobody gave us any details. What I really want is perldoc-style documentation for System.Net.Sockets. I forget who originally said it (maybe Damian?), but CPAN really is the "killer app" for perl. Likewise, the fact that C# lacks anything similar is close to "killing" the language for me.

work

At the meeting I attended this morning, I saw Bill Gates keynote for the first
time. He's a pretty well spoken dude, and I was impressed with what he had to
say. One of the things that struck me about him is that he really seems to have
a lot of faith in both people and in the industry (or maybe society in general
if you want to stretch a little). He said that Microsoft has a lot of room to
grow as a company, and their products as well. This is kind of counter to the
common belief that we somehow have conquered the market and there's no room for
anyone else. Well, he stated that computers aren't to the point that he and Paul
Allen supposedly envisioned back in, what, the early 80's? That since computers
had such a long way to go, that there was room for both our competition, and us,
in the near term future. I think that really shows a lot of vision. People make
a lot of jokes about Bill, and I'm probably guilty of it as well. But I think
he's really grown up with the success of Microsoft, and he genuinely seems to be
focused on the future. Furthermore, he seems to have a very altruistic view of
how and why computers will continue to get better. One example of this is his
statement several times that our business model is aimed at broad distribution
of cheaper product. If you think about that, it justifies the gigantic
marketshare Windows has. He wants to have software that does fantastic things
available to everyone. Sure, he'll make a ton of money doing it, but the sheer
size of the operation msft has means that people who might not have otherwise
gotten ahold of things like Office now can.



This morning was not all smiles, however. When I got to the georgia dome for
this morning's "general session" (as opposed to smaller, focused sessions with
a clearer target audience and topic), I made sure to get there early enough to
get a seat close enough to take pictures from. There were few people in the
auditorium, so I took a seat close up, but not so close that I'd be blocking
somebody else's view (I'm 6'5", and I think it's rude to pick a spot where I
am knowingly going to obstruct somebody's view). So I sit down in an empty
chair, and people start filing in around me. I realize they're all from the
same european country. I offered to move so that they could sit together (I was
roughly in the middle of a row), and they looked at me exasperatedly, finally
saying that yes, they'd like me to move. By the time the speeches started, I
was sitting on the far corner of the group of chairs, next to a man who was half
my size, but nonetheless taking up a third of the seat I was on. Everyone stank
of cologne, and my neighbor didn't understand the notion of "personal space,"
continually thrusting elbows into me, kicking me when crossing/uncrossing legs, etc.



What really got to me was their complete disdain for everyone there. Several
awards were given out (this is a global meeting, with staff from all over the
world), and these people were quite happy to clap for people from their country,
and in one case, their locale, but when anyone else got an award, they didn't
clap, and more often than not, made rude comments about the people, or their
not deserving the award, or how they themselves deserved it. These people even
booed (quietly) during Gates' speech and the Longhorn/Office 12 demos, which
were both quite impressive, and very well received by the crowd. Everyone else
in the audience was very gracious, uniformly cheering and clapping, louder for
groups and individuals who had accomplished more (and there were some staggering
numbers mentioned!). When the US received an award, they had the nerve to boo
quite loudly, and did the same for a North America award. When one of their own
accepted an award for them, they unfurled three huge flags,
yelled and whistled, waving the flags proudly back and forth, standing up. Not
one other country did that with the flag. Everyone else was happy for the whole
company, realizing the work that everyone had put in during FY05.



I was so disgusted by this that I left the auditorium. The behavior of these
people, thirty or forty of them, was appropriate for five year olds. And here
they were, flown across the atlantic to a week long party, and they have the
gall to be anti-american. Who is it they think employs them? It reminds me a lot
of Johnny Depp or John Malkovich living in France and being such vocal critics
of America, and yet raking in money from american studios, selling films to
american consumers. Just shameful. I hope I never have to deal with these people
professionally, as I have no idea what I'd say to them.