[OFB Cafe] Resurrecting an old debate

[Donald Spoon]

Hello Jens,

Glad to hear you are getting on with your life in such a spendid 
manner.  Welcome to home-ownership! <grin>  A house has to have kids...  
(wink-wink)

I'll answer your question with another question.... What makes you think 
that he OSS movement is the operant rather than the resultant?

I think Linux and it's cousins (BSD??) have had a wide "effect", just 
not the one visualized by many early developers.  As a desktop, it has 
always been second tier, but as a server system, and embedded system it 
has become top-tier.  A "work-alike" is now on the Macs, and what about 
Android storming the cell phone appliance world?  Beowulf Clusters??  
Many small universities now have "super computer" capability that was 
beyond their reach before.   But these are just examples of the "trees", 
I think you should back off and focus on the "forest"!

The "forest" for me is the general drift towards more and more 
collaboration in society.  Almost everything we see happening around us 
is a result of this.  The old "omniscient dictator"  meme is slowly 
fading away, and being replaced by more democratic entities.  I see this 
in business, where transient "teams" are formed to solve a problem then 
dissolved after the job is done and the members move on to other 
"teams".    I saw this happening with my kids as they passed through 
school... they would pool their resources with their friends to achieve 
a group goal.  This has always been done to a degree via the church, 
government mandate (taxes and welfare) and charity.  But in my kids it 
was taken to a new level.  In many ways, the OSS movement is just a 
group pooling their resources (in computing) to achieve a group goal... 
a "better" OS. (BTW what is "better"?  fuzzy math maybe needed?)

Speaking of the disappointment of UN-fullfilled dreams  (Linux Desktop) 
I mentioned before, I don't see it as a "failure"!  The fact that the 
general ideas of OSS have been accepted by society and the product 
adapted to other environments says it was quite a success!.  I am 
reminded of the story of the development of most of our drugs used in 
modern medicine.  Most uses today are the result of serendipity!  
Isoniazid (INH), a primary medicine used in the treatment of 
Tuberculosis, was originally formulated to be an anti-psychotic to be 
used on mental patients!  The scientists were dismayed to see it was of 
absolutely NO use in Mental conditions, but those patients with TB got 
better!  After a huddle, the study was re-directed towards TB 
treatment!   Minoxidil was originally intended to treat high blood 
pressure, which is does... mildly.  Some of the investigators noted the 
a men with male pattern baldness seemed to start growing hair... once 
again a slight re-direction and the drug companies had a winner!!  All 
this is to say, "SO WHAT that Linux isn't a popular Desktop".

I tend to view life and the things involved with life as a series of a 
multitude "cause and effect" couplets.  Certain thing MJST happen before 
something else can happen.  I think the OSS movement was a result of 
some earlier "thing"  and has produced the "results" we see today.  
Today's results will 'cause' something new to form.  The mistake is to 
try to define what the next result will be.  Too often we are 
constrained by our current world (think box), and only those that can 
"think outside the box" can even hope to envision the next "result".  I 
have not met too many of those people  in my life...  I think these 
people are the true "geniuses"

That's my two cents off the top of my head... It will probably change 
tomorrow so don't bother making me defend it! <grin>

Cheers,
-Don Spoon-



On 11/12/2011 12:12 PM, Jens Benecke wrote:
> Hello everybody,
>
> *ping* also from Germany. Despite the Euro crisis and everything, we’re still here.
> Happily married for almost two and a half years now, happy house owners for one and a half years, and who knows what comes next. :-)
>
> Anyway, to bring some life to an old debate, but in a new light, here’s a thought I’ve had for some time.
>
> When one watches todays’ IT companies develop and evolve, one realizes that the computing landscape has changed significantly over the last couple years. Some companies do things that would have been impossible ten years ago. Microsoft donates code to the Samba project (and the code is actually open sourced). Apple basically makes PCs obsolete by inventing the next computing platform (and despite everybody dismissing it as useless). And so on.
>
> And what about Linux?
>
> I must admit I haven’t used Linux as my primary desktop OS since 2006 when I bought my first Macbook, but I use it on our home server, on multiple internet servers, and many of our friends use it, and I try to stay up to date. And here’s the thing: even among those who never thought they’d be running Linux, I would bet they have more Linux devices at home than other systems. In our house, Linux runs my TV, my DSL router, my NAS, my radio alarm clock and our central heating system (yes, really), mostly in some embedded form or other. I know that Sony, Samsung, LG, and probably others are also using Linux as their base OS for many multimedia devices, not just TVs.
>
> So, my first thought was: With Linux devices powering everything but the kitchen sink, how far has it actually come regarding Linus’ semi serious World Domination plans?
>
> And my second thought was: Even if Linux runs everywhere, does just that fact make the world any better?
>
> For example, on our Philips TV, the GPL is actually displayed as a license agreement in the TV’s on screen menu. Philips does not hide the fact that they use OSS. But you still cannot access the system, it’s locked down, and for example, its PVR hard disk recordings are encrypted so you cannot use them anywhere else. So Linux hasn’t really changed much for the casual user here in terms of freedom. Western Digital, on the other hand, has understood, and offers a (hidden, undocumented, but googleable) way of enabling SSH on their NAS devices, and a forum to exchange ideas and hacks.
> And I’m not even mentioning the myriads of (often Linux-based) IT systems which companies like Siemens sell to oppressive regimes like Syria to control their peoples communication. For them, it is a tool that can be (ab)used just like any other.
>
> Where is the *real* benefit here?
>
> Did / does Linux, or OSS in general, have any long-term effect on the world, outside of IT shops and hackers?
>
> Did companies really change their way of thinking due to the OSS movement, or did this only happen to the IT world?
>
> What big picture are you seeing?
>
>
> I’d love to hear your thoughts.
>
>